The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415 - 1825

by Charles Ralph Boxer

The exploits and influence through four centuries of Europe's first great maritime empire an empire which at its peak virtually girdled the earth. In the series of which this volume is a part distinguished historians trace the course of human society from its prehistoric beginnings to the atomic age.

Genres: History, Portugal, Nonfiction, European History, World History, Asia, Brazil

415 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Charles Ralph Boxer, FBA, was a historian of Dutch and Portuguese maritime and colonial history. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._R._B...]

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Galleons of Information

The band of historians working on the history of Portugal and its worldwide extensions has never been large. Many of the senior researchers, especially in the English-speaking world, owe a great debt to one man, Charles Ralph Boxer, virtually the founding father of the field. This volume is his finest work, known and used by scholars everywhere since its publication in 1969. It is simply one of the great works of history in our times. By reading it, you will learn an enormous amount about how a small, unimportant kingdom on the Atlantic Ocean managed to construct a trading and military network that extended from Brazil to Africa to India, China, Japan, Indonesia and all points in between. Boxer discusses the motivating forces that led the Portuguese to dominate the spice trade. It is shown that with its small population, Portugal had to rely on slaves or mercenaries. Often their forces were composed of Africans, their pilots Jews or others, their sailors a mix of Asians and mestiços. He breaks two common myths: 1) that the cross closely followed the traders---it took several decades before even a start was made (by the Jesuits) in conversions; and 2) that the Portuguese, unlike other European colonial powers, were color blind. Several Brazilian socio-historians have written to emphasize this, but Boxer shows that it was untrue. After a chapter on sugar and slavery in Brazil, the rest of the book deals with the decline of Portugal's empire in Asia over the centuries from 1600 to 1800, when only a few tiny, misgoverned enclaves were left. The more efficient Dutch, among whom ability outweighed family background, challenged and defeated the Portuguese everywhere; Portugal itself stagnated and turned inwards. Brazil, however, grew and prospered, eventually outshining the mother country and providing a refuge for the royal family during Napoleonic times (it wasn't until 1821 that the Portuguese royal family returned to Lisbon---perhaps the only instance of a European country being ruled from America).
With the vast amount of social and economic information on a wide variety of subjects---the use of the Portuguese language, the rise of Oman's influence along the African coast, Pombal's dictatorship in Portugal, intermarriage and color prejudice in the widely scattered empire, the quality of Portuguese seamen--- with its eminently well-written, clear prose, and its sweep of vision, THE PORTUGUESE SEABORNE EMPIRE deserves to be on the shelf of every person interested in history. If you are interested in Portugal or its offshoots in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Goa, Malacca and Macau, this book is a must.

[Bárbara Portugal · Rating 3 out of 5]

É um excelente livro para quem precisa de saber mais sobre a historiografia clássica relativa ao Império Português.
Só não dou uma nota mais alta, porque já não aguento mais falar do Império de uma perspectiva tão eurocêntrica. 3,5.

[J Miguel Rodrigues · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendous work on the Portuguese colonial empire. Not a single consideration is left without proper referencing and/or contemporary testimony; yet the interested reader is able to fly through its pages without feeling bored - that's how great it is written, that's how knowledgeable the author is.
Forty years of study, a private collection of 4000+ books, and hundreds of manuscripts, and a clearly enlightened mind resulted in this masterpiece.
Five stars without a shadow of a doubt.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

What made the Portuguese empire different from others like the British? How were their colonial possessions affected by Portuguese culture, politics and economics? Boxer does a very good job explaining these things. He also differentiates between their American colonies and their Asian colonies which were different socially and economically.

