Why did the casa da India fail?

Did it actually fail?

  • Crashed and berned

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Yeah kinda

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • No

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • What are you talking about? I go there for breakfast!

    Votes: 4 36.4%

  • Total voters
    11

Anawrahta

Banned
It was the first european company to trade with India hundred yrs before everyone yet it failed and had several bankruptcies. It was attempted to reform itself into a Portuguese east india company and that failed too. Why did the original casa da india fail whereas the dutch, english and french companies survived and prospered. How can we make it succeed and wank?
 
The British East India Company went bankrupt more than once as well. Their business was expensive and prone to disruptions, I’d guess.
 

Anawrahta

Banned
Personally I think it largely had it do to the fact it was a not a joint-stock company, and it outsourced its administrative expertise to northern europeans. The high risk and general inefficiency led to general mismanagement and bankruptcy.
 
It was the first european company to trade with India hundred yrs before everyone yet it failed and had several bankruptcies. It was attempted to reform itself into a Portuguese east india company and that failed too. Why did the original casa da india fail whereas the dutch, english and french companies survived and prospered. How can we make it succeed and wank?
From what I understand, the Casa da India was not a company in the same way as the East India Company of England and the Netherlands. So it didn't really fail. It was the Portuguese monarchy which failed on that account, and big time, since the king controlled everything.
 
The dutch VOC was also not as succesfull as many think. It's profits gradualy declined during the 18th century. And already at the beginning of that century, the bringing of products to Europe itself was already not profitable anymore. It was only by not being constantly dragged into European wars it avoided total bankruptcy. When in 1780 the Republic came into war with England it immediately went completely wrong and the firm was bankrupt in all but name.
One of the biggest problem was that many officials had their own personal sidetrades and that cut really deep into the profits. I imagine this wasn't very different for the casa da India.
 

Anawrahta

Banned
From what I understand, the Casa da India was not a company in the same way as the East India Company of England and the Netherlands. So it didn't really fail. It was the Portuguese monarchy which failed on that account, and big time, since the king controlled everything.
So it had to do with antiquated administration, mismanagement and corruption by the Portuguese crown?
 

Lusitania

Donor
The last nail in the coffin was the 1755 Lisbon earthquake which destroyed its Lisbon head office.

In addition the Casa da India was a trading company while the Portuguese India territory was controlled by the crown.

Where as both the British east India company and VOC were companies that had trips, land and territories to manage and were not having to share administration with both the crown and church.
 
The last nail in the coffin was the 1755 Lisbon earthquake which destroyed its Lisbon head office.

In addition the Casa da India was a trading company while the Portuguese India territory was controlled by the crown.

Where as both the British east India company and VOC were companies that had trips, land and territories to manage and were not having to share administration with both the crown and church.
That meant large overhead costs for those two. I don't know if that's an advantage.
 

Lusitania

Donor
That meant large overhead costs for those two. I don't know if that's an advantage.
Not really and while casa da India was its equivalents primary purpose was trade the Portuguese crown and Catholic Church were occupied with other matters which was not always good for trade.
 
You can find many reasons why the Portuguese empire (and the Casa da India) failed to live up to their tasks.
Top of mind:
  • Overstretching with Brazil and Morocco
  • Corruption
  • Ottoman attacks
  • First mover disadvantage
  • Partisan politics

First off, let's remember the Portuguese were the first. When the Dutch came, they mostly took over existing Portuguese strongholds, using Portuguese maps and Portuguese phrasebooks.
The Portuguese had to sink all that money in first.

Second, the role of fidalgos. The nobles were trained in the Moroccan area, in a crusade/piracy mindset, with a feodal focus on individual action. They took that to the East Indies which didn't mesh well with building alliances and big networks.

Third, it was often more profitable to do country trade than to bring stuff back to Europe, limiting the Casa's utility.

Fourth, a lot of the mercantile activities were actually handled by merchants in Anvers. So the Casa effectively handles all the risks and a limited share of the profits
 
The Casa da Índia wasn't a company at all. Just a royal agency tasked with regulating Indian trade. It was more like a customs service. Trade itself was conducted by individual merchants and the colonial holdings had their own governments.

In the end, it failed in keeping a large portion of the profits from flowing to northern Europe, which meant that Portugal ended up not making half as much money in India as it should have.

As for the reasons why the Portuguese Empire failed as a whole, I think what Tanc49 said is a pretty good start (though I don't really think Brazil was a source of overstretching during this period).
 
So it had to do with antiquated administration, mismanagement and corruption by the Portuguese crown?

