Chinese and Portuguese Voyages at the Dawn of a New Era

Ladies and gentlemen, Season 2 is now complete, and we are now moving into a very uncertain world. With the era of the nomads now over, and the world up for grabs, it's anybody's guess where Season 3 will take us. One thing seems certain, voyages on the high seas seem to be the direction those vying for power are going. Contacts between widely separated regions in the world greatly intensified during the 15th century. Columbus' first voyage (which we'll soon be discussing) across the Atlantic at the end of the century brought the earth's two great islands--Afro-Eurasia and the Americas--into direct and permanent contact with one another. The changes that resulted from the new trans-Atlantic connections were massive in both the "New World" of the Americas and the "Old World" of Afro-Eurasia.

There was also a great leap forward in contacts between the major regions within Afro-Eurasia, a continuation of the trend that had begun with the establishment of the overland Silk Roads and the Indian Ocean voyages of the classical period. Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming emperors in China dispatched seven huge naval expeditions into the Indian Ocean under the admiralship of Zheng He. The Chinese ships were the largest and most technologically advanced vessels in the early 15th-century world. They made many successful landing at ports in Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, and the East African coast. Then, for reasons that are somewhat unclear, but likely due to continuing Mongol threats on the frontier, the Ming government called a halt to the maritime expeditions and cut off funds for shipbuilding, sending the greatest navy in the world into sharp decline.

While the Ming voyages were in full swing, the Portuguese government (which knew nothing about the maritime activities of the Chinese) began to sponsor its own, much smaller, overseas expeditions. During the course of the 15th century, Portuguese mariners were sent, very tentatively, down the west coast of Africa with the aim of discovering a sea route to Asia. (Muslim states now blocked the traditional routes from Christian Europe to Asia via the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf). Finally, in 1497 and 1498, Vasco da Dama led a fleet of three Portuguese ships and a crew of about 170 sailors around the Cape of Good Hope and up the East African coast. Assisted by an experienced Indian Ocean pilot, the Portuguese ships then sailed across the Arabian Sea to Calicut, a major port on the southwest coast of India (which the Chinese fleet had visited several times earlier in the century). Europeans were now able to sail directly to Asian ports. A new era of world history had begun.

The two documents that I would like you to read focus on the visits of the Chinese and Portuguese fleets to Calicut at different times in the 15th century. In the first document (that you can read by clicking here, starting at the heading "The Country of Ku-li [Calicut]," pgs. 120-126). Ma Huan, who traveled with Zheng He on several of the great maritime expeditions, records his impressions of the Indian port in the early 15th century. The second document (that you can read by clicking here) is taken from the record of the Portuguese voyage made by an anonymous member of Vasco da Gama's crew in 1497 and 1498. How do these selections illustrate the growth of maritime commerce in the Indian Ocean in the 15th century? In what ways were the Chinese and Portuguese voyages similar? How did they differ?

Also, when you are finished reading through both documents, I would like you to consider and discuss the following: What does Ma Huan report about the people of Calicut? What aspects of life in Calicut interested him the most? What do we learn about the local economy from his report? How do you explain his confusion about religion in Calicut? What seems to have been the purpose of the Chinese visit to Calicut? How does the Portuguese report compare with that of Ma Huan? What similarities and differences do you see? What explains the discord between the Portuguese and their hosts? How important were Muslim merchants in Calicut? Where did they come from? What evidence do you see of an Islamic trade network in these documents? How did the level of Indian Ocean commerce in the 15th century compare with that during the classical period? Was the long experience the Chinese had in dealing with pastoral nomads such as the Xiongnu and the Mongols an asset or a liability for Ma Huan and his shipmates when they docked in Calicut? How does Ma Huan's account of Calicut compare with Sima Qian's report on the Xiongnu you read some weeks ago? What do the Chinese decisions to sponsor and then terminate the Zheng He voyages suggest about the political leadership of China during the Ming dynasty? Why was the decision to end the voyages significant? Suppose the Portuguese naval program had been ended after Vasco da Gama returned home. In your opinion, would such a decision have altered the course of world history in important ways? Does the Portuguese document suggest a shift in the European attitude toward trade and merchants? Your thoughts...