The King, the Fugger and the ‘perdido’ nau….
The India run was like no other adventure. The sailors on
that Carriera da India which left out from Lisbon March 1533 on the 30 meter
long Nau Bom Jesus were a motley collection of priests, sailors, soldados,
degredados, nobility and officers, totaling to 250 or so. Only two sets of
natural phenomena separated them from life and death on the voyage, not to
mention disease. The natural phenomena were the summer storms near the Cape of
Good Hope, South of Africa which they would round and then slingshot off in a
tangent to ride the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea heading
to Cochin and Goa. The distance of 12,000 miles separating Lisbon and Cochin was
remarkable in the sense that it not only tested man’s valor and courage, but
also his persistence and health. The voyager’s intention was not just to procure
all the black gold of Malabar they could lay their hands on, but also make riches
in trading the goods their carried on their carrack. The Estado da India was
already in conception and a robust trade was in place. And so the Portuguese
braved these terribly long voyages, financed by their king and his friends, some
of them who were immensely rich, like the Fugger’s of Germany, who by
themselves could decide the fate of many a monarchy in Europe. On the other end of the route, they dealt with rich Indian middlemen. Let it not be understood that the ships came empty and returned full to the brim, in fact they were heavily laden both ways, as trade progressed into the second decade of the 16th century.
The regimento (sailing directions) from the Casa da India situated
on the mouth of the Targus were straightforward in the case of the Armada of
1533, a measly set of just seven ships. Round the cape, and proceed to Cochin
and Goa. The departure was as planned, in March and the naus or carracks were
to berth at Goa by September. I am sure most readers would have assumed that
riding monsoon and storm winds was not for the faint hearted, and it was not like
one of the modern cruise liner trips. The journey was at best, one which could
be termed violent and filled with nightmares of all sorts, one the fear of the
unknown brings in. Sailors thus reported of dragons, huge snakes, people with
many heads, mermaids and so on, brought about by delusion and intense boredom
coupled with the vigorous swings of the ship’s floor and horible sea sickness.
Beating drums or playing tambourines as mandated did not quite help, nor did
confessions to the priest and telling taller tales. In fact many a priest after
hearing the violent confessions was reduced to shaking caricatures in cassocks.
Handling some of the mutinous types and violent quarrels between soldiers were
but natural activities that any experienced captain had to handle. He had to be
tough to handle punishments like getting the guilty walk the plank, subjecting
them keel hauling (dump them with a rope tied to their waists and drag them
along the waters for a period of time) or pinning the worst offender’s hands to
a mast with a deep knife thrust. Four hour watches had to be kept and if one
had to relive himself, he had to enter a lavatory cage suspended over the
rails, where the wary would look down with terrible consternation at sharks and
dolphins and other animals swimming under, in the hope that the creature above
was prey. On stormy days, they went down to the bilges at the bottom of the
ship to relieve themselves and that make the voyage a very stinky one indeed,
even after vigorous cleaning by the ships boys.
The crew ate only one
hot meal a day, usually around noon. Because there were as yet no galleys
aboard ships, meals were cooked over a fire kindled in a box of sand on the
open deck. When it rained, food was eaten cold, but hot or cold, a sailor’s
diet was monotonous. It consisted of salted pork, a bit of cheese, some beans,
onions, and the staple of all nautical diets, ship biscuit. Supplies, stored in
leaky barrels, soon went bad. The meat putrefied and weevils attacked the
biscuit. Antonio Pigafetta described the food Magellan’s crew subsisted on:
“They ate biscuit and when there was no more of that they ate the crumbs, which
were full of maggots and smelled strongly of mouse urine.” When even the crumbs
gave out, men captured the ship’s vermin and auctioned them off as food.
Pigafetta reported that “a mouse would bring half a ducat or a ducat. To wash
down their unappetizing meals, the crew had water and wine, both of which
quickly spoiled in their wooden casks. The wine turned to rancid vinegar. The
water became so foul and smelly that sailors held their noses while drinking it.”
So do you envy the Portuguese sailor?
Those six months on board an ‘Indian Run’ Nau were hell.
