The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517 A Reassessment fujitani2016
17 Pages • 7,344 Words • PDF • 663.8 KB
Uploaded at 2021-09-24 17:40
This document was submitted by our user and they confirm that they have the consent to share it. Assuming that you are writer or own the copyright of this document, report to us by using this DMCA report button.
The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517: A Reassessment James Fujitani Journal of World History, Volume 27, Number 1, March 2016, pp. 87-102 (Article) Published by University of Hawai'i Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2016.0073
For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/625984
Access provided by Tufts University (29 Jun 2018 01:57 GMT)
The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517: A Reassessment james fujitani Azuza Pacific University
I
n August 1517, a Portuguese fleet led by Captain Fernão Peres de Andrade arrived off the coast of Guangzhou. It was a moment of great symbolic importance, marking the first official contact between East Asia and Europe of the early modern period. However, just a few years later, in 1521, these tentative relations were severed when the Ming court decided to dismiss the Portuguese ambassadors and expel their fleet from Guangdong. The goal of this study is to reconsider the reasons for this rejection. The traditional list of explanations was already laid out in the sixteenth century by the great Portuguese historian João de Barros. Barros wrote that the Ming court received two sets of letters condemning the Por tuguese. One set was from the Sultan of Bintan, a vassal of the Ming, whom the Portuguese had driven from the city of Melaka. He asked the emperor for help against the invaders and warned of European treach ery.1 The other set was from the Ming officials who had received the Por tuguese fleet in Guangdong. They reported the actions of the second captain major, Simão de Andrade, who was building a fort, obstruct ing local trade, and enslaving Chinese.2 In addition, the embassy itself made significant diplomatic errors, which angered the Court.3 Barros
João de Barros, Da Asia (Lisboa : Na Regia Officina Typografica, 1777–1788), 3.6.1, 6. Ibid., 3.6.2, esp. 16–17. 3 Ibid., 1–14. 1 2
Journal of World History, Vol. 27, No. 1 © 2016 by University of Hawai‘i Press
87
88
journal of world history, march 2016
concluded that, based upon this evidence, the Chinese suspected the Portuguese of planning an invasion and decided to reject the embassy.4 The sixteenth-century Chinese sources tell a similar story, though with different emphases. They also note the complaints of the Bintan ambassadors and their warnings of Portuguese incursion.5 Likewise, they speak of the criminal behavior of the Portuguese sailors at Guangdong, accusing them of plundering the coastline and cannibalistically eating children.6 With regard to the embassy itself, they particularly accuse a certain Huozhe Yasan, presumably a Chinese interpreter, of violent and arrogant behavior.7 All in all, the Chinese sources report many of the same crimes as those offered by Barros. In the twentieth century, scholars expanded upon these earlier his tories by situating the Portuguese actions within the broader context of sixteenth-century European colonialism. In 1932, T’ien-Tsê Chang set the tone in his foundational work, Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644. In a chapter entitled “The Causes of Sino-Portuguese Clashes,” he wrote that Simão de Andrade treated the Chinese in the same manner as the Portuguese had for some time treated allthe pepole of Asia. He built a fort, without permission, on the island of Taman from whence he took opportunities of pillaging and extorting money from allthe ships bound from or to the ports of
Ibid., 3.6.1, 5. See, for example, Yang Congjian 嚴從簡, Shuyu zhouzilu 殊域周咨錄 (Beijing: Bei jing University, 1930), juan (卷) 9. The concerns of the Bintan embassy are also directly noted in the Ming Court records: Mingshilu: Wuzong shilu 明實錄武宗實錄, vol. 69 (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan, 1962–1968), juan 194. When quoting the Mingshilu, whenever pos sible, I will use the translation of Geoff Wade, Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: An Open Access Resource, (Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore, 2005), http://epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/entry/2466. 6 On the rumors of the Portuguese being cannibals, see Qiong Zhang, Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery (Boston: Brill, 2015), 268–282. 7 The mysterious and controversial figure of Huozhe Yasan is examined in numerous studies. The foundational work is that of Paul Pelliot, “Le Ḫō(a et le Sayyid Ḥusain de l’Histoire des Ming,” T’oung Pao, 2nd ser., 38 no. 2 (1948): 86–87, n. 7. See also Lin Shuo 林硕, “Nanyang huaqiao Huozhe Yasan de sanchong mi 南洋华侨火者亚三的三重谜,” Dongnanya Nanya Yanjiu 东南亚南亚研究 1 (2012): 79–80; Chen Xuelin 陳學霖, “Huaren Yiguan 華人夷官,” Journal of Chinese Studies 中國文化研究所學報 54 (January 2012): 65–67; Geoff Wade, “Melaka in Ming Dynasty Texts,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 70, no. 1 (1997): 50–53; T’ien-Tsê Chang 張天澤, “Malacca and the Failure of the First Portuguese Embassy to Peking,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 3, no. 2 (1962): 45–64. 4 5
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
89
China. He carried off young girls from the coast, he seized upon the Chinese, and made slaves of them.8
In other words, Chang interpreted the Portuguese behavior as one more manifestation of European colonialism. This view was supported by many later historians, such as Armando Cortesão and Charles Boxer in Europe and Li Qingxin in China.9 More recently, the comparison between the Portuguese entry into China and the Spanish conquistado res has become the subject of Serge Gruzinski’s fascinating work, The Eagle and the Dragon.10 The authoritative English-language account of the failed embassy is that of John Wills in his classic chapter of the Cambridge History of China, entitled “Relations with Maritime Europeans, 1514–1662.”11 Although Wills did adopt many of the conclusions of earlier historians, he also nuanced them with a sharper attention to the situation of China itself in the sixteenth century. For example, he noted that a black-market slave trade had become a problem long before the Portuguese arrival.12 He also pointed out that the breakdown of negotiations was partially due to diplomatic misunderstanding arising from a tension between two radically different conceptions of the world order: “European impa tience and assumptions of reciprocity in foreign relations encountered Chinese bureaucratic delays and the Chinese government’s unilateral approach to the management of foreign relations.”13 Wills’s view was a careful and subtle revision of the previous interpretative tradition. 8 Tʻien-tsê Chang 張天澤, Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644: A Synthesis of Por tuguese and Chinese Sources (Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1934), 63–68. Chang indicates that in this passage he is in fact quoting British Museum MS 13,875, fol. 24, “Report of Embassies to China, presented to the British Museum by the Representatives at the Marquess Wellesley.” 9 Armando Cortesão, introduction to Tomé Pires, Suma Oriental (London: Hakluyt, 1944), 1:xxviii–xxix. Charles Boxer, introduction to Galeote Pereira, Gaspar da Cruz, and Martín de Rada, South China in the Sixteenth Century (London: Hakluyt, 1953), xxi. SinoPortuguese Trade was finally translated into Chinese in 1988 as ZhongPu zaoqi tongshang shi 中葡早期通商史 (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shu ju, 1988). It has since been cited by Li Qingxin 李庆新, Mingdai haiwai maoyi zhidu 明代海外贸易制度 (Beijing: She hui ke xue wen xian chu ban she, 2007), 220–230; and Jin Guoping 金國平, Xi li dong jian: Zhong-Pu zaoqi jiechu zhui xi 西力东渐: 中葡早期接觸追昔 (Macau: Aomen ji jin hui, 2000), 1–18. 10 Serge Gruzinski, The Eagle and the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in China and America in the Sixteenth Century, trans. Jean Birell (Malden, Mass.: Polity Press, 2014). 11 John Elliot Wills, “Relations with Maritime Europe, 1514–1662,” in The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2, vol. 8 of The Cambridge History of China, ed. Denis C. Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 335–341. 12 Ibid., 338. 13 Ibid., 336–337.
