Europeans in India – Part 7 The Dutch Enter the Fray Section I: Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC)

Canberra, 20 January 2023 Spain and Portugal, both staunchly Catholic countries, had divided the world between them at the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. England and Netherlands, or Holland as it is sometimes known, both protestant countries, refused to agree to this arbitrary decision, defending the principle that ‘the sea was as free as the […]

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Europeans in India The Portuguese Part 4 Governance, Policies and Operations

Canberra, 5 January 2023 There are two viewpoints regarding the Portuguese attempt to establish a ‘State’ in the Indian sub-continent, headquartered at Goa. One, a sort of sweeping assessment, states that the defeat of the Arab coalition at Diu in 1509 by Almeida ended all threats to Portugal’s hegemony in the Indian Ocean region. The […]

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Europeans in India – The Portuguese Part 2 The Portuguese Vanguard

Canberra 19 November 2022 The Zamorin of Calicut welcomed the Portuguese in a friendly manner, as he was his custom with all merchants who came to trade at his port. He sent a local pilot to take the foreign ships to shelter from the fury of the on-coming South-West Monsoon rains. However, Vasco da Gama […]

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Europeans in India – The Portuguese Part 1 Background: Ancient and Medieval

Canberra, 09 November 2022 The Indian sub-continent was known to the people of Europe in antiquity, with the ancient Greeks recording their knowledge of India in some of the texts of the time. Cyrus the Great (r. 558–530 BC) of the famous Achaemenid Dynasty of Persia, built the first universal empire, stretching from Greece to […]

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