While Vasco da Gama's expedition was entirely outfitted by the Portuguese Crown, the second Indian expedition, led by Pedro Alvarez Cabral (b.1464 - d.1520) and his subcommander, Bartolomeu Dias, allowed for a degree of private enterprise. This change in policy was due to da Gama's failure to return with any valuable cargo to recoup the expense of financing the expedition. Unlike da Gama's men, Cabral's were to receive payment determined before sailing with a portion given in spices that would be bought in Calicut and later resold when they returned to Lisbon. Besides this "profit sharing" aspect, individual investors were allowed to buy into the expedition. The individual who took the largest share was the Florentine banker, Bartolomeo Marchioni. It is important to note that the merchants of Florence, having fallen behind Venice in the contest for the oriental trade, were eager to invest in Portugal's exploration ventures. Marchioni, in particular, continued to invest in the early Indian voyages, and later, in 1507 and 1514, he lent King Manuel large sums to finance the Indian trade.

Cabral's fleet departed from Lisbon on March 9, 1500, with thirteen vessels and 1,200 men. After the Cape Verde Islands it followed a decidedly southwesterly course. On March 23 the first ship of the fleet landed on the coast of Brazil and the harbour was named "Porto Seguro". Cabral thought that this new land lay east of the line of demarcation of Spanish territory made in 1493. Believing it to be an island he named it "Island of Vera Cruz" and took possession of it by erecting a cross and holding a religious service. Cabral resumed his voyage on May 3 and by the end of the month the fleet approached the Cape of Good Hope where it was struck by a storm in which four vessels, including that of Bartolomeu Dias, were lost.

With half of the fleet lost Cabral reached Kilwa on July 26 where he was unable to make an agreement with the ruler. On August 2 he reached Melindi where he had a friendly welcome and obtained a pilot to take him to India, arriving at Calicut on September 13. His very first action was to land his translators but because these men were of low caste, the Zamorins of Calicut took insult and negotiations deteriorated from there. After ten weeks Cabral succeeded in loading only two of his ships with pepper. Frustrated, Cabral seized an Arab ship because he thought they were receiving preferential treatment. This provoked a Calicut mob to destroy the trading factory and kill forty Portuguese. Cabral's response was to destroy several foreign vessels, killing 600 men, and then bombard Calicut itself. Cabral went to Cochin, Calicut's largest rival port, where he had greater success doing business. Fearful of an approaching fleet of eighty vessels from Calicut, and nervous about missing the sailing season, Cabral departed from India after a brief trade mission to Cannanore. While making the crossing to Mozambique he lost more ships but eventually returned to Lisbon on June 23, 1501, with only five survivors. Cabral's voyage was a success financially because of his load of pepper, but in other respects it foreshadowed future trouble between Portugal and India’s rulers. Cabral managed to convince King Manuel that his voyage’s misfortunes should be considered as insults to the Portuguese Crown. The stage for the third Indian Expedition was set.

Cabral the King's Voyager

King Manuel gave the command of the third Indian expedition to Vasco da Gama. His mission was to destroy Egyptian power in the Indian Ocean, which would allow the monopoly of the oriental trade to pass into Portuguese hands. Of the fifteen vessels in the fleet, five were left to patrol the Arabian coasts and to deny entry from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. Another five vessels would be sent from Lisbon to reinforce da Gama within a month. The first incident of this military expedition was an attack on a large merchant ship. On board were 250 men and many women and children. The Portuguese quickly boarded and dismantled the ship and then set it on fire. The crew and passengers beat out the flames only to have the Portuguese attempt to rekindle them. After eight days of bombardment the doomed ship was betrayed by one of its crewman. In return for his life he set an all-consuming fire that killed everyone on board except for a small number of children.

After this “successful” engagement da Gama set course for Calicut where he was refused exclusive trading privileges. Enraged, da Gama slaughtered 800 fishermen and bombarded the town for two days before sailing for Cochin. The king of Cochin, although a rival to Calicut, did not want anything to do with the Portuguese. Da Gama ignored the king and constructed a fortified trading factory before departing for Cannanore, leaving a single squadron to defend the port. Shortly after da Gama’s departure, that squadron’s commander abandoned Cochin to raid the Arabian coast. Calicut’s forces soon overran Cochin. It would have been destroyed if it had not been for the timely arrival of six Portuguese ships. After the Portuguese left, fighting continued between the two cities until the first Viceroy, Francisco de Aleida, arrived. The viceroy's responsibility was to prevent the annual fleet captains from following their own whims and ambitions, which had created an atmosphere of antagonism among the local people.

Viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque

King Manuel sent military reinforcements under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque. Afonso was of high birth, a blood relation to the royal house, and a descendant of the High Admiral of Portugal. He was a confidant of King João II when the first Indian expedition was being planned, and a veteran in the wars against the Moors in North Africa. His experience with the Moors created a hatred of them, a bias he took with him to India. Albuquerque was given two goals by King Manuel: first, he was to undertake a campaign against Moorish ports from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf; second, after three years, he would take over the viceroy post. He was given six ships, part of a fleet of fourteen commanded by Tristan da Cunha. Da Cunha insisted on exploring the coast of Madagascar and became embroiled in the king of Malindi’s private war with the rival town of Angoja. With Malindi’s best three pilots, the fleet attacked Socotra. Albuquerque established a garrison on the island and then he continued on to Muscat where he killed everyone and burned down the town.

Albuquerque continued onwards to Hormuz, at the entrance at the Persian Gulf, which was ruled by the Shah of Persia. Warned of the approaching Portuguese, the Shah had already prepared a defence against the impeding attack, but Albuquerque destroyed the Shah's fleet. Days of armed clashes eventually led to the defenders finally accepting the overlordship of the king of Portugal. Albuquerque's faced many problems: his captains complained that they had not received their fair share of Hormuz’s tribute, the Persians took to polluting the water wells with dead bodies, and reinforcements from the viceroy failed to arrive. Albuquerque was forced to abandon his plans for the final assault on Hormuz and he headed for the Red Sea. When he arrived at Cochin he found Viceroy Almeida unwilling to hand over command. The impasse was broken with the arrival of a huge fleet commanded by Fernão de Coutinho, a kinsman of Albuquerque. Almeida was forced to hand over command to Albuquerque. Almeida sailed north to relieve Cannanore, then he sacked Dabul, and destroyed the enemy fleet off Diu. On his return voyage to Lisbon he was killed in an unnecessary fight with some indigenous people on the South African coast.

During the next six years (1509-1515), Albuquerque was recognised as the sole authority of the Portuguese empire in the East. Like his Spanish counterparts in America, Albuquerque’s dominating motive was that of conquest. Unlike the Spanish, he faced powerful opponents whose military abilities and technology were scarcely less efficient than the Portuguese. Albuquerque’s strategy was to hold off the threats from the north and play his opponents against one another while his forces seized the centres of the spice trade.

Goa, second only to Calicut as a trading centre, came under Albuquerque’s scrutiny. As the most southerly outpost of Muslim power it posed a constant threat to the Malabar coastal settlements and this was cause enough for Albuquerque to attack in March 1510. His forces met with little resistance from the Hindu population since the Muslim rule had been oppressive. The ruler of the Muslim kingdom of Bijapur, Yusaf Adil Shah, took exception to this invasion of his territories and sent a large force to retake the city. After three months of hard fighting, Albuquerque was forced to withdraw. He waited for the annual fleet to arrive with reinforcements. Instead, he came into conflict with that fleet’s commander who wanted to proceed to the riches of Malacca rather than waste time and resources on a second attack on Goa. Albuquerque delayed his plans but he did eventually attack Goa with his Indian allies. Once the city was taken Albuquerque sought revenege and massacred every Muslim man, woman, and child in Goa. His enemies in Lisbon tried to discredit him by claiming that Goa was a waste of resources and that would be costly to protect against Yusaf Adil Shah’s armies. King Manuel, however, agreed with Albuquerque that Portugal needed a permanent base on the coast and Goa was a perfect choice since it was well sited for defence and possessed a large and sheltered anchorage. Albuquerque’s demonstration of ruthless aggression at Goa surprised Goa’s neighbouring rulers who were now more willing to negotiate treaties with the Portuguese.

Albuquerque’s attention was now drawn to distant Malacca. He gathered all available resources for an assault in May 1511. With 1,400 men, eighteen ships, and 600 Javanese infantry, Albuquerque stormed Malacca and took the city. Albuquerque set up a Portuguese government that made friendly overtures to neighbouring countries that were also enemies of the Muslims. He also dispatched three ships to seek out the Moluccas, better known as the spice islands. Albuquerque soon returned to Goa to find his fort under siege. Albuquerque’s took command of the situation and compelled the besiegers to surrender. After a brief and relatively uneventful foray into the Red Sea, Albuquerque spent the next twelve months consolidating Portugal’s position in India. He planned another assault against Hormuz, and finally succeeded in taking the city and garrisoning the fortress he was forced to leave behind years before. This was the crowning moment of his career but Albuquerque was soon to be replaced as viceroy by one of his bitterest enemies, Lopo Soares de Albergaria. Afonso de Albuquerque died upon his return to Goa.

