The so-called Dieppe Maps, copied by spies from secret Portuguese charts, and presented in 1536 to the French Dauphin, indicates that a Portuguese fleet has previously found and charted the northeast and east coasts of Australia.

One of the maps depicts a Southern Continent nearly identical in eastern profile to Australia.

Another of the Dieppe Maps depicts the knowledge of New Zealand’s east coasts gained earlier by Portuguese mariners.

France’s Ambitions in the Americas and the Expedition of Jacques Cartier (1534)

By the early sixteenth century, the French crown, like England, recognized Spain’s papacy-conferred title to the trans-Brazilian Americas only where Spanish rule was effectively established. Driven by rivalry with Emperor Charles Vand the desire to break the Spanish-Portuguese monopoly on the riches of the New World and Asia, French king Francis I sought alternative paths of expansion and influence.

Early French Exploration: Giovanni da Verrazzano (1524)

In 1524, Francis had supported the expedition of the Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano, financed in part by merchants from Lyon, to explore the Atlantic coast of North America. Verrazzano was tasked with exploring territories north of Spanish-held Florida and seeking a possible passage to Asia ("Cathay"). He became the first European since the Norse voyages around 1000 CE to survey the North American coast extensively between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, notably exploring New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay. Although John Cabot had earlier explored Labrador and the Spanish had already established themselves in parts of Florida, Verrazzano's voyage was significant for French claims, particularly as he formally claimed Newfoundland for France.

Jean Le Veneur and Jacques Cartier

The prominent ecclesiastical statesman Jean Le Veneur (born to a noble Norman family and Bishop of Lisieux since 1505) had emerged as an influential figure in Francis I’s court. Having become Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1524), Grand Almoner of France (1526), and created Cardinal by Pope Clement VII (1533), Le Veneur was deeply involved in French ecclesiastical and political affairs.

Crucially, Le Veneur introduced Breton mariner Jacques Cartier to King Francis at the Manoir de Brion in 1534, explicitly endorsing him as a capable navigator able to "lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World." Cartier, born in the Breton port of Saint-Malo in 1491, was respected as a skilled and seasoned seafarer, having elevated his local standing through marriage to Mary Catherine des Granches, a member of a prominent family. Le Veneur cited Cartier’s previous voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as evidence of his expertise and suitability.

The meeting proved decisive. Cartier was chosen by Francis I to lead the next major French expedition to the Americas in 1534, marking the beginning of sustained French exploration and eventual colonization in the New World, most notably in regions that would later become Canada.

Thus, under Le Veneur’s guidance and Cartier’s experienced command, the French crown advanced its ambitions, seeking to establish a foothold in North America independent from Spanish control, directly challenging the Iberian monopoly on transatlantic exploration and trade.

The buying and selling of Indonesian spices, the production of which is limited and the sources often remote, initially fuels this early modern age of commerce.

Nutmeg (and mace) come from the nut of the tree Myristica fragrans, which, until the late eighteenth century, grows almost exclusively on six tiny islands in the Banda Archipelago, some three hundred kilometers west of the Papua coast.

Cloves are the dried flower buds of the tree Syzygium aromaticum, the cultivation of which until the mid-seventeenth century is largely limited to a handful of small islands off the west coast of Halmahera in the Maluku Islands.

These spices had long been distributed in modest quantities via the trade networks of the archipelago.

After about 1450, however, demand and the ability to pay for them had climbed rapidly in both China and Europe.

In the century between the 1390s and the 1490s, for example, European imports of cloves rise nearly one thousand percent, and of nutmeg nearly two thousand percent, and continues to rise for the next one hundred and twenty years.

Another product, black pepper (Piper nigrum), is grown more easily and widely (on Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan), but it too becomes an object of steeply rising worldwide demand.

These changing global market conditions lie at the bottom of fundamental developments, not only in systems of supply and distribution but in virtually all aspects of life in the archipelago.

Indonesians hold virtually exclusive control of the spice trade, and decisive power in the extensive exchange of luxury and bulk goods that accompanies it, until the challenge of direct traders from Europe (first the Portuguese and Spanish at the beginning of the sixteenth century, then the Dutch, English, and others at the end of it) and renewed interest from the Chinese (after the Ming government relaxed prohibitions on private overseas trade in the mid-sixteenth century).

