Harsh exploitation: global capitalism's initial steps

Review of Conquerors: How Portugal Forged The First Global Empire by Roger Crowley

The Renaissance marks the first big step toward western ascendance. New technologies – in war and transport as well as the transmission of knowledge – combined with audacious, state-sponsored explorers (or quasi-pirates) to create the first truly global economy. This book is about how this process began, less from a cultural point of view than from a military one: Portugal found new paths to Asia's riches and was able to impose its will in the Indian Ocean by brute force, in the process destroying the open trading system that medieval Islamic merchants and kingdoms had dominated for centuries. The Portuguese succeeded in doing so even though it was a poor kingdom of only a million, a bit player in the west.

King João II was interested in exploring down the west coast of Africa. According to Crowley, his motives were mixed, ranging from a crusade against Islam to finding a way to erase Mamluk Egypt (and its partner, Venice) from the spice trade with India. After rejecting the plans of Christofo Columbo, who then pedaled his ideas in Spain, João selected Bartholomeu Dias as his champion. He went farther south than any European had done, bringing back slaves and "clues" in the search to find the mythical Christian king somewhere in Africa, Prester John, who was supposed to help them destroy Islam (as well as have untold riches in gold). João was intrigued and provided ample funding, enabling him to become the first European to round the southern cape of Africa, which he mysteriously accomplished by heading west first in order to counter the contrary northerly coastal winds that had hindered earlier attempts.

João's successor, the maniacally ambitious Manuel III, tapped the ferocious Vasco da Gama to lead the next expedition, this time to India. Manuel had many remarkable qualities. Having reviewed the navigational knowledge that was accumulating – much of which flatly contradicted medieval beliefs held since Ptolemy’s works – he commissioned the carrack, a larger ship that was better suited for ocean travel and equipped with the latest cannons (a decisive military advantage). He pursued this course in the face of serious aristocratic opposition, which preferred the easier pickings of plunder in North Africa. Manuel's ships were staffed by knights, military and religious men, and navigational specialists, rendering the voyage as much one of exploration as military.

Over the next 2 years, Gama made his way to India, acquired boats full of spices and established relations with a number of principalities along the western coast. (At the time, he thought Hindus represented an “errant” Christian sect, though was puzzled by the multiple arms on the deities portrayed in their “churches”.) He had proven that massive profits could be made. The savagery of his methods – at one point he burned up an entire ship of pilgrim families returning from Mecca, killing everyone – set the pattern for early Portuguese empire building: refuse to negotiate, trust no one, take what you want by force, annihilate anyone who resists in the most brutal and humiliating manner possible. Only later did the Portuguese set up permanent fortifications, playing one petty kingdom against another in a combination of military action and diplomatic bluff.

Gama fell from favor after his second trip to India: the ever-distrustful Manuel, a creature of the court, was quick to jettison uncooperative or independent men no matter how talented. His successors were equally ruthless, in particular Alfonso de Albuquerque. The narrative then shifts from exploration to endless military engagements and finally, administration. Though they had superior fire power, the Portuguese were sometimes self-defeating in that their knights held to the medieval code of individual heroism in battle for the sake of glory, undermining Albuquerque's efforts to instill more modern forms of military strategy.

Though Albuquerque's ambition to conquer all the Islamic powers around the Red Sea stalled at the battle of Aden, he successfully established a permanent colony in Goa and vanquished many potential threats to Portuguese domination of the Indian Ocean. To his credit, according to Crowley, Albuquerque was a reasonably just administrator, who cultivated the allegiance of the locals; this was also an economic calculation - it was hard to randomly abscond with those they could find, particularly when they learned to fight back. The Portuguese had surmounted incredible odds to become a great world power in a single generation.

With their Goa base, global action moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Soon, European competitors established colonies, creating a vast trading system that led eventually industrialization and used modern scientific methods. What Crowley never lets the reader forget is the cost of all this development and its dependence on colonial spoils. I wonder about how things might have evolved if this order, which is only now beginning to dissolve, hadn't been imposed.

Crowley's book is a narrative of popular history that reads at a riveting pace. It is very fun, yet critical, and elegantly written. I did find it a bit short on analysis, i.e. I would have liked better explanations of what it all meant and more on current academic controversies. For example, Crowley views Africa principally as something to get around when others have argued that gold and slaves were far more important to Portugal’s empire than spice-trading networks. Very interesting characters also have a way of simply vanishing, which disconcerts once one becomes accustomed to their presence. Given the quality of the work, these are minor criticisms. It’s a good read.