90
journal of world history, march 2016
The goal of this article is to propose a completely different model for understanding the breakdown of Sino-Portuguese relations. In contrast to the traditional view of the 1521 rejection as a clash between rival civilizations, Europe and Asia, this article presents it as an episode in a long-standing dialogue between Ming China and the merchant empires of Southeast Asia. I argue that the Ming court perceived the Portuguese as a Southeast Asian group and that it rejected them as part of a larger campaign to reassert control over regional affairs. *** First of all, it is important to establish that it was not unreasonable to view the Portuguese as Southeast Asian merchants. Their fleets were composite entities, led by Europeans, but largely manned by Asian sailors. In these early years of Portuguese expansion, the home port for Por tuguese heading to China was Melaka, which had been conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511. This was a major trade center, whose population had surpassed 100,000 prior to the invasion.14 Large expatriate communities had settled there, including the Gujaratis, Kelings, Java nese, Luzonese, and Chinese.15 Tomé Pires famously claimed that eightyfour different languages could be heard in the streets.16 After the invasion, the city declined, but even at its lowest point, it still remained a respect able port with a population of around twenty to thirty thousand.17 There was thus a striking disproportion between the numbers of Asians and Europeans in the city. Albuquerque’s invasion force had counted around 1,200 troops, but by 1515, most of them had left.18 During the 1517–1521 period, there were usually only about three hundred Portuguese sta tioned in Melaka.19 In other words, they probably made up less than 1 percent of the population. 14 Anthony Reid, “The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11, no. 2 (1980): 237–240. 15 Luís Filipe Thomaz, “Melaka and its Merchant Communities,” in Asian Merchants and Businessmen in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea, ed. Denys Lombard and Jean Aubin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 28–32; Kenneth Hall, History of Early Southeast Asia: Maritime Trade and Societal Development (Blue Ridge Summit, Penn.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 308–312. 16 Pires, Suma Oriental, 2:269. 17 On population decline in Melaka, see Anthony Reid, “The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Southeast Asia,” Modern Asian Studies 24, no. 4 (1990): 653. 18 Pero de Faria, letter to King Manuel, Melaka, January 4, 1515, in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, ed. Raymundo Antonio de Bulhão Pato (Lisbon: Academia Real das Sciencias, 1903), 3:129. 19 This was noted, for example, by the captain of Melaka, Affonso Lopez da Costa, letter to the King D. Manuel, Melaka, August 20, 1518, in Documentação para a história das
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
91
In this context, it was numeric ally impossible for the Portuguese to take over and monopol ize the regional trade routes. Rather, they worked with the local merchants, maintaining the preexisting trade policies of the Melaka sultanate and restoring the preexisting administrative positions, which were offered to resident merchants who had switched their allegiance.20 They depended on these insiders to revive trade in the city. For example, the first bendahara—a role akin to that of prime minister—under Portuguese rule was a Keling merchant named Nina Chatu.21 In 1514, the captain of the city, Rui de Brito, described how he depended on Chatu to coordinate local commerce: “He sends junks to every region, both for his own profit as well as to bring honor to the land.”22 Portuguese were placed aboard the various foreign ships that came and left. Barros says that it was Afonso de Albuquerque himself who had ordered the captains of Melaka to do this: “There should not depart a merchant ship from this city, in which there was not a Portu guese man with a sharp mind and a disposition for reporting informa tion of what he had seen and heard from these regions.”23 In general, there were about ten Portuguese on each ship—perhaps a quarter of the crew.24 In short, Portuguese trade in Melaka was not strictly European in nature. On the contrary, it was built upon, and flowed through, the merchant groups of Melaka. It was through these groups that the Portuguese first arrived in China. For over a century, a dynamic Chinese expatriate community had thrived in Melaka, and on the eve of the invasion, around ten trading ships came
missões do padroado português do Oriente, ed. Artur Basílio de Sá (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1954), 1:98. 20 Luís Filipe F. R. Thomaz, “The Portuguese in the Seas of the Archipelago during the Sixteenth Century,” in European Commercial Expansion in Early Modern Asia, ed. Om Prakash (Aldershot: Variorum, 1997), 25–42. See also Kenneth R. Hall, “Multi-Dimensional Networking: Fifteenth-Century Indian Ocean Maritime Diaspora in Southeast Asian Per spective,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 49, no. 4 (2006): 465–469. 21 Luís Filipe Thomaz, Nina Chatu and the Portuguese Trade in Malacca (Bandar Melaka: Luso-Malaysian Books, 1991). 22 Rui de Brito, letter to the King, Melaka, January 6, 1514 in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, 3:95: “manda juncos a todas as partes asy por seu proveyto como por nobrecer a terra.” 23 Barros, Da Asia, 3.10.6, 174: “que não partisse navio de mercadores daquella Cidade, onde não fosse hum Portuguez homem de bom espirito, e disposição pera trazer informação do que visse, e ouvisse daquellas regiões.” 24 Lopez da Costa, “letter,” 97. The total size of crews is not always clear. Roger Craig Smith, Vanguard of Empire: Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 142, notes that a 100-ton vessel from this period required a crew of about forty.
92
journal of world history, march 2016
from the Middle Kingdom every year.25 After the conquest, many of these merchants fled. However, the Portuguese did find an ally in “an old Chinese man” who commanded two junks, whom they called the Chei lata.26 It was aboard one of these junks, in a mixed convoy that included Luzonese traders, that Jorge Alvares arrived in China in 1513—the first European to visit China in the modern age.27 It was also with the Chei lata that Rafael Perestrello visited in 1515.28 During this early phase, the Portuguese did not lead the voyages. On the contrary, they were passen gers and observers, who quietly blended into the flow of foreign traffic coming into Guangdong. There is no mention of Alvares or Perestrello in the Chinese sources. At first glance, the Portuguese fleet of 1517 was different. It was led by a Portuguese captain major, Fernão Peres de Andrade. It included Portuguese naus: the 200-ton Espera, the Sancta Cruz, the Sancto Andre, and the Sanctiago, ships whose heavy artillery would later draw the attention of the Chinese.29 Nonetheless, despite the European sur face appearances, the Melakan merchant community still formed the foundation. Alongside the naus sailed three junks. Two of them were nominally commanded by Portuguese captains, but were in fact owned by Melakan merchants: Jorge Botelho was in a ship of the Luzonese merchant Curia di Raja, and Manuel de Araujo was in one of the Chei lata.30 The local Chinese community was also important, serving as nav igators and interpreters for the entire fleet.31 Finally, even in the naus, Europeans formed only a minority of the crew. Because Portugal was 25 On the number of Chinese ships visiting Melaka, see Rui de Araujo, letter to Afonso de Albuquerque, Melaka, February 6, 1510, in Documentação para a história das missões do padroado português do Oriente, 1:98. On the Chinese community in Melaka, see Thomaz, “Melaka and Its Merchant Communities,” 31–32. See also Yamazaki Takeshi 山崎岳, Marakka ōkoku no bokkō マラカ王国の勃興, in Nanban kōmō tōjin 南蛮 .紅毛 .唐人, ed. Naka jima Gakushō 中島楽章 (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 2013), 66–77; Roderich Ptak, “Merchants and Maximization: Notes on Chinese and Portuguese Entrepreneurship in Maritime Asia, c.1350–1600,” in China and the Asian Seas: Trade, Travel, and Visions of the Other (1400– 1750) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), article 6, 41–43. 26 Rui de Brito, letter to the King, Melaka, Janua ry 6, 1514, in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, 3:93. 27 De Brito, letter to Affonso de Albuquerque, Melaka, January 7, 1514, in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, 3:220. 28 Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.6, 178. 29 Fernão Lopez de Castanheda, Historia do descobrimento e conquista da India pelos Portugueses (Lisbon: Typographia Rollandiana, 1833), 3:27, 55. See also the comments of Armando Cortesão, Primeira embaixada europeia à China (Lisbon: Gráfica Lisbonense, 1945), 45; and Rui Loureiro, Fidalgos, missionários e mandarins: Portugal e a China no século XVI (Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 2000), 197–205. 30 Castanheda, Historia, 3.27, 55. 31 Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.8, 221.
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
93
suffering from a chronic situation of understaffing, ships had to depend on hired or forced labor to function: sailors and slaves from Africa, Arabia, India, and Melaka.32 Thus, it was understandable that the Ming officials who first met the incoming fleet believed that they were from Southeast Asia. The Chinese sources suggest that the Portuguese were viewed not as a dis tinct nation-state, but rather as a kind of mixed merchant group. For example, Wang Xiwen, who in 1517 was a young man living near the foreign ports, later described the arrival of the Portuguese—whom he calls the “Folangji”33—in the following manner: “During the Zhengde years, the Folangji anonymously blended in and thrust into the city.”34 Wang portrayed the Portuguese not as leading an official fleet, but rather as sneaking in among the foreign traffic. The high council of Guangdong made a similar observation after meeting with Portuguese negotiators in 1517. The eyewitness Gu Yingxiang, who was a lower Guangdong offi cial at the time, later said: “Their people allhave high noses and deep-set eyes. Their heads are wrapped in white cloth, just as the Muslims dress.”35 As it seems unlikely that the Portuguese were wearing turbans, Gu may have been looking at the Muslim interpreters and servants within the group and mistaking them for Europeans. In any case, it is clear that the Portuguese were seen as an element within the broader Southeast Asian trade networks. Accordingly, the Ming court concluded that the Portuguese had come from somewhere in the South China Sea. The later Mingshi sim ply states that “Folangji is near Melaka.”36 Similarly, a Ming court memorial from January 1521 speaks of the Portuguese invasion of the 32 On the staffing problems of the Portuguese in Asia, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History (New York: Long man, 1993), 55–79. See also Charles Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire: 1415–1825 (New York: Knopf, 1969), 52–59; and Roderich Ptak, “China and Portugal at Sea: The Early Ming Trading System and the Estado da Índia Compared,” in China and the Asian Seas, article 1, 30. 33 On the name “Folangji 佛郎機,” the term by which Chinese sources of the time refer to the Portuguese, see Pelliot, “Ḫō(a” 86–87, n. 7. 34 As compiled in Huang Xun 黃訓, Mingchen Jingji Lu 名臣經濟錄, (Hangzhou: Wenlan Ge文澜阁, 1861–1880), juan 43: “佛朗機匿名混進突至省城.” This is from the digitized edition of the Zhejiang 四庫全書, published by the China Academic Digital Asso ciative Library, http://www.cadal.cn/. 35 As compiled in Hu Zongxian 胡宗憲, Chouhai Tubian 籌海圖編 (Hangzhou: Wenlan Ge 文瀾閣, 1861–1880), juan 13. This is from the digitized edition of the Zhejiang 四庫全書, published by the China Academic Digital Associative Library, http://www.cadal.cn/: “其人皆髙鼻, 深目, 以白布纒頭、如囘囘打扮.” 36 Mingshi 明史, juan 325: “佛郎機 ，近滿剌加 。正德中 ，據滿剌加地 ，逐其王.” The edition consulted is that of the 武英殿二十四史, compiled in 1739, and digitized by the Chinese Text Project, http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&res=77711.
