Adil Shahi dynasty (Bijapur, Sultanate of)

Shihab-ud-Din Mahmud, also known as Mahmud Shah and Shihab-Ud-Din Mahmud, the twelve-year-old son of Muhammad Shah III, succeeds to the sultanate of Bahmani in 1482.

A regency council is formed with hai mother the Queen as president.

Under Mahmud, sectarian rivals begin to tear apart the large sultanate, as Shiites from Afgnanistan and Persia, relative newcomers in his administration, operate at cross-purposes to the established Turkish nobles of the essentially Sunni sultanate.

The long reign of Mahmud Shah will see a period of gradual weakening of the state.

The King is highly self-indulgent, spending so lavishly that he has to extract many jewels from the Turquoise throne at the instigation of councilor Qasim Barid, who compels Mahmud to make him Prime Minister of the kingdom.

The sultan’s orders begin to be ignored; military missions, ineffective to begin with, eventually cease; and, in 1490, dissident nobles and provincial governors in the regions of Bijapur, Berar, and Ahmadnagar become semi-independent.

Bahmani governor Malik Ahmad, the son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Malik Hasan Bahri, has assumed the appellation of his father afterr his death and from this the dynasty founded by him is known as the Nizam Shahi dynasty.

he declares independence fter defeating the Bahmani army led by general Jahangir Khan on May 28, 1490.

Initially his capital is in the town of Junnar with its fort, later renamed Shivneri.

The Fourth Armada, having crossed the Indian Ocean, lands in mid-August near the opulent port of Dabul, north of Goa.

These are the territorial waters of the powerful Muslim sultan Adil Shah of Bijapur.

Expecting trouble, the fighting ships hoist up their lateen sails and load up their cannon, but no one comes out to challenge them, so they begin coasting south along the Indian coast towards Kerala.

Gama's fleet reaches Anjediva island.

The next day, the ships of Giovanni Buonagrazia (carrying Thomé Lopes) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcellos (Juiloa) finally catch up with the rest of the armada.

Save for the ship of Campo (still stuck in Africa) and Serrão (on patrol around the Mozambique factory), all the Portuguese fleet (eighteen ships out of the twenty that left Lisbon) are together and accounted for.

Around Anjediva island, the armada spots three boats belonging to Timoja, the Hindu privateer who operates out of Honnavar, on the frontline between the warring states of Muslim Bijapur and Hindu Vijayanagar.

They give chase …

…up to the mouth of the Sharavathi River, at which point the pirate boats slip into harbor of Honnavar.

Assured by Gaspar da Gama, the Goese Jew and translator, that Honnavar is a corsair's nest, Vasco da Gama orders an attack on the city.

Portuguese landing crews attack the harbor, plundering and setting fire to the ships and docks.

The Fourth Armada arrives at the mouth of the river that leads up to the city of Bhatkal, south of Honnavar, the day after the raid on the latter city.

Perceiving what he considers hostile gestures from shore, the captain-major dispatches his cousin, Estêvão da Gama, upriver to the town to investigate.

Surveying the Bhatkal docks, Estêvão spies several Arab merchant ships and prepares for hostilities, but his attention is soon drawn to a small group of men in ornate robes, rushing down to the docks, frantically calling to him.

It is an embassy from the raja of Bhatkal, requesting an immediate audience with the Portuguese captain-major.

Estêvão brings the embassy to his cousin.

Evidently hearing of the fate of Honnavar, the embassy offers to submit to the Portuguese.

Vasco da Gama agrees to leave Bhatkal in peace in return for a yearly tribute of one thousand bags of plain rice and five hundred bags of quality rice, probably Basmati.

Bhatkal is also to agree to the exclusion of the Arab merchants from the city, that no pepper trade is to be carried at this port, and that no ship be allowed to travel between Batecala and Calicut.

The treaty is set down in writing and signed.

Described by Correia as simply a modest rice, iron and sugar port, Bhatkal is actually the principal port and sea outlet of the Vijayanagara Empire, and its primary line is the horse trade; specifically, importing large numbers of splendid Persian and Arabian horses for the armies of Vijayanagara princes.

Vasco da Gama, his business in Bhatkal complete, sets sail towards Cannanore.

The fleet anchors around Mount d'Eli, the common touch-point for ships on the Jedda-Calicut route, evidently intending to catch some prizes before proceeding.

After prowling around Mount d'Eli for nearly a month with little success (they capture only one minor ship), captain Gil Matoso (on the São Gabriel), spots a large merchant ship carrying Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca (or going to it, chronicles contradict).

The ship, the Miri, is identified as belonging to a certain al-Fanqi, one of wealthier men of Calicut and said by some to be the Meccan factor in Calicut.

Matoso chases the pilgrim ship down, which surrenders rather quickly, probably imagining that its master has enough money to ransom it off, but Vasco da Gama shrugs off all the offers.

