Diseases. Enslavement. Desertification. All of these were carried into the so-called New World by European domination of the world’s seas, beginning in the 15th century, quickly followed by the colonisation of the land. Fortunately, this dark side of history was accompanied by scientific and technical advances in navigation, shipbuilding, cartography, geography and astronomy. The world became globally connected, opening up new opportunities for commercial, cultural and scientific exchanges.
But to speak today of the period of transition from the Middle Ages to the New Age as a golden age of great discoveries is to falsify history. The motives for European penetration of other continents were anything but noble – initially motivated by the search for new trade routes and exotic goods, they quickly turned into land conquests, exploitation and the extermination of indigenous peoples. In the pre-Columbian period, there were around 70 million indigenous people in the three Americas – although there is no consensus among historians on the exact numbers – and only around 6 million in 1650. The peoples of Hispaniola in the Caribbean and Newfoundland in what is now Canada, who were the first to come into contact with Europeans, had become extinct. Many agree that “the rediscovery of the Americas was followed by perhaps the worst demographic catastrophe in all human history”.
The consequences of colonialism and imperialism, whose origins date back to this period, will continue to influence the global distribution of power and wealth for a long time to come. Until recently, Western historical thought was dominated by the Eurocentric belief that we Europeans, as the great explorers of the New World, “discovered” and showed the original peoples the only true path to civilisation, progress and Christian faith. But not only is it impossible to ‘discover’ an already settled land, centuries before Columbus, the Vikings had already sailed all the way to North America via Greenland in their agile dragon-boats. Vinladnia, the part of Labrador where they even settled temporarily, was named after the vines that grew there. But their maritime achievements slowly faded into obscurity.
However, a combination of geopolitical factors and advances in science towards the end of the Middle Ages allowed a new breed of seafarers to push the boundaries of what had been known even further. The first European navigators of the new age, such as Columbus, Da Gama, Magellan, Cortez, Pizarro, Cabot, Dias and Vespucci, have been the subject of myths and their life stories and achievements have been hailed as heroic deeds. They have been showered with prestigious titles and positions by rulers, their names have been used to name new places, rivers, mountains and seas, they have inspired many literary heroes and they have marked our everyday lives forever. Many people still glorify them today without a second thought.
But the truth is certainly more complex and their role more controversial. They were driven primarily by economic interests and the desire for power and glory. The spirit of adventure and exploration soon gave way to that of conquest – they became conquistadors and colonisers.
Controversial Heroes of the Seas
These conquerors therefore not only contributed to the benign expansion of European trade, culture, thought and Christian religion, but opened the door to the oppression of indigenous trade, culture, thought and religion, i.e. the way of life in general. The fact is, of course, that as heroes of their time, they reflected the state of society and the spirit of the time, and it is therefore difficult to judge them from the point of view of today’s social values and ethics.
At the same time, it should not be forgotten that their ventures would not have been possible without the support of European courts. The European monarchies of the modern era, which were the most active in the “discovery” of the New World, transformed themselves from feudal, indebted and closed traditional societies on the shoulders of the peoples and wealth of the new lands into self-confident, wealthy and vain imperial powers.
Bold individuals, who were in the right place at the right time, cleverly exploited the greed of the rulers to pursue their personal ambitions. The question of what drove them to such risky ventures is not difficult to answer. As history shows, we humans are naturally curious, adventurous and inquisitive explorers, driven by a desire to explore the new, the unknown, the risky, both on land and at sea. Coastal peoples such as the ancient Greeks, the Phoenicians – who sailed the west coast of Africa as early as the 5th century BC – and the Polynesians were great navigators, and later the Vikings and, at the other end of the world, especially the Chinese.
The Chinese were indeed remarkable seafarers and there are even theories that their admiral, diplomat, merchant and explorer Zheng He took his fleets as far as the Americas before Columbus and even circumnavigated the globe before Magellan. Certainly, China was a maritime power in the period before European domination, and their ships were huge, luxurious and technically sophisticated vessels compared to those of Europe.