94
journal of world history, march 2016
sultanate as an intrusion into “neighboring countries.”37 It seems that the officials assumed that Portugal was one of the numerous islands of what is today the Indonesian archipelag o. Cristóvão Vieira, who was part of the Portuguese embassy, records the words of a certain Chinese official, whom he calls Libo,38 who said that “the country of the Firingis must be a small affair bordering on the sea.”39 *** With this context in mind, we can reinterpret the accusations made against the Portuguese sailors in Guangdong, noted in the introduc tion. These criminal activities were perhaps forms not only of European imperialism, but also of Southeast Asian piracy. That is to say, the Por tuguese fleets behaved like other merchant convoys of the region, and their misconduct was often typical of local smuggling practices. Two accusations in particular will be examined: that of invading Chinese ter ritory and that of illegal slave trade. First of all, Barros said that the Ming officials worried over a poten tial Portuguese invasion of Chinese territory. Indeed, the Portuguese did build a fort on the island of Tunmen, off the southern shores of the Pearl River delta. Fernão Peres de Andrade had requested permission to build a trading outpost there in 1518,40 and Simão de Andrade then labored on this structure for most of his voyage of 1519–1520. Barros says that it was “a fortress of stone and wood, with its artillery placed in positions from which it could be attacked.”41 In other words, while the explicit purpose of the building was commercial, its militaristic aspects were readily manifest. Tonio Andrade has examined how such fortresses lay the very groundworks for Western expansion across Asia.42 Furthermore, the Chinese sources indicate that Ming officials rec ognized the outpost as a potential threat. For example, the Guangdong Tongzhi says that the Portuguese “withdrew and docked at Nantou in Dongguan, and they immediately set to building houses and wooden Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. The Ministry of Rites is generally referred to as the Libu 禮部. It is not unlikely that Vieira made a mistake, thinking that “Libo” was a person. 39 Cristóvão Vieira and Vasco Calvo, Letters from Portuguese Captives in Canton, trans. Donald Ferguson (Mumbai: Education Society, 1902), 114. 40 Castanheda, Historia, 4:31, 71; and Gaspar Correia, Lendas da India, ed. Rodrigo José de Lima Felner (Lisbon: Academia Real das Sciencias, 1860), 2:528. 41 Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 15: “huma força de pedra, e madeira, com sua artilheria posta nos lugares per onde o podiam offender.” 42 On Portugal’s aggressive use of cannon-fortified outposts, see Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Princ eton, N.J.: Princeton University, 2016), 135–165. 37 38
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
95
enclosures, relying on firearms to make themselves secure.”43 Cristovão Vieira reported seeing a letter from the Guangdong officials: “The let ter of the mandarins of Guangdong said, that the Folangjis . . . had a fortress made of stone covered with tiles and surrounded with artillery, and inside many arms.”44 At the same time, it should be noted that this heavily armed out post was as much a manifestation of local trade practice as it was of European imperialism. In fact, the occupation of islands was a typical feature of foreign commerce in China, tacitly sanctioned by the state. In the fifteenth century, the use of islands was necessitated by the Ming Empire’s “maritime ban,” which allowed only official embassies to visit China and banned allother foreign interaction.45 Arriving embassies thus had to stop at the islands off the coast of Guangzhou and wait until given approval to enter the city. Such use of the islands is not recorded in the Ming law code. Rather, it comes comes out indirectly in the sources. For example, the Xiangshan-xian zhi records a story of an offi cial who lost the seal of a visiting foreign embassy in 1393—an event that occurred on the island of Xiangshan, the future Macao.46 In 1508, the maritime ban was partially relaxed, and foreign mer chants were allowed once more to legally trade in Guangdong.47 At this point, traffic to the island bases increased, as not only embassies used them, but also private merchants. In fact, this latter group was forced to do allbusiness on these off-shore sites, since they were still not permit ted to enter Guangzhou. Transactions were handled by Chinese sales agents, called yahang, who shuttled between the islands and the main land.48 Tomé Pires wrote that “as soon as the said junks anchor there 43 Guo Fei 郭棐, Guangdong Tongzhi 廣東通志 (Jinan: Qi-Lu Shushe 齐鲁书社, 1996), juan 69: “退泊東莞南頭徑造屋樹柵、恃火銃以自固.” This passage is also copied in Yang Congjian 嚴從簡, Shuyu zhouzilu 殊域周咨錄 (Beijing: Beijing University, 1930), juan 9. The text is digitized by the China Academic Digital Associative Library, http://www.cadal.cn/. 44 Vieira, Letters, 105. 45 The maritime ban has been the object of numerous studies. A succinct summary can be found in the beginning of Wills, “Relations,” 333–335. The most extensive study is that of Li, Mingdai, 29–162. See also Chao Zhongchen 晁中辰, Mingdai haijin yu haiwai maoyi 明 代海禁与海外贸易 (Beijing: Ren min chu ban she, 2005), 46–67; Hiroshi Danjō 檀上寛, Mindai kaikin=chōkō shisutemu to Kai chitsujo 明代海禁=朝貢システムと華夷秩序 (Kyoto: Kyōto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai, 2013), 69–100. 46 This story from the Xiangshan-xian zhi 香山縣志 is cited in Huang Hongzhao 黃鴻釗, “On the Road to International Trading Port in Macao 論澳門通往國際貿易港之路,” Academic Journal of “One Country, Two Systems” 一國兩制研究 20 (2014): 178. 47 See Chao, Mingdai, 59; Qiu Xuanyu 邱炫煜, Ming diguo yu nanhai zhu fanguo guanxi de yanbian 明帝國與南海諸蕃國關係的演變 (Taipei: Lan tai, 1995), 292–296. 48 For an introduction to the yahang, see Chen Zhongping 陈忠平, “Ming-Qing shiqi Jiangnan shizhen de yaren yu yahang 明清时期江南市镇的牙人与牙行,” Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu 中国经济史研究 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiu suo 中国社会
96
journal of world history, march 2016
[the islands], the lord of Nantou sends word to Guangzhou and mer chants immediately come to value the merchandise and to take their dues.”49 This commercial arrangement effectively transformed the islands into permanent foreign settlements. Pires said that around Guangzhou were islands where “ports were alloted to each nation.”50 Not surprisingly, such a system was easily given to abuse. The coastal islands were used not only by foreign embassies and legitimate mer chants, but also by smugglers and pirates. In fact, many of these coastal ports had already served as pirate bases for centuries before they took on the above-mentioned official duties. For example, islands such as Wuyu, in Fujian, and Nanao, in Guangdong, had traditions of smug gling dating back to at least the Song era.51 In the late fourteenth century, the Hongwu emperor, founder of the Ming Dynasty, tried to check piracy by forcibly evacua ting some of these locations.52 One of the most famous of allMing pirate battles was the assault on the island of Shuangyu, off the coast of Ningbo, in 1548–1549.53 It is in this context that we should understand both the Portuguese occupation of Tunmen and the Ming concerns over their actions there. Tunmen was the island that had been allotted to Portugal for trade. Tomé Pires makes it clear that it had already been assigned to them before Fernão Peres de Andrade arrived, probably from the first voyage of Jorge Alvares in 1513.54 The building of Portuguese structures on the island followed this same commercial logic—as noted, Fernão Peres de Andrade’s explicit goal was to build a trading outpost there. Barros says that his successor, Simão de Andrade, had this same purpose in mind when he continued construction on the fort. He wanted to set up a place “with which he hoped to freely do commerce.”55 科学院经济研究所, 1987). On the use of yahang in Guangdong foreign trade during the Zhengde Age, see Chao, Mingdai, 54. 49 Pires, Suma, 1:121–122. I have adjusted the spellings of place names to be consistent with the rest of the article. 50 Ibid., 1:121. 51 Liao Dake 廖大珂, Fujian haiwai jiaotong shi 福建海外交通史 (Fuzhou: Fujian ren min chuban she, 2002), 221–226. 52 On the forced abandonment of islands, see ibid., 206. See also Chen Chunsheng 陳春声, “Mindai ni okeru Chōshū no kaibō to enkai chiiki no shakai 明代における潮州 の海防と沿海地域の社会,” trans. Shirai Jun 白井順, in Kaiiki kōryū to seiji kenryoku no taiō 海域交流と政治権力の対応, ed. Inoue Tōru 井上徹 (Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 2011), 149–151. 53 On this battle, see Zheng Liangsheng 鄭樑生, Mingdai Wokou 明代倭寇 (Taibei Shi : Wen shi zhe chu ban she, 2008); Tanaka Takeo 田中健夫, Wakō: umi no rekishi 倭寇 ― 海の歴史 (Tokyo: Kyōikusha rekishi shinsho, 1982), 122–129. 54 On Alvares as the likely source of Pires’s knowledge about China, see Loureiro, Fidalgos, 170–171. 55 Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 15 “como quem esperava fazer seu commercio de vagar.”
