Portugal: The First Global Empire (2015)

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/first-global-empire

by Thevet • 5 months ago

93 79 5 months ago

historytoday.com

N19PEDL2• 5 months ago

It would be interesting to imagine a uchronic world where Portuguese has become the lingua franca of the world.

hearsathought• 5 months ago

You would first have to imagine portuguese being the lingua franca of the iberian peninsula. Hard to imagine.

Passing that hurdle, then you'd have to imagine portuguese being the lingua franca of western europe. Hard to imagine that.

Then of europe as a whole and so on. Almost a joke now.

Portuguese was never the major power of it's immediate vicinity, let alone the world. Portugual, like the netherlands, was a glorified trading network rather than a legitimate empire. And portugual, like the netherlands, were minor powers within europe. Neither were major global powers as we understand the term and neither were powerful nor significant enough to produce a lingua franca of anything.

denismenace• 5 months ago

Portugual, like the netherlands, was a glorified trading network rather than a legitimate empire.

nothing more than a glorified crew in New Jersey

leflambeur8• 5 months ago

I think the comparison with the Netherlands is generally appropriate, but we must recognize that what they did in Brazil was exceptional (meaning not comparable to their former possessions in Asia and Africa, a difference from the mere trading nodes) and the NL never did achieve anything like it.

The Portuguese managed to maintain territorial integrity and make their religion and language dominate it entirely, in what's today the 5th largest nation state by area. They also had to defend the longest coastline.

The Portuguese Empire did exist but AFAIK never did aspire to world hegemony like the U.K. Their idea of empire was best represented by something they briefly had which was the combined union with Brazil after its promotion from colony in 1815.

So, not an empire like the U.K. and never wanting to be an empire like the U.K. but also not a total failure to achieve some version of it, however short lived that was.

TheOtherHobbes• 5 months ago

The 1755 earthquake effectively nuked the capital and killed maybe a third of GDP.

Portugal was never interested in dominance of Europe - hard to project power to the centre when you're out on the far edge and have more of a navy than an army.

But the trade network was the first truly global network, and very much non-trivial.

antsou• 5 months ago

There is a very good reason why Portugal and the Netherlands were so similar, in this regard!

nunobrito5• 5 months ago

On the southern hemisphere of this planet it is the most spoken native language.

Interesting enough it has a wild variation of accents/slangs but the written form mostly stays the same regardless of the country.

Frieren2• 5 months ago

World powers change and shift with changes of technology, climate and needs for resources. Countries rise to power because they are in the right place at the right time, even if monarchs and nationalists will always attribute it to God preference or other self-serving reason.

The first century of Portuguese discoveries saw a successive stripping away of layers of medieval mythology about the world and the received wisdom of ancient authority – the tales of dog-headed men and birds that could swallow elephants – by the empirical observation of geography, climate, natural history and cultures that ushered in the early modern age.

Technology brings societal change. The world has been becoming smaller with help of each new technological step. Societies can fight it, but it is unavoidable. So, I hope that we focus more on building a good world for us all using technology to improve all our lives.

nlitened• 5 months ago

Countries rise to power because they are in the right place at the right time, even if monarchs and nationalists will always attribute it to God preference

Isn’t it literally the God’s preference of a country for this place and time, from both secular and religious points of view?

Frieren2• 5 months ago

The traditional way of looking to by "God will" means that something is right and moral.

I agree that nowadays it is also used as just a substitute to "luck" or "random event" without the moral connotations.

ksec• 5 months ago

World powers change and shift with changes of technology, climate and needs for resources. Countries rise to power because they are in the right place at the right time,

I wonder when will China take the crown. Assuming US follows on their current trajectory.

braza• 5 months ago

As a Brazilian, the whole improbable (and beautiful) history of Portugal raised by the "Navegações" and how badly they bottled the whole imperium (especially after the Brazilian independence, but one can argue that João VI opened the ports) and the sheer amount of lack of vision in not investing in production is something that will always amaze me.

One can say that it was one of the longest imperiums in history (ending in 1999 with Macau???), but every time that I spend some time in Portuguese cities, I feel just bad. The good thing is that Brazil will carry its tradition for posterity nevertheless.

pdpi• 5 months ago

but every time that I spend some time in Portuguese cities, I feel just bad

What do you mean? (Asking this as a Portuguese guy who really doesn't feel at home back there any more)

Koshkin• 5 months ago

The Chinese selling Portuguese souvenirs made in China?

JetSpiegel3• 5 months ago

Navegações

You mean "Descobrimentos", although that is kinda old fashioned.

They were "discovering" lands, the same way I discover Disneyland when I get there from the first time.

nunobrito5• 5 months ago

It was chaotic as always.

Poor corporate planning and execution is a long time Portuguese tradition. It seems our history is written by a few people that somehow emerge from that chaos and manage to put everyone else moving on some direction. Much of the lands overseas were left on their own, abandoned. There was an effort from their side to remain Portuguese because of family ties.

