Page 368 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

Ptolemy’s World Map. Contained in the Latin translation of Ptolemy’s Geography was this world map, which did not become available to Europeans until the late fifteenth century. Scholars quickly accepted it as the most accurate map of its time. The twelve “wind faces,” meant to show wind currents around the earth, were a fifteenth-century addition to the ancient map.
“Christians and spices.” He found no Christians, but he did find the spices he sought. Although he lost two ships en route, da Gama’s remaining vessels returned to Europe with their holds filled with ginger and cinnamon, a cargo that earned the investors a profit of several thousand percent.
Portuguese fleets returned annually to the area, seek- ing to destroy Arab shipping and establish a monopoly in the spice trade. In 1510, seeing the need for a land base in the area, Admiral Afonso d’Albuquerque (ah- FAHN-soh day AL-buh-kur-kee) (ca. 1462–1515), took the lead in establishing a ring of commercial-military bases on the western coast of India south of present-day Mumbai (Bombay). The port at Goa became the head- quarters for operations throughout the entire region.
The Portuguese now began to range more widely in search of the source of the spice trade (see Images of Everyday Life on p. 332). Albuquerque sailed into the harbor of Malacca (muh-LAK-uh) on the Malay Penin- sula, one of the main harbors in the spice trade, and
after a short but bloody battle, the Portuguese seized the city and massacred the local Arab population. From Malacca, the Portuguese launched expeditions farther east, to China and the Spice Islands. There they signed a treaty with a local ruler for the purchase and export of cloves to the European market. The new trading empire was now complete. Within a few years, the Por- tuguese had managed to seize control of the spice trade from Muslim traders and had garnered substantial profits for the Portuguese monarchy. Nevertheless, the Portuguese Empire remained limited, consisting only of trading posts on the coasts of India and China. The Portuguese lacked the power, the population, and the desire to colonize the Asian regions.
Why were the Portuguese so successful? Basically, their success was a matter of guns and seamanship. By the sixteenth century, Portuguese fleets were heavily armed and were able not only to intimidate but also to inflict severe defeats if necessary on local naval and land forces. The Portuguese by no means possessed a
330 Chapter 14 Europe and the World: New Encounters, 1500–1800
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