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
97
While the Portuguese doubtless had some imperialistic intentions in placing artillery in the outpost, this was not their only reason for doing so. Fernão Peres de Andrade wanted to fortify the outpost so that it would be “secure from the numerous bandits.”56 In the same way, Barros says that Simão de Andrade armed it because he knew that usually many pirates were constantly coming there to rob the sailors, and sometimes they came in such numbers, and in such force, that the Armadas that the King of China ordered to patrol the area often took refuge in good shelters without daring to confront them.57
The two captains’ stated desire for defense against banditry should be taken seriously. As noted, the islands were pirate havens, and the Portu guese were at risk just like everyone else. One of their ships, that of Duarte Coelho, was nearly captured by corsairs around May 1517. 58 The Por tuguese fleet was raided while at Tunmen in October 1517.59 And Ming forces successfully drove away another large pirate assault near T unmen in early summer 1519, shortly before Simão de Andrade arrived.60 While in this last case, the Ming forces did come out in strength, Simão’s claim that they often took refuge rather than putting up a defense was com pletely true.61 In fact, in 1516, the Guangdong coastal defense forces were reprimanded by the court precisely for “not daring to arrest” a large group that had plundered the coastline.62 The foreign merchants were often left to defend themselves out on the islands. Consequently, in placing artillery in their outpost, the Portuguese were simply doing what allof the other foreign merchants on the islands had already been doing: arming themselves as best they could against the constant dan gers of the sea. The principal difference was that Portuguese weaponry was much deadlier than those of the others. In sum, it is probably best to interpret their fort-building activities as a blend of both European and Asian behavior—a mixture of imperialism and local trade practice.
Castanheda, Historia, 4.31, 71. See also Correia, Lendas 2:528. Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 15: “ordinariamente sempre acudiam alli muitos cossairos a roubar os navegantes, e ás vezes vinham tantos, e tão poderosos, que as Armadas que ElRey da China mandava andar naquella paragem, muitas vezes se acolhiam a boas abrigadas sem ousar de os commetter.” 58 Castanheda, Historia, 4.28, 61; Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.8, 206. 59 Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.8, 218. 60 Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 175. 61 On the Ming coastal defense’s tendency to hide in fortresses during pirate raids, see, for example, Chen, Chaozhou, 145. 62 Mingshilu, vol. 67, Wuzong, juan 142: “無敢捕之.” 56 57
98
journal of world history, march 2016
Turning towards the Chinese perspective, the Ming officials’ reac tion to the Portuguese fort at Tunmen was clearly conditioned by their experiences with island piracy. It has been noted that their initial per ception of the Portuguese was that they were ocean bandits. Accord ingly, it seems that they did not see the fort as the act of a nation-state trying to conquer Ming territory, but rather as a kind of criminal infesta tion on a desert island. What seems to have concerned them most was that the fort indicated an intention to make the island into something more than just a temporary trading site—it had become an entrenched settlement. For example, the passage from the Guangdong Tongzhi, quoted above, seems to express just as much concern over the build ing of houses at Tunmen as over the placing of artillery: “They imme diately set to building houses and wooden enclosures, relying on fire arms to make themselves secure.”63 This same attitude appears in the court memorials. In June 1521, the censor He Ao described the fort as “a stockade intended for long-term residence.”64 Finally, in August 1521, the Ministry of Rites complained that the Portuguese had been “encamped for a long period.”65 The Ming officials feared that a large military campaign would be necessary to uproot this new bandit haven—a repeat of so many pre vious anti-piracy operations. And in many ways, their fears were not unfounded. *** Let us now examine the second major accusation against the Portuguese sailors in Guangdong: that of engaging in slave trade. Barros says that what most disturbed the people of Guangdong was that the second captain major, Simão de Andrade, was purchasing and enslaving Chinese children from honorable families.66 This report was true. It was true, first of all, in the sense that the Portuguese were indeed acquiring slaves. Barros’s testimony is corroborated by a letter written by João de Caminha in 1523, which reported that Andrade had brought fifteen Chinese slaves back with him to India.67 These fifteen doubt less represented only a small fraction of the total traffic, since Andrade
Fei, Guangdong, juan 58: “退泊東莞南頭徑造屋樹柵、恃火銃以自固.” Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. 65 Mingshilu, vol. 70, Shizong, juan 4. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 66 Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 16. 67 João de Caminha, letter to the King, Goa, Oct. 22, 1523, Corpo Cronológico, Parte I, maço 30, no. 40; digitized by the Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo at http://digitarq .arquivos.pt/details?id=3770999. 63 64
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
99
himself commanded only one ship,68 among the roughly dozen Portu guese vessels that visited Guangdong during his tenure in 1519–1520.69 Barros’s report was also true in the sense that the Portuguese slave trade was indeed a major source of concern to both the people of Guang dong and the Ming court. He Ao said that the Europeans “began to kidnap and purchase people.”70 The Guangdong tongzhi records an even stronger accusation, saying that the Portuguese “kidnapped numerous small children, under ten years of age, roasting and eating them.”71 Cris tóvão Vieira must have seen these reports, as he also records this grue some accusation, which Barros subsequently copied.72 Chinese sources, such as the Shuyu zhouzilu, also insist upon the enormous numbers of slaves who were being purchased. “They stayed for two or three years [that is, 1518–1521], and children were stolen in growing masses.”73 The rumors of cannibalism were causing panic among the population. The Guangdong Tongzhi says that “the people of Guangdong were terrified.”74 Nonetheless, in this case as well, the illegal slave trade was as much a part of Asian smuggling practice as of European imperialism. As John Wills noted, the Portuguese were not the first to purchase Chinese slaves in Guangdong. In and of itself, slavery was legal in China, as well as being government-regulated.75 The problem was not that Chinese were being enslaved, but rather that, in a markedly ethnocentric fashion, it was illegal to sell a Chinese person to a non-Chinese.76 However, this restriction was difficult to enforce. The transactions were apparently handled by the sales agents, the ubiquitous yahang mentioned earlier, whom the government struggled to control, even within the domestic
Correia, Lendas, 2:566; Castanheda, Historia, 5:4, 122. It can be deduced that roughly a dozen ships visited Guangdong each year from the list of ships that participated (willingly or unwillingly) in the battle against the Ming navy in 1521. The list of ships that were captured in this battle is given by Vieira, Letters 109–110. 70 Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 71 Fei, Guangdong, juan 58: “數掠十嵗以下小兒烹食之.” 72 Vieira, Letters, 105. Vieira’s letter in fact says that the Portuguese ate “dogs”: “Dezia a carta does mandaris de Cantão que . . . furtavão cães e que os comião asados.” However, this must be a copyist’s error, as Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.1, 14, quotes this same passage saying, “diziam que compravamos moços, e moças furtadas . . . e que os comiamos assados.” On this same matter, see Chang, Sino-Portuguese, 49. 73 Yang, Shuyu, juan 9: “居二三年 ，兒被掠益眾.” 74 Fei, Guangdong, juan 58: “ 廣人咸惴惴.” 75 For a brief introduction to slavery in China through the Ming dynasty, see Wei Qin gyuan 韦庆远, Qing dai nubi zhidu 清代奴婢制度 (Beijing: Zhongguo ren min da xue chu ban she, 1982), 7–21. 76 A similar ban on the sale of Chinese slaves appeared, for example, in the regulations for Macau. See Wills, “Relations,” 351. 68 69
100
journal of world history, march 2016
marketplace.77 It was nearly impossible to stop them from purchasing Chinese slaves on the mainland and then selling them on the islands. The black-market sale of Chinese slaves to foreigners was alarming the Ming court already in the fifteenth century. For example, in 1481, envoys from Siam and Samudera (northern Sumatra) were stopped in Guangdong when it was discovered that “their boat-men showed them how to purchase the sons and daughters of impoverished people.”78 This situa tion was accelerated by the easing of the maritime ban in 1509. A court memorial from June 1517—just prior to Fernão Peres de Andrade’s arrival—described the situation: Evil persons of Guangdong had privately traded in foreign goods, linked up with the external barbarians, joined with those coming to offer tribute in order to seek profits, beguiled people into absconding, kidnapped or purchased boys and girls, and came and went engaging in evil activities and bringing harm to the people.79
It is in this context that the accusations of Portuguese slave trade must be understood. Despite the rhetoric of certain Chinese sources, quoted above, the Portuguese were probably acquiring slaves not through kidnapping, but rather through the preexisting market structures. The sixteenth-century historian Gaspar Correia gives a revealing description of how Fernão Peres de Andrade procured supplies while in Guangzhou: Fernão Peres allowed none of our own men to go to land, and that which was of need, he ordered it to be bought by Chinese slaves, whom he had brought, from the ships that were in the river, which had every thing for sale.80
In other words, trade was mediated through a series of brokers. Portu guese-enslaved Chinese agents were making transactions with Guang dong yahang on the Pearl River. The slave trade likely followed this same pattern. A later sixteenth-century source would note the role of yahang, saying that “the young thugs of Guangdong were kidnapping 77 On Ming efforts to control the yahang, see Tong Guangzheng 童光政, “Minglu ‘sichong yahang butou’ tiao de changli ji qi shiyong 明律‘私充牙行埠头 条的创立及其适用,’ ” Faxue Yanjiu 法学研究 (2004): 116–125. 78 Mingshilu, vol. 38, Xianzong, juan 149. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 79 Mingshilu, vol. 68, Wuzong, juan 149. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 80 Correia, Lendas, 2:527: “Fernão Peres nom consentio que nenhum dos nossos saysse em terra, e o que avia mester, por escravos chyns, que levava, o mandava comprar aos paraos que estavão no rio, que tudo tinhão pera vender.”
