The Portuguese in India
Overview
Published in 1894 by W.H. Allen & Company in London, The Portuguese in India: Being a History of the Rise and Decline of Their Eastern Empire represents the culmination of Frederic Charles Danvers’ archival research in Portuguese repositories conducted between 1891 and 1892. This two-volume work traces the Portuguese colonial presence in India from the late fifteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century, providing a comprehensive chronological account based on primary documents from the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo and public libraries in Lisbon and Évora. The work covers the period from 1481 to 1571 in Volume I and from 1571 to 1894 in Volume II, documenting the establishment, expansion, and gradual decline of Portuguese Estado da Índia.
Danvers’ methodology involved extensive transcription and translation of Portuguese archival materials, with 35 volumes translated into English under his supervision. The work represents the first major English-language history of Portuguese India to draw systematically on Portuguese primary sources, arranged chronologically and supplemented with historical extracts from Portuguese publications. The detailed documentation of trade networks, military campaigns, administrative structures, and diplomatic relations made this work an essential reference for understanding early European colonialism in Asia and the dynamics of Portuguese imperial expansion from Vasco da Gama’s arrival in 1498 through the establishment of Goa as the colonial capital in 1510 to the eventual displacement of Portuguese power by Dutch and British competition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
About the Author — Frederic Charles Danvers
Frederic Charles Danvers (1833–1906) was born at Hornsey on 1 July 1833, the second son of Frederick Samuel Danvers, an officer in the East India Company’s service. After education at Merchant Taylors’ School, King’s College London, and Addiscombe College, he trained as a civil and mechanical engineer before becoming a writer in the East India House on 26 January 1853. Following the creation of the India Office in 1858, Danvers entered as a junior clerk in the public and ecclesiastical department, advancing through various positions including senior clerk (1867) and assistant secretary (1875). In January 1884, he was appointed Registrar and Superintendent of Records at the India Office, a position he held until his retirement in July 1898.
As Superintendent of India Office Records, Danvers demonstrated exceptional archival expertise that led to his commission in 1891 to study Portuguese records relating to the East Indies. His official report, Report to the Secretary of State for India in Council on the Portuguese Records Relating to the East Indies Contained in the Archivo da Torre do Tombo and the Public Libraries at Lisbon and Évora (1892), preceded the publication of The Portuguese in India. Beyond his historical work, Danvers authored Statistical Papers Relating to India (1869), A Century of Famines, 1770–1870 (1877), and numerous technical publications on Indian coal economy and public works engineering. He presented papers before the Society of Arts on agriculture in India (1878), famines in India (1886), and the India Office records (1889), receiving the Society’s silver medal for his contributions. His editorial work included Memorials of Old Haileybury College (1894) and introductions to Letters Received by the East India Company from its Servants in the East (1896).
The Work
The chronological structure of The Portuguese in India begins with the voyages of exploration sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator in the fifteenth century and Vasco da Gama’s historic arrival at Calicut on 20 May 1498, establishing the first direct sea route from Europe to India via the Cape of Good Hope. Volume I documents the rapid Portuguese expansion under governors and viceroys including Francisco de Almeida, the first viceroy who established Portuguese operations at Fort Manuel in Malabar, and Afonso de Albuquerque, whose military campaigns in the Arabian Gulf and capture of strategic ports transformed Portuguese presence into a territorial empire. The conquest of Goa from the Bijapur Sultanate in 1510 provided the Portuguese with their principal administrative center, later designated capital of the Estado da Índia when it was formally established in 1505 as a centralized colonial administration exercising authority over all Portuguese possessions in the Indian Ocean region from Southern Africa to Southeast Asia.
Danvers provides extensive coverage of Portuguese establishment of trading settlements at Cochin (1502), Cannanore (1505), Calicut (1513), Kollam (1519), Chaul (1521), Bassein and Diu (1534), documenting the commercial networks that channeled spices, textiles, and other commodities through Goa to Lisbon. The work examines the religious dimension of Portuguese colonialism through detailed accounts of missionary activities by Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, and particularly the Society of Jesus, with St. Francis Xavier’s evangelization efforts receiving substantial attention. Goa, along with Macau, Malacca, and Kochi, became major Jesuit centers, and Danvers documents both the conversion campaigns and the Portuguese policy toward indigenous Christian communities, including the St. Thomas Christians of Kerala.
Volume II chronicles the period of Portuguese decline beginning in the late sixteenth century, analyzing the military and commercial challenges posed by the emergence of Dutch and English competition in Asian waters. The work documents Portuguese conflicts with the Mughal Empire, particularly disputes over control of ports and customs revenues, as well as defensive campaigns against Dutch attacks on Portuguese strongholds. The transfer of the capital from Cochin to Goa in 1530 and the administrative reorganization of the Estado da Índia receive detailed treatment, as do the gradual territorial losses throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that reduced Portuguese holdings to Goa, Daman, and Diu. Danvers concludes the narrative in 1894, by which time Portuguese India had contracted to these three enclaves surrounded by British Indian territory.
Historical Significance
The Portuguese in India established itself as the standard English-language reference work on Portuguese colonial history in Asia for late nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholarship. Danvers’ systematic exploitation of Portuguese archival sources provided British and Anglo-American historians with access to documentation previously unavailable in English translation, fundamentally shaping colonial historiography’s understanding of early European expansion in the Indian Ocean world. The work influenced subsequent studies of comparative European imperialism by demonstrating the administrative structures, commercial practices, and religious policies that characterized Portuguese colonial methods in distinction to later British and Dutch models.
The archival foundation of Danvers’ work ensured its continued utility as a documentary resource even as interpretive frameworks evolved. His transcriptions and translations preserved materials that informed twentieth-century research on Indo-Portuguese cultural encounters, maritime trade networks, and the role of religious missions in colonial expansion. The chronological comprehensiveness of the work, extending from the Age of Discovery through the late nineteenth century, provided a long-duration perspective on Portuguese imperial decline that complemented emerging historical analyses of European power transitions in Asia. Modern historians of Portuguese colonialism continue to cite Danvers as a foundational text while critiquing its imperial perspective and supplementing it with post-colonial analytical approaches and indigenous source materials.
Digital Access
The complete two-volume work is available through multiple digital repositories. The Internet Archive hosts several editions, accessible at https://archive.org/details/pli.kerala.rare.7029 and https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.189344. Additional contextual information on Portuguese India can be found in the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_India. Biographical details about Frederic Charles Danvers are available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Charles_Danvers. Open Library maintains searchable records of various editions at https://openlibrary.org/search?q=The+Portuguese+in+India+year+1894+Frederic+Charles+Danvers.
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