Not really. A lot of failures in Portuguese colonial history were actually just a results of individual merchants and captains doing rash and stupid things. So the problem wasn't really the administration as much as the lack thereof. The Crown had very little control over the actions of Portuguese nationals in Asia
 
As for the reasons why the Portuguese Empire failed as a whole, I think what Tanc49 said is a pretty good start (though I don't really think Brazil was a source of overstretching during this period).
I was thinking that Portugal is a pretty small country. You have a very limited pool of nobles capable and interested in serving overseas and a very limited number of potential settlers to anchor your implantation.

Top of my head, early XVIth century Portugal has 1M people. Let's assume 1% of nobles, that's 10k individuals.
Half women, 5k people.
Half too old or too young, 2,5k people. 2,5k people to run your empire, and you're splitting them between Morocco, Brazil and everything East of the Cape of Good Hope.
This also means you cannot reach a critical mass of people to justify extensive training and the formation of an intelligentsia that could be loyal to the crown and not to their own glory (Albuquerque vs Gama) and that a lot of experience gets lost constantly as your administrators die of fever and the network isn't big enough to be self supporting.
For the settler bit, it means you cannot recreate a solid society over there. You can mitigate it with mestisos but there simply isn't enough casados to be solid and create a future caste of administrators.
Not really. A lot of failures in Portuguese colonial history were actually just a results of individual merchants and captains doing rash and stupid things. So the problem wasn't really the administration as much as the lack thereof. The Crown had very little control over the actions of Portuguese nationals in Asia
I just read the Peregrinations. SO SO MANY RASH AND STUPID THINGS.
 

Lusitania

Donor
You can find many reasons why the Portuguese empire (and the Casa da India) failed to live up to their tasks.
Top of mind:
  • Overstretching with Brazil and Morocco
  • Corruption
  • Ottoman attacks
  • First mover disadvantage
  • Partisan politics

First off, let's remember the Portuguese were the first. When the Dutch came, they mostly took over existing Portuguese strongholds, using Portuguese maps and Portuguese phrasebooks.
The Portuguese had to sink all that money in first.

Second, the role of fidalgos. The nobles were trained in the Moroccan area, in a crusade/piracy mindset, with a feodal focus on individual action. They took that to the East Indies which didn't mesh well with building alliances and big networks.

Third, it was often more profitable to do country trade than to bring stuff back to Europe, limiting the Casa's utility.

Fourth, a lot of the mercantile activities were actually handled by merchants in Anvers. So the Casa effectively handles all the risks and a limited share of the profits


Overstretch was always our biggest adversary for a small country of 2-3 million played in the big leagues against countries of 2-20x its population. later on the Dutch also found themselves in the same boat.

Obsession with Morocco was our other bigger problem. For the disaster with Morocco led to the loss of king and then Iberian Union which put a huge target on our back (bigger than when we alone) but without the resources and means to defend ourselves.

Ottoman Attacks were a factor but political miscalculations was a larger. Also from 1580 to 1640 Portugal being part Iberian Union meant that our battles with the Ottoman Empire were a part of larger Habsburg politics than just Portuguese on their own.
 
I was thinking that Portugal is a pretty small country. You have a very limited pool of nobles capable and interested in serving overseas and a very limited number of potential settlers to anchor your implantation.

Top of my head, early XVIth century Portugal has 1M people. Let's assume 1% of nobles, that's 10k individuals.
Half women, 5k people.
Half too old or too young, 2,5k people. 2,5k people to run your empire, and you're splitting them between Morocco, Brazil and everything East of the Cape of Good Hope.
This also means you cannot reach a critical mass of people to justify extensive training and the formation of an intelligentsia that could be loyal to the crown and not to their own glory (Albuquerque vs Gama) and that a lot of experience gets lost constantly as your administrators die of fever and the network isn't big enough to be self supporting.
For the settler bit, it means you cannot recreate a solid society over there. You can mitigate it with mestisos but there simply isn't enough casados to be solid and create a future caste of administrators.

It's not only nobles who can run the Empire. Portugal had more than enough of an educated mercantile bourgeoisie at this point to make a difference.

Still, you're basically right. Lack of human resources was definitely one of the Portuguese Empire's main problems. But Brasil at this time was too much of a backwater colony to suck up many of these human resources. I mean, administrators were sent, but none were too noteworthy until Mem de Sá (1557). The Portuguese crown started paying more attention to Brazil as a result of the decline in Asian trade. It's unlikely that Brazil contributed significantly to that decline.
 
Ottoman Attacks were a factor but political miscalculations was a larger. Also from 1580 to 1640 Portugal being part Iberian Union meant that our battles with the Ottoman Empire were a part of larger Habsburg politics than just Portuguese on their own
I recall Ottoman attacks started way before the Iberian Union as part of the war for control of the Red Sea.
Regardless, if I had to sum up, I'd say it's the tension between the need for a central organization for diplomatic and military purposes versus the centrifugal aspirations of the fidalgos that killed the empire.

OTOH it led to a long lasting Portuguese presence in Asia, beyond the empire
 
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