Private Capital and the Estado da India... (Pius Malekandathil)
Frederick Noronha
PRIVATE CAPITAL AND THE ESTADO DA INDIA: CHANGING PATTERN OF PORTUGUESE TRADE WITH INDIA, 1570-1663
Pius Malekandathil
( This is included as chapter X in Pius Malekandathil, Maritme India: Trade, Religion and Polity in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi , 2010, pp. 193-211)
The official renouncement of royal monopoly over spice trade and the
liberalization of Indo-European commerce in 1570 ushered in a new
commercial situation in India, which favoured the accumulation of
capital in private hands in an unprecedented degree. During the
period between 1570 and 1598, when the business houses of Germany,
Italy and Portugal controlled the Indo-European trade, the Portuguese
casado traders of Goa and Cochin were increasingly engaging
themselves, either independently or in association with the natives,
in intra-Asian trade and in carving out larger commercial space in
the Indian Ocean region for the expression of their private
initiatives. The immediate result emanating from this development was
the accumulation of sizeable capital in individual hands and in the
Portuguese settlements, making both the entrepreneur and their city
centres fabulously rich.
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