The Siege of Diu occurred when an Ottoman imperial fleet attempted to capture the Indian city of Diu in 1538, then held by the Portuguese. It ended with a Portuguese victory. 16th century Turkish painting depicting the Ottoman fleet protecting shipping in the Gulf of Aden. The three peaks on the left symbolize Aden. In the […]
The following text is from Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed, PhD – in www.historyofislam.com. “The discovery of America and the circumnavigation of Africa were logical consequences of the religious-political rivalry between the Christian powers of Iberia and the Muslim powers of North Africa. As the Maghrib disintegrated, the Christian powers of Iberia, with the cooperation of the […]
The Battle of Diu sometimes referred as the Second Battle of Chaul was a naval battle fought on 3 February 1509 in the Arabian Sea, near the port of Diu, India, between the Portuguese Empire and a joint fleet of the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut with […]
Of course, an armada could not just sail into an Indian city and expect to find enough supplies at hand in the city’s spice markets to load up five or ten large ships at once. Should it even try, it would likely provoke an instant scarcity and quickly drive up the prices of spices astronomically. […]
Portuguese India ships distinguished themselves from the ships of other navies (especially those of rival powers in the Indian Ocean) on two principal accounts: their seaworthiness (durability at sea) and their artillery. With a few exceptions (e.g. Flor de la Mar, Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai), Portuguese India naus were not typically built to last […]
The size of the armada varied, from enormous fleets of twenty-something ships, to small fleets of only four or five. This changed over time. In the first decade (1500–1510), when the Portuguese were establishing themselves in India, the armadas averaged around 15 ships per year. This declined to around 9–10 ships in 1510–1525. From 1526 […]
The Portuguese India armadas (armadas da Índia) were the fleets of ships, organized by the Portuguese crown and dispatched on an annual basis from Portugal to India, principally Goa. These armadas undertook what was called the Carreira da Índia (“India Run”), following the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope opened up by Vasco […]
The 4th Armada of Vasco da Gama had left India in the early months of 1503 with little resolved. Despite terror, bombardment and blockade, Calicut remained defiant, and the two fledgling Portuguese factories in allied cities – one in Cochin, the other in Cannanore – were vulnerable to her revenge. And revenge was not long […]
Cochim is the largest city in the state of Kerala in India, about 220 km north of the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram. He was part of Portuguese India between 1503 and 1663. Today belongs to the Ernakulam district. It is also the largest city in India that has no more than half of the inhabitants professing […]
The squadron of Vasco da Gama left Portugal in 1497, rounded the Cape and continued along the coast of East Africa, where a local pilot was brought on board who guided them across the Indian Ocean, reaching Calicut (the capital of the native kingdom ruled by Zamorins) in south-western India in May 1498. The second voyage […]