Brazil was different from the start. It was the chance to build a kingdom on a paradise without poverty and the problematic european neighbors. It shocks me to see the old brazilian cities with the same traditional architecture as seen on european portugal but placed in gorgeous locations. When I see those pictures, I understand why so many preferred to stay in Brazil.

Also, Brazil always had a strenght of its own that surpassed anything else seen before. Ships were larger and stronger when built there, population had a level of energy and optimism that surpassed the european counterparts. It was not a surprise when it became the heart and capital of the empire itself.

Just as curious note: Up to this day the spanish have much more respect for the portuguese than vice-versa. I was curious about why it happened that way, one day a old spanish told me something I didn't know: "it's because if we upset they portuguese they'll invade our land and burn Madrid again".

I never knew the portuguese had done such a thing, it isn't mentioned in school nor in popular culture but it did happened. Turns out this was during the wars against Spain, an army group from Brazil arrived to defend Portugal but more than just defending they went straight to the capital and subjugated it completely. This left such an impact on the self-esteem of the spanish that they haven't forgotten to this day. Brazil is indeed something else.

Um abraço deste lado do Atlântico.

AnimalMuppet• 5 months ago

Information was fed back into a central hub, the India House in Lisbon, where everything was stored under the crown's direct control to inform the next cycle of voyages. This system of feedback and adaptation was highly effective. It was accompanied by a rapid expansion in cartographic knowledge.

This almost feels like state-sponsored R&D, 500 years ago.

ajb• 5 months ago

Historically, what R&D there was, was often done by the state; simply because of being the entity with the most spare capacity to do so. It goes a long way back, Egyptian pharoes and Chinese emperors had written in their histories about how they invented things or made economic improvements. These were most likely done by people under their sponsorship, but nevertheless they saw it as part of their role.

Buxato2• 5 months ago

Spain facepalm.

Buxato2• 5 months ago

https://woelkeportfolio.weebly.com/uploads/8/9/5/8/8958405/1...

fauria4• 5 months ago

Spain was the first globalization, not Portugal. The article forgets to mention two key elements:

1) The Manila galeon[1], the first trading route connecting Europe, America and Asia. This was the first trully global trade route (Portugual never established a trans-Pacific route).

2) The Real de a Ocho[2], the first global currency, used virtually everywhere including the US until the modern dollar replaced it in 1857. It still lives through the $ symbol, representing the Pillars of Hercules and the "Plus Ultra" script [3].

It also downplays the role of Spain in the first circumnavigation. Sure, Magellan was born in Portugal, but he sailed for the Spanish Crown. The expedition was financed by Spain, sailed Spanish ships and finished its trip commanded by a Spanish sailor (Juan Sebastián Elcano).

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Spanish was not an empire of mere territorial possession, it was a civilization. Spain has currently 50 sites inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage [4], and from the ~150 sites in the Americas, ~50 were built by Spain. These includes entire cities, universities, hospitals, infrastructure, defenses and more [5].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRn5qCAXBI

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_ultra

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_i...

[5] https://greatbritainandtheusatheirtruehistory.quora.com/33-c...

sigmar• 5 months ago

This was the first trully global trade route (Portugual never established a trans-Pacific route).

You're saying because Portugal traded with Asia through the wrong ocean, it wasn't global? Seems like an odd metric.

fauria4• 5 months ago

No, I'm sayng that Portugal never closed the circuit that led to a global trade route. They built a line between Europe and Asia, but Asia and America remained economically disconnected. It was that loop that Spain closed that enabled a global economy.

hugodan5• 5 months ago

Spain didn't exist back then

fauria4• 5 months ago

Establishing when did Spain become Spain is complicated, but a commonly agreed date is 1480, following the Cortes of Toledo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Castile

someone7x• 5 months ago

As a history enjoyer I have actually heard of this:

The Black Legend (Spanish: leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend (Spanish: leyenda negra española) is a purported historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend

Pay082• 5 months ago

I'll be honest, that sounds like either propaganda itself or someone's victim complex.

JackFr• 5 months ago

Don’t forget the Dutch who were the first to have colonies in North and South America, Africa and Asia.

chucke• 5 months ago

lol, the trans-pacific route was pointless. Portugal monopolized the Indian ocean and spice trade for more than 100 years. It established the atlantic triangle trade of Africa (supplying slaves) to Brasil (supplying sugar) to Europe. All of them comercially viable for centuries. Meanwhile, Spain could barely cross the Pacific ocean and make it the viable trade route to the spice islands that it longed for to be.

