The Story of the Nations: PortugalStephens, H. Morse (Henry Morse)
History
The Story of the Nations: Portugal
Stephens, H. Morse (Henry Morse)
Portugal -- History
The immediate successors of Dom João de Castro, Garcia de Sá, Jorge
Cabral, Affonso de Noronha, and Pedro de Mascarenhas, found no great
perils to meet, since the victory of Diu had terrified the Mohammedans
for a time, and none of them left any important traces upon the history
of the Portuguese in India. The government of Dom Constantino de
Braganza, a scion of the most noble house in Portugal next to royalty,
marked a return to the system of Dom João de Castro, whom he imitated
not only in his internal reforms, but in his gallantry in the field. He
it was who took and occupied Daman, which, with Goa and Diu, remains to
this day a possession of Portugal. He was still in office when the death
of John III. left the crown of Portugal to a minor, and the greatness of
his country, and even its independence, was on the point of
disappearing.
But the Portuguese power in Asia must not be regarded as being confined
to India, though Goa remained its headquarters, and the centre from
which the homeward-bound fleets sailed. It will be remembered that
Affonso de Alboquerque made expeditions both to the east and west; and
his successors, during the century of the Portuguese monopoly of the
Asiatic trade, maintained and extended their commercial operations in
both directions. But before touching on these extensions attention must
be called to the care with which the greatest Portuguese governors kept
up the establishments on the south-eastern coast of Africa. Mozambique,
which still belongs to Portugal, Mombassa, and Melinda, were all
fortified with the utmost science of the time, for the homeward-and
outward-bound fleets always paused at one or other or at all of these
places before facing or after meeting the perils of the Indian Ocean, in
order to refit and take in provisions. The dangers of the passage round
the Cape of Good Hope were also sufficiently serious to need rest or
preparation, for to mention but two disasters, Francisco de Almeida,
the first Viceroy of India was wrecked in Saldanha Bay, and died there
on his way back from his command; and a few years after occurred the
wreck, imprisonment among the savages, and death of Dom Manoel de Sousa
and his wife, which Camoens has immortalized in touching words.[16] More
important than these African settlements was the city of Ormuz, at the
mouth of the Persian Gulf, which became the headquarters of the Persian
trade with Europe by means of the Portuguese fleets. It has been seen
that Aden was too strong for Alboquerque to capture; one of his
successors, Affonso de Noronha, was more successful in 1551, but he only
held the key of the Red Sea for a single year, after which it was
recaptured by the Turks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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