ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the phenomenon of smuggling in the western part of the Estado da India, particularly on the west coast of India and the adjacent region across the Arabian Sea. One of the most persistent problems confronting the Portuguese crown in the Estado da India during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was smuggling. In reality, during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries it was smuggling in this sense-the avoidance of customs payments rather than the breaching of formal monopolies-that preoccupied and worried the Portuguese crown. Pimenteiros were very active in the western portion of the Estado da India during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, operating between numerous ports and harbours on the Indian side of the Arabian Sea, across to the Red Sea, the Hadramaut Coast, and above all the Persian Gulf.
