Portugal

C

The Age of Expansion

A desire for conquest and trade, especially the lucrative trade in Asian spices, was a key motivation behind Portugal’s early maritime expansion. Portugal, with its navy, advanced nautical knowledge, and advantageous location on the far southwestern edge of Europe, sought a sea route to Asia to circumvent the Muslim-dominated overland routes long used to bring spices and other fine goods to the Mediterranean. Tied to these expansionist aims were the aspirations of Portuguese kings to spread Christianity and extend the crusade against Muslims.

In 1415 a Portuguese military expedition captured the wealthy Muslim city of Ceuta in North Africa, a western depot for the spice trade. Within ten years Portugal began colonizing the islands of Madeira, and in 1427 Portuguese navigators discovered the Azores archipelago. The Madeiras and the Azores rapidly became important centers of sugar production, and the capture of Ceuta gave Portugal a foothold in North Africa, stimulating further exploration of the African coast. Using the caravel, a new type of light sailing vessel specially adapted for Atlantic voyages, Portuguese mariners sailed as far south as the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa in 1444, and by 1460 they had reached Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, John I’s successors, King Duarte and Afonso V, sent further expeditions to Morocco, capturing the cities of Tangier and Arzila (Asilah) in 1471.

C

1

John II

King John II, a son of Afonso V, reigned from 1481 to 1495 and was one of Portugal’s ablest rulers. At home he attacked the prerogatives of the landed nobility and he imposed a new oath by which nobles swore homage to the crown. John’s defense of royal power firmly established the supremacy of the monarchy over the nobility. John’s foreign policy was based on expansion and trade, and under his direction the crown intensified its search for a sea route to Asia. In 1482 John founded a Portuguese stronghold at Elmina (in present-day Ghana) and established relations with the kingdom of the Kongo (in present-day Angola). Five years later John sponsored an expedition commanded by navigator Bartolomeu Dias to explore the coast of western Africa. In 1488 Dias became the first European to sail around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, demonstrating that Asia could be reached by sea.

In 1492 Italian Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus reached the Americas and claimed the new lands for Castile. John II disputed this claim, and by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 Spain and Portugal reached agreement on the division of the undiscovered world. The agreement gave Portugal all undiscovered lands east of a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This included much of Brazil, probably still unknown to Europeans, but excluded the Canary Islands, which were already controlled by Spain. See Demarcation, Line of.

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C

2

Manuel I and the Peak of Portuguese Power

Portuguese power reached its height under King Manuel I, who reigned from 1495 to 1521, when Portugal entered its golden age of exploration and culture. Manuel sponsored the daring voyage of Vasco da Gama, who from 1497 to 1499 led an expedition around the Cape of Good Hope and pioneered a sea route to India. Manuel then commissioned a series of trading expeditions to secure Portugal’s commercial dominance in Asia. Portugal soon consolidated its control over the trade in spices and other luxuries. In a few short years Portugal created the first great European overseas empire. The Portuguese monarchy became the wealthiest in Europe, with Lisbon serving as the empire’s commercial capital.

In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral, leading a trading expedition to India, sailed farther westward than previous Portuguese navigators and sighted the coast of Brazil, which he claimed for Portugal. Portuguese fleets soon reached Madagascar and established posts in East Africa. In 1509 Portuguese naval vessels succeeded in destroying a large Muslim fleet in the Indian Ocean, opening the way for Portugal’s further expansion eastward. In 1510 the Portuguese occupied Goa, on the southwestern coast of India. Using Goa as a base, Portuguese navigator and statesman Afonso de Albuquerque extended Portugal’s trading empire east to Malacca (now Melaka) on the Malay Peninsula in 1511 and to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands (in present-day Indonesia), from 1512 to 1514. In 1515 Albuquerque claimed for Portugal the island of Hormuz, which controlled trade in the Persian Gulf. His successors reached Japan in 1542 and founded a colony in China at Macao in 1557.

Portugal’s intellectual life flourished during Manuel’s reign. The crown patronized architecture, evident in the elaborate maritime and floral motifs of the Manueline style, and sent many students to France and Italy. Gil Vicente, the founder of the Portuguese theater, devised entertainment for the lavish court in Lisbon. In poetry Francisco de Sá de Miranda, among others, introduced influential forms of Italian verse. Many nobles became dependent on the crown. Portugal’s legal system was made uniform, but the cortes, whose influence began to wane under John I, was consulted less frequently.

As other Portuguese monarchs had done, Manuel dreamed of uniting Portugal and Spain under his rule and he successively married two daughters of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I. Under pressure from his Spanish relations, he followed their example by expelling Jews and Muslims who refused to convert to Christianity from Portuguese domains in 1497. The expulsions proved costly for Portugal; they deprived the kingdom of many skilled workers and much of its middle class.

C

3

Imperial Decline

Under John III, Manuel’s son, who ruled from 1521 to 1557, the resources of the state proved inadequate to meet Portugal’s obligations. The French, and later the English, increasingly challenged Portugal’s trading monopoly, and revenues declined as prices for Asian goods fell in Europe. At the same time, the enormous costs of mounting expeditions and manning a chain of posts and bases from Brazil to China burdened the Portuguese crown with debts. Portugal’s extravagant court drained national resources, and few funds were invested in internal development. John III encouraged the colonization of Brazil, which rapidly became the center of a new trade in sugar. However, the exuberant days of Portugal’s expansion and conquest were over.

John’s reign coincided with the emergence of the Counter Reformation, the Roman Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation in Europe. The Counter Reformation reached Portugal in the first decades of the 16th century. In 1531 John III introduced the Inquisition in Portugal—a key tool of the Counter Reformation to enforce religious uniformity and root out heresy. The Jesuits, a religious order founded to promote the cause and teachings of Catholicism, gained influence with the crown and over education, and began missionary work in Portugal’s overseas possessions.

By the time John III died in 1557, Portugal was in decline as a political and commercial power. This trend continued under Sebastian, John’s son, who in 1578 organized an army to fight Muslims in Morocco. Sebastian and most of the Portuguese army perished at the hands of the superior Muslim forces, leaving Portugal largely defenseless and without an heir to the throne. The crown fell to Sebastian’s aged uncle, Henry. At Henry’s death in 1580 the Avis dynasty came to an end.

D

The Habsburg and Braganza Dynasties

D

1

Union with Spain

When Henry died, seven pretenders laid claim to the Portuguese crown. The most powerful was Philip II, Habsburg king of Spain. Philip invaded Portugal, defeated rival forces, and in 1580 became Philip I of Portugal. As king of Portugal, Philip vowed to preserve Portuguese national institutions, including the military, cortes, coinage, and legal system. However, the joining of the two crowns deprived Portugal of a separate foreign policy, and Spain’s enemies became Portugal’s. The Spanish war with the Dutch and English led to the closing of the port of Lisbon to Portugal’s former trading partners. The Dutch and other powers then attacked Portuguese settlements in Brazil, Africa, and Asia. After 1600 Portuguese domination of trade with South Asia was lost to the Dutch and the English.

Under Philip I, Portugal enjoyed considerable autonomy, but his successors, Philip II (Philip III of Spain and Naples) and Philip III (Philip IV of Spain, Naples, and Sicily), treated Portugal as a Spanish province, provoking widespread discontent. After unsuccessful revolts in 1634 and 1637, Portuguese conspirators with the support of France won independence for their kingdom in 1640, ending the so-called Sixty Years’ Captivity. John, duke of Braganza, grandson of a former pretender to the throne, was elected John IV, first king of the house of Braganza. For the next century John and his successors waged wars with a hostile Spain and tried to salvage the Portuguese empire.

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