As an example, though all the colonizers believed they were "spreading God's word"--the Portuguese took this more seriously than most. The church and the monarchy were inseparable and the papacy was often angered by the King's refusal to let the church hierarchy make decisions for "his" church.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book to read, not least because it was written before the fall of the Portuguese empire in Africa which took place after the death of Salazar in the mid 1970's.  Although the author has little to say about Guinea-Bissau and East Timor, which is perhaps unsurprising given the fact that even at the end of Portugal's period as an imperial nation these areas were nearly forgotten.  That said, this book has a lot of insightful things to say about Portugal's empire and some necessary comments about the society that came with it and the struggle that various people had in the empire gaining respect from the culture as a whole.  The author manages to demonstrate a sound knowledge of Portuguese imperial history and political history while also doing some good work in discussing some of the myths that Portuguese people have often had about empire.  It has been said that the Portuguese were far more racially tolerant than many other imperialists, but the author demonstrates plenty of cases where there was a great deal of racial tension and hostility and insults regarding Jews and blacks in different parts of the empire, and even the people of India around Goa.  This can be considered a sound example of history.

This book is about 400 pages long with two parts and sixteen chapters.  The author begins with a preface and a general introduction for the series as a whole.  The prologue then discusses Portugal's peripheral status within Christendom.  After that the first part of the book gives a narrative history from 1415 to 1825 that shows the vicissitudes of empire (I), with chapters on Guinea gold and the search for Prester John from 1415-99 (1), shipping and spices in Asian seas from 1500-1600 (2), converts and clergy in Southeast and South Asia during the same period (3), as well as slaves and sugar in the South Atlantic during that same period (4).  After that the author talks about the global struggle with the Dutch from 1600-63 (5), stagnation and contraction in the east from 1663 to 1750 (6), revival and expansion in the west during that same period (7), and the dictatorship of Pombal and its aftermath from 1750 to 1825 (8).  The second half of the book then discusses the characteristics of empire (II), including the India and Brazil fleets (9), Crown patronage and catholic missions (10), purity of blood (11), town councillors and brothers of charity (12), soldiers, settlers, and vagabonds (13), merchants and smugglers (14), the Renaissance and Enlightenment (15), and finally issues of Sebastianism, Messianism, and nationalism (16).  The book then ends with six appendices that provide some statistical data as well as a glossary, bibliography, and index.

There is something deeply poignant about the Portuguese imperial experience that makes one a bit sympathetic for the Portuguese.  Empire was deeply costly for the Portuguese, especially because they had such a limited sailing tradition and one that was not regarded very well.  The long shipping runs between Portugal to and from India ended up killing a huge percentage of the people involved, and even those who made it safely to their destination seldom made it home and struggled to marry and have families, all of which are problems of empire that I can definitely relate to.  The author spends a lot of time talking about the experience of the people involved in the empire, whether those people were Portuguese citizens back at home or people running town councils or those being ruled by empire and struggling to be honored and respected.  The author spends a great deal of time in talking about the influence of religion on Portuguese society and the way in which empire was a great strain on Portugal, showing that we should not take it for granted that empires always benefited their own people by seeking to dominate over others.

[Dom Nuno · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone studying history anywhere in the world, it covers all the aspects of one of the earliest and longest European empires. It is very well researched, is a balanced and impartial account, not skipping over any of the unpleasantness but not loosing also the sense of wonder over what that small country managed to achieve.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by Miguel Andrade, ICOLC mtg, lisbon, Oct 2014

[Susan Abernethy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Link to my review of this book:

https://flhwnotesandreviews.com/2018/...

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this book on my tbr shelves ever since my husband brought it in as part of what I (only half) jokingly call his dowry, 30 years ago. I am now reading for an MA in early modern studies so it's time had come.

Well worth reading. I came away aware of the two-- Asian and American-- empires and how very different they were; a clearer sense of how the Portugese state and its regions functioned (mostly they didn't) and how the rigid,. ie laid down in law, racial hierarchies functioned. New Orleans in the 1850s had nothing on this bunch: degrees of purity were carefully measured, any hint of Jewish ancestry barred you from office, and indigenous ancestry restricted your promotion opportunities, and all of this was carefully recorded and checked on.

I think the most interesting chapter for me was Town Councillors and brothers of Charity which looked at the support networks people could depend on.

