|
The 4th Portuguese India Armada was assembled in 1502 on the order of King Manuel I of Portugal and placed under the command of D. Vasco da Gama. It was Gama's second trip to India. The fourth of some thirteen Portuguese India Armadas, it was designed as a punitive expedition, targeting Calicut, to avenge the travails of the 2nd Armada and the massacre of the Portuguese factory in 1500. Along the way, in East Africa, the 4th Armada established a Portuguese factory in Mozambique, made contact and opened trade with the gold entrepot of Sofala and extorted tribute from Kilwa. Once in India, the armada set about attacking Calicut shipping and disrupting trade along much of the Malabar Coast. But the ruling Zamorin of Calicut refused to accede to Portuguese demands, arguing that the violent exactions of the armada exceeded any claims they might have for compensation. The 4th Armada left without bringing the Zamorin to terms and leaving matters unresolved. Before departing, the armada established a crown factory in Cannanore and left behind a small patrol under Vicente Sodré, the first permanent Portuguese fleet in the Indian Ocean. ==Appointment of Gama== The Second India Armada, commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral, had arrived in Portugal in the summer of 1501 in a terrible shape. Ship and human losses were tremendous, its mission objectives failed. They had failed to establish a factory in Sofala, the outlet of the Monomatapa gold trade in East Africa, and, more worrisomely, opened hostilities with the city-state of Calicut (''Calecute'', Kozhikode), the principal commercial entrepôt of the Kerala spice trade and dominant city-state on the Malabar coast of India. By the time this news was received, the 3rd India Armada under João da Nova had already departed, a commercial expedition unequipped to deal with the hostile turn of events in the Indian Ocean. As a result, King Manuel I of Portugal ordered a new fleet to be assembled, the 4th India Armada, armed to the teeth, with the explicit objective of bringing Calicut to heel.〔Chroniclers are generally unanimous about the avenging nature of the expedition, e.g. Castanheda, p.130〕 The command of the 4th Armada was offered to Pedro Álvares Cabral. But various factions in the Portuguese court and the Casa da India, opposed Cabral's appointment, on the grounds that it was Cabral's 'incompetence' that had created this unhappy situation to begin with. However, Cabral had his own political supporters 〔Subrahmanyam (1997: p.177) notes that Cabral was a knight of Manuel's Order of Christ, while Vasco da Gama was a knight of the Order of Santiago. It is tempting to cast the Gama-Cabral quarrel to be one between the rival orders, i.e. that Cabral was the 'candidate' of Order of Christ, Gama of Santiago. That may have a kernel of truth as far as explaining Cabral's appointment to the 2nd Armada. But for the 4th Armada, the principal opposition to Cabral's new appointment actually came from Gama's uncle, Vicente Sodré, a leading figure of the Order of Christ, ''alcaide'' of their spiritual home, the citadel of Tomar.〕 that could not be ignored. The king tried to compromise by offering Cabral the position of captain-major (''capitão-mor''), but letting it be clearly understood that his command of the fleet would not be absolute, that at least one squadron would be placed under the separate command of Vicente Sodré (an uncle of Vasco da Gama, and leading opponent of Cabral). Finding this condition an unacceptable affront, Cabral withdrew his name in a huff.〔Subrahmanyam (1997: p.191).〕 Manuel I immediately appointed Vasco da Gama himself as captain-major. The intrigues behind the appointment have been variously told. By some accounts, the initial offer to Cabral was a ''pro forma'' gesture to palliate his faction rather than an earnest offer.〔 In other words, the king never had any intention of letting Cabral lead the expedition, that the onerous conditions were introduced knowing Cabral would find them unacceptable.〔Barros (p.22): "como elle era homem de muitos primores ácerca de pontos de honra" ('because he was a man very particular about points of honor' ).〕 That these conditions were only revealed at the last minute, just before the fleet's departure, lends credence to the theory, i.e. the monarch did not want to give Cabral time to reconsider or allow opposition to mount against Gama's rapid appointment. Chronicler Gaspar Correia tells a slightly different story - he does not mention Sodré's command, but rather relates how King Manuel I summoned Vasco da Gama a mere three days before the scheduled departure date and expressed his "disappointment and mistrust" of Cabral's "dubious fortune" at sea.,〔"El Rey tinha desgosto e disconfianca da duvidosa fortuna de Pedralvarez Cabral" (Correia, p.267) Interjecting, the queen 'helpfully' pointed out that such ill-fortune did not seem to afflict Vasco da Gama.〕 but that he had made a promise to Cabral and could not break it. On this hint, Gama produced a royal letter (issued by Manuel back in 1500, and reiterated in October 1501), promising Gama a determining role in any future India expedition, and demanded command of the expedition for himself.〔According to Correia (p.267-8), Gama felt the destruction of the Calicut factory was ultimately his fault, because, on his first expedition in 1497-99, he had allowed the Zamorin's offenses to go unpunished, which only encouraged him to do even greater injury to Cabral. Thus, the punishment of the Zamorin should be his (Gama's) responsibility.〕 The king was caught between two commitments - honoring the letter to Gama, or his appointment to Cabral. Hearing of the king's quandary, Cabral voluntarily withdrew his name to graciously allow Manuel I to honor his letter.〔Correia (p.268); Subrahmanyam (1997: p.191)〕 The 16th-century chroniclers seem to agree that King Manuel I wanted to deprive Cabral of command, and that the Sodré appointment and/or the Gama letter was just a ploy by the king to wiggle out of appointing Cabral.〔Correia is clear that Manuel I hoped Gama would invoke the letter, "ElRey dissimulou o muyto prazer do seu coracao" (Correia, p.267). Castanheda (p.130) states only that Cabral was deprived of command "por algũs justos respeitos" ('for some just reasons').〕 But some later authors have interpreted the accounts differently, that King Manuel I was wholly behind Cabral, but was forced to yield to the unsavory machinations of the Gama-Sodré family.〔e.g. Sanches de Baena (1897: p.46ff)〕 Just before his departure, in a solemn ceremony at the Lisbon Cathedral on January 30, 1502, King Manuel I bestowed upon Vasco da Gama the newly created title of ''Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente'' ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") - an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus. (Evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Seas' running around, then surely Portugal should have one too.) 〔Barros, p.24〕 On a side note, this was the first India armada for which the ''vintena de Belém'' was introduced - that is, the 5% tax on profits of private trading by captains and officers of Portuguese India Armadas, earmarked for the construction and maintenance of the Jerónimos Monastery in the Belém district of Lisbon.〔Correia, p.270〕 The ''vintena'' would continue until 1522. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「4th Portuguese India Armada (Gama, 1502)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|