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
101
small children, competing aggressively.”81 The Guangdong Tongzhi report that the Portuguese paid one hundred wen (文) in gold for each child.82 Thus, the Portuguese did not introduce slave trade into Guangdong, but rather flowed into local practice—albeit illegal practice. Nonetheless, there was one aspect that was perhaps new and more clearly imperialistic. Previously, visiting foreign merchants often pur chased slaves in order to replace lost crew members aboard their ships. The Portuguese, in contrast, were purchasing in view of the world mar ket, in order to resell their victims for profit across the Indian Ocean.83 This required larger numbers of slaves. *** Up to this point, we have seen that the Portuguese fleets behaved much like Southeast Asian merchant convoys, and that that is how the Ming court viewed them. It now remains to show that the rejection of the embassy in 1521 followed this same logic. From the beginning, the court’s debate over the Portuguese was inte grated into a larger debate over Southeast Asian trade. The Ministry of Rites, which had jurisdiction over foreign diplomacy, had never accepted the imperial decision of 1509 to allow private foreign commerce in Guangdong. It had objected to the policy in 1509, and it reiterated its objections in 1514 and 1515.84 However, its voice was repeatedly ignored. In June 1517, the court officially backed the Ministry of Revenue against the Ministry of Rites and decided to uphold the policy.85 Just a couple of months later, in August 1517, Fernão Peres de Andrade’s fleet arrived in Guangdong. The coincidence between the court’s decision and the Portuguese arrival was noted. The compilers of the Mingshilu later added a revealing, if anachronistic, commentary to the afore-mentioned memorial of June 1517: “The grand coordinator, regional inspector and the Ministry of Revenue were alldeluded and this proposal was approved. Not many years later, the Folangji troubles started.”86 In 1521, in his argument to reject the Portuguese embassy, He Ao would present this same view: 81 Gu Yanwu 顧炎武, Tianxia junguo libing shu 天下郡國利病書 (Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian chuban she, 2002), ce(冊) 33: “廣之惡少掠小兒競趨之.” Gu himself is quoting an earlier text, the Yueshan congtan 月山叢談. 82 Fei, Guangdong, juan 58. 83 On the Portuguese slave trade as a manifestation of a new global labor market, see Malyn Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400–1668 (New York: Rout ledge, 2005), 262–263. 84 These three occasions are recorded in Mingshilu, vol. 63, Wuzong, juan 48; Mingshilu, vol. 66, Wuzong, juan 113; Mingshilu, vol. 67, Wuzong, juan 123. 85 Mingshilu, vol. 68, Wuzong, juan 149. 86 Mingshilu, vol. 68, Wuzong, juan 149. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia.
102
journal of world history, march 2016
This [trade policy] has resulted in foreign ships continually coming to our coastal bays and foreigners residing together in our subprefectural cities. Also, as the laws and the defences have been neglected, these people have become increasingly familiar with the routes. These Fol angji have taken advantage of this situation to rush here.87
In the eyes of He Ao, the Portuguese and the free-wheeling foreign trade of Guangdong were two inseparable issues. The Portuguese were the epit ome of allthe problems brought by the South China Sea merchants: occupying islands, threatening security, kidnapping children. Accord ingly, his recommendation was not only to reject the Portuguese, but also to overturn the 1509 policy. After asking the court to dismiss the Portuguese embassy, he then requested that the old regul ations be examined and restored, that allthe foreign ships in the bays and allthe foreigners who have secretly entered and reside there be expelled, that non-official interactions be prohibited.88
In short, he wanted a restoration of the traditional maritime ban. The memorial ends with the Ministry of Rites’s ringing support for He Ao’s recommendations. In another memorial, from August 1521, the minis try would again urge these two joint recommendations: calling for the Portuguese ships to be expelled and for allprivate foreign merchants in Guangdong to be turned away.89 In fact, the court did not have to insist again. At that very moment, the Ming navy was already in the middle of a battle with the Portuguese merchant marine off the coast of Guang zhou.90 The first period of official Sino-Portuguese relations had ended. In conclusion, this article has sought to reassess the traditional inter pretation of the failure of the Portuguese embassy. Rather than viewing it as a focused struggle between China and Europe, I have argued that it should be viewed as part of the perennial tension between the Ming court and the Southeast Asian trade networks. For the Chinese officials, the Portuguese did not represent an entirely strange, unfamiliar force, but rather a new varia tion on an old theme of piracy. The 1521 clash cannot be limited to a binary opposition between East and West. It was a global event, in the broadest sense of the word.
Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. Ibid. 89 Mingshilu, vol. 70, Shizong, juan 4. 90 The Portuguese ships were unable to escape the Ming navy until a wind arose on September 8, 1521. See Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 18. 87 88
For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/625984
Access provided by Tufts University (29 Jun 2018 01:57 GMT)
The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517: A Reassessment james fujitani Azuza Pacific University
I
n August 1517, a Portuguese fleet led by Captain Fernão Peres de Andrade arrived off the coast of Guangzhou. It was a moment of great symbolic importance, marking the first official contact between East Asia and Europe of the early modern period. However, just a few years later, in 1521, these tentative relations were severed when the Ming court decided to dismiss the Portuguese ambassadors and expel their fleet from Guangdong. The goal of this study is to reconsider the reasons for this rejection. The traditional list of explanations was already laid out in the sixteenth century by the great Portuguese historian João de Barros. Barros wrote that the Ming court received two sets of letters condemning the Por tuguese. One set was from the Sultan of Bintan, a vassal of the Ming, whom the Portuguese had driven from the city of Melaka. He asked the emperor for help against the invaders and warned of European treach ery.1 The other set was from the Ming officials who had received the Por tuguese fleet in Guangdong. They reported the actions of the second captain major, Simão de Andrade, who was building a fort, obstruct ing local trade, and enslaving Chinese.2 In addition, the embassy itself made significant diplomatic errors, which angered the Court.3 Barros
João de Barros, Da Asia (Lisboa : Na Regia Officina Typografica, 1777–1788), 3.6.1, 6. Ibid., 3.6.2, esp. 16–17. 3 Ibid., 1–14. 1 2
Journal of World History, Vol. 27, No. 1 © 2016 by University of Hawai‘i Press
87
88
journal of world history, march 2016
concluded that, based upon this evidence, the Chinese suspected the Portuguese of planning an invasion and decided to reject the embassy.4 The sixteenth-century Chinese sources tell a similar story, though with different emphases. They also note the complaints of the Bintan ambassadors and their warnings of Portuguese incursion.5 Likewise, they speak of the criminal behavior of the Portuguese sailors at Guangdong, accusing them of plundering the coastline and cannibalistically eating children.6 With regard to the embassy itself, they particularly accuse a certain Huozhe Yasan, presumably a Chinese interpreter, of violent and arrogant behavior.7 All in all, the Chinese sources report many of the same crimes as those offered by Barros. In the twentieth century, scholars expanded upon these earlier his tories by situating the Portuguese actions within the broader context of sixteenth-century European colonialism. In 1932, T’ien-Tsê Chang set the tone in his foundational work, Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644. In a chapter entitled “The Causes of Sino-Portuguese Clashes,” he wrote that Simão de Andrade treated the Chinese in the same manner as the Portuguese had for some time treated allthe pepole of Asia. He built a fort, without permission, on the island of Taman from whence he took opportunities of pillaging and extorting money from allthe ships bound from or to the ports of
Ibid., 3.6.1, 5. See, for example, Yang Congjian 嚴從簡, Shuyu zhouzilu 殊域周咨錄 (Beijing: Bei jing University, 1930), juan (卷) 9. The concerns of the Bintan embassy are also directly noted in the Ming Court records: Mingshilu: Wuzong shilu 明實錄武宗實錄, vol. 69 (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan, 1962–1968), juan 194. When quoting the Mingshilu, whenever pos sible, I will use the translation of Geoff Wade, Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: An Open Access Resource, (Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore, 2005), http://epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/entry/2466. 6 On the rumors of the Portuguese being cannibals, see Qiong Zhang, Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery (Boston: Brill, 2015), 268–282. 7 The mysterious and controversial figure of Huozhe Yasan is examined in numerous studies. The foundational work is that of Paul Pelliot, “Le Ḫō(a et le Sayyid Ḥusain de l’Histoire des Ming,” T’oung Pao, 2nd ser., 38 no. 2 (1948): 86–87, n. 7. See also Lin Shuo 林硕, “Nanyang huaqiao Huozhe Yasan de sanchong mi 南洋华侨火者亚三的三重谜,” Dongnanya Nanya Yanjiu 东南亚南亚研究 1 (2012): 79–80; Chen Xuelin 陳學霖, “Huaren Yiguan 華人夷官,” Journal of Chinese Studies 中國文化研究所學報 54 (January 2012): 65–67; Geoff Wade, “Melaka in Ming Dynasty Texts,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 70, no. 1 (1997): 50–53; T’ien-Tsê Chang 張天澤, “Malacca and the Failure of the First Portuguese Embassy to Peking,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 3, no. 2 (1962): 45–64. 4 5
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
89
China. He carried off young girls from the coast, he seized upon the Chinese, and made slaves of them.8
In other words, Chang interpreted the Portuguese behavior as one more manifestation of European colonialism. This view was supported by many later historians, such as Armando Cortesão and Charles Boxer in Europe and Li Qingxin in China.9 More recently, the comparison between the Portuguese entry into China and the Spanish conquistado res has become the subject of Serge Gruzinski’s fascinating work, The Eagle and the Dragon.10 The authoritative English-language account of the failed embassy is that of John Wills in his classic chapter of the Cambridge History of China, entitled “Relations with Maritime Europeans, 1514–1662.”11 Although Wills did adopt many of the conclusions of earlier historians, he also nuanced them with a sharper attention to the situation of China itself in the sixteenth century. For example, he noted that a black-market slave trade had become a problem long before the Portuguese arrival.12 He also pointed out that the breakdown of negotiations was partially due to diplomatic misunderstanding arising from a tension between two radically different conceptions of the world order: “European impa tience and assumptions of reciprocity in foreign relations encountered Chinese bureaucratic delays and the Chinese government’s unilateral approach to the management of foreign relations.”13 Wills’s view was a careful and subtle revision of the previous interpretative tradition. 8 Tʻien-tsê Chang 張天澤, Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644: A Synthesis of Por tuguese and Chinese Sources (Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1934), 63–68. Chang indicates that in this passage he is in fact quoting British Museum MS 13,875, fol. 24, “Report of Embassies to China, presented to the British Museum by the Representatives at the Marquess Wellesley.” 9 Armando Cortesão, introduction to Tomé Pires, Suma Oriental (London: Hakluyt, 1944), 1:xxviii–xxix. Charles Boxer, introduction to Galeote Pereira, Gaspar da Cruz, and Martín de Rada, South China in the Sixteenth Century (London: Hakluyt, 1953), xxi. SinoPortuguese Trade was finally translated into Chinese in 1988 as ZhongPu zaoqi tongshang shi 中葡早期通商史 (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shu ju, 1988). It has since been cited by Li Qingxin 李庆新, Mingdai haiwai maoyi zhidu 明代海外贸易制度 (Beijing: She hui ke xue wen xian chu ban she, 2007), 220–230; and Jin Guoping 金國平, Xi li dong jian: Zhong-Pu zaoqi jiechu zhui xi 西力东渐: 中葡早期接觸追昔 (Macau: Aomen ji jin hui, 2000), 1–18. 10 Serge Gruzinski, The Eagle and the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in China and America in the Sixteenth Century, trans. Jean Birell (Malden, Mass.: Polity Press, 2014). 11 John Elliot Wills, “Relations with Maritime Europe, 1514–1662,” in The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2, vol. 8 of The Cambridge History of China, ed. Denis C. Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 335–341. 12 Ibid., 338. 13 Ibid., 336–337.