As the Portuguese crew plunder the ship and transfer its cargo, it quickly becomes evident that Gama intends to burn the ship with all its passengers—men, women and children—on board.

When Gama proves deaf to their pleas for mercy, the passengers frantically attack the Portuguese men-at-arms with their bare hands, but to no avail.

The pilgrim ship thoroughly plundered, on Gama's orders, the passengers are locked in the hold and the ship burnt and sunk by artillery.

It takes several days to finally go down completely.

Portuguese soldiers row around the waters on longboats mercilessly spearing survivors.

The sinking of the Miri is an act that instantly cements Gama's cruel and fearsome reputation, and generates a great deal of hatred for the Portuguese in India.

Gama defends his act as "vengeance" for the Calicut massacre of 1500, arguing that the ship's owner, as a prominent person in Calicut, was 'doubtlessly' responsible for the sinister counsel to the Zamorin that led up to it.

Of the eyewitnesses, all mention it, but only Thomé Lopes openly condemns the act.

The chroniclers do not shy away from describing the event and their unease is evident.

Although Barros and Castanheda reiterate Gama's justification of the act as revenge for Cabral, they do not seem to embrace it themselves.

Indeed, Barros, Góis and Osório claim the ship belonged to the Sultan of Egypt, who was in no way responsible for the events in Calicut, thus subtly suggesting Gama may have made a mistake.

Gaspar Correia is a little more open in his disapproval.

He notes that several of the Portuguese captains were appalled by Gama's decision and tried to persuade him against it (if only because they would forego a hefty ransom).

Correia gives a heart-rending account of the desperate and valiant resistance of the doomed passengers.

Poet Luís de Camões passes over the incident in silence, evidently feeling it detrimental to the heroic portrait of Vasco da Gama.

Estimates of those killed on the Miri hover around three hundred.

Portuguese chroniclers are eager to report that twenty children were spared this fate, and brought back by the Fourth Armada to Lisbon, where they will be baptized and raised as friars at the Nossa Senhora de Belém.

Among the eyewitnesses Thomé Lopes and the anonymous Flemish sailor make no mention of this small mercy, although Matteo de Bergamo does point it out.

The Fourth Armada finally reaches Cannanore and delivers the Cannanore ambassador that had gone to Lisbon with Cabral's Second Armada.

The Kolathiri Raja of Cannanore invites Gama to come ashore for an elaborate reception, but Gama replies that he had sworn a personal oath not to set his foot on Indian soil again until his vengeance on Calicut was sated.

As a result, the rajah orders a wooden scaffold to be built over the seashore, where they can meet in person without violating the vow.

Gama presents the raja with royal letters and munificent gifts (a jeweled sword, a brocaded armchair) and discussions immediately begin.

A commercial treaty is negotiated, establishing a Portuguese crown factory in Cannanore, and arranging a fixed-price schedule, which the Raja personally guarantees, for the sale of spices to the Portuguese.

The negotiation for the commercial treaty does not go smoothly, particularly the fixed price clause.

The Kolathiri Raja protests that he has no power over market prices nor the right to dictate how private merchants dispose of their property.

Gama has to resort to feints and threats, then sails out of Cannanore in anger.

Barros credits the role of Paio Rodrigues, the Portuguese factor (private, not crown, an employee of the private employee of Don Álvaro of Braganza and the Marchionni consortium), that had been left behind in Cannanore by João da Nova's Third Armada at the beginning of the year.

After Gama storms off and orders sail out of the city, Paio Rodrigues mediates between the Kolathiri Raja and the Captain-Major and finalizes the treaty.

Correia points out this is the treaty where the Portuguese cartaz system is first introduced.

Henceforth, every merchant ship along the Malabar coast will have to present a certificate signed by a Portuguese factor (in Cannanore, Cochin, etc.), or else be subject to attack and seizure by a Portuguese patrol.

This licensing system will be subsequently adopted later on other Portuguese-controlled coasts (e.g., East Africa, Malacca, Brazil), with differing degrees of success, and will be largely maintained until the eighteenth century.

Gama’s fleet departs Cannanore on October.

Chroniclers differ a little on the subsequent sequence of events.

Gama, when still in Cannanore, had sent Pedro Afonso de Aguiar to Calicut in advance, with the warning that he had come to settle scores for the mistreatment of Cabral and to get compensation for the overrunning of the Calicut factory in 1500.

In response, the Zamorin of Calicut had sent back a string of messengers to Cannanore (and along the way to Calicut), each delivering promises that the Zamorin is willing to settle matters with Gama, and compensate the Portuguese for the loss of their factory goods.

