How the lure of pepper led Vasco da Gama to Calicut
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It was an epic journey, replete with blood-curdling dangers, which ended with a bit of an anti-climax. In May 1498, the weary Portuguese, led by their enterprising captain Vasco da Gama, reached Malabar, expecting a warm welcome and a monopoly on its pepper. They received instead, a nonchalant reception bordering on irritation. After all, the Portuguese were far from the first to be drawn by the region’s riches. They were only following the footsteps of Arab traders who had established commercial ties in Malabar, well before them.
There was no dearth of visitors. The fourteenth-century Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta had come and gone. So had other travellers such as the Persian-Timurid chronicler Kamal-ud-din Abdur Razzaq; the Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin; the Venetian trader Niccolò de' Conti; the Portuguese adventurer Pêro da Covilhã; and the Genoese merchant Hieronimo di Santo Stefano. But their expeditions did not invite much fanfare. By then, Calicut had become a second home to the many foreigners who regularly visited the bustling entrepot.
The port was frequented by awe-inspiring Chinese treasure ships—the mammoth wooden vessels that Zheng He, the Ming dynasty admiral, captained during the early fifteenth century. Spices and silk, ceramics and ingots, precious stones and coconuts jostled for space amid the bazaars that dotted the port. People from different regions, attired in garments distinct to their homelands, fraternised with each other as well as with the residents of Calicut. A babble of Arabic, Turkish, Chinese and local languages rose through the streets. Nair sentries marched around to keep order, armed with swords and licensed to kill. The summer of 1497 had been good to Malabar. A brisk monsoon was expected to follow.
Out West, the winds of change were swirling through Europe. The dank mists of the Middle Ages were drifting away to reveal a dawn marked by the Renaissance. Explorers were ready to embark further east, searching for routes to the fabled lands of India, home to all kinds of treasures. The most elusive and desirable of these was the humble peppercorn.
The Zamorins of Calicut
In the Malabar region, the thirteenth century marked a time of upheaval. Changing political equations between Persian and Yemeni traders as well as the silting of natural harbours along previously popular ports such as Quilon and Muziris —resulted in trade shifting northwards.
By this time, the Zamorins—as the rulers of Malabar region were called—had made Calicut their capital. Once the first Zamorin assumed authority and established himself as the principal suzerain of the region, he became known as the Swami Thirumalpad, which roughly translates to lord or emperor. This was shortened, among other titles, to Samoothiripad or Samoothiri, which were anglicised in turn to “Zamorin”. Under the Zamorins, Calicut was transforming into a busy port; traders streamed in, and business was robust.
Successive Zamorins strategically expanded their empire through the capture of inland regions. From these areas, they drew soldiers for their military endeavours and also varied produce, primarily rice, which was given to soldiers as compensation. When the Zamorin was not fighting wars, he split his time between his palaces in Calicut and Ponnani—another trading port south of Calicut, often referred to as the rulers’ military capital.
As Calicut’s trading importance grew, it witnessed the arrival of large numbers of Arab merchants. They cast their lot with the new and powerful chiefs. Since some of them had firearm experience, they aided the Zamorins in their conquests. Most of them set up bases in Calicut and Ponnani, from where they expanded their business with Arabia and beyond.
Built according to a concentric square plan, Calicut accommodated foreigners away from the main city. The enclaves in which they lived were situated to the southwest of the main fort palace. This area was soon home to Arabs, Jews, Turks, and Chinese traders.
Calicut: At the ocean’s crossroads
By the fifteenth century, Calicut had established itself as the premier Malabar port. It became the entrepot for the westbound spice trade. The city’s commercial enterprise extended to Chinese markets along with ports in modern-day Cambodia and Indonesia.
Within Calicut, trading communities comprised the pardesi (foreigner) Arabs and some local Mappilas—Muslims from Kerala’s Malabar region. The latter tended to handle inland trade. The pardesi community included diverse peoples: Yemenis, Hanafi Arabs, Egyptians, and Turks among others. The Yemenis and Hanafis, who settled in and around Calicut, were the largest of these groups. Their descendants formed part of the local Mappila community.
