Historical background

For the Europeans of the 15th Century there lay beyond the "Eastern Darkness" the land of abundance, rich in the black gold and other spices: the land of the legendary prester John and of the three wise kings of the East, a land to which they yearned to have access by sea. This yearning was fulfilled when, on May 27, 1498 Vasco da Gama set foot on Indian soil, on the sands of Kappattu near Calicut (Kozhikode)

Spices had for long been precious in Europe. When the Visigoth ruler Alaric I invaded Rome in 410 A. D., he asked for a ransom of 3000 pounds of pepper to spare the city. Several Europeans visited India in the 15th Century one of them was Pero da Covilha sent out by the Portuguese King Dom João II in 1487 to investigate the conditions in the Indian Ocean. He visited Cannanore, Calicut, Goa, Hormuz and also East African ports as far south as Sofala. His account of the East provided much needed information to Vasco da Gama to plan his historic voyage.

At the time, the Arabs from the Oman Coast were the main suppliers of spices to Europe. They never revealed their source and even spread stories of great birds protecting these spices in their nests in the remote mountains of Arabia and Ethiopia. The indigenous muslim traders in partnership with the pardesi (foreign) muslims controlled the spice trade at Calicut. The sea route from Kerala in the days before Carreira da India (the India Track i.e the Cape Route) was laborious and expensive as it had to pass through ports and toll points at Hormuz, Jeddah, Cairo, Alexandria and Venice. The intention of the Portuguese endeavour was precisely against this Moor - Egyptian and Venetian network.

Vasco da Gama was not happy with reception he got in Calicut as pressure from the Arab merchants forced the Samutiri of Calicut to act hostile. The Arabian traders did not want any of the European powers to enter directly into the spice trade which was exactly the intention of the Portuguese. The Egyptian rulers who benefited from the Spice trade to the West even tried to pressure the Portuguese through the Pope himself. Pedro Alvarez de Gouveia, later known as Cabral was the first Portuguese to reach Kochi on December 24, 1500. He had discovered Brazil the same year. Soon the Portuguese were able to find a foothold in Kerala through alliances and diplomacy. The second voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1501/1502 was significant in this regard. The Portuguese rule in Kerala lasted till 1663, after which the Dutch & the British took over. Kochi was their first capital in Asia, which also was the first western style city raised on Indian soil. The capital of the Portuguese Empire in the East was transferred to Goa conquered in 1510 by Afonso de Alburquerque (1453-1515) - from Kochi in 1530. The Portuguese reached Bengal in 1509, when Diogo Lopes de Sequeira sailed into Bay of Bengal. Not long after, around 1517, Portuguese merchants opened trade between Bengal and China.