Over a period of about two hundred and fifty years, however, they will gradually lose their commercial primacy and, in some cases, much of their political independence.

This crucial process is far too complex to be understood simply as a struggle between East and West, or Christianity and Islam, or "modern" and "traditional" technology.

Europeans not only war vigorously among themselves, but they routinely ally themselves with local powers, many of them Muslim, and become participants in local rivalries; they also frequently find that their weaponry does not give them obvious superiority over indigenous powers, who purchase both light and heavy firearms and sometimes, as in Java well into the eighteenth century, are able to manufacture serviceable copies of European models.

Europeans find their position fluctuates as a result of a multitude of factors, some of them well beyond their control.

European missionaries had occasionally visited Vietnam for short periods of time, with little impact, beginning in the early sixteenth century.

The best known of the early missionaries is Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit who is sent to Hanoi in 1627, where he quickly learns the language and begins preaching in Vietnamese.

Initially, Rhodes is well-received by the Trinh court, and he reportedly baptizes more than six thousand converts; however, his success probably leads to his expulsion in 1630.

He is credited with perfecting a romanized system of writing the Vietnamese language (quoc ngu), which is probably developed as the joint effort of several missionaries, including Rhodes.

He writes the first catechism in Vietnamese and publishes a Vietnamese-Latin-Portuguese dictionary; these works are the first books printed in quoc ngu.

Romanized Vietnamese, or quoc ngu, is used initially only by missionaries; classical Chinese, or chu nom, continues to be used by the court and the bureaucracy.

The French later support the use of quoc ngu, which, because of its simplicity, leads to a high degree of literacy and a flourishing of Vietnamese literature.

After being expelled from Vietnam, Rhodes spends the next thirty years seeking support for his missionary work from the Vatican and the French Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as making several more trips to Vietnam.

The seventeenth century is also a period in which European missionaries and merchants become a serious factor in Vietnamese court life and politics.

Although both had arrived by the early sixteenth century, neither foreign merchants nor missionaries have much impact on Vietnam before the seventeenth century.

The Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French have all established trading posts in Pho Hien by 1680.

Fighting among the Europeans and opposition by the Vietnamese makes the enterprises unprofitable, however, and all of the foreign trading posts will be closed by 1700.

East Africa (1540–1683 CE)

Portuguese Hegemony, Swahili Resilience, and Inland Renaissance

Geography & Environmental Context

East Africa in this age encompassed the Swahili coast—from Somalia and eastern Ethiopia through Kenya, Tanzania, and northern Mozambique—together with the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles, and the interior highlands and rift corridors of Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Malawi, and northern Zimbabwe.
Its landscapes fused coral coasts, mangrove estuaries, and monsoon ports with the high plateaus and lake basins of the Great Rift system. The Little Ice Age continued to modulate rainfall: droughts alternated with flood years, reshaping both coastal rice terraces and inland gardens. Monsoon rhythms governed navigation, while volcanic and seismic pulses stirred the rift valleys. Cyclones battered island settlements from Madagascar to the Comoros, yet seasonal fertility and abundant fisheries sustained growing populations.

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Maritime Realms and the Portuguese Intrusion

Swahili Ports under Foreign Shadow

When Portuguese fleets seized Kilwa, Mombasa, and Sofala early in the 16th century, they sought to control the western Indian Ocean spice and gold trade through the cartaz pass system and a chain of stone fortresses. Their Estado da Índia, centered at Goa and Mozambique Island, exacted tolls and tribute from merchants, but never extinguished Swahili autonomy.
Behind coastal battlements, Arabic-script chronicles, coral-stone mosques, and carved doorways attested to a still-vigorous Islamic urban culture. Portuguese garrisons held harbors intermittently; inland caravans carrying ivory, gold, and slaves continued beyond their reach.