All kinds of products made their way to this transshipment port from faraway lands. Silk and ceramics arrived from China; cloves from the Maluku Islands, and cinnamon from Ceylon. Meanwhile, pepper, ginger, and turmeric were ferried from the Malabar hinterland. Also available for trade were precious gemstones such as pearls, along with more sturdy commodities that included iron.
Supply caravans and ships either disgorged their wares at the port or transferred their contents to smaller boats so that they could be taken to roadsteads. Eager traders queued up, ready to bargain for the cargo they desired. Once they had acquired and stowed away their purchases, these merchants prepared for a wait that could stretch across a few months. They bided their time till the weather cleared up and monsoon winds blew the other way. Only then could their ships sail back to where they came from.
The lure of pepper
Once the season turned, vessels packed with freight sailed out of Calicut, destined for Aden in Yemen and China. Sometimes, they were escorted by armed ships. Until the fifteenth century, when Aden served as the sailing destination in the West, these goods were offloaded there so that they could be sent overland or reshipped to Alexandria in Egypt.
From Alexandria, they continued their journey to Venetian ports. Each new step brought with it a new, compounded cost. By the time the simple peppercorn, cultivated in rain-drenched Malabar, reached its intended destination, it was worth its weight in gold. This is how it earned the moniker “Black Gold”.
While pepper was the most dominant among the spices that drew the Portuguese to the Malabar region, other motivations were in the mix. The European curiosity for these lands was also fuelled by their search for Christians in non-western regions as well as their enduring fascination with Prester John, a mythical priest-king they believed ruled over parts of India.
Then there were the emergent struggles for control between Arab traders and European buyers. By the fifteenth century, trade had moved from Yemeni ports along the Red Sea—the strip of water that separates the Arabian Peninsula and Africa—to other ports, chief among them being Jeddah and Cairo. These were controlled by the Mamluks in Egypt from the Burji dynasty, which presided over the region between 1382 and 1517. Seeking higher profits, the Mamluks drove up pepper prices exponentially. As a result, the Portuguese and Spanish began exploring the possibility of direct trade with Malabar. They wanted to bypass the Venetian-Arab intermediaries.
But first, they had a considerable obstacle to surpass. These Europeans did not know the sea route to Calicut. The Arabs were fiercely secretive about this knowledge. The hunt for this passage became the primary driver for Vasco da Gama’s voyage of discovery.
The Royal Spy
Eight years before da Gama marked his presence in the Malabar region, Pero da Covilha had reached its shores. Until then, the Portuguese did not have access to any first-hand information about Calicut. They had only gleaned bits and pieces of lore from other travellers to the Indian subcontinent and China.
Then in 1486, King John II dispatched the adventurers Covilha and Afonso de Paiva to record the pathways and happenings at various Indian ports, including Malabar. Pavia fell ill en route. He died during his travels in the African continent.
Covilha had been trained in Morocco and Spain. Since he looked and spoke like an Arab, he passed off as a pardesi merchant. Once he arrived in Calicut, Covilha spent many months touring Malabar and Goa, documenting details about the spice trade incognito.
In 1493, Covilha returned to Ethiopia to settle down, but only after he had sent his king an exhaustive report. He believed that if Portuguese mariners circumnavigated the southern tip of the African continent, they would reach Calicut from Sofala in Mozambique or Malindi in Kenya, which would allow them to take possession of the spice trade.
This was the strategy that the Portugal monarchy decided to execute after it had contemplated the possibility of a long-distance voyage to Calicut.
Covilha’s findings were supported by the Portuguese mariner Bartolomeu Dias—who, in 1488, led the first-ever European expedition to circumvent the Cape of Good Hope, demonstrating that it was indeed possible to reach India by sailing around Africa. In 1493, the Italian navigator Christophor Columbus invariably clinched the argument when he discovered new lands across the Atlantic Ocean during voyages sponsored by the Spanish royalty. If Spain could find a fortune overseas, then Portugal would too.