90
journal of world history, march 2016
The goal of this article is to propose a completely different model for understanding the breakdown of Sino-Portuguese relations. In contrast to the traditional view of the 1521 rejection as a clash between rival civilizations, Europe and Asia, this article presents it as an episode in a long-standing dialogue between Ming China and the merchant empires of Southeast Asia. I argue that the Ming court perceived the Portuguese as a Southeast Asian group and that it rejected them as part of a larger campaign to reassert control over regional affairs. *** First of all, it is important to establish that it was not unreasonable to view the Portuguese as Southeast Asian merchants. Their fleets were composite entities, led by Europeans, but largely manned by Asian sailors. In these early years of Portuguese expansion, the home port for Por tuguese heading to China was Melaka, which had been conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511. This was a major trade center, whose population had surpassed 100,000 prior to the invasion.14 Large expatriate communities had settled there, including the Gujaratis, Kelings, Java nese, Luzonese, and Chinese.15 Tomé Pires famously claimed that eightyfour different languages could be heard in the streets.16 After the invasion, the city declined, but even at its lowest point, it still remained a respect able port with a population of around twenty to thirty thousand.17 There was thus a striking disproportion between the numbers of Asians and Europeans in the city. Albuquerque’s invasion force had counted around 1,200 troops, but by 1515, most of them had left.18 During the 1517–1521 period, there were usually only about three hundred Portuguese sta tioned in Melaka.19 In other words, they probably made up less than 1 percent of the population. 14 Anthony Reid, “The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11, no. 2 (1980): 237–240. 15 Luís Filipe Thomaz, “Melaka and its Merchant Communities,” in Asian Merchants and Businessmen in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea, ed. Denys Lombard and Jean Aubin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 28–32; Kenneth Hall, History of Early Southeast Asia: Maritime Trade and Societal Development (Blue Ridge Summit, Penn.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 308–312. 16 Pires, Suma Oriental, 2:269. 17 On population decline in Melaka, see Anthony Reid, “The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Southeast Asia,” Modern Asian Studies 24, no. 4 (1990): 653. 18 Pero de Faria, letter to King Manuel, Melaka, January 4, 1515, in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, ed. Raymundo Antonio de Bulhão Pato (Lisbon: Academia Real das Sciencias, 1903), 3:129. 19 This was noted, for example, by the captain of Melaka, Affonso Lopez da Costa, letter to the King D. Manuel, Melaka, August 20, 1518, in Documentação para a história das
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
91
In this context, it was numeric ally impossible for the Portuguese to take over and monopol ize the regional trade routes. Rather, they worked with the local merchants, maintaining the preexisting trade policies of the Melaka sultanate and restoring the preexisting administrative positions, which were offered to resident merchants who had switched their allegiance.20 They depended on these insiders to revive trade in the city. For example, the first bendahara—a role akin to that of prime minister—under Portuguese rule was a Keling merchant named Nina Chatu.21 In 1514, the captain of the city, Rui de Brito, described how he depended on Chatu to coordinate local commerce: “He sends junks to every region, both for his own profit as well as to bring honor to the land.”22 Portuguese were placed aboard the various foreign ships that came and left. Barros says that it was Afonso de Albuquerque himself who had ordered the captains of Melaka to do this: “There should not depart a merchant ship from this city, in which there was not a Portu guese man with a sharp mind and a disposition for reporting informa tion of what he had seen and heard from these regions.”23 In general, there were about ten Portuguese on each ship—perhaps a quarter of the crew.24 In short, Portuguese trade in Melaka was not strictly European in nature. On the contrary, it was built upon, and flowed through, the merchant groups of Melaka. It was through these groups that the Portuguese first arrived in China. For over a century, a dynamic Chinese expatriate community had thrived in Melaka, and on the eve of the invasion, around ten trading ships came
missões do padroado português do Oriente, ed. Artur Basílio de Sá (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1954), 1:98. 20 Luís Filipe F. R. Thomaz, “The Portuguese in the Seas of the Archipelago during the Sixteenth Century,” in European Commercial Expansion in Early Modern Asia, ed. Om Prakash (Aldershot: Variorum, 1997), 25–42. See also Kenneth R. Hall, “Multi-Dimensional Networking: Fifteenth-Century Indian Ocean Maritime Diaspora in Southeast Asian Per spective,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 49, no. 4 (2006): 465–469. 21 Luís Filipe Thomaz, Nina Chatu and the Portuguese Trade in Malacca (Bandar Melaka: Luso-Malaysian Books, 1991). 22 Rui de Brito, letter to the King, Melaka, January 6, 1514 in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, 3:95: “manda juncos a todas as partes asy por seu proveyto como por nobrecer a terra.” 23 Barros, Da Asia, 3.10.6, 174: “que não partisse navio de mercadores daquella Cidade, onde não fosse hum Portuguez homem de bom espirito, e disposição pera trazer informação do que visse, e ouvisse daquellas regiões.” 24 Lopez da Costa, “letter,” 97. The total size of crews is not always clear. Roger Craig Smith, Vanguard of Empire: Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 142, notes that a 100-ton vessel from this period required a crew of about forty.
92
journal of world history, march 2016
from the Middle Kingdom every year.25 After the conquest, many of these merchants fled. However, the Portuguese did find an ally in “an old Chinese man” who commanded two junks, whom they called the Chei lata.26 It was aboard one of these junks, in a mixed convoy that included Luzonese traders, that Jorge Alvares arrived in China in 1513—the first European to visit China in the modern age.27 It was also with the Chei lata that Rafael Perestrello visited in 1515.28 During this early phase, the Portuguese did not lead the voyages. On the contrary, they were passen gers and observers, who quietly blended into the flow of foreign traffic coming into Guangdong. There is no mention of Alvares or Perestrello in the Chinese sources. At first glance, the Portuguese fleet of 1517 was different. It was led by a Portuguese captain major, Fernão Peres de Andrade. It included Portuguese naus: the 200-ton Espera, the Sancta Cruz, the Sancto Andre, and the Sanctiago, ships whose heavy artillery would later draw the attention of the Chinese.29 Nonetheless, despite the European sur face appearances, the Melakan merchant community still formed the foundation. Alongside the naus sailed three junks. Two of them were nominally commanded by Portuguese captains, but were in fact owned by Melakan merchants: Jorge Botelho was in a ship of the Luzonese merchant Curia di Raja, and Manuel de Araujo was in one of the Chei lata.30 The local Chinese community was also important, serving as nav igators and interpreters for the entire fleet.31 Finally, even in the naus, Europeans formed only a minority of the crew. Because Portugal was 25 On the number of Chinese ships visiting Melaka, see Rui de Araujo, letter to Afonso de Albuquerque, Melaka, February 6, 1510, in Documentação para a história das missões do padroado português do Oriente, 1:98. On the Chinese community in Melaka, see Thomaz, “Melaka and Its Merchant Communities,” 31–32. See also Yamazaki Takeshi 山崎岳, Marakka ōkoku no bokkō マラカ王国の勃興, in Nanban kōmō tōjin 南蛮 .紅毛 .唐人, ed. Naka jima Gakushō 中島楽章 (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 2013), 66–77; Roderich Ptak, “Merchants and Maximization: Notes on Chinese and Portuguese Entrepreneurship in Maritime Asia, c.1350–1600,” in China and the Asian Seas: Trade, Travel, and Visions of the Other (1400– 1750) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), article 6, 41–43. 26 Rui de Brito, letter to the King, Melaka, Janua ry 6, 1514, in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, 3:93. 27 De Brito, letter to Affonso de Albuquerque, Melaka, January 7, 1514, in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, 3:220. 28 Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.6, 178. 29 Fernão Lopez de Castanheda, Historia do descobrimento e conquista da India pelos Portugueses (Lisbon: Typographia Rollandiana, 1833), 3:27, 55. See also the comments of Armando Cortesão, Primeira embaixada europeia à China (Lisbon: Gráfica Lisbonense, 1945), 45; and Rui Loureiro, Fidalgos, missionários e mandarins: Portugal e a China no século XVI (Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 2000), 197–205. 30 Castanheda, Historia, 3.27, 55. 31 Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.8, 221.
