The Indian Ocean (35 page)

Involvement in the country trade got Europeans closer to Indian Ocean patterns and rhythms. They fitted in, acculturated, in the milieu. We described how there developed a tacit understanding between Gujarati merchants and the Portuguese officials in Diu. So also in East Africa, where below the official pronouncements there was a whole other layer which was to do with cooperation, acculturation and dependence. This was even to be seen in relations with Muslims, in theory so hated and seen to be so threatening. Especially in the early days the Portuguese relied heavily on existing Muslim trade networks in the south to get their goods. To ensure their cooperation the Portuguese treated them well, gave them presents, and tried to work with them on matters such as choosing a new sultan for those ports in the south where puppet sultans ruled.
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Other examples of very human interaction are numerous, best seen perhaps in copious intermarriage or at least interbreeding, and in the practice of Christianity, or for that matter Islam, in the area. Boxer described an 'amicable mixture of Christian, Muslim and pagan practices', and these syncretic practices were followed
not only by newly converted Bantus but by whites, mulattos and Goans as well, despite the opposition of the clergy. Such happy mixing and intermingling was also found at Sena in 1633, where the church school was attended by the children of Portuguese, and also people of Chinese, Javanese, Malabari, Sinhalese, and various African backgrounds, in a way reminiscent of the College of St Paul in Goa.

This sort of low level intermixing was seen in a variety of other contexts. In 1606 Padre Gaspar de San Bernadino arrived at Siyu. There were no Portuguese, or indeed Christians, in the area so the status of priest was unknown to the locals. However, two Hindu merchants from Diu did know what they were. They spoke good Portuguese and acted as interpreters for the Fathers and told the local king all about how Christian fathers behave. At Takwa, on Manda Island, is a blue and white sixteenth-century Portuguese dish set into the base of the cistern beside the mosque, that is the ablution trough.

There have been many studies of the Portuguese all over the Indian Ocean area 'going native', assimilating to the intricate long-standing networks of trade, especially in the Bay of Bengal area and many parts of southeast Asia. These people operated outside official Portuguese channels, spoke various Asian languages, and indeed very seldom had the opportunity to be counselled by a priest. They were in a position no different from, say, Armenians, Jews, Shirazis, Turks, and the host of other people trading and living and marrying in this polyglot and heterogeneous maritime world.

Most Portuguese outside the official structure were men who had served in the forts, and then by getting married had become casados ('householders'). Many of these people found better trading opportunities outside the forts and strips of the coast controlled by the state. They went to other areas and traded alongside all the others found there, whether Swahili, other Muslims, or Indian Hindus. Many of these people can be seen as transfrontierfolk, the appropriate term for people who do not straddle a frontier, but rather move right over to the other side and acculturate more or less fully. These men were to be found all over littoral Asia, up and down the Swahili coast, in Cambay, all around the Bay of Bengal.

The same interaction can be seen in the 'search for the similar' which the early Portuguese did both in East Africa and in India.
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In both cases they tried desperately to come to terms with, even appropriate, unknown people and religions, and understand them in terms familiar to themselves. In both cases what happened was that they met Hindus, followers of a religion at that time unknown to nearly all Europeans, and thought their religion was a form of Christianity. They were also predisposed to find Christians because they hoped to find Prester John, the Christian emperor who would ally with them and smite the Muslims from the south.

In a more social area, it is clear that many Portuguese in India acculturated and fitted in to the Indian Ocean littoral environment. Portuguese doctors, including even Garcia da Orta, recognised that often Indian remedies were better than European ones. Some aspects of pollution were picked up from Hindu practice. There was copious sexual interaction, and hence reproduction, between Portuguese men and Asian and African women. The result was the creation of a very large
mestiço population. Even in their capital city of Goa the Portuguese were far outnumbered by Indians: the total population in 1600 was about 75,000, of whom 1,500 were Portuguese or mestiços, 20,000 Hindus and the rest local Christians.