The unpredictable has therefore always been attractive, even though it required inhuman physical effort and even though sailors knew what was in store for them on the voyage. The turmoil of the endless vast seas, the furious storms that tossed ships about like toys, the terrible disease scurvy that disfigured sailors’ faces and often led to a slow death, hunger and boredom, the fear of hostile peoples, all this often led to organised mutinies among crew members. Many a ship’s captain, in order to quell uprisings and maintain discipline on board, commanded with an iron hand – mutineers were often punished harshly, chained and thrown below decks, and spent weeks doing so. Sometimes they were even executed, or worse, abandoned and left to fend for themselves on unknown or uninhabited land.
But when the cry of “Tierra, tierra!” rang out across the deck. (Land, land!), many a torment was rewarded and forgotten, as sailors lived in constant hope of the riches and glory that successful expeditions often brought.
Europe at the end of the Middle Ages was ripe for new challenges and new heroes. Spain and Portugal, after centuries of dominance by Mediterranean powers, became the leading agents of change and the natural rivals to the relentless conquest of the world. Having finally rid themselves of the Islamic Moorish invaders, they were able to focus on a new goal – to get rich through direct access to spices and gold across the Atlantic Ocean.
Muslim influence in the Iberian Peninsula waned, while it increased in southern Europe and the Middle East, and thus on the overland route to the Far East, from where riches flowed to Europe. For centuries, the Christian world struggled against Muslim invasions and domination, but was not prepared to give up its desire for exotic luxury. An alternative route to the East had to be found and the Mediterranean was slowly losing the historical influence of the past two millennia.
Every way to spice and richness
“For Jesus and spices!” shouted the sailors of Vasco da Gama’s crew when they disembarked in India in 1498 after their first successful sea voyage from Europe to Asia. As early as ancient Egypt, around 2600 BC, spices were given to the workers building the pyramid of Keops for strength. In China, they were used for years before Confucius recommended the daily use of ginger in the 6th century BC for better physical and mental well-being. They were also imported to Europe before the founding of Rome, and in the time of the Romans, the most extravagant users of aromatic products, fragrances such as pepper, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon were luxuries added to wine, food and cosmetics.
The Far East – an area that stretched from India to China, Japan and the whole of South-East Asia – has always been a source of spices that have tantalised European curiosity and taste buds with their natural riches. Spices became a key addition to tasteless, old and poorly nourished food at a time when methods of cooling food had not yet been developed. After cold winters and poor harvests, only heavily sweetened and peppered meat prevented hunger. Pepper masked the stench and prevented further decomposition of the food.
In the Middle Ages, the demand for spices further increased during periods of plague, as they were also used for medicinal purposes. In the 15th century, the spice trade was the most profitable business and spices the most expensive and valuable raw material. Pepper was the most valuable and was given the prestigious nickname ‘black gold‘.
But from the beginning of the 7th century onwards, Europeans had to face a powerful new opponent – a new religion, Islam, had conquered the Arab world, and Islamic conquerors were pressing in on Europe from all sides. Moors from North Africa were invading the Iberian Peninsula. In the east, the Arabs, who had controlled the trade routes since before the birth of Islam centuries before, literally monopolised them and completely suppressed the trade between Rome and India, which had passed through North Africa. They charged astronomical prices for the spices they traded and, at the same time, for the passage of their territory.
However, it did benefit the resourceful Venetians, who, in collusion with the Arabs, became Europe’s exclusive wholesalers of spices and other oriental treasures such as silk and precious stones. From Venice, a rich and thriving commercial centre, a vibrant trade route wound its way through the Middle East to India and China in the late Middle Ages. The Crusaders also brought news of the fabulous riches of the East to Europe.
Marco Polo, the most famous Venetian traveller of all time, described the landscapes and wonders along this route, the so-called Silk Road, with at least a hint of exaggeration in his Travels towards the end of the 13th century. His colourful travelogue of the adventures of many years and the incredible wonders he was to witness added to the charm of the Far East and inspired a new generation of travellers. For example, Polo’s narrative accompanied Columbus on his travels, and more than anything else he longed to meet the Great Khan of China, like Marco Polo, who lived for many years in the court of the legendary Kublai Khan.
Then, in 1453, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and land links to the Far East became even more difficult. At the same time, Venice’s monopoly as the only official trading partner of the Arabs was consolidated and prices rose further, so that it was almost impossible to afford spices in Europe. The sea route offered the only answer to the greed and finances of the European courts. The Portuguese were the first to be convinced that spices could be obtained by sea.