On the other hand, Gama also receives a message from Gonçalo Gil Barbosa, the Portuguese crown factor in Cochin, warning him that this is all a tactical ruse, that the Zamorin of Calicut has also dispatched a circular letter to all the lords of the Malabar Coast instructing them to close their ports and markets to the Portuguese.

Gama's large armada finally arrives before the harbor of Calicut on October 29, 1502.

The Zamorin dispatches an emissary, a Brahmin (dressed as a Christian friar) on a boat to Gama.

The Brahmin reports that the Zamorin had arrested twelve of those responsible for the 1500 riot, and offers a peace and friendship treaty and the opening of a discussion of the restoration of the trade goods seized from the Portuguese factory, albeit noting that the Zamorin has also suffered property damages from Portuguese actions and that he intends to deduct it from the final account.

Gama is angered, feeling that the Zamorin has changed his tone from his earlier messages, and demands the property taken from the factory be restored in full and brought to his ship, and that all Muslim merchants must be expelled from the Calicut, before any discussion about a treaty begins.

While awaiting the Zamorin's reply, Gama seizes a nearby idling zambuq and some fishing boats that had unwisely ventured into Calicut harbor, taking some fifty fisherman captive

This action evidently angers the Zamorin, who sends a stern reply to Gama, noting that Gama had already taken severalfold times more property from Calicut ships, and slaughtered ten times more of his citizens (on the Miri, etc.) than the Portuguese had lost in the 1500 riot.

Despite being the net sufferer and the clamor of his citizens for revenge, the Zamorin is prepared to forgive and forget and start anew

The Zamorin also replies that Calicut is a free port and he has no intention of expelling 'the Moors'

Moreover, the Zamorin orders Gama to release his 'hostages', that he will not subject himself to negotiation conditions and that if Gama is unhappy with his offer, then he should leave Calicut harbor at once, for the Zamorin has not given him permission to anchor there, or at any other port in India.

Infuriated by the reply, Gama sends out a strongly worded ultimatum on October 31, declaring that the Zamorin's permission means nothing to him, that he has until noon the next day to deliver the Portuguese factory goods to his ship

Gama uses this overnight interlude to send his boats out to sound the harbor of Calicut to find optimal firing positions.

That same night, Calicut forces set about frantically digging entrenchments, erecting a protective timber palisade and laying cannon along the harbor shore.

Having received no reply by noon on November 1, Gama orders that his Malabari prisoners be strung up by their necks from the shipmasts, allocating a few to each ship.

Calicut crowds approach the beach to watch the grisly spectacle.

The armada then advances into the harbor and opens fire.

The bombardment is principally aimed at clearing the beach and trenches.

The Malabari shore cannons are too few, their range and power too weak, to provide an effective reply.

The bombardment continues until nightfall.

That night, the corpses of the hung Malabaris are taken from masts, their feet and hands severed off and sent by a small boat to the beach, with an insulting message to the Zamorin, including a demand that the Zamorin reimburse the Portuguese for the powder and shot expended on destroying his city.

The bombardment resumes the next morning.

The mostly poor dwellings on the shore having been razed the previous day, the Portuguese cannons now have a clear view of central city and the statelier homes of the richer citizens of Calicut and bring their larger ordnance to bear.

The city is relentlessly bombarded all morning with some four hundred large rounds and an indeterminate number from the smaller caliber guns.

At noon, when the Portuguese pause for lunch, a small group of Malabari vessels tries to attack the idling squad, but are quickly repelled.

Barros reports that the two-day bombardment had sufficiently crippled the city that several of the captains urged Gama to authorize a landing of troops to sack Calicut.

But Gama, still hopeful the Zamorin might come to terms, turns down their request, believing a sack would only escalate matters to the point of no return.

Te next morning, vengeance satisfied, Gama sets sail out of Calicut harbor.

Gaspar Correia, in his somewhat different account, does not report the hanging of the prisoners; instead, after the bombardment, while still anchored before the harbor of the smoldering city, the Fourth Armada captures a Coromandel merchant convoy of two large ships and twenty-seven small boats unlucky enough to turn up at Calicut at that very moment.

Seizing the convoy, Gama orders the cargoes transferred, the crews tied, their teeth beaten out, their noses and hands cut off and the ships set alight.

The Brahmin emissary (still being held by the Portuguese) is sent back to shore with a bag full of severed hands and a note for the Zamorin telling him to "make a curry out of them".

The violent treatment meted out by Vasco da Gama sends shockwaves throughout the Malabar coast.

Merchant ships in Indian ports hurriedly leave the area or go into concealment.

All shipping along the coast essentially freezes.

Before leaving Calicut, Gama assembles a squadron of five or six fighting ships under Vicente Sodré and his brother Brás Sodré, with some two hundred soldiers (mainly crossbowmen), to maintain the blockade on Calicut harbor, and patrol the coast preying on Calicut shipping.