Quote:
|
Originally Posted by fernando
Salaams Ibrahiim 
I would be too lazy to revue to the chronicles of the period to erase my strongest doubts raised by your sources quotations that (all) Portuguese battleships sailing in those waters were in general massively handled by Indian mercenaries except for a few “executives” aboard.
I will therefore make a bypass and, concentrating on the weapons business, could you tell on what sources or evidence you stirrup, to conclude that Portuguese would not entertain Islamic (or Hindu) weapons based on religious prejudice.
Not being a scholar or close to it, i have come across through time with more than one written episode in that, being a determined weapon of special attributes or circumstantially convenient, in no way would the Portuguese reject it. I wouldn’t recall what would be the behavior of other cultures and their creeds in similar circumstances, but this however is not the issue here.
BTW, i find the “bigot” adjective a bit less diplomatic , but i don’t think the Portuguese of such period will read you.
Without going too deep into the chronicles, we know that:
… As early as the reconquest period (XII-XIII century), Portuguese (Christians) admired the crossbow used by the North African Moors, a light easy loading weapon, although with a lower penetration power, the “Kaous Alaarab”, and adopted it for their own use.
…The fact that one of the most used swords by their local adversaries in Asian lands, the talwar, was rejected, is written in the chronicles that, on one hand, the Portuguese had a greater confidence in their own weapons (pass the presumption) and, on the other, for the extensively discussed reason that Indian swords had handles/grips too small to be handled by Europeans.
… When it comes to artillery, we come to the same situation. I have the privilege to have appreciated in loco a magnificent cannon in the Lisbon Military Museum. Such fire mouth, re-baptized by the Portuguese “The Shot of Diu”, is a bronze basilisk from the XVI century, with a 23 cms caliber, a length of 6,11 mts and a 20 tons weight. It was made for the Sultan Bahâdur Xâh of Gujarat. It has such a rather fascinating inscription engraved on it that, once translated by a local erudite friar, has escaped to be molten for the forging of a monument to the King Dom José I (1750-77).
This cannon, built in 1533, was captured and brought to Portugal in 1538 and placed in the Lisbon Royal castle. Later in the kingdom of Dom João IV (1640-56) was transferred to the tower of São Julião da Barra, a strategic defense post of the Lisbon estuary. This to say that, for certain, such charismatic weapon would see immediate destruction instead of its persisting utility, if religious prejudice towards the use of other cultures was so overwhelming to Portuguese.
I hope you don't mind my coming in with an empirical approach to this little part of your comprehensive treatises.
. |
Salaams,
Thank you for adding to this thread...Nice pictures of the cannon. What a funny name for a crossbow! Ha! I thank you also for a very well composed and superbly set out letter.
When it comes to choice of weapons I believe there is a finite mindshift between personal sword style and 20 ton cannon. I think the cannon would be a prize to be fought for and utilized thereafter by the winner. I have to say that was also the normal case on the battle field regarding blades / weapons of all natures .. winner takes all ! My previous letter was I recall vaguely trying to introduce the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean and I was dismissing the idea of the Omani Kattara being linked to them which we know it was not. The question as to Portuguese carrying non Potuguese arms is interesting and from the religious standpoint I maintain they did not which means I have to show very strong reasons why not. In addressing this point I must show very biased perhaps bigotted mindset of the Portuguese hierarchy which I will do..however what weapons their mercenaries carried I believe was normal... Indian Mercenaries carried Indian weapons etc I also need to show how Portuguese ships were crewed and why?
I draw your attention to the 3 reasons for the Portuguese being in the Indian Ocean 1. Gold and Silver 2. Spices 3. Mercenaries and Slaves.
History shows how much they at that time in the early renaissance disliked Muslims and how they hated Jews.
There is a peculiar irony in that the known preventive cure for malaria was "Jews Harp" but that most Portuguese explorers would not take it (therefor died) because of the name.
They had hoped to find the fabled land of Presbeteri Iohanis or Prester John said to be a Christian Kingdom somewhere in the region of the horn of Africa where it was hoped substantial numbers of Mercenaries could be hired to fight the Muslims. Myth, fable and stories of strange hordes charging through north Russia inspired the Portugues to link Ghengis Khans marauding armies to this African powerbase..thinking they too were Christians.
Most of the search teams deployed by the Portuguese died of malaria etc in their futile attempts to find the mythical nation. In the end they were able to hire Indian Hindu mercenaries although I know there were others such as Malibaris..
As an example of their outright cruelty witness what they did in Sohar, Oman. Sohar being a huge trading port was filled with Jews at that time in the early 1500s. The Portuguese slaughtered every prisoner after intense torture. The favourite method being removal of nose, ears, hands then the corpse was nailed up. ( except one old chap who showed them the way to Hormuz)
The Portuguese had mastered the art of torture, star chamber, the Inquisition and all but it was a hatred driven by religious bigotry which fueled their fire. Basically they were Fanatical Christian Bigots.
Its amazing what 600 years can do, however, and now I have a lot of really good Portuguese mates !