Around the coast of Africa, across the Indian Ocean to India, and on to Malacca in present-day Malaysia. The latter offered the most strategic access to the Fragrant Islands in the Indonesian archipelago. While a variety of spices originated throughout East and Southeast Asia, it was the special climate and exceptional biodiversity that made the Spice Islands the sole source of nutmeg and cloves.
Portugal started funding dozens of expeditions, more than half of which lost all trace of them. The motto of these expeditions was: “Whoever becomes master of Malacca will take Venice by the scruff of the neck”.
This was the historical background to the shift of the centre of gravity from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese, as pioneers of oceanic expeditions, were the originators of an era of great “discoveries“, led by the son of King John I of Portugal, Prince Henry, who, as their main patron, earned the nickname Henry the Navigator. Even though he never set out to sea himself.
The Portuguese were first
Cut off from the bustling action around the Mediterranean basin, the Portuguese had no choice but to flirt with the Atlantic Ocean. Henry founded a maritime school and observatory where all the top European seafarers, as well as astronomers, cartographers and mathematicians, gathered and trained. Under his tutelage, navigation became a precise science and detailed sea and land charts of the African coast began to be produced. Much of the knowledge and fundamentals of seafaring were acquired from Muslims, skilled seafarers and scholars, during the years of Moorish domination. They developed the caravel, a multi-purpose, manoeuvrable sailing ship with a variety of sails that allowed for both coastal and high seas navigation.
They quickly became the best navigators in Europe, and within a few decades an impoverished, remote country became the world’s richest, fastest-growing empire. Portugal, moreover, escaped the Islamic invaders centuries before Spain, allowing it to devote itself fully to maritime exploration.
Seafarers have been sent across the geographical borders of Europe since the early 15th century. From 1415, Portuguese sailors and merchants explored the coasts of West Africa, conquered Madeira and the Azores in 1425 and 1427, crossed the equator in 1471 and reached Namibia with Diego Cão in 1485. Bartolomeo Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope in the very south of Africa in 1488. Vasco da Gama rounded it in 1497 and reached India, where he founded the Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese became masters of the Indian Ocean, despite Islamic domination and Hindu rivals.
In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral, on his way to India and around Africa, must have mistakenly reached Brazil when his large expedition was blown off course. Brazil was explored in detail for the Portuguese by the man after whom the entire American continent is named, another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci. The origin of the name America is interesting. Vespucci wrote extensively about his travels between 1499 and 1502, and these accounts were widely read and popular in Europe. Unlike Columbus, he knew that this was not Asia, but a new continent, which he himself called the New World. In 1507, when the German cartographer Waldseemüller was making a new map of the world, he based the new continent on Vespucci’s travelogue. Since it was customary to name geographical phenomena, and countries and continents in particular, with feminine names, he used the feminine Latinised form of the name Amerigo – America – for the New World.
But back to Dias and his achievement as the key to the discovery of the navigable link between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Cão before him had already made a remarkable voyage, beyond the contours of existing maps, but there was and has been no end to the west coast of Africa. With each expedition, as the Portuguese attempted to penetrate further south, they built forts at geostrategic points that served as both trading and military bases. The purpose was clear: the ‘new‘ lands were to be Christianised as quickly as possible. The padrão is still a reminder for the locals of the aggressive imperialism to which they have been subjected over the centuries since, but for the Portuguese it remains a symbol of the nation’s glorious history.
It seemed that no achievement could sufficiently satisfy the Portuguese kings until their ships had at least reached India. Dias, with a relatively small fleet of three ships, was the next to get the chance in 1487. Unfortunately, the Portuguese, fearing competition, were very secretive and scant on details when it came to precise descriptions of their expeditions and discoveries. We therefore know very little about the expedition itself. It was the first to reach the southernmost point of Africa and, because of the high winds and bad weather conditions that accompanied it, Dias called it the Cape of Storms. Dias sailed into the Indian Ocean, proving to Europe that there was a southern passage to India. But no one wanted to go further. The exhausted crew, battered for weeks by high winds, were attacked by scurvy and all wanted to return home. So the King of Portugal was again disappointed, but he was not ready to give up.
