by Cliff, Nigel
As the midpoint of the millennium approached, Manuel was determined to push his claim to be the chief monarch of Christendom. His discovery, he declared, was not just for Portugal: it would benefit every Christian nation, “from the damage to the Infidels that is expected.” Soon the Muslims would be vanquished, the Holy Land would be repossessed, and Eastern Christians would return to the true Catholic path. Even so, he was not minded to share the glory with rival nations. It was next to impossible to obtain a map of the Portuguese voyages, wrote the secretary to Venice’s ambassador in Spain, “for the king has decreed the death penalty for anyone who sends it out of the country.”
At home the messiah-king began to level and rebuild Lisbon in a style lavish enough to match his soaring ambitions. Along with majestic new palaces and spacious warehouses to receive the expected flood of goods from India, he ordered a vast church and monastery to be built at Belém, on the site of Henry the Navigator’s modest chapel, where prayers were to be said for the souls of Manuel the Conqueror and his great forebear. To honor his immediate predecessor, he decided to rehouse King John II’s remains in imperial splendor. Manuel paraded around the country with the coffin, accompanied by a procession of lords, bishops, and chaplains, a choir, torchbearers, and “a barbarous orchestra of trumpets, reed pipes, sackbuts, and drums.” When the ceremonies were over, he had it opened at dead of night. “He beheld the body covered with lime dust,” it was said, “and ordered the monks to blow it off with tubes of cane, and he himself aided them, and then kissed the dead man’s hands and feet again and again. It was a dramatic meeting, this of the dead and the living kings, and a sight for a man to look upon.”
A prophecy had long swirled around Europe that a Last Emperor would unite Christendom, subdue the Infidel, and lead the Last Crusade to take back the Holy Land. Then the peoples of the world would be shepherded into the fold, a New Jerusalem would descend from the heavens, and Christ would return to rule over the world. Manuel had begun behaving like an emperor before he had conquered a single patch of land, but the empire he had in mind was not merely territorial. Like Columbus, he was certain that he was nothing less than the Hand of God on Earth; like the Crusaders of old, he was convinced it was God’s will for him to destroy Islam and lead his people in glory to Jerusalem.
THE KING’S UNWAVERING conviction owed much to the news that Christians had been found in India. Prester John himself was still conspicuously at large, but Calicut, Nicolau Coelho and his crew had explained on their arrival, was “bigger than Lisbon, and peopled by Christian Indians.” It was true that the churches had no regular clergy and the divine offices went unperformed, but they had bells and a type of font. “These Christians,” a Florentine merchant named Girolamo Sernigi reported to his compatriots, “believe that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without sin, was crucified and killed by the Jews, and buried at Jerusalem. They also have some knowledge of the Pope of Rome, but know nothing of our faith beyond this.”
A few weeks later the São Gabriel had docked in Lisbon, and on board was the Venetian-speaking man from Goa.
Sernigi managed to snatch an interview with him, and he immediately wrote to Florence to correct his earlier letter. The new informant told the Florentine that there were many idolaters in India who worshipped cows, and only a few Christians. He added that the supposed churches “are in reality temples of idolaters, and that the pictures within them are those of idols and not of Saints.”
“To me,” Sernigi wrote home, “this seems more probable than saying that there are Christians but no divine administrations, no priests and no sacrificial mass. I do not understand that there are any Christians there to be taken into account, excepting those of Prester John.”
Soon, though, the informant changed his story. He was presented to the king, and he quickly realized that the way to get ahead was to say what was wanted, not to tell an unpalatable truth. His first act—alongside Monçaide, the merchant from Tunis—was to ask to be baptized. He took the name Gaspar, after one of the three Eastern kings who had followed the star to Bethlehem, and da Gama, after his captor, torturer, and now godfather. It turned out that Gaspar had been Jewish before he had become Muslim, but now that he was Christian he began to paint a fantastical picture of India’s religions. Christians, he explained, lived in fourteen Indian states, of which twelve were purely or very largely Christian. At least ten had Christian kings, and between them they boasted 223,000 foot soldiers, more than 15,000 cavalry, and 12,400 war elephants that each carried a dozen warriors in a wooden castle and charged forward with five swords protruding from its tusks.
