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- Convenors:
-
Manuel Lobato
(Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical)
João Teles e Cunha (Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa)
- Location:
- Sala 38, Piso 0
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 17 July, -, Thursday 18 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Refusing the concept of a single and homogeneous Portuguese power in Asia, the panel will revisit some Crown's Portuguese strongholds and hubs founded by private initiative focusing in the strategies defined by Asian polities vis-à-vis the local Portuguese-Asian communities and the missionaries
Long Abstract:
The nineteenth century concept of a unique and homogeneous Portuguese power in Asia, followed by some historians until the late 1970s, has since been abandoned. Modern research has pointed out Portugal's imperial reinstatement in Asia since the mid-sixteenth century through new 'Portuguese' settlements, due to private initiative, along with the official presence. A cluster of ports and cities emerged in the Persian Gulf, the Bay of Bengal, Southeast Asia and the Far East, embedded in major Asian states and facing specific problems, though eventually they joined the Estado da Índia official network.
The panel intends to revisit some of these Portuguese hubs, piecing together the political strategies defined by Asian polities regarding the local Portuguese-Asian communities, including missionaries, and their diplomatic exchanges with the Estado da Índia. Whether informal networks were a way of improvising empire, the panel highlights the role played by local private initiative in fuelling the Portuguese imperial dynamic in Asia. In this context, the panel aims to address the topic of the growing Portuguese discourse on chimerical conquests in contrast with the increasing accommodation of these Portuguese-Asian communities with the neighbouring Asian powers, on which they depended to survive. It will be discussed if the Asian authorities cooperated broadly with the Portuguese or if they only backed some local individuals and groups and opposed others, as the missionaries. Particular attention will be paid to whether these relations matched old social, political and commercial practices or, instead, inaugurated new forms of partnership and hindrance, as in Japan.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 17 July, 2013, -Manuel Lobato (Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical)
Paper short abstract:
The Portuguese interference in Ternatan affairs produced an internal crisis from which sultan Hairun emerged as a great leader promoting resistance against the missionary activities in Moro and Ambon. Formally allies, Ternate and the Portuguese increasingly diverged, producing contrasting views
Paper long abstract:
From the outset, the Ternatan expectancies regarding the Portuguese have been frustrated by attempts to impose a sort of protectorate under European rule. Weak young sultans and puppet regents were followed by the charismatic sultan Hairun, who imposed his authority after a fairly weak ascending to power. His ability to comply with the Portuguese requirements gave him time and opportunity to actively promote resistance in the peripheral areas of his realm against Portuguese interests. He restrained Christian conversions by the recalcitrant inhabitants of Moro and also limited the Jesuit activities in the Ambon-Lease area from the early 1550s onwards. He never assumed his role in the setbacks suffered by the Portuguese in the Maluku Islands, preferring to resort to third parties agents, namely to appoint governors from royal blood and to instruct Ambonese policies, such as Hitu, to hinder the Portuguese and the Christian influences in that area. Simultaneously, he was quite acquainted to the Eurasian community in Ternate, maintaining friendly relations with several prominent casados, to whom he was also a relative as some of them were married to women of his kin.
All those constraints produced rather ambiguous and contrasting views regarding the state of affairs in Maluku and the reasons of its fast degradation. The figure of sultan Hairun, in particular, appears manifold evaluated in these assessments. He is said to be either the best Moslem friend of the Portuguese or the most disloyal, perfidious and treacherous ruler.
Romulo Ehalt
Paper short abstract:
How did the Portuguese slavery system and the slave trade changed in the Far East? This presentation will reflect on who these slaves were and the role they played in these societies, as well as similarities between slavery as practiced by the Portuguese and Asians.
Paper long abstract:
How did the Portuguese slavery system and the slave trade changed in the Far East? Is it possible to find in these changes influences from human trafficking and slavery systems as practiced in East Asia? Based on contemporary sources, this reflection will try to understand who the slaves owned by Europeans were and what role they played in these societies. At the turn of the 17th century, along with the development of Macao and Manila, main centers for Portuguese, Spanish and other European merchants active in the Far East, slavery assumed many forms. It is possible to identify, for example, certain similarities between slavery as practiced by the Portuguese and slavery systems found in Japan. As for the social role played by slaves, far from being an intense slave trading post as the African ports in the same period, Macao depended on slavery as possibly one of the core social pillars to its Portuguese society, way beyond the role played by mere servants.
