The Portuguese in the Seas of the Archipelago During the Sixteenth Century

The Portuguese expansion in India, by and large, reproduces the characteristic traits of the exploitation of the African coastline: the same purely mercantile economy; the same preference for luxury articles or, at least for those that are rare; the same presence exclusively on the coast; the same mobility of people; the same centralised administrative system served by officials to the Throne nominated every three years. But beyond Ceylon – that is, around the Bay of Bengal, in the seas of the Archipelago and in the Far-East – the Portuguese hold is much closer to the Guinean model: the fortresses are far in between and so are the factories; trade is more of an intermittent kind, seasonal and along the coastline, similar to that of the preceding century in the bays, rivers and lagunae of the Western coast of Africa.