--
But this is an old book, 1969: and it is one of the most single sexed accounts of any country I have ever read. Women occasionally crop up in terms of who was allowed to marry whom, rape, and intermarriage. but otherwise, any alien would come away from this book assuming that the human species had only one sex.

[Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

O livro mais maravilhoso que pude ler nos últimos anos sobre história. Talvez o livro que li de forma mais apaixonada. Muito bem escrito, sem muitas dificuldades, porém, extremamente complexo e tenta abarcar diversos aspectos políticos, econômicos e sociais durante cerca de 400 anos. A primeira parte é demarcada pelas divisões de períodos políticos e como se desenvolveram respectivamente. Na segunda parte, C. R. Boxer dá atenção às causas sociais: judaísmo, cristãos-novos, racismo, as ordens religiosas, etc. Excelente livro!

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks, Dr. Boxer, for your book and our dinner conversation. The Lusitanians threw open the world, from Japan to South Africa, Brazil to Mozambique, through their daring and navigational skills. Why then, was that empire lost so quickly, save for the gem of Brazil? Charles Boxer plays with this paradox.

[Sam Kuivenhoven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Niet normaaaaaal

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Ralph Boxer is one of the foremost historians of early Portuguese history. I will admit from the start that I only read the Asia-related chapters of this work (although it also covers Portuguese colonies in Africa and the Americas), so my comments are limited to those chapters.

For anyone seeking information on the role of the church in the Portuguese colonies of Asia, this is the first place to turn, especially Chapters III and X ("Converts and Clergy in Monsoon Asia 1500-1600" and "The Crown Patronage and the Catholic Missions"), which discusses "the indissoluble union of the Cross and the Crown". As Boxer details it, Portuguese rulers were granted Padroado real (royal patronage of the Church overseas) privileges, which gave them the right to be the patron of the Roman Catholic church overseas in part because the Papacy was preoccupied with the "rising tide of Protestantism" on the one hand, and the "Turkish threat in the Mediterranean" on the other. In short, "God was omnipresent as well as Mammon". No one covers this topic better than Boxer, who details the arrival of the first Portuguese missionaries, the arrival of the Jesuits in Goa in 1542 and their subsequent settlements in Malacca, Macao and Nagasaki, and the Church's activities that reached its peak of insensitivity in 1567 when the most heinous bans and prohibitions were thrust upon local communities to turn them towards conversion to Christianity.

To my mind, one of the more interesting aspects of Portugal's expansion into Asia was (as Boxer so perfectly points out, "despite the cultural myopia"), the role Portuguese men of the cloth played as cultural links between Asia and Europe. The letters and notes of its early missionaries brought news of Asia to Europeans, and influenced Asian art and its culture as can be seen in the ivory carvings of Christian images made in Sri Lanka and Philippines that found their way to Europe, as well as the Chinese porcelains portraying such scenes as the Christian Crucifixion now seen in European museums. The European art Jesuit priests introduced to Akbar's Mughal court can still be seen today in Indian miniatures. Matteo Ricci introduced western science to China.

This excellent work is now out of print but can be found in major university and metropolitan libraries. It is worth seeking out if one is interested in Asian or Portuguese history, art history, or the history of the Catholic Church as a missionary religions.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is a well-respected historian of Portuguese colonial history but what made reading this book such a pleasure was the simple language and well-presented format. It read like less of a textbook and more of a historical novel in some ways and pulls together information from an extensive bibliography of records and evidence to draw a starkly conclusive picture of the Portuguese Crown and its territories.

[Francisco Dorego]

Very well written book. Very enjoyable to read. Gives a very good picture of how the portuguese empire developed since the XV century. It also provides a clear view into the breakdown of this vast empire. It proves how portuguese are in general very bad managers, unable to have a medium to long term plan to consolidate the county's finances. It seems that history just keeps repeating itself .... !

[Willem]

Magnificent.

[Gabriel Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome!

[David Newell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully dense, thoughtful, and with a great many useful sources.