Many a sailor wondered why he endured it, some of course for the adventure and
prospective riches, some for deliverance from their prison sentences and some
for glory. Some others just got pulled along. The Portuguese even had a proverb
“If you want to learn how to pray, go to Sea!!” Scurvy, thirst and all kinds of
things were braved, for the king and the lord! And I must now bring one fact to
your notice. If you look at merchant ships worldwide today, a good number of
the sailors and officers hail from Goa. Well, after all some of them could just
be descendants of these early sailors. Every year an armada sailed out with
goods and came back laden with riches a year later. There were some losses, but
manageable in the scheme of things and after all, it was an era where human
life was expendable (not that it is not these days!). The profitability was
quite high and the riches at Lisbon accumulated, as the Estado Da India and the
Casa Da India (India house) kept becoming bigger and more bureaucratic.
The winds of trade were however more predictable. The
monsoon was a southwesterly wind (blowing from East Africa to India) in the
summer (between May and September) and then abruptly reversing itself and
became a northeasterly (from India to Africa) one in the winter (between
October and April). The ideal timing for a ship getting out of the cape was to
catch the late summer monsoon to India, and return with the early winter
monsoon, minimizing its time at sea. But then again, winds die and the ships
would wallow in the sea waters where sailors went crazy of thirst, hunger and
malnutrition. Perhaps it was better to follow words of wisdom and leave in
February, but it was not always possible to outfit these ships by then. Anyway
as you can see it was critical to reach the East African coast in time before
the SW monsoon. The ships would then stop at one or more staging posts on the
African East coast, fill up with rations and catch the monsoon at the
equatorial line. If they were late, they had to take a diagonal cut into the
wide ocean to slingshot the monsoon, but this as you can imagine increased the
mortality rate owing to riding the violent storms without rest, coupled with malnutrition
and sickness. There were so many more things to consider while putting together
the regimento, but let us not clutter our mind with such things for it will
dull your senses and put you to a sleep before I complete the story.
But I must not forget to tell you about the doldrums. Well,
today the word means different, but it had much to do with winds or the lack of
it near the west coast of Africa south of Sierra Leone (Let not your eyes widen, we are not talking about Sunny Leone
the damsel who is popular for other matters, this here is a place in Africa…).
It is a low pressure area where the oceans are still and only a skilful or
lucky captain could steer a sailing ship through it using little breeze and the
ocean currents. Get past it and you have passed your first obstacle enroute
India. The next few weeks would be straightforward sailing to the cape of
storms or the Cape of Good Hope as it was more properly called, riding the
Brazilian current. But as you hit the tip and cross it, the next obstacle
presents itself, the contra Agulhas current on the east coast which speeds down
to collide with the Brazilian current. Stay away and cross it courageously, but
not in a fleet or as an armada, for the losses, god forbid, could be huge.
Spread out, and converge back to the East coast past the eddies, that was the
advice of the experienced or so they thought, for it was easier said than done,
as not only the currents, but also the winds created havoc, well actually
whirlwinds. You also had to stay clear of coral reefs and shoals around
Madagascar. If they got through, they stopped at Mozambique for repairs and for
picking up more items for the India trade, namely elephant ivory, gold, coral
and pearls.
By now it has been close to four months already, since the
ship had left Lisbon and it was time to head north and turn eastwards at the
Seychelles islands for the final burst to India with the monsoons. If they
could not manage it they headed to Malindi and remained there for a year. Goa,
with its better harbor and greater supply base, served as the first anchorage
point of Portuguese armadas while Cochin, with its important spice markets, remained
the ultimate destination. Yes, riding the monsoon winds also required skill,
but the additional pilots from the African ports provided the required skill
and guidance to the Portuguese.
Who were the people who decided the destinies of these brave
or foolish people who fought through their destinies and tussled the sea gods?
They were of course the traders and the merchants who wished to profit. In
reality they were the ones who actually decided the fates of the people who
rode the ‘carriera da India’ and what these merchant ships carried or not
carried. We have the merchants in India, we had the merchants in Portugal and
Germany and we had the conduits or middle men like the Zamorin and the King of
Portugal. And so if you walked around the streets of Lisbon before the dammed 1755
earthquake, one could hear statements ending in a sigh like “I am neither an
Indian merchant, nor yet a Fugger, but a poor boy like yourself” (Gusman
d’Alfarache).
Recall also that the very first armada that set out with
Vasco Da Gama was in 1497 and once the flood gates were opened by him, many
followed with regularity though many a ship was lost near the cape. It is
approximated that some 806 naus sent on the India Run between 1497 and 1612. Of
those, 425 returned safely, 20 aborted their voyage and returned, 66 were lost,
4 were pirated, 6 were destroyed, and 285 remained in India.
