Portuguese New Christians in the Turkish “Carrefour” Between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in the Sixteenth Century: Decentralization and Conversion

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 561-584
Author(s):  
José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Social Position ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Indian Ocean

Abstract This article analyzes some cases of multiple conversion among Portuguese Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Paradoxically, it was the lack of homogeneity of the Ottoman Sephardic communities that explained the success of “three-faced” men, such as Duarte da Paz, Tomé Pegado da Paz, and Matias Bicudo. They were able to change dress, religion, and masters during their careers as informers because they remained inconspicuous within the Ottoman Empire due to their marginal social position; there were many possibilities for identity change without the general knowledge of the different religious groups. The inability of more visible personalities like D. Grácia Nasci, D. Joseph Nasci, and D. Salomon ibn Ya’ish to perform so easily this type of change had something to do with their “centrality”: they possessed strong social, economic, and cultural ties to Sephardic communities, and their close relationship with the Osmanli Sultans made such a metamorphosis virtually impossible.

scholarly journals From Anatolia to Aceh

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-117
Author(s):  
Philipp Bruckmayr
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Funded Research Project ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Scholars of Islam in Southeast Asia and the history of the Malay-Indonesianworld have long been aware of periods of intense contacts between the OttomanEmpire and the region. Most widely known in this context are the politicalexchanges between the Sultanate of Aceh and the Ottoman Empire ofthe sixteenth century in the face of Portuguese maritime domination in SoutheastAsia. Regional calls for Ottoman aid against the expanding Europeanpowers by Muslim rulers were voiced in the nineteenth century. Despite thislapse in documented political contacts, however, connections between the tworegions were also sustained and developed further throughout the interveningcenturies on a variety of levels, most prominently in the economic, religious,and intellectual spheres.Despite the pioneering work of scholars such as Anthony Reid since the1960s, these connections, including inter alia the holy cities and Yemen’sHadhramaut region, both important centers of Islamic learning for SoutheastAsian Muslims and the source of strong migrant communities settling in theMalay-Indonesian world, have received scant scholarly attention. It is againstthis background that the British Academy-funded research project “Islam,Trade, and Politics across the Indian Ocean” and the volume at hand, whichrepresents one of its major fruits, brings together new innovative research onall of the various aspects of this particular relationship. Hereby it must benoted that its scope extends at times well beyond the Ottoman era also intothe Republican era, and that, importantly, much of the documentary evidencerelied upon derives from newly discovered archival sources.The volume is divided into three thematic parts, preceded by two introductorychapters by the editors and Anthony Reid, respectively, which set thestage for the remainder of the book by reviewing the relationship’s general ...

The Portuguese build an empire.

2021 ◽  
pp. 222-234
Author(s):  
James F. Hancock
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Total Weight ◽  
Open Market ◽  
Fair Game ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Protection Racket ◽  
Alternative Routes ◽  
Far Eastern

Abstract Albuquerque's victory in Malacca gave Portugal a major foothold in the Far Eastern pepper trade, but the Portuguese were never able to fully dominate it. The chapter summarizes the struggles of Portugal's building of its empire. It also discusses the cartaz system, where the Portuguese claimed suzerainty over the Indian Ocean and no one else was allowed to sail unless they purchased a safe conduct pass. The cartaz obliged Asian ships to call at a Portuguese-controlled port and pay customs duties before proceeding on their voyage. Ships without this document were considered fair game and their goods could be confiscated. It was, pure and simple, a protection racket. The cartaz system, plus customs duties and outright piracy, provided most of the funds defraying the costs of the Portuguese navy and its garrisons. The chapter also outlines the importance of Indian cotton in the Spice Trade and the routes of spices into Europe. Further, the chapter provides highlights of the Portuguese profits on spices. Portuguese imports of pepper held strong over most the sixteenth century. The total weight of the spice cargoes averaged 40,000 to 50,000 quintals (1 quintal = 130 pounds or 59 kilograms) annually in the first half of the century and 60,000 to 70,000 quintals later on. Records have been left of one cargo in 1518 that totalled almost 5 million pounds (2.27 million kilograms), of which 4.7 million pounds (2.13 million kilograms) was pepper, 12,000 pounds (5443 kilograms) cloves, 3000 pounds (1360 kilograms) cinnamon and 2000 pounds (907 kilograms) mace (Krondl, 2007). Most of the pepper and other spices were purchased in Malabar on the open market. Portuguese profits on the pepper trade could run as high as 500%. Lastly, the chapter briefly discusses how other European countries looked for alternative routes to the spices.