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
93
suffering from a chronic situation of understaffing, ships had to depend on hired or forced labor to function: sailors and slaves from Africa, Arabia, India, and Melaka.32 Thus, it was understandable that the Ming officials who first met the incoming fleet believed that they were from Southeast Asia. The Chinese sources suggest that the Portuguese were viewed not as a dis tinct nation-state, but rather as a kind of mixed merchant group. For example, Wang Xiwen, who in 1517 was a young man living near the foreign ports, later described the arrival of the Portuguese—whom he calls the “Folangji”33—in the following manner: “During the Zhengde years, the Folangji anonymously blended in and thrust into the city.”34 Wang portrayed the Portuguese not as leading an official fleet, but rather as sneaking in among the foreign traffic. The high council of Guangdong made a similar observation after meeting with Portuguese negotiators in 1517. The eyewitness Gu Yingxiang, who was a lower Guangdong offi cial at the time, later said: “Their people allhave high noses and deep-set eyes. Their heads are wrapped in white cloth, just as the Muslims dress.”35 As it seems unlikely that the Portuguese were wearing turbans, Gu may have been looking at the Muslim interpreters and servants within the group and mistaking them for Europeans. In any case, it is clear that the Portuguese were seen as an element within the broader Southeast Asian trade networks. Accordingly, the Ming court concluded that the Portuguese had come from somewhere in the South China Sea. The later Mingshi sim ply states that “Folangji is near Melaka.”36 Similarly, a Ming court memorial from January 1521 speaks of the Portuguese invasion of the 32 On the staffing problems of the Portuguese in Asia, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History (New York: Long man, 1993), 55–79. See also Charles Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire: 1415–1825 (New York: Knopf, 1969), 52–59; and Roderich Ptak, “China and Portugal at Sea: The Early Ming Trading System and the Estado da Índia Compared,” in China and the Asian Seas, article 1, 30. 33 On the name “Folangji 佛郎機,” the term by which Chinese sources of the time refer to the Portuguese, see Pelliot, “Ḫō(a” 86–87, n. 7. 34 As compiled in Huang Xun 黃訓, Mingchen Jingji Lu 名臣經濟錄, (Hangzhou: Wenlan Ge文澜阁, 1861–1880), juan 43: “佛朗機匿名混進突至省城.” This is from the digitized edition of the Zhejiang 四庫全書, published by the China Academic Digital Asso ciative Library, http://www.cadal.cn/. 35 As compiled in Hu Zongxian 胡宗憲, Chouhai Tubian 籌海圖編 (Hangzhou: Wenlan Ge 文瀾閣, 1861–1880), juan 13. This is from the digitized edition of the Zhejiang 四庫全書, published by the China Academic Digital Associative Library, http://www.cadal.cn/: “其人皆髙鼻, 深目, 以白布纒頭、如囘囘打扮.” 36 Mingshi 明史, juan 325: “佛郎機 ，近滿剌加 。正德中 ，據滿剌加地 ，逐其王.” The edition consulted is that of the 武英殿二十四史, compiled in 1739, and digitized by the Chinese Text Project, http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&res=77711.
94
journal of world history, march 2016
sultanate as an intrusion into “neighboring countries.”37 It seems that the officials assumed that Portugal was one of the numerous islands of what is today the Indonesian archipelag o. Cristóvão Vieira, who was part of the Portuguese embassy, records the words of a certain Chinese official, whom he calls Libo,38 who said that “the country of the Firingis must be a small affair bordering on the sea.”39 *** With this context in mind, we can reinterpret the accusations made against the Portuguese sailors in Guangdong, noted in the introduc tion. These criminal activities were perhaps forms not only of European imperialism, but also of Southeast Asian piracy. That is to say, the Por tuguese fleets behaved like other merchant convoys of the region, and their misconduct was often typical of local smuggling practices. Two accusations in particular will be examined: that of invading Chinese ter ritory and that of illegal slave trade. First of all, Barros said that the Ming officials worried over a poten tial Portuguese invasion of Chinese territory. Indeed, the Portuguese did build a fort on the island of Tunmen, off the southern shores of the Pearl River delta. Fernão Peres de Andrade had requested permission to build a trading outpost there in 1518,40 and Simão de Andrade then labored on this structure for most of his voyage of 1519–1520. Barros says that it was “a fortress of stone and wood, with its artillery placed in positions from which it could be attacked.”41 In other words, while the explicit purpose of the building was commercial, its militaristic aspects were readily manifest. Tonio Andrade has examined how such fortresses lay the very groundworks for Western expansion across Asia.42 Furthermore, the Chinese sources indicate that Ming officials rec ognized the outpost as a potential threat. For example, the Guangdong Tongzhi says that the Portuguese “withdrew and docked at Nantou in Dongguan, and they immediately set to building houses and wooden Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. The Ministry of Rites is generally referred to as the Libu 禮部. It is not unlikely that Vieira made a mistake, thinking that “Libo” was a person. 39 Cristóvão Vieira and Vasco Calvo, Letters from Portuguese Captives in Canton, trans. Donald Ferguson (Mumbai: Education Society, 1902), 114. 40 Castanheda, Historia, 4:31, 71; and Gaspar Correia, Lendas da India, ed. Rodrigo José de Lima Felner (Lisbon: Academia Real das Sciencias, 1860), 2:528. 41 Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 15: “huma força de pedra, e madeira, com sua artilheria posta nos lugares per onde o podiam offender.” 42 On Portugal’s aggressive use of cannon-fortified outposts, see Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Princ eton, N.J.: Princeton University, 2016), 135–165. 37 38
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
95
enclosures, relying on firearms to make themselves secure.”43 Cristovão Vieira reported seeing a letter from the Guangdong officials: “The let ter of the mandarins of Guangdong said, that the Folangjis . . . had a fortress made of stone covered with tiles and surrounded with artillery, and inside many arms.”44 At the same time, it should be noted that this heavily armed out post was as much a manifestation of local trade practice as it was of European imperialism. In fact, the occupation of islands was a typical feature of foreign commerce in China, tacitly sanctioned by the state. In the fifteenth century, the use of islands was necessitated by the Ming Empire’s “maritime ban,” which allowed only official embassies to visit China and banned allother foreign interaction.45 Arriving embassies thus had to stop at the islands off the coast of Guangzhou and wait until given approval to enter the city. Such use of the islands is not recorded in the Ming law code. Rather, it comes comes out indirectly in the sources. For example, the Xiangshan-xian zhi records a story of an offi cial who lost the seal of a visiting foreign embassy in 1393—an event that occurred on the island of Xiangshan, the future Macao.46 In 1508, the maritime ban was partially relaxed, and foreign mer chants were allowed once more to legally trade in Guangdong.47 At this point, traffic to the island bases increased, as not only embassies used them, but also private merchants. In fact, this latter group was forced to do allbusiness on these off-shore sites, since they were still not permit ted to enter Guangzhou. Transactions were handled by Chinese sales agents, called yahang, who shuttled between the islands and the main land.48 Tomé Pires wrote that “as soon as the said junks anchor there 43 Guo Fei 郭棐, Guangdong Tongzhi 廣東通志 (Jinan: Qi-Lu Shushe 齐鲁书社, 1996), juan 69: “退泊東莞南頭徑造屋樹柵、恃火銃以自固.” This passage is also copied in Yang Congjian 嚴從簡, Shuyu zhouzilu 殊域周咨錄 (Beijing: Beijing University, 1930), juan 9. The text is digitized by the China Academic Digital Associative Library, http://www.cadal.cn/. 44 Vieira, Letters, 105. 45 The maritime ban has been the object of numerous studies. A succinct summary can be found in the beginning of Wills, “Relations,” 333–335. The most extensive study is that of Li, Mingdai, 29–162. See also Chao Zhongchen 晁中辰, Mingdai haijin yu haiwai maoyi 明 代海禁与海外贸易 (Beijing: Ren min chu ban she, 2005), 46–67; Hiroshi Danjō 檀上寛, Mindai kaikin=chōkō shisutemu to Kai chitsujo 明代海禁=朝貢システムと華夷秩序 (Kyoto: Kyōto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai, 2013), 69–100. 46 This story from the Xiangshan-xian zhi 香山縣志 is cited in Huang Hongzhao 黃鴻釗, “On the Road to International Trading Port in Macao 論澳門通往國際貿易港之路,” Academic Journal of “One Country, Two Systems” 一國兩制研究 20 (2014): 178. 47 See Chao, Mingdai, 59; Qiu Xuanyu 邱炫煜, Ming diguo yu nanhai zhu fanguo guanxi de yanbian 明帝國與南海諸蕃國關係的演變 (Taipei: Lan tai, 1995), 292–296. 48 For an introduction to the yahang, see Chen Zhongping 陈忠平, “Ming-Qing shiqi Jiangnan shizhen de yaren yu yahang 明清时期江南市镇的牙人与牙行,” Zhongguo jingji shi yanjiu 中国经济史研究 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiu suo 中国社会
96
journal of world history, march 2016
