History of India   
British India:
First Europeans in India
The Portuguese and the British

Nearly three decades before Babur ventured into India through the Hindu Kush Mountains to establish his kingdom in Delhi, and more than a decade before Krishna Deva Raya became the famed king of the southern kingdom of Vijayanagara, a Portuguese sailor by name Vasco da Gama circled around the Cape of Good Hope and landed at the Port of Calicut, on the Malabar coast of India.  The year was 1498.  This single event was to portend a race for supremacy in trade in the next century between the Portuguese and the British, with the Dutch and the French also taking more minor roles.  During the earlier half of the sixteenth century India was dominated by the Portuguese, who controlled the sea routes on the western shores of India, effectively blockading any ships belonging to other European nations.  Only in the second half of the century, after the fall of Vijayanagara, did the Portuguese begin to fade, making way for the British to be more active in India.  British merchants were primarily interested in spice trade in the Far East, and wanted to establish their trade posts in Java.  But the Dutch had already established their stronghold there and the British, as an after thought, began looking toward India.  Little did the East India Company merchants know that they had struck gold in India, which would someday be a crown jewel of the British Empire.

The Portuguese: A Vigorous Campaign

The Portuguese sailed to India more for saving “heathen” souls than for profiting from spice trade.  The Indian subcontinent was populated by Hindus and Muslims.  Their souls needed to be saved, and salvation as only a Christian would know it, had to be offered to the misguided “heathens.”  The Portuguese had persisted in finding nautical route to India in order to strike a blow against, mainly the Muslims who practiced the same religion as the hated “Moors.”  After half a century of trying, the Portuguese finally succeeded in finding a route to the west coast of India. As to the goal of proselytizing “heathens,” the Portuguese never wavered, even up to the twentieth century.

  – Continued

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