But let us get to the period of the story, for the year was
1933. Oh! What a year that was for mighty and rich Anton Fugger, who decided to
go into self-exile. Jakob the rich of Augsburg had already passed away and the
riches were left to his nephew Anton. They controlled vast copper and salt
mines in Europe and provided finance to the nobles who traded with the East. In
fact their efficient banking and supply chain ran like clockwork. But life is
never simple and the envious did not leave him or his family alone, and as the
Fuggers were Catholics in a Germany that was swiftly embracing protestant
Christianity, the rest of the people ganged up against them. Marx Ehem and Anton Fugger ended up in a
tussle on Ascension Day in May (this was after the ships left, but gives you a
feeling of the times) and Anton was locked up in church for a day as punishment
and released after he paid bail or compensation. The furious millionaire left
Augsburg and went into exile to his village of Weisenhorn (As years passed,
matters improved, but that is another story). Anyway, the Fugger’s had by them
become immensely rich and had far more creditors than they could manage. They
were also venturing out into the newly discovered South America where Anton got
the Spanish license to colonize Chiel and Peru!
Lisbon had been suffering too with floods, sweating plagues
and pestilence (there and in Europe) since the late 1520’s and the earthquake
in 1531 added to its miseries (Perhaps the curse had come from Malabar which
they were raping in the meantime!). The Spaniards were seething in anger as the
papal bull was broken by the Portuguese when Magellan ventured into Spanish
waters. The king Joao III or John III was proving to be a bad manager of his
finances, racking up huge debts in his Moroccan and Indian ventures (Imagine a
two million cruzado deficit during 1522-1544). This coupled with the problems
Anton Fugger was going through, perhaps resulted in the smaller Armada in 1533,
just seven ships.
And so the armada readied itself for the Carriera da India.
The Nau Bom Jesus was one among them and all of 400 or so tons in displacement.
That the Portuguese knew how to build sturdy ships is clear, but you must also
understand that the life of such a ship was not more than four or five years.
Usage of nails, galagala caulking, lead in the seams, and a final black coat of
pine tar from Germany gave these ships a sinister look. The heavy guns and
cannons they carried for defense made them difficult to confront. The crew
comprised a captain major, a deputy, a captain, a record keeping clerk (the royal
agent – like our Barros or Carrera), a pilot and a deputy pilot. Then came the
master, the boatswain, ships boys, pages and the sailors or seamen. We can also
see chaplains, German bombardiers, stewards, specialist technicians like
carpenters, caulkers and barber surgeons in this group.
Noronha was not feeling right as he twiddled about with his
shining astrolabe, and something told him that this would become a major
ordeal, call it a sailor’s hunch or intuition. The rusted astrolabe discovered
475 years later would prove him right. In India the Portuguese had decided to
move north from Cochin. Goa had been taken and the Portuguese were settling
down, Vasco da Gama was back but died soon after and after a few mediocre
administrators, Nuno Da Cuhna took charge. A large amount of finances were demanded
from Lisbon, so also guns to secure their foothold. The 1533 armada perhaps was
loaded up for this very purpose with copper and gold. The Moghul king Baber had
passed away in 1530 and Humayun had taken charge, and the Shah Bahadur of
Cambay was toying with the idea of signing a treaty with the Portuguese to keep
Humayun at bay.
The Bom Jesus was loaded with 18 tons of Fugger’s copper and
4 tons of tin and pewter ingots for trading, with this heavy load serving as
ships ballast. Elephant tusks were also loaded in large quantities, and large
amounts of gold (20,000 coins), copper and silver coins (Personal effects such
as syringes and mercury used to treat syphilis, astrolabes, charting dividers,
pots, pans, plates and so on) as well as cannons and guns, muskets and swords.
We know that Indian trade was done only in cash and little barter, and that was
why a lot of cash was carried in gold, the tusks were sent so the craftsmen in
India worked on it and finished goods were sent back to Portugal. The ship must
have been armed with some 180-200 small iron and copper guns (some later ships
had as many as 366!). What was the copper doing in the holds? Well, they were
melted down to make coins by the Indian kings. The profit in the sale of copper
was quite large as a quintal of copper costing 4.5 Cruzados at Augsburg would
be sold in Cochin for 14 cruzados. The freight and handling cost was 4.5
cruzados, so the profit was 5 cruzados per quintal. Cherina Marakkar at Cochin
was one would buy a lot of it and it would go on to be sold to make coins and
other.
