Portuguese Studies

The Friendship ofKingswasinthe Ambassadors': Portuguese Diplomatic Embassies inAsiaandAfrica duringthe Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries STEFAN HALIKOWSKI-SMITH Therehasbeenfrom thevery beginnings discussion as to thenature ofPortuguese andEuropean power inAsiaintheearly modern period priorto theBattleofPlassey and colonialism in all of itsterritorial manifestations.1 Historians havemoved on from considering ita Vasco da Gamaepoch,with all thepresumptions ofhindsight andEuropean superiority, tocalling itan 'AgeofPartnership', an Age ofBrokerage', or perhaps mostneutrally, butalsoevasively, an Age ofCommerce'.2 Historiography moved onagain atsome point inthemid-1990s from these broad generalizations regarding power relations into therealm ofcultural history, toquestions offirst encounters andtheintrinsic commensurabili ty oftheEuropean andAsian worlds.3 K.N.Chaudhuri's AsiaBefore Europe: economy and civilisation oftheIndian Oceanfrom theriseofIslamto1750, and hisuseofsettheory, probably represents themost ambitious (andmost misunderstood) attempt at generating a one-to-one mapping ofthese two worlds.4 Byreducing them totheir basiccivilisational building blocks (foodanddrink, clothing, housing andattitudes tolandanddomestic animals) hisapproach sought totackle theproblem bystarting from the most elemental aspects oftheencounter oftwo worlds. Butalthough this cantellusabouthowdifferent peoplesreacted toheat, animals, andthe delimitation ofspace,andhelpuswith regard tohowtogroup different human societies, wearestill very muchleft within therealm ofhuman beings andthematerial world - atmost thestructures ofproduction andremoved from thetricky andoften intangible essence ofpower that 1 I would like to thankTimothyCoates ofCharlestonCollege forhis readingand comments and Diego Ramada Curtoof theEUI, Florence,forhis 'invisiblehand' and forstimulating my interest in thesociologicaldimensionsofthePortugueseworld. 2 Blair B. Kling & M. N. Pearson, TheAgeofPartnership. Europeans in Asia before Domination (Honolulu: University ofHawaiiPress,1979); ¿ MacPherson,TheIndianOcean:a history of people and the sea (Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press,1998), ch. 3 ('The Age ofCommerce,1450-1700'), orAnthony Reid,South EastAsia in the AgeofCommerce, 1450-1 680 (New Haven:Yale University Press,1088). 3 Amongstthe bestworksof thishistoriographical momentare StuartSchwartzed., Implicit Understandings: observing, reporting and reflecting onthe encounters between Europeans and other peoples in theearlymodern era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Stephen Greenblatt, Marvellous Possessions: the wonder ofthe NewWorld (Oxford:ClarendonPress,1991). 4 K. N. Chaudhuri,Asia Before Europe, economy and civilisation oftheIndian Oceanfrom theriseof Islamto1750 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1990). 1O2 STEFAN HALIKOWSKI-SMITH inevitably constitutes relations betweenlargegroupsofpeople brought intointeraction. In thisarticle, I wouldliketomovebeyondChaudhuri's civilisational buildingblocksto questiona highly formalized and ritual socialfunction thatbrought Asiansand Europeanstogether, butone that alsodealtwiththenerveessenceofpower, and thathasbeen recognized foritsinstrumental importance inEuropeanexpansion.5 Thisistheissue ofdiplomatic embassies dispatched bythePortuguese todifferent corners oftheIndianOcean world. It maywell be worthstarting witha clarification of terms,though, for the embassies analysed here and their internationallegal and institutional contexts wouldbe scarcerecognizableto Garrett Mattingly from hisrenowned study ofRenaissancediplomacy, of 1955,or,indeed, tothePortuguese historians ofdiplomatic relations, liketheViscountof Santarém, whodidnotfindthemworthy ofinclusion alongsideEuropean statecraft. Fora start, therewasno webofpermanent embassies suchas had grown up amongst themajorsecularstates ofItaly bythe1450s,nor theirmethodicand standardized testimonials, the dispacci and relazioni. Portugueseembassiesin theIndian ocean world,rather, weresentout individually when the occasion demanded,thoughtheJesuitmissions could lastsomeyears.7 In general,then,itwouldbe hardto recognise herewhatsubsequenthistorians havechosento speakofas the'origins ofmoderndiplomacy', whichM.S.Anderson hasdefined as 'a network of organizedcontacts whichlinkedmoreor lesscontinuously thestatesof western Europe'. On theotherhand,itwouldbe untrueto suggest that theauthorities ofrespective Indian Ocean societiessawthePortuguese onlyas passingships. Most Asian receptionsof the Portuguese,for example,distinguished betweenthe payingof respectsto the Kingin Portugal and hisviceroy orgovernor inGoa. Similarproblemsofrecognition attachto categories and agents.One such arisesin respectof the role of degredados, criminals and convicts deliberately leftbehind by Portuguesefleetsin isolated places with instructions toforgelinkswithlocal civilizations and obtaininformation on possiblesourcesofpreciousmetalsbymarching inland.Theywere not officially embassies(TimothyCoates speaks of themas 'cultural 5 Pedro Soares Martínez,Historia Diplomática dePortugal (Lisbon: Verbo,iq86), 102. GarrettMattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (Oxford:Cape, 1955); Manuel de Barrose Sousa, Viscondede Santarém,Quadroelementar dasrelacöes políticas ediplomáticas dePortugal com as diversas potencias domundo, desde oprincipio da monarchia, 18 vols (Paris:J.RAillaud,1842-76). 7The third mission at theMughalcourttechnically lastedfrom1595-1773,thoughfor Edward MacLagan, The Jesuits andthe Great Mughal (London:Burns, Oates& Washburne, 1932) itwasbrought toan endin 1605.The first twomissions wereconsiderably shorter (1580-83 and 1KQ1-Q2). M.S.Anderson,TheOrigins ofthe Modern European State System, 1494- 1618 (London: Longman, 1998),52. PORTUGUESE DIPLOMATIC EMBASSIES IN ASIA AND AFRICA 103 intermediaries') ,butitwasprecisely thelackofanyformality thatenabled their diplomatic success.Degredados likeAntonioFernandes, forexample, a humbleship's carpenter, managed to get his East Africanhoststo worship him,receiving himas somekindofgod.9 A similar questionappliesto religious 'missions'aimingat conversion oflocalpopulations - werethey embassies? The Dominicanfriar Gaspar da Cruz,whoelectedtovisit Cambodiabetween1555-56,inhisaccount callshis tripan embassy, thoughmanyofthemoregrandiloquent like Xavierpreferred to see themselves...