After establishing a fort at Hormuz on the Persian Gulf in 1515, Portugal essentially controlled trade in the Persian Gulf. They controlled the "choke points" into the Red Sea and thus monopolised the spice trade.

Although the Portuguese action stunted Venetian trade for a few decades, the blockade was never totally effective. By 1569, Venice had regained much of its former trade and even began to expand, illustrating one of the fundamental notions of strategic choke points. The Portuguese were engaged in a zero sum game. Unless they could control the entire region, their blockade would be ineffective and the Red Sea trade would continue without the Portuguese exerting a significant influence on commerce. In this particular instance, because the Portuguese failed to capture Aden, which lies at the entrance to the Red Sea, they could never fully regulate or control maritime commerce in the region. Venetian traders were not the only concern of the Portuguese. Although the Portuguese patrolled both the west coast of India and the Strait of Malacca, Muslim shippers were still bringing spices from the Moluccas through the Straits of Sunda to Atjeh, in northern Sumatra, for trans-shipment directly to the Red Sea and from there to Alexandria, circumventing the Portuguese altogether.

At approximately the same time that the Portuguese were attempting to establish control over the Red Sea, Portuguese explorers were beginning to investigate the possibility of incorporating China into their overseas possessions. The rumours of China's opulent wealth that reached European ears were such that expeditions to investigate the claims were undertaken as early as 1508. Indeed, when the port of Malacca was taken, the wildest expectations of European merchants were far exceeded; profits of 2,000 per cent on goods acquired were enough to encourage further Portuguese exploration inland.

In 1516 the Viceroy of Malacca wanted to obtain a share of the China trade and put it on an official footing. He enlisted Tomé Pires, an experienced and successful Portuguese trader, to lead a trade mission that landed in Canton, "the port where the whole kingdom of China unloads all its merchandise, great quantities inland as well as from the sea." Initially both groups were equally contemptuous of each other; the Chinese, "hold the Portuguese in little esteem, as they say they do not know how to fight on land - that they are like fishes, which, when you take them out of the water or sea, straightaway die."

The Emperor refused to grant Pires an audience when he arrived in Nanking. Tension between the Portuguese and the Chinese continued, due in part to the eurocentric bias that the Chinese were weak and would be easy to conquer. The Chinese were, of course, far from being weak. Their fleets drove off the remaining Portuguese in Canton. Pires died in prison in 1524.

Despite the initial animosity, Chinese-Portuguese trade began on an unofficial basis by tapping into the Chinese underground economy. This continued until the Chinese government lifted its total prohibition of foreign traders in 1530. By 1555 references to a Portuguese settlement at Macau begin to appear in the records. Macau became an important part in the silk, silver, gold, and porcelain trade between Gao, China, and Japan.

Japan was found by sheer accident in 1542 when a party of merchant traders were blown off course during a typhoon. After fifteen days they were carried to the Japanese islands. They were well received by the Japanese who aided in the repair of their ship and eventually the merchants returned safely to Malacca. That same year the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits, was founded. One of its founding members was St. Francis Xavier who would lead a mission to Japan in 1549. During this time Japan was going through a period of civil disorder due to the decay of the central government. The Emperor had been relegated to the position of figurehead while the true power rested in the hands of the Shogun. The Shogun was also hampered by internecine quarrels and incapable of dealing with ambitious local warlords or disputes between the various monasteries whose members regularly raided the cities for supplies.

Saint Francis Xavier receiving the Jesuit Asian mission

Xavier found himself in a highly unstable situation and spent three frustrating years in Japan. Hoping for greater success elsewhere Xavier turned his sights to China: "Opposite of Japan lies China, an immense empire, enjoying profound peace, and which, as the Portuguese merchants tells us, is superior to all Christian states in the practice of justice and equity. I hope to go there during this year, 1552, and penetrate even to the Emperor himself. China is that sort of kingdom, that if the seed of the Gospel is once sown, it may be propagated far and wide." Xavier arrived at Shang-ch'uan in late December only to die from a fever while waiting to be taken to Canton. To his successors, especially Matteo Ricco, would fall the work of the Jesuit China mission.

St. Francis Xavier's Life

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