They wanted something more than the fragrances and direct trade links that tempted the maritime adventurers and their rulers. To get to the bottom of the legend of a mysterious Christian king, John the Priest, who was said to rule a wealthy kingdom somewhere in the East, perhaps in India, perhaps on the shores of East Africa. The existence of this supposed kingdom has tantalised the European imagination for centuries, but the Priest’s kingdom has successfully eluded any more convincing evidence. At the time of Dias’ journey, it was generally accepted that the kingdom was located somewhere in the Ethiopian region. Even the Pope wrote a letter to this fairy king, which was to reach him by one of his naval expeditions.
But the Portuguese Age of Discovery was about much more than myths and legends and great maritime feats. It was the beginning of a revolution in world trade and commerce. Spices, which soon found a direct route to Europe, were soon joined by profitable sugar and diamonds from Brazil.
The most tragic consequence of the new era was the transatlantic slave trade, pioneered by the Portuguese. The only Europeans with direct knowledge of Africa and Africans, they became the first slave brokers for the other colonial powers. Together with them – the Spanish, the English, the French and the Dutch – they were responsible for forcibly removing millions of Africans and settling them in the Americas, where they were used as labour in mines and on plantations.
In 1481, a huge fortress, Elmina, was built in what is now Ghana, where most of West Africa’s gold came from, and became the largest centre of the slave and gold trade in West Africa. Wherever they could, they built trading posts and nailed crosses. They justified their actions as a divine mission. Europe was enriched by the sweat, blood, suffering and lives of these people.
At the time, of course, nobody saw this as a problem, it was more a question of how to train the next, even more successful expedition as soon as possible. The most famous Portuguese expedition of all time was the 1497 da Gamova. But before that, Christopher Columbus opened a new chapter of history in 1492 on behalf of the Spanish Crown. The Spanish-Portuguese battle for world domination thus reached its climax.
Christopher Columbus enters the scene
It was in the famous year of 1492 that Spain finally liberated the last Moorish pocket, Granada, after eight centuries of Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula, and was able to turn its attention to new challenges.
One of these, which few believed would succeed, was Columbus’s project to reach the fabled Far East by the Western Sea Route. The enterprising Italian from Genoa spent years sailing under the Portuguese flag, but his daring plan was not supported there. King John II preferred to support the expeditions around Africa, which by then were already bearing fruit. For seven long years afterwards, Columbus sought the help of the Spanish monarchs, the powerful King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. Just before he gave up, they finally realised that if they failed, they had little to lose. But if Columbus had kept his promises and really had reached Japan, China and India, Spain could finally have become an equal rival to Portugal.
The long-held belief that Columbus wanted to prove that the Earth was round is a myth. Indeed, there was no doubt about it among the learned people of the Middle Ages. Like other adventurers of the time, he was driven by a manic greed for spices and gold, silver and precious stones, and most of all he wanted to meet the great Chinese canoe, about which Marco Polo wrote so many interesting things. The latter reported beautiful temples and palaces covered in gold. Columbus had letters from Spanish rulers prepared for the Chinese ruler, hoping to convert him and his subjects to the Christian faith.
For both the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, after centuries of fighting Islam on home soil, Christianising the world was almost as powerful a motive as enriching themselves through new trade links. Interestingly, Columbus also had with him a letter for the legendary King John the Priest, whom Europe was still searching for.
The famous admiral had difficulties in determining the correct distance between Europe and China and Japan. His calculations proved to be wrong, as he underestimated the earth’s circumference by as much as 10,000 kilometres. According to him, Europe and the Far East were separated by a relatively small sea and the distance of 4 000 kilometres could be covered in three to four weeks. That this was the Atlantic Ocean, and that he had completely ignored the existence of a much larger sea mass, the Pacific, which does indeed lead to the Orient, was something that Columbus never wanted to admit to himself.
He believed he was right for the rest of his life, and on each of his four voyages to what he called “the other world“, he persistently searched for evidence that he was either in China or Japan. He even ordered his crew to repeat the same thing, the penalty for failing to do so was a dislocated tongue! As we know, because of Columbus’s mistake, the area of the Bahamas and the Antilles became known as the West Indies and its inhabitants as Indians.
