Portuguese Country Traders in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, c. 1600

Significant research has appeared in recent years that re-assessed the participation of indigenous merchants and societies in the creation and maintenance of Portuguese colonial society in Ásia ¹ . The Crown’s activities in the economic sphere in the early seventeenth century, embodied in particular in the efforts of the Viceroy of the Estado da Índia, the Conde de Linhares, to establish and sustain a Companhia das Índias, along the lines of Portugal’s northern European competitors, have been subject to impressive monographic treatment ² . The socio-economic reality of “Golden” Goa has found an able proponent ³ .