The medical intermingling can stand as a type for this whole topic.
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Until the sixteenth century medical knowledge and practice in Europe, in the Muslim world and in India seems to have been relatively evenly spread. No area had any decisive advantage, although in different specialities different areas were ahead. There was a considerable degree of interaction between the traditional systems of these three areas. Yet there also was a recognition that some illnesses were geographically specific; some Indian illnesses, for example, were seen by foreigners as 'different', and best treated by indigenous methods. This was especially to be seen in the first European city in Asia, the Portuguese capital of Goa.

One example of both difference and interaction was bleeding. Bleeding was almost a universal cure, prophylactic and restorative in European medicine. They continued to rely on this when they got to India. In January 1542 Francis Xavier, later to be a saint, was ill. He ended a letter by writing, 'I would very much like to write at greater length, but sickness does not now permit it. I have been bled seven times today, and I am only passing well.'
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In the 1670s the Abbé Carré fell ill with a fever, and insisted on being bled. Great quantities were hacked out of him by enthusiastic amateur bleeders, and

This made me so feeble that I cannot bear to speak of it. Yet, though I felt very weak, I was not surprised that the fever grew less, as it no longer had the cause [that is, excess of blood] which had kept it up; and I further reduced it by refusing for eight days to eat many little delicacies that I would have liked – sometimes one thing, sometimes another, though I must confess I refrained with very great difficulty. For eight or ten days I still had my sight, my memory, and my senses, but so feebly that I did not remember anything that happened to me.

In the Royal Hospital of Goa bleeding was widely prescribed, being done up to thirty or forty times, so long as 'bad' blood came. Here we can see interaction, as Tavernier tells us:

I forgot to make a remark upon the frequent bleedings in reference to Europeans – namely, that in order to recover their colour and get themselves in perfect health, it is prescribed for them to drink for twelve days three glasses of pissat de vache [cow's urine], one in the morning, one at midday, and one in the evening; but, as this drink cannot but be very disagreeable, the convalescent swallows as little of it as possible, however much he may desire to recover his health. This remedy has been learnt from the idolaters [that is, Hindus] of the country, and whether the convalescent makes use of it or not, he is not allowed to leave the hospital till the twelve days have expired during which he is supposed to partake of this drink.

This mingling presumably explains why long after Portuguese political power had declined their language remained a lingua franca in maritime Asia. When the Dutch conquered Sri Lanka they were forced to use Portuguese to communicate with their new subjects. At the battle of Plassy in 1757 Clive used Portuguese to communicate with his troops. So also at the Cape, where in 1765 Mrs Kindersley wrote vigorously that the slaves of the Dutch were

brought originally from different parts of the East Indies. What seems extraordinary is, that they do not learn to talk Dutch, but the Dutch people learn their dialect, which is called Portuguese; and is a corruption of that language, some of them are called Malays or Malaynese, brought from that country of Malacca, and the islands to the eastward of India, subject to the Dutch company.

She found the same in India. She wrote of Indian Christians, whom she considered to be very low people, 'Their language is called
Pariar
Portuguese, a vile mixture of almost every European language with some of the Indian. This is however a useful dialect to travellers in many parts of Hindostan, particularly on the sea coast, and is called the
lingua Franca
of India.'
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Yet we must not exaggerate the extent of interaction, let alone of tolerance. Portugal's official policies were brutal and ethnocentric. Yes, there was mingling on the ground, yet there also was racism. Portuguese colonial society was very strictly graduated. At the top were those born in Portugal and who had no hint of Jewish blood. The newly converted Jews, New Christians, were regarded with very considerable suspicion. The great savant Garcia da Orta was posthumously convicted of Judaising. His bones were dug up and burnt. His sister was burnt alive. Next in the hierarchy were
casticos
, people born in India of Portuguese parents. There were very few of these, as few Portuguese women came to the east. These people in any case were considered to be inferior to those born in Portugal, because their wet nurses were Indian and hence they had drunk 'contaminated' milk. Next was the large mestiço, mixed blood, population, who were subject to many slurs and disadvantages. In nearly every case the father was Portuguese, the mother Asian. Those of mixed African and Portuguese descent were lower again. Then came Indian Christians, then non-Christians, and at the bottom black slaves. Goa had a considerable slave population. They were used in domestic work, and sometimes were hired out by their owners to work as seamstresses, nurse maids, or prostitutes. Often they were treated very brutally indeed. Their value can be seen in the fact that the dearest slave in the Goa market would be a young woman who could cook, sing, sew, and was a virgin. She would sell for 30 cruzados, a fine Arabian horse for over 500.