The Santa Maria, Niña and Pinta set sail in August 1492 and during the arduous voyage, during which Columbus kept promising land, the crew was on the verge of mutiny, even killing the fleet commander and returning home early. Then, on 12 October, Rodrigo de Triana did see land. The deeply religious Columbus fell to his knees and immediately named the Bahamian island of the harbour San Salvador, or Saviour. Later, Columbus infamously claimed that he had been the first to see land, and so de Triana never received the prize money promised to the sailor who was the first to see land.
This was just one of the many inglorious acts by which the Spanish, first led by Columbus and then through the rapid introduction of violent colonial practices, made history in the conquest of the “new” world.
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From explorer to destroyer
Most of the indigenous people initially welcomed the visitors and shared everything they had with open arms. Material possessions meant little to them, gold and precious stones were used for jewellery and ornaments, while poor sailors thought only of how they could fill their pockets as quickly as possible. After weeks of hard sailing in the company of men, they could hardly resist the temptation of beautiful, barely disguised girls. One of Columbus’s sailors describes in detail how he sexually abused a woman who was given to him by Columbus, but who dared to resist the rape:
“I took this beautiful woman, naked according to local custom, to my cabin and I felt homesick. But she came at me with her nails in a horrible way and I almost regretted my intention. Then I tied her with a rope and she screamed so loudly you would hardly believe it. But at last we came to an understanding, and I tell you, one would have thought she had been brought up in a school for harlots.”
Such behaviour became commonplace, as the newcomers were convinced of their superiority as soon as they saw what they considered to be primitive and simple locals. But the Taino people of the Caribbean islands had a complex religious, political and social system that Europeans simply did not understand. In Columbus’s diary, we can read how he imagined himself to be a god to them.
The obsession with gold drove the fleet from island to island, as nowhere was there as much gold as expected. Even the tribes they encountered did not fit Polo’s description of the Chinese or other oriental peoples. They came from the smaller Bahamian islets to an island they christened Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and then set out to explore Cuba.
But it’s time to share the good news about the new territories with the people back home, especially the King and Queen. To prove his success, Columbus brought back to Spain not only riches and unknown animals like parrots and fruits like pineapples, but also some natives. And he left behind the first European colony in the New World, a small settlement of around forty crew members called La Navidad.
The next time, Ferdinand and Isabella sent the now-famous Columbus, adorned with the title of Governor of the New Lands, across the ocean with 17 ships and more than a thousand men. They included carpenters, tailors, priests, and were loaded with livestock, seeds and all the equipment needed for the first mass permanent settlement of Europeans in the New World.
Columbus crossed the ocean four times, exploring and conquering a new area of Central America for Spain each time, first islands such as Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad, and soon reaching Venezuela, finally setting foot on the South American continent. From seafarer to conquistador (conqueror) and enslaver. At one point, for example, he sent five hundred slaves as a gift to the Spanish rulers.
On his first return to La Navidad, he was confronted with an unpleasant truth. The settlement had been burned to the ground and all its inhabitants killed. Apparently, they had overlooked the intentions of the first settlers. In a short time after the departure of the main crew, they began to rob and enslave the natives, demanding more and more gold and other valuables from them.
This did not teach Columbus, quite the opposite. He punished the locals severely, and from now on they had to pay him quotas of gold per person, or else they were severely punished by having their hands chopped off. Of the eight million Taino in 1492, only three million were still alive in 1496. By the time Columbus left, there were only 100,000, 22,000 in 1514 and a paltry two hundred in 1542.
Columbus’s critics were increasingly numerous, as he proved to be a poor administrator of the new lands, and the oriental riches he promised were not plentiful. Everyone but him was soon convinced that he had not reached Asia, but had discovered a territory completely unknown to Europeans. But even on his humble deathbed in 1506, almost forgotten, he claimed that Hispaniola was Japan and Cuba was a peninsula of the great Chinese Empire.
Soon after his death, his discoveries proved to be a key asset for Spain in the colonial war, despite his great error.
“Half for you, half for me”
With Columbus’ voyages, the Spaniards extended their influence across Central and soon South America, and with each new expedition, there was more territory to the north as well as to the south. The Portuguese watched nervously as the first Spanish colonies were established. By then, they had already seized the coast of West Africa and were moving eastwards towards South-East Asia. But they realised that new Spanish discoveries could quickly threaten their superiority. It is not hard to imagine how the King of Portugal regretted his dismissal of Columbus at the time, when he sought support for his first expedition from him.