Islands and the Western Indian Ocean Network

Across Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Comoros, mixed African–Arab populations sustained orchards of coconut, banana, and rice. Comorian chiefs provisioned Portuguese and Swahili vessels, while dhows carried cattle and captives to Madagascar and back.
On Madagascar, Sakalava kingdoms expanded along the west coast, uniting cattle wealth with maritime raiding and rice exports. Highland farmers perfected terraced irrigation; southern herders endured periodic droughts that drove migration.
Farther east, Mauritius and Seychelles, still uninhabited, entered nautical charts as waypoints for Indian Ocean pilots—a quiet prelude to later colonization.

Cultural Continuity and Exchange

Islam remained the Swahili world’s unifying faith: Friday mosques, Quranic schools, and dhikr rituals marked urban life. Portuguese Catholic missionaries, despite chapels and crosses on the coast, made few conversions. Coral-stone architecture, imported ceramics, and Persianate verse embodied cosmopolitan continuity. On Madagascar, ancestor worship, cattle sacrifice, and tomb architecture symbolized lineage power, while on the Comoros, Islamic feasts and spirit-possession dances intertwined belief and community.

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Inland Frontiers and the Age of Reformation

Gunpowder Wars and Highland Renewal

The highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea reeled under the shock of the Adal–Christian wars. In the 1520s–1540s, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (“Gragn”) led matchlock-armed campaigns that nearly destroyed the Solomonic realm. With Portuguese musketeers and cannon, Emperor Gelawdewos repelled Adal’s advance, but the trauma redrew the highland frontiers. Firearms lingered, reshaping warfare and ceremony alike.
In the conflict’s wake, Jesuit missions entered the court; Susenyos’s brief Catholic conversion (1620s) provoked rebellion until Fasilides (r. 1632–1667) restored Orthodoxy and founded Gondar, a royal and artistic capital that re-anchored Christian kingship amid an encroaching Oromo frontier.

Oromo Migrations and the New Pastoral Order

From the mid-16th century, Oromo confederacies, organized through the gadaa age-set system, expanded north and west from the Borana plains. Mounted warriors transformed grazing lands and tributary systems in Shewa, Bale, and Welega, integrating highland cultivators into a wider agro-pastoral world. These migrations reconfigured demography, ecology, and exchange, embedding mobility and negotiation as hallmarks of East African statecraft.

Great Lakes Kingdoms and Plateau Consolidation

Farther south, the interlacustrine plateau—Bunyoro, Buganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Karagwe—entered a period of political concentration. Banana and plantain gardens, intercropped with beans and yams, supported dense populations; cattle became the metric of tribute and alliance. Royal drums, regnal shrines, and clan patronage structured authority. Along lake margins, canoes ferried iron, fish, and salt between hill capitals and trading ports, binding the plateau to Indian Ocean markets via caravan chains through Tabora and Kilwa.

Southern and Western Extensions

Across the savannas of Zambia, northern Zimbabwe, and Malawi, sorghum and millet cultivation paired with copper and salt exchange. Ironworkers forged tools and spears for farming and defense. Earthwork forts and cattle kraals protected villages from raiding bands as the ivory and slave trades began to filter inland from both coasts.

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Technology, Trade & Cultural Synthesis

• Iron and water were the civilizing engines of the interior: terraced fields, canals, and forges sustained both plow agriculture and royal prestige.

• Gunpowder and cannon, entering through the Red Sea and Portuguese ports, shifted warfare but remained rare beyond court arsenals.

• Dhows and canoes connected monsoon harbors with lake fisheries and river basins; cloth, beads, and salt served as currencies binding coast and interior.

• Art and devotion flourished: Ethiopian painters illuminated saints’ lives; Buganda’s drummers and Rwanda’s court poets celebrated kings and cattle; Swahili calligraphers adorned coral mosques; Sakalava sculptors carved tomb effigies that gazed over coastal plains.

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Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Highlanders maintained church forests as ecological refuges, storing grain in monastic granaries. Plateau farmers relied on perennial banana gardens to steady food supply; fisherfolk smoked and traded fish during drought years. Pastoralists diversified herds, shared wells, and rotated grazing. Along the coasts, Swahili and Malagasy communities balanced horticulture, fishing, and trade, replanting coconut and rice after storms. Kinship networks and ritual feasts redistributed resources, turning reciprocity into resilience.

