How Portugal Forged an Empire in Asia
As with any historical development, there are multiple reasons for Portuguese dominance at the beginning of the Age of Discovery, but one stands out: military power, predicated upon superior Portuguese naval gunnery, shipbuilding (e.g., the caravel, a light sailing ship that could sail windward), and seamanship paired with a ruthless fighting style, centered around the fidalgos’ honor code, which was infused by a deep-seated hatred of Muslims, and an “unbending ethic of retribution and punitive revenge,” according to Crowley. As the historian J.H. Elliot notes: “The history of the Portuguese intrusion into the Indian Ocean is an epic of ruthless savagery.” In the bloody annals of the European conquest of Asia, Portuguese barbarity stands out. Indeed, it apparently was an essential component of the Portuguese’s strategy to subdue the local populations. “This use of terror will bring great things to your obedience without the need to conquer them,” Afonso de Albuquerque, chief strategic mastermind behind the Portuguese expansion into Asia and intermittently known as “the Terrible” or “the Great,” wrote to the King of Portugal in 1510 after the sacking of the Indian city of Goa. “I haven’t left a single grave stone or Islamic structure standing,” he boldly claimed. In another letter to the king, he wrote: “I tell you, sire, the one thing that’s most essential in India: if you want to be loved and feared here, you must take full revenge.”