As the ships crossed the doldrums, it was winter time in the
African south. Six of the ships got through, one did not. The fate that befell the Bom Jesus was simply announced as ‘ship
lost’ – Perdido!!
The ships of the armada which sailed down the Tagus River
were built for the voyage and two of them were brand-new and owned by the king
himself. One of these two was the Bom Jesus (Good Jesus) captained by Dom
Francisco de Noronha. How do we know that the ship dug up at Orangemund was Bom
Jesus? As we saw from previous studies, the Casa Da India and its records were
destroyed in the earthquake and the fires, but some papers survived. In these
old Portuguese navy annals, the following critical epitaph is provided. The Cirne and S Roque
will arrive in Goa in September, not the Bom Jesus. Periera is still in Africa,
at the Cape of Good Hope. Noronha’s ship capsized near the Cape and nobody
escaped, perhaps by his carelessness at the critical moment while the other
nau’s scattered and escaped.
This shows that the tragedy occurred near the Cape in the winter storms and the ship was blown backwards and further north to the Orangemund area. Everything points out that the vessel is the Bom Jesus of the fleet of 1533 that didn’t succeed to pass the Good Hope Cape and that turned back and sunk near the sands of Namibia. We also read that the combination of thick fog, strong winds and heavy swells make the Namibian coastline quite a hazardous area for ships. Just how risky the area is, is clear since some 300 shipwrecks have already been located, with a further 200 relics that cannot be identified. The cold water of the Benguela Current is also dangerous for shipwrecked sailors, for death can result after five hours after exposure to water of 15°Celsius or less. As the Bom Jesus would have capsized offshore, most if not all of the sailors must have perished in the freezing waters and strong currents that make swimming very hard. Of the 21 Portuguese ships lost on their way around Africa to the east between 1525 and 1600, only the Bom Jesus was recorded as being lost near Namibia. And so the Orangemund became its graveyard. - Diogo Affonso who captained the Santa Clara also states that he saw the Bom Jesus founder off the Cape of Good Hope.
Did anybody survive? We cannot say for no human remains have
been found save some human toe bones in a shoe found pinned beneath a mass of
timbers. Did some of them walk on, surviving in the wild or did they
intermingle with the Kaffirs as they called the natives? It is possible as we
saw in the case of the crew of the Grosvenor. Perhaps, we may never know.
References
Convicts and Orphans: Forced and State-sponsored Colonizers in the
... Timothy J. Coates
The Fuggers of Augsburg: Pursuing Wealth and Honor in Renaissance
Germany - Mark HäberleinIndo Portuguese trade and the Fuggers of Germany – KS Mathew
Relação das náos e armadas da India (page 49)
Bom Jesus picture – Thanks to linked site
Thos who wish to see the wreck pictures click here
Annaes da Marinha Portugueza, Volume 1 By Ignazio da Costa Quintella
Maritime Archaeology and Trans-Oceanic Trade: A Case Study of the
Oranjemund Shipwreck Cargo, Namibia- Shadreck Chirikure, Ashton Sinamai, Esther
Goagoses, Marina Mubusisi, W. NdoroLivro em que se contém toda a fazenda & real patrimonio dos reinos de Portugal, India ... - Luiz de Figueiredo Falcão (pages 156, 157)
Shipwreck in the Forbidden Zone – National Geographic - Roff Smith
The 16th century Portuguese shipwreck of Oranjemund, Namibia - Francisco J. S. Alves
Decay or Defeat? Ernst Van Veen
Pics – Courtesy Wikipedia
Notes
1. The Relação das náos e armadas da India, Livro Contem
toda as well as AJR Russell Wood (the
Portuguese empire 1415-1808) states that another armada of 12 caravelas
redondas and One galleon (bigger nau) sailed to India in 1533 under the command
of Dom Pedro de CastelaoBranco in Oct 1533.
2. There is a paragraph about the sailor’s food extracted from a paper where the author's name is not provided. I do not
know the author of that fine paper, but thank him for the contribution and
would be pleased to add his name here if he gets back to me!