Manuel was ecstatic. The well-traveled Gaspar, he was certain, had been sent by God to advance his great project. Time was of the essence if he was to forge alliances with India’s Christian rulers before his rivals stole a march, and he had four ships and two well-armed caravels readied to sail to India in the suggestive month of January 1500. The mission’s aims soon expanded from establishing trading bases to drubbing the African and Indian coasts, and the fleet swelled to thirteen ships. In command was Pedro Álvares Cabral, another minor nobleman and a knight of the Order of Christ; under him were more than a thousand men, including five priests. Cabral’s orders were to deliver a stark Crusading message to the Muslims and pagans of the Indian Ocean—convert, or die:
Before he attacked the Moors and idolaters of those parts with the material and secular sword, he was to allow the priests and monks to use their spiritual sword, which was to declare to them the Gospel, with admonitions and requisitions on the part of the Roman Church, asking them to abandon their idolatries, diabolical rites and customs, and to convert themselves to the faith of Christ, for all men to be united and joined in charity of religion and love, since we were all the work of one Creator, and redeemed by one Redeemer, who was Christ Jesus, promised by prophets, and hoped for by patriarchs for so many thousand years before he came. For which purpose they brought them all the natural and legal arguments which the Canon Rights disposes of. And should they be so contumacious as not to accept this law of faith, and should reject the law of peace, which ought to be maintained amongst men, for the conservation of the human kind, and should they forbid commerce and exchange, which are the means by which peace and love amongst all men is conciliated and obtained . . . in that case they should put them to fire and sword, and carry on fierce war against them.
Manuel had a very different message for the Christians. He gave Cabral a letter for the Zamorin of Calicut, in which he explained that the Portuguese had been led to India by the Hand of God and were about His business:
For one should truly believe that God, Our Lord, has not permitted this feat of our navigation solely in order to be served in trade and temporal profits between you and us, but equally in the spiritual profit of souls and their salvation, which we ought to place higher. He considers Himself better served by the fact that the holy Christian faith is communicated and joined between you and us as it was for six hundred years after the coming of Jesus Christ, until the time that, for the sins of men, there arose some sects and contrary heresies as predicted . . . and these sects occupy a great part of the Earth between your lands and ours.
Having delivered his public history lesson, Cabral was to convey another message in private. He was to request the Zamorin to banish every last Muslim from his harbors; the Portuguese would henceforth supply the commodities the Arabs had brought, only better and cheaper. Manuel gave his commander a final, top-secret order: if the Zamorin didn’t quietly consent to trade solely with the Portuguese, Cabral “should make cruel war upon him for his injurious conduct to Vasco da Gama.” The Zamorin might be a fellow Christian, but he was clearly misguided, and Manuel was in a hurry.
Cabral’s orders, which were drawn up with Gama’s advice, also instructed him to establish relations with the other Christian states of India and to do all he could to interfere with Muslim shipping. Among his captains were Bartolomeu Dias, the discoverer of the Cape of Good H
ope, and Gama’s close comrade Nicolau Coelho. Pêro Escobar, the pilot of the Berrio, again went as a pilot, and João de Sá and other veterans of Gama’s mission were among the company. Gaspar da Gama was taken along as an interpreter, and also on board were the five men who had been brought as captives from Calicut and the young envoy of the sultan of Malindi.
Even with their combined experience, the mission lurched from mishap to disaster. Soon after the delayed fleet set out on March 9, 1500, a ship was lost off the Cape Verde Islands. When Cabral tried to replicate Gama’s sweep around the Atlantic, he set his course too far to the southwest and hit land. He thought he had discovered a new island, and after holding a mass and erecting a cross he sent one of his captains home with the unexpected news. A terrible tempest struck the remaining eleven ships off the Cape of Good Hope and four were lost with all hands, including the vessel captained by Bartolomeu Dias, who never saw his stormy Cape again. On the crossing to India another ship disappeared in bad weather, and the fleet’s strength was reduced to six.