The Religion and Culture of Indian Immigrants in Mauritius and the Effect of Social Change

1966 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Hazareesingh
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Indian Immigrants ◽  
The Indian Ocean

Mauritius is a British territory in the Indian Ocean 500 miles to the east of Madagascar. It measures 720 square miles and has a population of 700,000 people whose ancestors came from France (the original settlers), Africa (slaves), India (indentured immigrants), and China (shopkeepers). Mauritius was discovered by the Portuguese in the early years of the sixteenth century, and was subsequently occupied and finally abandoned by the Dutch, who exterminated the famous bird the Dodo. It was held by the French from 1715 until 1810 when it was conquered by the British at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Early History of the Sultanate of Angoche

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. D. Newitt
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Set Up

The sultanate of Angoche on the Moçambique coast was founded probably towards the end of the fifteenth century by refugees from Kilwa. It became a base for Muslim traders who wanted to use the Zambezi route to the central African trading fairs and it enabled them to by-pass the Portuguese trade monopoly at Sofala. The Portuguese were not able to check this trade until they themselves set up bases on the Zambezi in the 1530s and 1540s, and from that time the sultanate began to decline. Internal dissensions among the ruling families led to the Portuguese obtaining control of the sultanate in the late sixteenth century, but this control was abandoned in the following century when the trade of the Angoche coast dwindled to insignificance. During the eighteenth century movements among the Macua peoples of the mainland and the development of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean laid the foundations for the revival of the sultanate in the nineteenth century.

Historical Study of Societal Transformations in the Extended Indian Ocean Realm

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-235
Author(s):  
Kenneth R. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The West ◽  
Realistic Approach ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Western Historiography

Abstract Western historiography placed the indigenous Asia beyond the court political centers and the most commercially prominent ports-of-trade in the background of an exogenous (colonial) foreground. Western historical research from the sixteenth century onward privileged selected aspects and voices of the exogenous, focusing on the Arabic and Persian Middle East, India, China, and the West, represented from the nineteenth century onward by the terms Islamization, Indianization, Sinification, and Westernization. Today, historians who study the Indian Ocean give “agency” to things indigenous when they are juxtaposed to things exogenous. Local activities, events, beliefs, institutions, communities, individuals, and historical narratives are emphasized, given weight, and “privileged” over dependency on the exogenous. Simply taking agency away from the exogenous and giving it to the indigenous may seem to be a more realistic approach to overcoming the “from the deck of a ship” critique, but the issue of emphasis and privileging at the expense of “another” remains. Historians researching the non-West have tempered their previously held stance on this issue and now admit the depth and scale of influence that major exogenous civilizations (e.g., the Middle East, China, India, and the West) have had on some local cultures.

Chinese and Filipino Seafarers: A Race to the Top or the Bottom?

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
MINGHUA ZHAO ◽  
MARAGTAS S.V. AMANTE
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Race To The Top ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
Ship Owner ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Subject

All countries with significant coastlines and groups of islands inevitably produce seafarers at some time or other in the course of their economic development, and the two countries which are the subject of this paper are no exceptions. Chinese ships and seafarers were famously exploring the Indian Ocean more than a century before the arrival of the Portuguese and once the Spanish Pacific empire was established in the sixteenth century, the ships linking Mexico to Manila were mainly crewed by Filipinos. And it need hardly be said that Chinese and Filipinos have both been employed by foreign ship-owners throughout the twentieth century. What is unquestionably new is the magnitude of Filipino seafarers' employment in the world's merchant ships and the extraordinary growth of China as a nation with a major stake in the shipping industry, both as ship-owner and as a source of seafarers.

Problems of Ottoman Economic History and the Core-periphery model

Itinerario ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Astrid Kotenbach
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Subject

The discovery of new areas beyond the Atlantic Ocean and the pioneering of a new searoute via the Cape to the Indian Ocean led to expansion of western Europe in the sixteenth century. There of course followed the development of trade routes to the new areas outside Europe, but there was also a significant expansion of trade inside Europe and the Middle East, as well as changes in existing trade and production patterns. These are the subject of this paper.

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