ABSTRACT
The Portuguese attacked Ceuta in the twelfth century; other parts of the Moroccan coast in the following 200 years, and backed or participated in some of the mainly Genoese voyages to the Canaries in the early 1300s. By the mid-1500s, the Portuguese held most of the major entrepots in the Indian Ocean. A royal monopoly of trade with certain ports and in certain goods had been established, whilst in theory Portugal regulated the whole commerce of the ocean, exacting dues on designated cargoes from eastern shipping obliged to call at Goa, Hormuz and Malacca. At its brief zenith, lasting only until the early 1600s, it comprised a number of distinct but interlocking economies. The remotest centred on Macao, the only Asian city truly created by Portugal. In India, little was accomplished in the early 1500s beyond the superficial conversion, often by questionable means, of some members of the lowest castes of Hindu society.
