The First Portuguese India Company, 1628-33

Abstract

ETWEEN 1628 and 1633 Portuguese trade and communications with Asia via the Cape of Good Hope were entrusted to a "Company for the Trade 1 This article was written before I had read Dr Chandra Richard de Silva's 'The Portuguese East India Company, 1628-33' in Luro-Brazilian Review, 11 (1974), thanks to which I have since been able to make a number of minor revisions. 2 See Biblioteca da Ajuda, Lisbon (hereinafter Ajuda), codex 50-V-37, fos. 503-13, for the Company's charter. The Company was formally established by decree on 27 Aug. 1628, and commenced business the following October. 3 For the Goa-Lisbon trade in the sixteenth century see Vitorino Magalh5es Godinho, 0 s Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial (Lisbon, x965-8),11, esp. 861 10, and Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making o f EurogG (Chicago, 1965-),I, bkr, ch. 3, and thesourcestherecited. 4 Magalhh Godinho, op. cit. u, 84-6, 93-100. P O R T U G U E S E I N D I A 1 Arquivo Hist6rico Ultramarino, Lisbon (hereinafter AHU), codex 281, fo. 340, governors ofPortugal to Viceroy Matias de Albuquerque, 27 March I 595. 2 For the truce see William Foster, The English Factories in India, 1630-3 (Oxford, rgr I), pp. xxv-xxvii, and 1634-6, pp. vii-viii, 2 I-3,89-99; Diririo do Terceiro Conde de Linhares, Vice Rei da India (Lisbon, 1937-431, PP. 261-70. 3 This event has been exhaustively described and analwed in Niels Steensgaard, Carrucks, Caravans and Companies: The Structural Crisis in the uropean Trade in the Early 17th Century (Odensk, 1973), esp. pp. 193-208,331-58. 4 There are many contemporary references to this crisis. See, for example, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon (hereinafter TT), Livro das Monqaes, Lisbon series (hereinafter LML) 24, fo. 80, viceroy count of Vidigueira to crown, 10 March 1627; Albert Gray and H. C . P. Bell, eds, The Voyage of FranGois Pyrard de Laual to the East Indies, the Maldiues, the Moluccas and Brazil (Hakluyt Society, London, Between about 1600 and 1628 the Goa customs revenues shrank from 68,000 to 37,500 milrdis, a decline of over 40 per cent. See Luiz de Figueiredo FalcHo, Liwo em pue se contdm toda a Fazenda e Real Patrimonio dos Reinos de Portugal, India e Ilhas adjacentes [1607] (Lisbon, 1859), p. 75; Biblioteca Wblica e Arquivo Distrital, lhora (hereinafter gvora), codex CXVI/Z--~, fos. 69-71. In this article all money values have for convenience been converted to milrdis; for the period under discussion one milrdis can be taken as the equivalent of about ten English shillings. 1887-90) 11, Pt I, 210. 1 L. A. Rebello da Silva, Histdria de Portugal nos Sdcuhs XV.IIe XVIII (Lisbon, 1860-71), n, 626; v, 397-4p2. 2 Ajuda, codex 504-37, fa. 506,50g,5inu.8 See F. P. Mendes da Luz, 0 Conselho da fndia (Lisbon, 1952), esp. pp. 2g-39,59-68,81-9,96,104. 4 The power structure i n India is conveniently summarized i n C. R. de Silva, 77u Portuguese in CCyon, ~617-38 (Colombo, I972), pp. 20-1. 6 The idea of forming an India company received support in 1619 from the then viceroy of Portugal, the marquis of Alenquer. See Tito August...