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Power, Conflict, and Transformation

Portuguese domination at sea coincided with inland transformations driven by migration, faith, and trade. At Mombasa and Kilwa, cannon imposed tribute; in Gondar, churches rose from the ruins of war; on Lake Victoria’s shores, kings beat royal drums to summon their subjects. Caravans and monsoons wove these worlds together, carrying cloth, ivory, salt, and stories across ecological and cultural divides.

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Transition (to 1683 CE)

By 1683, East Africa had become a deeply interconnected yet fragmented realm.

• On the coast, Portuguese forts punctuated Swahili autonomy, but Islam, trade, and language endured.

• In the interior, the highlands recovered under Orthodox monarchs, while Oromo pastoral republics and Great Lakes kingdoms matured into durable polities.

• Madagascar and the islands joined the Indian Ocean economy through cattle, rice, and raiding; Mauritius and Seychelles awaited colonization.

Across mountains, plains, and seas, African ingenuity outlasted imperial intrusion. The 15th-century world of monsoon merchants had given way to one of shifting sovereignties—Portuguese, Swahili, Oromo, Sakalava, and Solomonic—each adapting to climate, commerce, and the timeless pulse of the monsoon winds.

Maritime East Africa (1540–1683 CE): Portuguese Hegemony, Swahili Resilience, and Island Societies

Geographic & Environmental Context

The subregion of Maritime East Africa includes Somalia, eastern Ethiopia, eastern Kenya, eastern Tanzania and its islands, northern Mozambique, the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles. Anchors included the Swahili port cities of Mombasa, Malindi, Kilwa, Sofala, and Mogadishu; the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Comoros; the coral coasts and mangrove estuaries of the western Indian Ocean; and the highlands and lagoons of Madagascar. Outlying Mauritius and Seychelles remained uninhabited but gained increasing importance as waypoints for long-distance navigation.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Little Ice Age continued, with alternating drought and flood cycles shaping Horn pastoralists, coastal rice growers, and Malagasy farmers. Monsoon winds structured maritime travel, while occasional cyclones struck the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles. In Madagascar, multi-year droughts in the south pressured herders and foragers; in wetter highlands, rice terraces expanded.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Swahili towns: Despite Portuguese domination, urban diets blended rice, millet, coconuts, fish, and imported goods. Hinterland caravans carried ivory, gold, and slaves.

• Islands (Zanzibar, Pemba, Comoros): Supported coconut, banana, rice, and clove orchards (cloves introduced later but initial spice planting underway). Fishing and inter-island trade thrived.

• Madagascar: Highlanders expanded rice terraces; coastal Sakalava states consolidated cattle-based economies and coastal raiding. Cattle remained both subsistence and symbolic wealth.

• Mauritius and Seychelles: Still uninhabited, but Portuguese sailors occasionally landed for water, wood, and tortoises.

Technology & Material Culture

Portuguese introduced stone fortresses, cannon, and the cartaz system (ship passes). They repaired or rebuilt coral-stone mosques and warehouses at captured ports. Dhows with lateen sails remained the main local shipping craft. Imported textiles, beads, and firearms circulated inland. In Madagascar, iron spearheads, canoes, and rice terracing technologies defined everyday life, while cattle corrals and tomb monuments embodied ritual prestige.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Portuguese Estado da Índia: Controlled Sofala, Mozambique Island, Kilwa, Mombasa, and other key ports; naval patrols enforced the cartaz.

• Caravan routes: Continued to funnel ivory and captives from inland Tanzania, Mozambique, and Kenya to ports.

• Madagascar: Exported cattle, rice, and slaves to the Comoros and Swahili coast. Sakalava states on the west coast became regional powers in these circuits.

• Comoros: Served as provisioning stations for Portuguese and other sailors, trading coconuts, rice, and captives.

