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Following Vasco da Gama’s expedition in 1498, the Portuguese had become the first to connect Europe to India by sea in hundreds of years - a connection which would be extremely profitable, with the first cargo brought back by da Gama being worth sixty times that of the cost of his expedition. However, the entry of the Portuguese into this heretofore closed market garnered a mixed reception at best. Beginning with the awkward and confused meeting with the Zamorin of Calicut (da Gama believed the Hindus were a deviant Christian sect, for example) - who was unimpressed with da Gama’s meagre gifts and eventually resolved to eject the Portuguese at the behest of his realm’s sizeable Muslim merchant community - the Portuguese newcomers made a chain of poorly thought-out decisions in the region that would hamper their eventual efforts for years to come. The pan-Islamic, anti-Christian conspiracy that the Portuguese were convinced was real when they arrived in India was more or less unfounded, but the Portuguese succeeded in making it real - somewhat inadvertently - through sheer aggression. After the subjugation of Calicut, the siege of Goa, and the other far-ranging campaigns of the incredibly talented but diplomatically coarse Afonso de Albuquerque, the entire Islamic world east of Ormus had practically united against the Portuguese menace and served to sour their reputation in the region almost irreparably.


For the first 15 years of the 16th century, there were roughly only 4,000 Portuguese subjects east of the Cabo de Boa Esperança that the Crown could claim - virtually all of which were male and veterans of the plenitude of African conflicts Portugal involved itself in (which thereby gave them an elemental hatred of Islam). The Portuguese presence in India and the Orient was thus not only insufficient numerically, but was also one dominated by rowdy, well-armed men who were difficult to control and keep track of. What contributed to rapid success of the Portuguese in India and the Orient, then, was their martial attitude. The Portuguese conquests in the East carried with them - and were largely owed to - innumerable tales of near-superhuman boldness and resolve. While almost always outnumbered and often out-armed, the Portuguese beat back wave upon wave of able-bodied warriors from the Swahili to Malabar to Javan coasts through arduous displays of unmitigated physical courage, master class intimidation tactics, and foolhardy stubbornness. The Portuguese were also assisted in their endeavors by their almost excessive predilection for armament - the average Portuguese caravela often carried three spears and one sword per man. Likewise, while gunpowder had been slow to arrive to the Iberian peninsula, the Iberian kingdoms took to it with remarkable keenness, and Portuguese ships were made sure to be bristling with bronze cannons (which were comparable nimble for the time). The Portuguese burst into the Indian Ocean and beyond with alarming alacrity and readiness for combat, both of which - combined with their unmatched aptitude for the art of navigation - rendered the most trafficked seas east of the Cabo their mare clausum within a matter of years after their arrival.

The conquests of “o grande e terrível” Afonso de Albuquerque or his comrade Francisco de Almeida were not primarily detrimental, however. For instance, Almeida’s defeat of the Zamorin of Calicut gave Portugal free reign in all of the major Malabari ports and also forced the Zamorin to swear fealty to the Portuguese crown. Similarly, Albuquerque’s capture of Ormus and Muscat in 1507 and of Goa in 1510 earned the ire of the Persians and the upstart Adil Shah (called Hidalcão by the Portuguese) of the Bijapur Sultanate, but also gave the Portuguese an invaluable plug into the heart of India, succeeded in convincing Persia to consider a more cooperative relationship with Spain in the long run, and also cornered the valuable Persian horse trade - which put Portuguese Goa in a position to affect at will the outcome of the myriad conflicts between the neighboring Bijapur Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire (the latter of which was almost always favored). Vasco da Gama and his sons Francisco, Estêvão and Cristóvão also did their part, becoming Viceroys, participating in the founding of a feitoria in Masulipatão in 1518, leading the capture of Aden in 1520, and in undertaking virtually independent campaigns against the kingdoms of Jaffna and Gujarat. The da Gamas also played a fundamental role in the early linkage of the Portuguese empire. For instance, Estêvão maintained a stately house and plantation in Zanzibar, while his older brother Francisco married a Malayalam noblewoman and owned plantations on the isle of Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea, and his younger brother Cristóvão served as Duarte Pacheco Pereira’s lieutenant in Malaca while also maintaining a home and ranch in Sulafrica and leading campaigns to assist the Ethiopians against the Adal Sultanate. In 15 years, the Portuguese had not only stringed together an unprecedentedly vast network of global trade, but also become kingmakers and commerce-controllers in some of the oldest, richest, and most populous kingdoms on Earth.


Nonetheless, the negative effects of the gunboat diplomacy embodied by Albuquerque and his compatriots would take decades - and, in some cases, centuries - to remedy. During the first half of the 16th century, the Portuguese took little interest in an active evangelization of the peoples of the Indian subcontinent or in permanent settlement of their new possessions, and it would not be until the early 17th century that the Portuguese in India would begin to make headway in converting the Indians or in establishing a self-sufficient colonial community of crioulos and Luso-Indians (later known as castiços). This process would be made much easier by the establishment of a highly autonomous “Estado da Índia” - a polity based in Goa and governed by a viceroy and kept in check every three years by the council of the Casa da Índia in Lisbon (which was formally separated from the “Casa da Índia e da Guiné” in 1506 and functioned as a counterpart to the Castilian Casa de Contratación).

The enormity of the task of establishing comprehensive Portuguese rule in such a distant and often hostile region as India necessitated a centralized authority which would carry with it the full weight of royal authority so as to allow for quick and informed decision-making. While the purpose of the Estado da Índia was to centralize and focus Portuguese efforts in India, a compromise had to be made to satisfy the willful Afonso de Albuquerque, who was granted Goa, Diu, Chaul, Baçaim in India and Muscat and Ormus in the Persian Gulf as his governorate (along with Goa as a ducal title), while the first viceroy Francisco de Almeida received Cochim, Coulão, Calicut, Cannanore, Mangalore, Negapatam, Meliapore, Paliacate, and the Laquedivas - with Pedro Álvares Cabral established as Almeida’s subordinate as the first captain general of Portuguese possessions in Ceylon (Ceilão) in 1517. Only the hereditary, honorific title of “Duque de Goa” would be passed to Albuquerque’s son Brás upon the former’s death in 1517, with the rest returning to the administration of the viceroy.