By then it was late summer, and in line with his orders, Cabral stationed himself off the Malabar Coast to attack the Arab shipping that was expected from the north. The crews were confessed and received the sacraments, but the quarry failed to turn up for the hunt. Instead Cabral carried on to Calicut, where he arrived, flags flying and cannon blazing, in mid-September.
The old Zamorin had died shortly after Gama’s departure, and his ambitious young successor was much keener to open trade with the Europeans. Several local notables came straight out to the ships, followed by a welcoming committee, an orchestra, and the Zamorin himself. This time the Portuguese had come prepared with a treasure trove of gold and silver basins, ewers, and flagons, together with plenty of gold-colored soft furnishings including cushions, canopies, and carpets. Cabral presented Manuel’s remarkable letter, and though the Zamorin’s reaction to the Portuguese king’s expressions of joy at being united with his fellow Christian is not recorded, the Zamorin gave Cabral a royal grant engraved on a gilded plate that guaranteed the Portuguese security of trade. The meeting fell apart amid a panicky exchange of hostages, but within two months a permanent Portuguese factory was established in a large house behind the seafront, the royal coat of arms fluttering from its roof.
The Portuguese, though, soon discovered that they had arrived when the Arab fleets were already in port. The merchants who had run rings round Vasco da Gama had been unpleasantly surprised to see a much larger Portuguese fleet sail into view, and matters finally came to a head in December. The Portuguese seized a Muslim-owned ship that was leaving for Jeddah, claiming its departure violated their agreement with the Zamorin that they would be given first call in loading spices. In retaliation a large band of Muslim merchants attacked the new Portuguese factory. Seventy men, including the fleet’s priests, were trapped in the building. After three hours’ fighting they tried to force their way out and head to the boats, and nearly all were killed.
When a day passed with no message from the Zamorin, Cabral decided he had approved the assault and went on the rampage against the Arab ships in the harbor.
It was an uneven contest; the six Portuguese vessels far outgunned the entire Muslim fleet.
For centuries the trade of the Indian Ocean had rarely been ruffled by conflict, and it had no tradition of naval warfare. Its sewn ships were not stout enough to mount heavy guns, and their design made it almost impossible to adapt them to the new threat. In any case, while cannon had originated in China and had long been used by Muslim armies, they had only reached isolated patches of India and the few examples that existed were small and crude. Portugal, like all the maritime nations of Europe, had been waging war at sea for generations, and though its shipborne cannon were far from perfect, there was no denying their capacity to induce terror in a tight corner. Gunpowder might have taken the chivalry out of war, but it was the agent of Portugal’s empire in the East.
Cabral seized a dozen large vessels and killed, drowned, and imprisoned hundreds of men. He carted off their cargoes of spices along with three elephants, which were slaughtered and salted for food, and he burned the vessels. At night he ordered his captains to lower their boats and tow their ships as close as was safe to the shore. They lined up in front of the city, and at daybreak they opened fire. Cannonballs plowed into the crowds on the seafront and tore through houses and temples, killing hundreds more. “So great was the consternation,” it was reported, “that the zamorin fled from his palace, and one of his chief nayres was killed by a ball close beside him. Part even of the palace was destroyed by the cannonade.”
The Zamorin quickly changed his mind about his new allies. As Cabral was preparing to leave, a large war fleet appeared on the horizon. Before the two sides could engage, a sudden storm forced them to anchor for the night. The next morning Cabral thought better of renewing hostilities and broke for the open sea, with the boats from Calicut in hot pursuit until nightfall. The Portuguese commander heeded Vasco da Gama’s advice and made the crossing to Africa at the right time of the year, but near Malindi one of his ships was driven onto the shore in a storm. It caught fire and had to be abandoned, and only five of the thirteen vessels made it back to Lisbon.