The Portuguese monopoly over Africa, and more specifically over all territories south of the Canary Islands, was confirmed by a special decree of the Pope as early as 1479. The Portuguese were eager to spread the Christian faith through their conquests, which was of course in the interests of the Catholic Church. All well and good, until Columbus completely reshuffled the cards in favour of Spain.
In 1493, the Catholic Church was in the hands of the Valencian-born Pope Alexander VI. In addition to his affection for his homeland, he saw in the Spanish colonisation of the new continent the possibility of increasing the Church’s influence through the Christianisation of the natives. The Spaniards were even more fervent believers than the Portuguese. Thus, in a new decree, he simply fixed the meridian of the Atlantic Ocean as the dividing line between the part of the world under Spanish control and the part under Portuguese control.
It gave Spain the right to exploit materially all the territories already discovered west of the meridian, as well as any that might yet be discovered in that part of the world. The Portuguese were furious; in their view, the demarcation favoured a rival and would have prevented them from sailing unhindered around Africa. War was declared.
But the Spanish, fearing a militarily stronger neighbour, tried to resolve the dispute diplomatically. To resolve inter-state disputes, it was customary at the time for the parties to call on the Catholic Church as arbitrator, since the Pope had authority over the leaders of Catholic states. Again, Alexander stepped in and the delegations chose the Spanish city of Tordesillas as the venue for negotiations. To satisfy the Portuguese, the dividing line was moved further east, to about half the distance between Cape Verde and the islands where Columbus had first landed. Spain thus got Central and South America and the Philippines, while Portugal got Africa, Brazil, Asia and the East Indies.
In this way, the eternal rivals Spain and Portugal simply divided up the world, or the rights to trade and colonise in the newly discovered lands, by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, to avoid conflict with each other. Other European nations were completely excluded from the bargain. That is why they largely ignored it, especially in the aftermath of the Reformation, when the role of the Catholic Church lost its power. The principle that any newly “discovered” territory belonged to the country that discovered it became more established. Thus, soon after Columbus, two other maritime powers, France and England, entered the colonial fray and colonised the vast territory of what is now the USA and Canada by penetrating northwards.
Another Italian, Giovanni Caboto, set out to find India by the Western route. After crossing the North Atlantic, the sailor, better known as John Cabot because he sailed for the English crown, landed on the shores of Newfoundland in 1497. He, too, was convinced that he was somewhere in the Far East, perhaps in the Mongol Empire. He died during his second expedition, but his mission was continued by his son Sebastian, who persistently sought a north-west passage to India. With them, the English colonisation of North America began.
In the same year that Cabot arrived in North America, the Portuguese were steadily approaching their goal of reaching the Orient via the Indian Ocean. The nobleman Vasco da Gama succeeded.
Vasco da Gama really “finds” the Orient
Why it was he, otherwise known for his leadership skills, was given the royal honour of leading the fleet to India is not known, nor are there many details of his life in general.
Da Gama’s fleet of four ships and around 160 men set sail in July 1497. Da Gama was given brand new ships for his expedition, which speaks volumes about the importance of the expedition for Portugal. Most of the ships were carracks, battleships equipped with the latest cannons, which were larger, taller and more multi-decked than the caravels. In the light of Columbus’s discovery and the influx of new riches into Spain, Portugal wanted its piece of the pie. As it became increasingly clear that the Spanish had not yet reached the Far East, the game was once again even. The Portuguese were in a hurry. That’s why they prepared perfectly.
The main advisor in the preparations for the voyage was the excellent navigator Bartolomeo Dias, who had set out on this route ten years earlier, but turned back at the Cape of Good Hope. He advised Da Gama to avoid sailing close to shore as much as possible because of dangerous currents and treacherous winds, so they sailed almost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where the sailing was easier and faster.
Scurvy, one of the worst scourges of seafarers, was also feared because of sailors’ fear of sailing too long. It was not until the 18th century that Captain Cook discovered that scurvy, a disease that causes, among other things, swollen gums and slow tooth loss, was caused by a lack of vitamin C. It was initially thought to be caused by prolonged exposure to the strain and weather conditions at sea. They also took on board ten prisoners sentenced to death, bloodthirsty criminals who were used for the most dangerous tasks. They were often sent out in boats to scout unknown shores.