Notwithstanding the odd "spoil of war" 20 ton bronze cannon the Portuguese tended to stick to Portuguese weapons and I have had a few rapiers from that period but I see no reason why they would not allow their Mercenaries to carry Hindu weapons. My previous work may have rushed over that point.
Aboard a Portuguese
Battle Ship there would have been the usual Portuguese command; Captain, Second Officer and Navigator, Gun Captains and a skeleton crew but the fighting contingent was largely Hindu mainly because Portugal was such a small country but it underlines one of the 3 basic reasons for exploitation in the Indian Ocean i.e. Mercenaries. I believe they also carried a religious person to inspire their requirements, torture techniques, Wrath of God, Inquisition and that sort of thing etc.
If I may add just a few additional examples of what one author called "the uncompromising attitudes of the Christian reconquista"
(Please do not take this personally after all a lot of nations have done things in history which were pretty terrible; but you did ask...so I should prove it)
Almeida had fought at the siege of Granada that ended in 1492, and he brought with him to the Indian Ocean
the uncompromising attitudes of the Christian reconquista. He sacked Kilwa, which had four stone-throwing catapults for its defense, and deposed the sultan in favor of another more amenable to the Portuguese. Further up the coast, Mombasa had some 3700 men of military age and cannon that fired on the Portuguese as they entered the port. The Portuguese, in return, bombarded the town. A Spanish convert to Islam came out and told the Portuguese to leave, that the people of Mombasa were braver than those of Kilwa. That night, Almeida put the town to the torch and in the morning sacked it, killing some 1500 people and taking great quantities of cotton cloth, silk and gold-embroidered textiles as well as valuable carpets. The king of Mombasa wrote to the king of Malindi to warn him of what might befall him:
“This is to inform you that a great lord has passed through the town, burning it and laying it waste. He came to the town in such strength and was of such cruelty, that he spared neither man nor woman, old nor young—nay, not even the smallest child…. Nor can I ascertain nor estimate what wealth they have taken from the town. I give you this news for your own safety.”
Vasco de Gama’s first voyage was an intelligence gathering one. He returned in 1502 at the head of a flotilla of twenty-five ships armed with the most powerful cannons in the Portuguese inventory and bombarded the city states all along the east African coast.
His first encounter with shipping in the Indian Ocean was a vessel carrying 700 returning hajjis from Mecca to India. An Indian Muslim from Malabar, Merim, owned the ship. Disregarding pleas for mercy, de Gama burned the ship with all of its occupants, women and children included.
When the Portuguese arrived off the coast of Calicut, the Raja of Calicut, Manna Vikrama, sent an emissary, a Brahmin of high repute, to negotiate peace. The ambassador arrived on board the Portuguese flagship with his two sons and a nephew.
De Gama cut off the hands, nose and ears of the ambassador, and had the three young men nailed to crosses.
The bombardment of Calicut began in earnest, wreaking havoc on that ancient city. He then turned his attention to the ships in anchor. He treated the captured Hindus the same way he had treated the Brahmin ambassador of the Raja, cutting off their hands, noses and ears and piling them up in heaps on board his ships. But the most sadistic treatment was reserved for captured Muslims. One Khwaja Muhammed, a noted merchant from Egypt was captured, beaten, his mouth stuffed with pig refuse, and then set afire. Such atrocities were repeated wherever the Portuguese went on the Indian coast.
Within a span of fifteen years, the Portuguese had destroyed the thriving city-states of East Africa, captured strategic naval posts all along the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, occupied the entrances to both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and disrupted the trade that had flowed from India, Sumatra and China to West Asia and East Africa.
Once thriving cities on the African seaboard became ghost towns. Violence, greed, enmity and ruthlessness took over trade and cooperation. Portuguese hatred of Muslims was unbounded. Wherever they landed, their first targets were the Muslims. The Inquisition was instituted in Goa against both Hindus and Muslims, and instructions were passed out by the Portuguese governor that no Muslim was to be hired, even though the territory of Goa had been a part of the Sultanate of Bijapur, and had a large number of Muslims in it.
Lastly an example of the crew make up on a Portuguese ship though I seem to remember somewhere reading about Battleship Crew Make up this example is trader ships but gives the idea ~
In all the ports controlled by the Portuguese, Albuquerque instituted the system of the cartaz, a trading licence authorizing a ship to carry cargo. Ships without a cartaz, which of course had to be purchased from the Portuguese port authorities, were fair game. This simple protection racket, plus customs duties and some outright piracy, raised the money to defray part of the cost of manning garrisons and maintaining the navy—as well as purchasing cotton textiles to trade for spices in the Moluccas and for gold and ivory in East Africa. The cartaz system enabled the Portuguese to exercise some control over trading networks that they could not dominate. In time, they raised further revenues by selling concessions for specific maritime trade routes to Asian shipowners.
By the mid-16th century Asian merchants were shipping their goods on Portuguese ships and vice versa. And even the Portuguese ships were crewed by men from Arabia, Malabar, Gujarat, Malaysia and Indonesia, with perhaps one or two Portuguese officers. Pidgin Portuguese became the lingua franca of the Indian Ocean ports.
Regards Ibrahiim.