History of Lisbon V

Lisbon, the Lady of the Seas (To be continued)

Several expeditions were undertaken with Portuguese crews, which discovered the Azores, Madeira and the Canaries. Some will even argue that arrived in Brazil. These islands allow the establishment of new cities, ports, useful for exploring new markets.

The prosperity of Lisbon is threatened when the Ottoman Empire invades and conquers the Arab territories in North Africa, Egypt and Middle East in the fifteenth century. The Turks are initially hostile to the interests of Lisbon and its allied Venice and Genoa, and the trade in spices, gold, ivory and other goods suffers heavily. The merchants of Lisbon, many descendants of Jews or Muslims with ties to North Africa, looking react to negotiate directly with the sources of these goods, without using mediators Muslims. Links from Portuguese and Maghreb Jews, and the conquest of Ceuta, allow Lisbon merchants from spying Arab merchants, discovering that gold, slaves and ivory caravans come to Morocco in the Sahara Desert, from the land of Sudan (which at that time included all the southern desert grasslands, the current Sahel), and spices such as pepper are brought into the ports of the Red Sea in Egypt from India. The new strategy of the Portuguese merchants, Christians and Jews, Italians and Portuguese-is navigate directly to the source material.

The major driver of this objective is the Infante D. Henrique, based on the city of Tomar. Headquarters of the Order of Christ (former Templar), and a large community of Jewish merchants, the city is also very connected to Lisbon by trade in cereals and nuts (one of the main exports of Lisbon). Capital and knowledge of the East by the Knights Templar and Jews were undoubtedly fundamental to achieve the purposes of the Lisbon merchants. The Infante Dom Henrique is the booster of a project that was not what he imagined, but the merchants of Lisbon. Those that supported through monarchy taxes and customs fees, making it virtually independent of the noble territorial resources, convert them to their mercantilist purposes. The Prince Henrique is the organizer of a certain state dirigisme: the big risk and capital required for the opening of new routes need the cooperation of all merchants across the state (as today many large capital projects are undertaken internationally). The Infante Dom Henrique organizes and directs the efforts of the Portuguese ships to reach the sources of gold, ivory and slaves, that they themselves have waged inefficiently. With the capital of the Order of Christ, are founded schools sailors and concentrates resources and knowledge, the merchants Lisboetas Jews, Portuguese-Portugal-Venetian or Genoese, to achieve the objective. Several expeditions are launched in the form of contracts with some of the most influential bourgeois Lisbon, until the Gulf of Guinea is finally reached by 1460.

At this time there is a new attempt by feudal nobles Northerners who remained, to retake control of United, frightened by the growing prosperity of the merchants lisboetas against their loss of income. The purpose is to ease the conquest of Ceuta, which opens prospects for relatively easy victories over North Africa. This company would be favorable to the nobles who serve and gain more land and tenants in Morocco, but it is contrary to the interests of the merchants and nobles-Jews of Lisbon, who would be paying extra taxes needed for expeditions and looking before investing forces and resources of the Kingdom in the discovery of new African and Asian markets and not in further increasing the power of the hostile and pro-Castilian nobility Portucalense. All fights that D. John II maintained against these nobles, with the help of merchants Lisboetas, express this underlying reality of struggle between Lisbon and the North, the former Portucale, birthplace of the nation, by the definition of the direction of the country. After several plots and incidents, in which once again the noble northerners call to aid their counterparts Castellanos, wins again Lisbon and its merchants, and the ringleaders are executed, including the Dukes of Bragança and Viseu, died in 1483 and 1484. All expansion projects are abandoned land in Africa in exchange for trade in newly discovered lands to the south. After the death of Prince Henry, when the path was already open, start up the private sector. The Lisbon merchant Fernão Gomes is the first and being recognized monopoly on African trade in 1469, in exchange for discovery of 500 kilometers of coastline to the South each year and 200,000 reais.

The islands of Madeira and the Azores are populated, and programs for cultivating commercial products are deployed primarily to Lisbon: the cane sugar and wine. In newfound Guinea, cheap products like metal pots and tissues are exchanged for gold, ivory and slaves from factories controlled by lisboetas: the natives to move his business to trade with Europeans, but are not won since is costly. They make up the inhabitants of factories marriages with the daughters of local leaders, facilitating exchanges: the objective is profit and not colonization. The result is a boost for trade in Lisbon. In the capital appear cane sugar and Madeira wine, wheat Ceuta, musk, indigo and other dyes for clothing, cotton North Africa and significant quantities of gold from Guinea and the Gold Coast, largely missing in Europe in the late fifteenth century. Also are trafficked slaves brutally Berbers Canaries and then Africans. The first slaves are distributed by Portuguese territory, and appear the first dark-skinned Africans even in the hinterlands, the properties purchased by you. An innovative product were the peppers. These were spicy fruits grown in India (where they were taken by merchants Lisboetas) but originate from Guinea. Well this quickly monopoly Lisbon won favor in Mediterranean cuisine.

However the best markets and products would come from another discovery, India and East. The war between the Ottoman Empire and Venice greatly increases the prices of pepper and other spices and silk brought to Italy by the Venetians, to Lisbon and thence to the rest of Europe from Egypt (who received boats from India Arabian Sea Red. To circumvent the "Turkish problem" is organized voyage of Vasco da Gama, again on the initiative of merchants Lisboetas but with regal capital, which arrives in India in 1498. Hence the merchants reach where China founded the colony trade Macau, the islands of Indonesia today, and Japan before the end of the sixteenth century. way in establishing contracts and commercial ports of call with the chiefs and kings in Angola and Mozambique. A large colonial empire is consolidated by Afonso de Albuquerque, whose gun safe and Indian Ocean ports in convenient locations for merchants from Lisbon against competition from the Turks and Arabs. territories are not taken but only ports and strong trade with the natives. Across the world, Pedro Álvares Cabral arrives in Brazil in 1500.

The result for Lisbon are the new products it sells to the rest of Europe, exclusively for many years beyond the product arrives African pepper, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, herbs, cotton and diamonds by the Career das Naus India, spices from the Moluccas, the Ming porcelain and silk from China, slaves from Mozambique, Brazil wood and Brazilian sugar. Furthermore continues the trade in fish (salted cod fishery in Newfoundland), dried fruit and wine. The other Portuguese cities such as Lagos and Port, contribute to the foreign trade only marginally, practically limited to export and import of Lisbon. The control Lisboetas still very trade Antwerp, which care fabrics for the rest of Europe. The German and Italian merchants, seeing their routes, land in the first case, to the Mediterranean seconds, largely abandoned, found large business houses in Lisbon re-exporting products worldwide for East Europe and the Middle East.