There is only one account of da Gama’s first journey, which describes the journey to India in much more detail than the return journey. Three months later, as they approached the southern tip of the African continent, the author observed in amazement: “The climate is very pleasant and healthy, there are many herbs to be found, and the birds are similar to those we have in Portugal, cormorants, gulls, sparrows.” Yet, at that time, half of the sailors were already suffering from scurvy. They began to rebel and da Gama punished them harshly by beating them and chaining them.
Around the Cape of Good Hope, until recently rightly called the Cape of Storms, the weary crew braved the wind for days until they rounded it and anchored off the coast of East Africa. The Cape of Good Hope has long been considered the most dangerous passage and as such has claimed many ships and sailors’ lives, including Dias’s on a later expedition.
A voyage off the east coast of Africa, which no European ship has ever undertaken, has now begun. At first, they stopped mainly in Muslim territories such as Mombasa and Mozambique, where the Arab traders were not particularly enthusiastic, but rather hostile. Then, in Malindi, today’s Kenya, they met Indians who helped them cross the Indian Ocean. They were the first Europeans to reach India by sea and landed in Calicut. The Hindu chieftain gave them a warm welcome, but the Muslims kept control of the spice trade for the time being, persuading the Hindus not to trade with the Portuguese. Moreover, the Indians were disappointed by the poor quality of the goods the Portuguese wanted to trade.
Nevertheless, on his return home, da Gama was received as a hero and preparations for a new expedition began immediately. The new King of Portugal, Manuel I, was determined to establish trading posts in India, even if by force. And so it was, the Portuguese subdued the local rulers and enforced trading rights with a military presence. The next time da Gama went to India, he came home with ships bursting at the seams with pepper and other spices. Trade with the Far East was successfully established, stretching across Africa to India, centred on Goa, whose largest city is still called Vasco da Gama, and as far as China and the island of Macao. In 1511, the Portuguese conquered Malacca and soon the Banda Islands, the only source of nutmeg.
The Portuguese Empire was one of the world’s greatest empires of all time, lasting almost six centuries – from the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 to the handover of Macao to China in 1999.
A sad legacy of the early days of the great “Age of Discovery”
The transition from the Middle Ages to the New Age began gloriously for a small part of the world, but tragically for a large part. While Europe was saved from famine by the American potato, the Americans were largely killed by European diseases and epidemics, smallpox, whooping cough, syphilis, influenza. As the Spanish successfully settled Central and South America, sending home pounds of gold and valuables, the natives died under their swords and of starvation. The fertility of the original inhabitants almost completely declined.
The Portuguese did indeed lay the foundations for world trade, giving Europeans almost unlimited access to spices. But they also pioneered the global slave trade. The human cost of European greed and the beginnings of mercantilism and capitalism was immeasurable, and by 1820 there were thought to be up to 10 million slaves in the Americas, brought from Africa.
Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spanish priest and missionary who accompanied Columbus on his voyages, quickly began to draw attention to the inhuman treatment of the indigenous people and became one of their most ardent defenders. In Narrative of the Destruction of the West Indies, which became an anti-colonial classic, he wrote about the corrupt and morally repugnant Spanish authorities. Descriptions such as the following reveal the fanatical brutality of the Spaniards against the native peoples:
“It was a general rule among the Spaniards that they had to be cruel, not only cruel, but cruel beyond all measure, in order to make the Indians, by their brutal and outrageous treatment, not even think that they were human beings. /…/ Thus they cut off an Indian’s arms and left them hanging on a piece of his skin. /…/ They tested their swords and their manly strength on the captured Indians, taking bets on whether they could cut off a head or cut a body in half with one swing. /…/ Someone captured two children about two years old, pierced their necks with a dagger and threw them into a chasm. “
But the calls for peace, respect and humanity were much weaker than the lust for power and wealth.
New lands were not discovered by Europeans, but were inhabited for millennia by peoples with rich traditions and cultural diversity. But they were invaded, and the actions of Columbus, da Gama and their contemporaries only hinted at the coming era of colonialism in all its controversy. The cruellest conquistadors were then just preparing to come on the scene.