The Papal bull of May 1493—essentially a decree issued by the pope—known as the Inter Caetera, favoured Spanish control over newly discovered lands. But the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed between the Spanish and Portuguese governments in 1494, provided some relief to the latter. The two powers effectively split the lands that they were to colonise.
In 1495, after Dom Manuel I succeeded John II as the king of Portugal, he put his weight behind a voyage to India. Preparations began in earnest. Trees from the royal estate were felled and the finest shipmasters of the region built two new Naus—as the three-or-four-masted vessels intended for sail in the ocean were called—under the supervision of Bartolomeu Dias.
The Myth of Prester John
The legend of Prester John was an undeniable catalyst for these endeavours. As da Gama was to admit to the Zamorin when they met eventually, he had been tasked with discovering the Christians of the East.
The Europeans believed that a powerful Christian kingdom existed somewhere in India and that Prester John presided over it. It later became evident that this lore was the result of an elaborate hoax, which could be traced in large part to a letter from 1165. This document, which was purportedly sent by Prester John to the-then Byzantine Emperor, described his grand kingdom in great detail. It made promises of support for crusades in Europe. It was subsequently determined to be a forgery.
Hoping to forge a trading charter in religious companionship, da Gama looked forward to meeting Prester John when he arrived in India. This was probably why, upon arriving at Calicut, he was initially convinced that he was among Christians.
The Captain Major— Vasco da Gama
As the man who captained the first Portuguese voyage to the East, much has been written about da Gama: praising him, ridiculing him, and lauding him for his sheer tenacity. After all, sailing the “great green sea of darkness”—as the Sea of Shadmus, the unknown waters beyond the Mediterranean were known—to harness and tackle the fearsome ‘mausim’, or seasonal winds, and traverse the Arabian Sea, called Bahr al-Arab, to reach India, was not for the faint-hearted.
Why was da Gama chosen, some may ask. To begin with, he came from the Order of Santiago, a military and religious order that was aligned to Dom Manuel I. Da Gama possessed a fine physique and was well versed in warfare. Before he undertook the voyage to India, he had been a sailor for quite a while. He had fought wars in the Mediterranean, and seemed to have acquired important nautical skills during this time. Perhaps his ruthless nature worked in his favour too. As Dias and Columbus could both attest, mutinies were common on long-distance voyages. Crucially, da Gama posed no threat to Manuel’s political future. He was simply not senior enough.
And so, da Gama sailed from Lisbon on 8 July 1497, captaining a fleet of four vessels. Two among these were medium-sized three-masted sailing ships or Naus—named São Gabriel and São Rafael— with a displacement of roughly 120 tonnes each. These sturdy, custom-built vessels were reinforced to reduce rolling and pitching as well as sealed with tallow and pitch to protect against damage from barnacles and ocean borers. The third, called Berrio, was a fifty-tonne caravel, a lighter sailing ship; and the fourth, a 200-tonne storeship.
Da Gama’s fleet crew, which included Arabic translators, comprised around 170 men in total—seventy among them were aboard the flagship Sao Gabriel. The vessels were equipped with nautical instruments such as a compass, then referred to as the genoisca or Genoese needle, compass cards, astrolabes and quadrants for navigation, and hourglasses to keep time. The ship was also ferrying stone padraoes or stone monuments with the royal crest, which were to be erected at key locations to signal the arrival of the Portuguese.
The voyage until Malindi
From Lisbon, the ships sailed to Santiago, the largest island in the West African archipelago of Cape Verde, which they reached on 26 July. They remained there until 3 August. The vessels then took a long detour to avoid adverse currents. On 7 November, they reached a bay in South Africa which they named Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine and a Roman empress who is believed to have discovered the cross upon which Christ was crucified.
On account of unfavourable weather, circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope proved to be a daunting prospect for the next fifteen days, until 22 November. Three days later, they reached what is now known as Mossel Bay, and the first padrao was erected there, after which the storeship was broken up and scuttled. More adventures ensued. By 25 January, the ships reached Mozambique.
