A good life in far Siam
The harried sailors of the Portuguese Empire had compelling reasons to settle in Asia
The Portuguese sailors had done their share. Throughout the first half of the 16th century they had ventured across the seas in a demonstration of Western might that enriched their monarch and created an empire. But that empire was already on the wane as the century drew to a close - the Spanish and Dutch were in the ascendant.
For many of those Portuguese sailors, the new lands they'd found offered a better life than their weakened and vengeful homeland could, and Siam offered the best of all.
Portugal's rise and fall in Asia was recounted at last month's conference commemorating the 500th anniversary of Thai-Portuguese relations. Professor Nidhi Eoseewong, in his keynote speech "Navigation, Spices and Faith", marvelled at how a country of just a million citizens was able to forge a globe-spanning empire.
Portugal's century of power in Asia began in 1498 when Vasco da Gama's fleet landed in India at Calicut. In the name of trade, its explorers gradually expanded their sphere of influence - by any means necessary - and ultimately controlled the spice trade across South and Southeast Asia.
It's been estimated that Portugal's oriental mission required the dispatching of some 2,400 men a year throughout the 16th century.
Asian merchants had never before dealt with a foreign government, only private businessmen from afar - or pirates - said Assistant Professor of history Suthachai Yimprasert of Chulalongkorn University.
By 1500 the Portuguese had a thriving trading post at Cochin (now Kochi) on India's western coast, which they ruled well into the next century, and by 1510 they had an Indian state of their own, centred on Goa - and this they kept until violently forced out 1961. India chooses not to celebrate its own half-millennium of relations with Lisbon.
From this Estado da India, the Europeans launched their forays into Southeast Asia, with the prize being the capture of the spice trade's centrifugal core, Malacca. This they seized in 1511. All that remained was to secure the network of outposts, such as the Kingdom of Ayutthaya.
It soon became apparent, however, that while Asian commodities, especially the spices, were in high demand in Europe, Asians weren't interested in anything the West proffered as barter. The Portuguese royal court realised that trade could not be sustained, Nidhi pointed out.
"The Portuguese had only cannon and muskets to offer, but Asians quickly learned how to make these weapons themselves."
Adding to the empire's woes were chronic mismanagement, corruption, bureaucratic red tape and the wrath of ill-treated sailors. Nidhi pinned the blame on the centralisation of power under absolute monarchy, a common failing of autocrats throughout history.
Despite enjoying immense profits from the Asian spice trade, the Portuguese court overlooked the country's fiscal decay and ignored the wellbeing of the citizenry. It spent its spice income lavishly and kept the lid on domestic insurrections by buying the loyalty of local leaders.
Meanwhile the sailors who brought home the wealth were left to suffer, dismissed by the Lisbon elite as expendable, low-class rabble. Mammoth, four-storey ships, carrying 500 to 600 sailors each, set out for Asia on years-long voyages rife with risk. In half a century, around 180,000 seamen took that risk, on nearly 500 excursions in total.
Something like 12 per cent of the ships never reached their destination, wrecked by storms or inept captains.
So it is understandable that many of the crewmen chose not to chance the journey home, particularly after Lisbon began trading more in African slaves than Asian spices. Many sailors established their own lucrative dealings in the East as traders or pirates, while hundreds of others saw a brighter future in working for Asia's rulers.
In 1538 there were about 300 Portuguese tradesmen living in Pattani and 120 Portuguese mercenaries serving King Chairacha of Ayutthaya. In all, an estimated 16,000 Caucasian Portuguese settled down in Asian ports during the 16th century.
The communities they established eventually became "local" communities thanks to the Europeans' ease in assimilating, Nidhi said, so much so that they happily broke off all relations with their homeland.
A French account indicates that the Portuguese in Ayutthaya during the reign of King Narai the following century numbered 6,000.
Their legacy remains in evidence across the region, in the languages, architecture, food and, often, the colour of people's skin.
Nidhi pointed out, though, that relations between Portugal and Ayutthaya were "colourless" - neither state was capable of controlling the other, notwithstanding the Europeans' use of brute force in Malacca, India and elsewhere in Asia.
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