Ana Fernandes Pinto (NOVA - Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will highlight the discourse produced by missionaries living in Japan in response to Tokugawa Christian persecution during the first half of 17th century. It will debate its accuracy and its intention in missionaries’ strategies in Catholic Europe politics.
Paper long abstract:
Since the beginning, from 1542/1543 onwards, Portuguese presence in Japan was due to private initiative, mainly leaded by the Jesuits. They arrived with Portuguese merchants, and during a century both ensured the contact between the archipelago, official imperial settlements, and Europe. Although Jesuits depended on Portuguese Crown's patronage, the crown's first official approach to the bakufu (the Japanese central government) was only made in 1646, a moment in which the Tokugawa dynasty was already committed to the sakoku policy (the closing of the country, decreed in 1639). In the meanwhile other missionaries, the Mendicants, mainly Franciscans, and the Dutch merchants, also established in Japan, though the Jesuits kept being the most important link between Japan and Europe.
Japanese political attitude towards Christianity changed over time, following the military unification and political centralization processes. In 1603 Japan was unified under Tokugawa authority, and the idea of a Christian peril start definitely to emerge. Local persecution came up against staunch converters, and as a reaction soon evolved into a general persecution. From then on until 1639, missionaries reported to Europe amazing news of Christian perseverance towards Japanese harassment and persecution. The betrayer to national authority was seen, and reported, by the missionaries as a glorious martyr. In this paper we will highlight the evolution of this discourse, focusing on the assessment of its correspondence with actual Japanese reality, and we will explore it symbolism in missionaries' policies in Catholic Europe politics.
Paulo Pinto
Paper short abstract:
Macau played a significant role as an interface door of two empires, allowing the exchange of commodities and knowledge. It was able to survive thanks to a privileged position and a delicate adaptive strategy, yet under considerable stress by the turbulence throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
Paper long abstract:
The foundation of Macau was an important accomplishment on the Portuguese strategy in the Far East, after several decades of clandestine presence in the Chinese shores. The permission issued around 1557 by the Guangdong authorities for the Portuguese to settle in the Pearl River Delta was therefore the success of a pragmatic approach based on private trade and on the association of Portuguese and Chinese informal interests. Yet it was a temporary license and the survival of the city would depend, throughout the centuries to come, on the ability to adapt to changes and to manage the expectations of both Chinese authorities and Portuguese Estado da Índia. It was an odd, informal, officially non-existent settlement that came to prosper thanks to the privileged trade with Nagasaki and to achieve an important rank among the general Portuguese trade frame in Asia. Being some sort of a "merchant republic" in the fringes of Estado da Índia, the city would gradually draw the attention of Portuguese authorities, who gradually tried to achieve control of its activities. However, Macau lived under the frame of severe official dispositions by Ming - and later Qing - imperial policy destined to control and restrain foreign presence in the maritime border of the empire. Macau was a privileged, exclusive door entrance to China. It was therefore some sort of an interface door between two empires that allowed the exchange of commodities, services, knowledge, faith or politics, but also a fragile position under increasing and various pressures throughout the 16th and 17th century.
João Teles e Cunha (Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa)
Paper short abstract:
During two centuries the Estado da Índia had to negotiate its presence in the Persian Gulf, an important area for its security, with different polities and agents in a complex process that evolved with time, reshaping time and again the nature of the Portuguese presence in this area.
Paper long abstract:
Portuguese presence in the Persian Gulf was vital for the security of the Estado da Índia and the economic feasibility of the Cape Route as envisaged by Afonso de Albuquerque. However, this straightforward strategy had to adopt itself in the terrain to the volatile nature of regional politics, the international rivalries between empires, and the shifting allegiances and alliancies, coupled with the Gulf's ethnic and religious divide. As the successor of another sea-power in the area, Hormuz, the Estado da Índia had to deal with new political realities, namely the emergence of new states and empires (Safavids, Ottomans and Omanis), to negotiate its presence in the Gulf, either establishing protectorates, or by negotiating indirectly with elusive polities in the periphery in order to maintain its paramouncy.