The trip was beginning to exact its toll. As a fleet member noted in his journal, describing the sailors who were beginning to display symptoms of scurvy, “Many of our men took ill here, their feet and hands swelling, and their gums growing so much over their teeth that these men could not eat.” They rested in Mozambique for a month to recuperate and to repair the battered ships. After setting sail again, they reached Mombasa in Kenya on 7 April, and anchored at Malindi or Melinde as it was then known.
Through this time, they also had several violent confrontations with the people from these regions that they encountered. In one instance, da Gama, according to the fleet member, tortured two men by pouring drops of hot oil on their bodies so that they would provide him with details of an attempted attack.
At Malindi, finding a maritime pilot who could navigate the waters ahead was the most important task at hand. The local king proved to be quite amenable. On 22 April, a Gujarati pilot identified as Malemo or Muallim Cana, who knew the route to Calicut, was employed.
The ships sailed out on 24 April and reached Kappad near Calicut around 20 May 1498. (There is some dispute about these dates, but let us go with the timeline that is popularly accepted.)
It does not feel like a stretch to imagine that da Gama may well have felt slighted, mystified, perhaps even fearful, when he saw the pilot use the kamal, as it is known in Arabic, or the rapalagai, as it is known in Tamil and Malayalam. This navigational instrument is constructed with a simple plank of wood and a knotted string. The bottom portion of the plank is usually aligned to the horizon and the top to the North Star, while the person deploying the kamal clenches the string between their teeth. The knots along the cord signify the elevations of stars and, consequently, the latitude of various ports.
Through torrential rains and howling winds, the pilot guided the San Gabriel to Calicut by using this device.
The arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut
The three Portuguese ships, which arrived amid particularly heavy spells of rain brought on by a robust monsoon, looked ominous. They were distinct from the usual Arab dhows or trading vessels that often appeared on the horizons of Calicut.
For the Zamorin and the residents of the port city, as well as the regular Arab traders ensconced within Calicut, the new arrivals marked a departure from the ordinary, and were perhaps not entirely agreeable. But for the captain and the sailors on the ship, this marked a welcome end to their long, difficult and, indeed, pioneering ten-month-long voyage, a feat that would be feted, talked about, and debated for a long time after.
Da Gama, the admiral of the fleet and the captain of Sao Gabriel, was certainly feeling a bit nervous, probably even a bit troubled, for he knew not what to expect. Although his new-found pilot announced that they had reached their destination, da Gama saw nothing that would confirm that he had arrived at the famed city of Calicut which other travellers had thus far talked about in hyperbole.
Da Gama saw neither the palaces nor the forts he was expecting nor tiled houses or streets or throngs of people. Instead, he was at a roadstead, perilously exposed to the screeching gales and incessant downpour, as well as the roaring waves of the sea which crashed on the sandbanks that lined Kappad. All he saw was a beach lined with coconut palms, a far cry from the bustling port of Calicut, about which tomes had been written.
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Meeting the Zamorin
Kappad, where the sailors eventually alighted, was a roadstead, some fifteen kilometres north of Calicut. The Portuguese met a couple of local people onshore, who understood their language. Banter ensued about subjects that ranged from pepper to Christ. When da Gama heard that the Zamorin was away at Ponnani, some eighty kilometres south, he deputed two sailors to meet the ruler and announce the arrival of “an ambassador” from Portugal. A reply arrived soon. The Zamorin would be on his way, and the ships would be docked at the more secure roadstead at Panthalayani Kollam, what with the rough weather. Within a week, the Portuguese visitors had anchored at this port.
By this time, the Zamorin had arrived in Calicut and confirmed an audience. The Portuguese, ill-clothed for the Malabar weather, which was hot and humid, boarded boats to take them through the backwaters and marched onwards to the palace at Calicut by foot.
On the way, they stopped at a temple—which they believed was a church—while a congregation of curious onlookers jostled and observed them. Da Gama met the Zamorin on 28 May, which is when he formally declared friendship on behalf of the European region. The meeting seemed to mark the beginnings of success. But within a day, da Gama faced the mockery of the Zamorin’s associates over the gifts he intended to give the sovereign; they chided him for not presenting any gold. He realised that he would be subjected to ridicule but had no recourse.