The voyage had not been a complete loss. Acting on Gama’s intelligence, Cabral had discovered two notable African ports that his predecessor had bypassed—Sofala, the conduit for much of West Africa’s gold, and Kilwa, the island capital of a dynasty of sultans that had long dominated the Swahili Coast. He had been welcomed with marked friendliness by the chastened ruler of Mozambique, and the sultan of Malindi had been his usual hospitable self. He had made contact with Cannanore and Cochin, two busy Indian ports whose kings were on bad terms with the Zamorin. He had loaded his ships with spices in both cities, and he had left a party of men at Cochin to establish a factory. The vessel that had disappeared in the Indian Ocean finally resurfaced with the news that it had stumbled across Madagascar. Not least, the island Cabral had thought he had discovered on his outward journey turned out to be Brazil, and moreover, the coast was well to the east of the demarcation line established at Tordesillas. By complete accident Cabral had pulled off a historic first: his ships had touched four continents.
Europe’s horizons were expanding at a bafflingly fast rate, but Cabral would not reap the glory. He had found no Christian allies, and he had not made a single convert. He had lost hundreds of experienced sailors and half his fleet. He had let the merchants of Calicut destroy the Portuguese factory, and though he had exacted bloody revenge he had failed to stamp out the rebellion. All told, he had not been bold or successful enough for his king’s liking. It was a harsh judgment on a man who had been set an impossible task, but Cabral spent the rest of his life in disgrace.
Manuel put the best spin on things he could. A feast was held in the palace to mark the fleet’s return, bells pealed across Lisbon, a procession set off around the country, and more crowing letters were dispatched to Spain. But the king’s grandiose claims were in danger of looking threadbare, and many of his counselors once again urged him to take the glory and abandon the perilous enterprise. Besides, Manuel had sent many ships to fight the Turks and more to attack the Moroccans—none of which had met with much success—never mind the fleets that were even then headed into the North Atlantic to search for more lands on the Portuguese side of the line. The country was overextended and too many lives had already been lost; goodness knew, they murmured in private, how many more would be sacrificed to Manuel’s insane quest for world domination.
The king was not to be brooked. Before Cabral had even returned, Manuel had sent out another four ships under the command of João da Nova, a middling official with strong connections at court. By then, Manuel had assumed, Cabral’s intimidating fleet would have either made mass conversions or cowed India into submission, and Nova’s orders were merely to follow on where Cabral had left off.
According to one report, the new fleet rounded the Cape of Good H
ope and found a message left by Cabral in an old shoe hung from the branch of a tree. Having read of the ruction at Calicut, Nova set off across the Indian Ocean and burned and sank several ships around the Zamorin’s harbor. He visited the factory at Cochin and set up another at Cannanore, but as he waited for the monsoon to take him home, dozens of vessels crammed with armed Muslims sprang at him from Calicut. The Portuguese guns pounded at the boats, and as the light faded and the wind dropped, the Muslims hung out a flag of parley. Nova suspected a trick and carried on firing, but eventually, with his guns nearly burnt out, he answered with a flag of his own. The two sides agreed to desist until the next day, and a tense night followed with the enemies anchored at close quarters and the jittery Portuguese firing blindly into the dark. Like Cabral, Nova thought better of fighting another day, and the fleet returned to Lisbon in September 1502 with a large cargo of spices and a fine haul of booty.
It was not enough for the impatient king. To put the flagging Crusade back on track an overwhelming display of force was clearly needed, and it would have to be masterminded by Portugal’s most valiant knight.
There was only one man for the job.
VASCO DA GAMA had finally returned to Lisbon in the late summer of 1499. He was still in mourning for his brother, but he was not allowed to grieve for long.
After stopping to give thanks to God for preserving him from peril, he sent notice of his arrival to the king. Manuel dispatched a cortege of nobles to conduct him to court. Huge crowds pressed in, eager to see the new national hero whom they had long thought dead. When he came into the royal presence, the chronicles recorded, “the king honored him as one who by the discovery of the Indies had done so much for the glory of God, for the honor and profit of the king of Portugal, and for the perpetual fame of the Portuguese name in the world.”