The Protestant Dutch and English also mingled and interacted. Often they learnt from Asian and African experience. After the VOC took over Mauritius they tried to introduce European-style agriculture, and failed. However, their slaves came from Madagascar, which shares with Mauritius many characteristics of soil and vegetation. The Dutch learnt more appropriate farming techniques from their Malagasy
slaves. Similarly in Madagascar, where the French were forced to learn how to cultivate from local people.

Despite this, there was still very considerable racism in the Dutch and English settlements. Indians in most of them were forced to live in 'black towns', apart from the European rulers. The Dutch in Jakarta were greatly outnumbered. In 1673 the city had over 2,000 Dutch and 726 Eurasians, but nearly 3,000 Chinese, over 5,000 'black Portuguese', about 3,000 local people of Malay background, and a massive 13,278 slaves. These were mostly for domestic work, and for show, but some were used by Chinese owners as plantation labour.

Divisions in Jakarta were roughly similar to those in Goa. The population figures we have just quoted show a strict division according to race, and the VOC also laid down rigorous sumptuary laws, which regulated who could wear a hat, or carry a parasol. Only the governor was allowed to have a coach with six horses.

Who was really the important group in this Indian Ocean littoral port polity? It has been claimed that a particular group was essential to the running of the town. Blussé writes that women, hardly any of them Dutch, were the vital support for the functioning of the city, hence he describes them as caryatids. Equally important was a racial group, the Chinese. Just as local and Gujarati Hindus played a dominating role in the Goan economy, so also did the Chinese in Jakarta. Their work in feeding the town, and generally running the local economy, was essential. Despite this, there were massacres and expulsions from time to time, yet they always returned. These massacres were a part of the brutal, 'life is short' nature of Jakarta. Like Goa, the European city often felt threatened from within and without, so that society was rather like the classic frontier society well known in several newly established settlement societies in the Americas and elsewhere. Brawls and street fights were common, executions of the guilty were appallingly savage affairs, and people were publicly whipped not just for political offences but also for moral or social deviations from the strict Calvinist norm.
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Short life expectancy also fostered this 'frontier' mentality, full of tension and with a lack of concern for life. Mortality in Jakarta was very high, and often Dutch ideas exacerbated the situation. They believed that disease was carried in the air, so windows were kept shut and the occupants roasted. They insisted on wearing European clothes and eating European food, neither appropriate to a city located nearly on the equator. Jakarta was located on several small rivers, but to make it more like Amsterdam they dug canals, and these became sewers which spread diseases very efficiently. While Goa also suffered from water-borne diseases, in many areas the Portuguese seem to have acculturated much better than the Dutch.

The English company was prepared to tolerate private trade undertaken by its employees, and indeed this was one of the reasons for English success in the eighteenth century. Among the Dutch, after an early experiment with allowing some private trade by VOC employees, the company decided to rigorously enforce its monopoly. No company servant, at least in theory, was allowed any private trade. Only those who had left company employment could do this. This meant that many fewer Dutch men went native and, as we noted of the Portuguese, took part in the
warp and weft of Asian trade. Some however did, such as one who was found having a splendid time on an island in the Malukus 'with as many women as he pleaseth... he will sing and dance all day long, near stark-naked... and will be drunk for days together.'
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