• Mauritius and Seychelles: Functioned as landmarks for pilots, charted by Europeans but not yet settled.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Swahili culture remained vibrantly Islamic, expressed in coral-stone mosques, Arabic-script chronicles, and courtly poetry. Portuguese Catholic missions introduced chapels and crosses but converted few beyond elites. On Madagascar, ancestor veneration through tomb construction, cattle sacrifices, and spirit mediums remained central. In the Comoros, Islamic festivals and dhikr ceremonies structured community time. Imported ceramics and cloth symbolized coastal elites’ prestige.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Coastal farmers adapted to Portuguese disruption by diversifying crops, planting cassava (introduced mid-period), and relying on fishing. Malagasy highlanders expanded irrigated rice to buffer famine; Sakalava herders redistributed cattle after drought losses. Comorian islanders mixed gardens, fishing, and inter-island trade to withstand cyclones. Communities used ritual feasts, kin networks, and reciprocal trade to absorb climatic and political shocks.

Technology & Power Shifts (Conflict Dynamics)

Portuguese cannon and forts disrupted Swahili autonomy. Mombasa’s repeated sackings, Kilwa’s decline, and Sofala’s capture reoriented Indian Ocean trade toward Lisbon. Yet Swahili merchants adapted, sustaining inland ties and clandestine routes beyond Portuguese control. In Madagascar, Sakalava dynasties expanded through cattle wealth and maritime raiding. Coastal skirmishes continued between Portuguese fleets and local towns; resistance occasionally ousted Portuguese garrisons, revealing the fragility of European dominance.

Transition

By 1683 CE, Maritime East Africa had become a hybrid world. Portuguese forts and patrols dotted the coast, but Swahili towns retained vitality through inland trade and cultural continuity. Sakalava polities on Madagascar expanded their reach; Comoros balanced subsistence with regional trade; Mauritius and Seychelles stood uninhabited but charted. The Indian Ocean world was reshaped—no longer solely Swahili-Arabian, but not yet wholly European-controlled.

Madagascar's historical role as a destination for travelers from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa is underscores by the ruins of fortifications built by Arab traders as far back as the ninth century.

Not until the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, do European ships flying Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French flags explore Madagascar's shoreline.

Beginning in 1643, several French settlements emerge; the best known of these, Tolanaro (formerly Faradofay) on the southeast coast, lasts for more than thirty years.

The settlement survives in part because the colonists have taken pains to establish cordial relations with the Antanosy, the ethnic group inhabiting the area.

Relations deteriorate later, however, and in 1674 a massacre of nearly all the inhabitants ends French colonization endeavors for more than a century; survivors flee by sea to the neighboring territory of Réunion.

London merchants had presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Permission had been granted, and on April 10, 1591, three ships had sailed from Torbay around the Cape of Good Hope to the Arabian Sea on one of the earliest English overseas Indian expeditions.

One of them, Edward Bonaventure, then sailed around Cape Comorin to the Malay Peninsula and returned to England in 1594.

In 1596, three more ships had sailed east but all had been lost at sea.

Three years later, on September 22, 1599, another group of merchants meets and states their intention "to venture in the pretended voyage to the East Indies (the which it may please the Lord to prosper), and the sums that they will adventure", committing £30,133.

Two days later, on September 24, "the Adventurers" reconvened and resolved to apply to the Queen for support of the project.

Although their first attempt had not been completely successful, they had nonetheless sought the Queen's unofficial approval to continue, bought ships for their venture and increased their capital to £68,373.

The Adventurers convene again a year later.

This time they succeeded, and on December 31,  1600, the Queen grants a Royal Charter to "George, Earl of Cumberland, and 215 Knights, Aldermen, and Burgesses" under the name, Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies.

For a period of fifteen years the charter awards the newly formed company a monopoly on trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan.

Any traders in breach of the charter without a license from the company are liable to forfeiture of their ships and cargo (half of which goes to the Crown and the other half to the company), as well as imprisonment at the "royal pleasure".

The governance of the company is in the hands of one governor and twenty-four directors or "committees", who make up the Court of Directors.

They, in turn, report to the Court of Proprietors, which appoints them.

Ten committees report to the Court of Directors.

According to tradition, business is initially transacted at the Nags Head Inn, opposite St Botolph's church in Bishopsgate, before moving to India House in Leadenhall Street.

The Company, along with the Dutch and French counterparts that soon follow, will contend with the Iberians for the domination of world trade as exploration and colonization proceeds apace.