On 30 May, da Gama went to the palace again. The Zamorin was now sceptical of the arrogant visitor. He asked the Portuguese what they were really there for, and da Gama handed over the letters from Dom Manuel. By this time, judging by the Zamorin’s probing questions, da Gama had concluded that the Muslims in the court were not his allies and could poison the Zamorin’s ears against him.
The sovereign received the contents of the letter, following which he instructed da Gama to go back to his ships and trade his goods without any special favour. A nervous da Gama fell into a grumpy and foul mood following this turn of events, taking further affront when he was asked to pay customs duty on the goods he had brought, which did not seem to have any buyers. To add insult to injury, the Arab as well as the Mappila traders treated the Portuguese with barely disguised contempt, infuriating da Gama even more.
Days went by but da Gama made no headway in his dialogue with the Zamorin. Matters spiralled and da Gama ended up kidnapping many local residents—it had to do with some Portuguese who did not return to the ship, which led to da Gama fearing that they had been held by the Zamorin.
The explorer eventually left on 29 August, having secured no treaty and taking with him five or six hostages, including the Gujarati pilot. He did manage to convince someone to take the third padrao so that it could be installed at Calicut. Whether or not this was actually done remains unclear. We do have a pillar of sorts at Kappad but it is unlikely that it is the original one.
Estimates tend to vary on when the Portuguese arrived in Kappad, as well as the duration of their stay in Calicut, but on their month of departure there is unanimity. It was in August.
This hasty retreat, made at the wrong time of the year, affected their return voyage adversely. It took the fleet three months to get back to Malindi by 8 January 1499. More sailors died of scurvy. The Sao Rafael had to be burnt since there was hardly anybody left to crew her. Those who remained reached Mozambique on 1 February. On 20 March, the two ships that were left of the original four rounded the Cape in tandem, but they were soon parted by a storm. The Berrio eventually reached the Tagus River in Portugal on 10 July. Da Gama docked at Terceira Island in the Azores archipelago of Portugal, arriving in Lisbon around 18 September. Of the 170 people who had originally departed with him, only 55 returned.
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The threat and the aftermath
The voyage was a milestone in Portuguese maritime exploration. The charting of a direct route to Calicut decisively marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of globalisation. Poems were written, journals were published —though debates on their veracity continue to this day.
The lucrative spice trade, which had until then been conducted by seafaring Arab as well as Jewish traders—who were aligned with Arab interests—was broken. The Portuguese mastered the art of long-distance sailing. A year later Pedro Álvares Cabral, another Portuguese explorer, accidentally discovered Brazil. He also established the first Portuguese factory in the kingdom of Cochin—south of Calicut—where the reigning monarch turned out to be an ally. Soon after, Portuguese settled down at Cochin.
The meagre profits of da Gama’s first voyage and the immensely successful voyages that followed laid the foundations for the eventual colonisation of Goa and its surrounding areas. The Portuguese continued to enforce a monopoly on trade by deploying fleets of warships in attempts to embargo the seas. These attempts brought to the region an era of bloody conflicts and intrigue.
The Zamorin was unfamiliar with the threat from the seas and ill versed in the craft of dishonourable warring. But over time, he stitched together a navy with the support of the Ottoman Turks, the Egyptians, Arabs and the Marakkar community.
Sea wars and land battles were fought with increasing regularity, escalating the cost of Portuguese enterprise even as profit margins plummeted. Estado da India—the Portuguese term referring to the Indian states that were under their control—was fast becoming untenable commercially.. The colonies went into a state of decline.
Well before all that, da Gama’s own fortunes turned. Unable to get Dom Manuel the pepper monopoly he desired, he fell into disfavour with his king for a while. Nevertheless, he returned twice to Malabar. During his third voyage, he fell sick, and passed away in Cochin. He was not without his follies, but da Gama’s place in history will always remain. He was the fearless adventurer who heralded the age of discovery.
Cover Photography By : Nayanika Singhania