Many forget that the circumnavigation of Magellan was both a mistake and a failure. The discovered pass to the Pacific, the southernmost point in the planet not counting Antarctica, was considered unnavigable most of the year (the magellan fleet had to wait 6 months at Puerto San Julian before daring to continue the search, surviving its first mutiny attempt), before treading the slow currents of the Pacific, which took down the majority of the fleet to scurvy (while most likely contributing to the madness of Magellan, which made him the delirious zealot which jumped foolishly to his death at the hands of Lapu Lapu). In fact, part of the fleet tried to make it back through the Pacific, only to give up again, come back to the spice islands and be captured by the portuguese, while the remainder barely made it back, commanded by Elcano, one of the mutineers of Puerto San Julian; a route that btw, they feared taking, as it was in direct violation of the Tordesillas treaty and would certainly condemn them to death would they be discovered. 1 ship out of 5 made it back. 18 out of 270 men. By the time they arrived, the new world colonization was still mostly considered a failure, Columbus still an outcast, not even worthy of naming the continent he discovered (this was roughly 18 years before the Aztecs, Incas, and all the gold and silver that got plundered).

Meanwhile, the portuguese routes remained largely uncontested, that is, until a certain young portuguese king died in a battle in the north of Africa leaving no children, thereby opening the door for the two crowns being ruled by the same king, and with it, making Portugal a target for the many enemies Spain had been collecting along the way. And that was the beginning of the end for the portuguese century.

The Manila galeon is certainly an historic milestone, but it connected America with Asia. Payload needed to be carried by land all the way to the Gulf of Mexico before departing to Europe. Barely global, if that's what's implied. It started quite late in the history of the spanish in Americas, some 100 years after the conquest of Mexico, because until then, extracting and transporting all the gold and silver to Europe was considered more profitable, until there was so much silver in circulation in Europe that it devalued it, thereby making Asia a more enticing market for its silver, as it was still considered valuable by then. The route also lasted a bit more than 50 years. Consider that the portuguese route to India was still being navigated way into the end of the 1800s, and only being truly disrupted by the opening of the Suez canal.

I'm not here to downplay the several achievements, or exacerbate the atrocities of the spanish empire. Every empire had them, no less the portuguese (while they did not come up with the idea of slavery, the atlantic triangle is responsible for the biggest intercontinental forced transfer of human beings in history, and the massive economic dependence it created in African kingdoms caused its brutal collapse after the abolition). But not calling it the first global empire of the discovery age, specially taking into consideration that they literally started a century before anyone else, is factually incorrect.

JetSpiegel3• 5 months ago

Also unmentioned is the disastrous intervention in the Moroccan civil war of 1580, where the teen king and most of its nobles were killed, leading to 60 years of Spanish rule. This is not at the apex of the empire, but close.

Also, Henry the Navigator downright stole or cajoled most of the "inovations" from Italian city states. For example, the Madeira island was named so by Italians, settled by some of Henry's minions.

pjmlp2• 5 months ago

Nah, he is still supposed to come back in a foggy morning according to the legend.

Fueled by the fact that his body was never found, so it might be that he survived and rather stay low than come back.

JetSpiegel3• 5 months ago

Mayve he will come back on the 500th aniversary, looking forward to that.

dwd• 5 months ago

For anyone interested in this "They may have been the first to visit Australia.", the comment refers to a wreck supposedly found in 1836 by whalers near Warrnambool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahogany_Ship

seattle_spring• 5 months ago

Portugal. The man. The empire.

ricardorivaldo• 5 months ago

go portugal !

United857• 5 months ago

Fun fact: Macau was the oldest and longest lived European colony in Asia, 1557-1999. It’s still a fun place to visit and mostly off the radar for Western tourists.

araarabish• 5 months ago

During the Napoleonic wars, the entire Portuguese court relocated to Rio de Janiro which became the new capital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_the_Portuguese_cou...

Anon843• 5 months ago

Technically, also the last global empire. Macau wasn't returned to China until 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Macau

markdown2• 5 months ago

France and USA still have colonies around the world. So no, not the last.

Anon843• 5 months ago

Are those considered colonies or territories?

Pay082• 5 months ago

So does the UK.

hugodan5• 5 months ago

Also Netherlands, also France, also Denmark, also Spain (melila and ceuta)... actually Portugal kinda is still the first global empire that managed to shift away from it

oska4• 5 months ago

When xenophobia is a useful social defence :

They were most successful in Japan, creating about 300,000 converts until their activities induced a wave of xenophobia and they were either expelled or killed.

I am immensely glad that Japan was not colonised early on like the Philippines to their south unfortunately was.

ch4s33• 5 months ago

The peak of Japanese xenophobia in the 1930s however was conversely very unfortunate for everyone nearby.

oska4• 5 months ago

I'm very aware, of course, of the horrific crimes that Japan carried out in China and other countries in the 1930s but that is not xenophobia. People going outside their country (to do whatever) are not affected by xenophobia. Xenophobia is a fear of people from outside the country, within that country.

Native cultures (however you want to define that) have always shown some curiousity and openness to visitors from outside the culture but that is balanced by some level of xenophobia too, that ramps up as people inside the culture feel that they are being overwhelmed. Both aspects of openness and shutting out are natural traits in any homogenous culture.

dzonga• 5 months ago

each empire of built on mastering an energy source

Portuguese - wind

british - coal

america - oil

now we're witnessing Chinese master renewables (solar & wind)

Portugal: The First Global Empire (2015)

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