Indian Slavery?

Well the last statement of my post was that the Portuguese must have been more advanced. Then you said no.

But I get what the post meant now. Still the Indians weren't that ahead in land combat, they just a logistical advantage (distance, home territory, and all).
I said no as in, no, India was not on the level.:)

Army-wise, yeah. Land combat would be more on the level when we talk about the Delhi Sultanate, but the Mughal Empire would be ahead of Europe in terms of army. We're talking about an empire which was planning on taking Hejaz, and probably only backed out because their army would have to take Portuguese boats there.
 
Military tactics, and techniques in general, are part of technology. Even if the Portuguese and Indian states had the same materials and equipment, they must have had better naval techniques and tradition. Otherwise, Vasco da Gama, João da Nova, and Francisco and Lourenço de Almeida must have literally been gods on Earth to win naval battles outnumbered, depending on the battle, from 40 to 1 to 80 to 1.

Specifically, in this case- bigger oceangoing ships vs the smaller Indian dhows and coastal craft. Indians IIRC didn't mount cannon on ships either.

In this case it was purely that the Portuguese did have much better naval technology optimised for combat.
 
Specifically, in this case- bigger oceangoing ships vs the smaller Indian dhows and coastal craft. Indians IIRC didn't mount cannon on ships either.

In this case it was purely that the Portuguese did have much better naval technology optimised for combat.
Yes, I actually read up on those, just now, and it seems to be the case.
 
Fair enough- as you say, like the very convenient clear-cut Brahmin-Kshatriya-Vaisya-Shudra caste system, that never really existed as neatly as it's supposed to have.
Never did. But it's something I'll try to explore in Cardamom Dreams. At least in Mysore.
 
But I get what the post meant now. Still the Indians weren't that ahead in land combat, they just a logistical advantage (distance, home territory, and all).

Not really- the larger Indian states at this time (15th C) had armies that would have been on par with Europe- Da Gama was fighting in Goa and Kerala which at the time were in turmoil with no powerful centralised rulers. It's notable that in Kerala a century or so later once the Maharajas of Travanacore had managed to exert their influence on the squabbling local chieftains, they did fight and defeat the Portuguese and Dutch.

It was only towards the latter half of the 18th century that European military technology pulled ahead- and even there the important factor was doctrine rather than simple technology.
 
The fact is that the Portuguese had few chances to face large and strong rulers like the Mughals. Their battles were mainly against small local rulers on the west coast like the Zamorin of Calicut or even lesser kings. Their naval vessels mainly consisted of small boats similar to the small fishing boats which could carry less than a dozen people. They were no match for large and well equipped Portuguese ships. The Portuguese had only one small brush against the Mughal Forces, during the reign of ShahJahan. They had a fort in Bengal when they earned the displeasure of ShahJahan. The emperor ordered his Governor to throw them out and the Portuguese had to surrender meekly. The Portuguese were on friendly terms with Vijayanagar Empire which was powerful in the South at the time of their arrival in India.
 

yourworstnightmare

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Well, India had slavery, but as other said not at the scale it could be compared to African slavery. So on one hand the Italians shouldn't have problems buying slaves in India, the problem is buying slaves in a sufficient number for their needs.

What are their needs btw? If it's just labor on plantations, they doesn't necessary need slaves, just forced laborers.
 
Well, India had slavery, but as other said not at the scale it could be compared to African slavery. So on one hand the Italians shouldn't have problems buying slaves in India, the problem is buying slaves in a sufficient number for their needs.

What are their needs btw? If it's just labor on plantations, they doesn't necessary need slaves, just forced laborers.

Slavery in India wasn't chattel slavery- slaves were prestige possessions, ironically especially African slaves.

Again the issue is getting these labourers out of India. Given the power balance in the 15th century the Venetians/Portuguese can't just march in and round up enough people to fill a hold. Again you're dealing with relatively centralised states where the nobility would much rather have their serfs for their own labour.
 

ingemann

Banned
Slavery in India wasn't chattel slavery- slaves were prestige possessions, ironically especially African slaves.

It was similar in Europe itself, a black slave was a prestigeous item showing the wealth of his (they were mostly men) master and they was threated as a favorite servant.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Slavery in India wasn't chattel slavery- slaves were prestige possessions, ironically especially African slaves.

Again the issue is getting these labourers out of India. Given the power balance in the 15th century the Venetians/Portuguese can't just march in and round up enough people to fill a hold. Again you're dealing with relatively centralised states where the nobility would much rather have their serfs for their own labour.
Where do they need the slaves? In Europe they certainly wouldn't need that many. Just a few for the rich households. And Venice got enough slaves for that from their Mediterranean trade connections already.
 
I was jsut asking if this actually made any logical sense once so ever. In the mapTL I made Venice's/Italy's main colonial areas in North America, India and Indonesia
 
Well the last statement of my post was that the Portuguese must have been more advanced. Then you said no.

But I get what the post meant now. Still the Indians weren't that ahead in land combat, they just a logistical advantage (distance, home territory, and all).

My one professor that touched on this subject in college (can't even remember which it was) was adamant that the main reason why Indians weren't used en masse for slave labor in the western hemisphere was simply because it wasn't economical to import them from India to the Americans. Given that most African slaves came from the Atlantic coast of West Africa and not the Indian coast of East Africa, I'm inclined to think he had a point.
 
My one professor that touched on this subject in college (can't even remember which it was) was adamant that the main reason why Indians weren't used en masse for slave labor in the western hemisphere was simply because it wasn't economical to import them from India to the Americans. Given that most African slaves came from the Atlantic coast of West Africa and not the Indian coast of East Africa, I'm inclined to think he had a point.

And why was he so adamant about that? Again theres the point that the Indian ruling elite does not just want to sell their menial labor force for a quick buck.
 
And why was he so adamant about that? Again theres the point that the Indian ruling elite does not just want to sell their menial labor force for a quick buck.

Damned if I remember, though I do think he discussed how Indian labor was much more common in the Indian ocean rim colonies.

I'm not aware of any acute labor shortage in contemporary India, so one would think that they had enough unfortunate poor people to go around.
 
I was jsut asking if this actually made any logical sense once so ever. In the mapTL I made Venice's/Italy's main colonial areas in North America, India and Indonesia

Yes, we answered- no India doesn't make sense as a source of mass slave labour on the West African scale. Everything else was just the reasons why.
 
Where do they need the slaves? In Europe they certainly wouldn't need that many. Just a few for the rich households. And Venice got enough slaves for that from their Mediterranean trade connections already.

The OP posited a scenario where European powers engage in slaving in India on the same scale as west african slavery
 
Damned if I remember, though I do think he discussed how Indian labor was much more common in the Indian ocean rim colonies.

I'm not aware of any acute labor shortage in contemporary India, so one would think that they had enough unfortunate poor people to go around.

But there are societal and structural reasons why Indian rulers aren't going to be selling their people. First of all, as I said, the people aren't theirs to sell, unlike West African POWs. Secondly, given the jati (caste) based structure of the Indian economy, its not as if labour is necessarily easily replaced. If you round up and sell your untouchables (to grossly simplify the issue) you've just lost all your leatherworkers and rubbish disposers because nobody else is going to do these jobs
 
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