[the islands], the lord of Nantou sends word to Guangzhou and mer chants immediately come to value the merchandise and to take their dues.”49 This commercial arrangement effectively transformed the islands into permanent foreign settlements. Pires said that around Guangzhou were islands where “ports were alloted to each nation.”50 Not surprisingly, such a system was easily given to abuse. The coastal islands were used not only by foreign embassies and legitimate mer chants, but also by smugglers and pirates. In fact, many of these coastal ports had already served as pirate bases for centuries before they took on the above-mentioned official duties. For example, islands such as Wuyu, in Fujian, and Nanao, in Guangdong, had traditions of smug gling dating back to at least the Song era.51 In the late fourteenth century, the Hongwu emperor, founder of the Ming Dynasty, tried to check piracy by forcibly evacua ting some of these locations.52 One of the most famous of allMing pirate battles was the assault on the island of Shuangyu, off the coast of Ningbo, in 1548–1549.53 It is in this context that we should understand both the Portuguese occupation of Tunmen and the Ming concerns over their actions there. Tunmen was the island that had been allotted to Portugal for trade. Tomé Pires makes it clear that it had already been assigned to them before Fernão Peres de Andrade arrived, probably from the first voyage of Jorge Alvares in 1513.54 The building of Portuguese structures on the island followed this same commercial logic—as noted, Fernão Peres de Andrade’s explicit goal was to build a trading outpost there. Barros says that his successor, Simão de Andrade, had this same purpose in mind when he continued construction on the fort. He wanted to set up a place “with which he hoped to freely do commerce.”55 科学院经济研究所, 1987). On the use of yahang in Guangdong foreign trade during the Zhengde Age, see Chao, Mingdai, 54. 49 Pires, Suma, 1:121–122. I have adjusted the spellings of place names to be consistent with the rest of the article. 50 Ibid., 1:121. 51 Liao Dake 廖大珂, Fujian haiwai jiaotong shi 福建海外交通史 (Fuzhou: Fujian ren min chuban she, 2002), 221–226. 52 On the forced abandonment of islands, see ibid., 206. See also Chen Chunsheng 陳春声, “Mindai ni okeru Chōshū no kaibō to enkai chiiki no shakai 明代における潮州 の海防と沿海地域の社会,” trans. Shirai Jun 白井順, in Kaiiki kōryū to seiji kenryoku no taiō 海域交流と政治権力の対応, ed. Inoue Tōru 井上徹 (Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 2011), 149–151. 53 On this battle, see Zheng Liangsheng 鄭樑生, Mingdai Wokou 明代倭寇 (Taibei Shi : Wen shi zhe chu ban she, 2008); Tanaka Takeo 田中健夫, Wakō: umi no rekishi 倭寇 ― 海の歴史 (Tokyo: Kyōikusha rekishi shinsho, 1982), 122–129. 54 On Alvares as the likely source of Pires’s knowledge about China, see Loureiro, Fidalgos, 170–171. 55 Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 15 “como quem esperava fazer seu commercio de vagar.”
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
97
While the Portuguese doubtless had some imperialistic intentions in placing artillery in the outpost, this was not their only reason for doing so. Fernão Peres de Andrade wanted to fortify the outpost so that it would be “secure from the numerous bandits.”56 In the same way, Barros says that Simão de Andrade armed it because he knew that usually many pirates were constantly coming there to rob the sailors, and sometimes they came in such numbers, and in such force, that the Armadas that the King of China ordered to patrol the area often took refuge in good shelters without daring to confront them.57
The two captains’ stated desire for defense against banditry should be taken seriously. As noted, the islands were pirate havens, and the Portu guese were at risk just like everyone else. One of their ships, that of Duarte Coelho, was nearly captured by corsairs around May 1517. 58 The Por tuguese fleet was raided while at Tunmen in October 1517.59 And Ming forces successfully drove away another large pirate assault near T unmen in early summer 1519, shortly before Simão de Andrade arrived.60 While in this last case, the Ming forces did come out in strength, Simão’s claim that they often took refuge rather than putting up a defense was com pletely true.61 In fact, in 1516, the Guangdong coastal defense forces were reprimanded by the court precisely for “not daring to arrest” a large group that had plundered the coastline.62 The foreign merchants were often left to defend themselves out on the islands. Consequently, in placing artillery in their outpost, the Portuguese were simply doing what allof the other foreign merchants on the islands had already been doing: arming themselves as best they could against the constant dan gers of the sea. The principal difference was that Portuguese weaponry was much deadlier than those of the others. In sum, it is probably best to interpret their fort-building activities as a blend of both European and Asian behavior—a mixture of imperialism and local trade practice.
Castanheda, Historia, 4.31, 71. See also Correia, Lendas 2:528. Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 15: “ordinariamente sempre acudiam alli muitos cossairos a roubar os navegantes, e ás vezes vinham tantos, e tão poderosos, que as Armadas que ElRey da China mandava andar naquella paragem, muitas vezes se acolhiam a boas abrigadas sem ousar de os commetter.” 58 Castanheda, Historia, 4.28, 61; Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.8, 206. 59 Barros, Da Asia, 3.2.8, 218. 60 Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 175. 61 On the Ming coastal defense’s tendency to hide in fortresses during pirate raids, see, for example, Chen, Chaozhou, 145. 62 Mingshilu, vol. 67, Wuzong, juan 142: “無敢捕之.” 56 57
98
journal of world history, march 2016
Turning towards the Chinese perspective, the Ming officials’ reac tion to the Portuguese fort at Tunmen was clearly conditioned by their experiences with island piracy. It has been noted that their initial per ception of the Portuguese was that they were ocean bandits. Accord ingly, it seems that they did not see the fort as the act of a nation-state trying to conquer Ming territory, but rather as a kind of criminal infesta tion on a desert island. What seems to have concerned them most was that the fort indicated an intention to make the island into something more than just a temporary trading site—it had become an entrenched settlement. For example, the passage from the Guangdong Tongzhi, quoted above, seems to express just as much concern over the build ing of houses at Tunmen as over the placing of artillery: “They imme diately set to building houses and wooden enclosures, relying on fire arms to make themselves secure.”63 This same attitude appears in the court memorials. In June 1521, the censor He Ao described the fort as “a stockade intended for long-term residence.”64 Finally, in August 1521, the Ministry of Rites complained that the Portuguese had been “encamped for a long period.”65 The Ming officials feared that a large military campaign would be necessary to uproot this new bandit haven—a repeat of so many pre vious anti-piracy operations. And in many ways, their fears were not unfounded. *** Let us now examine the second major accusation against the Portuguese sailors in Guangdong: that of engaging in slave trade. Barros says that what most disturbed the people of Guangdong was that the second captain major, Simão de Andrade, was purchasing and enslaving Chinese children from honorable families.66 This report was true. It was true, first of all, in the sense that the Portuguese were indeed acquiring slaves. Barros’s testimony is corroborated by a letter written by João de Caminha in 1523, which reported that Andrade had brought fifteen Chinese slaves back with him to India.67 These fifteen doubt less represented only a small fraction of the total traffic, since Andrade
Fei, Guangdong, juan 58: “退泊東莞南頭徑造屋樹柵、恃火銃以自固.” Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. 65 Mingshilu, vol. 70, Shizong, juan 4. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 66 Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 16. 67 João de Caminha, letter to the King, Goa, Oct. 22, 1523, Corpo Cronológico, Parte I, maço 30, no. 40; digitized by the Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo at http://digitarq .arquivos.pt/details?id=3770999. 63 64
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
99
himself commanded only one ship,68 among the roughly dozen Portu guese vessels that visited Guangdong during his tenure in 1519–1520.69 Barros’s report was also true in the sense that the Portuguese slave trade was indeed a major source of concern to both the people of Guang dong and the Ming court. He Ao said that the Europeans “began to kidnap and purchase people.”70 The Guangdong tongzhi records an even stronger accusation, saying that the Portuguese “kidnapped numerous small children, under ten years of age, roasting and eating them.”71 Cris tóvão Vieira must have seen these reports, as he also records this grue some accusation, which Barros subsequently copied.72 Chinese sources, such as the Shuyu zhouzilu, also insist upon the enormous numbers of slaves who were being purchased. “They stayed for two or three years [that is, 1518–1521], and children were stolen in growing masses.”73 The rumors of cannibalism were causing panic among the population. The Guangdong Tongzhi says that “the people of Guangdong were terrified.”74 Nonetheless, in this case as well, the illegal slave trade was as much a part of Asian smuggling practice as of European imperialism. As John Wills noted, the Portuguese were not the first to purchase Chinese slaves in Guangdong. In and of itself, slavery was legal in China, as well as being government-regulated.75 The problem was not that Chinese were being enslaved, but rather that, in a markedly ethnocentric fashion, it was illegal to sell a Chinese person to a non-Chinese.76 However, this restriction was difficult to enforce. The transactions were apparently handled by the sales agents, the ubiquitous yahang mentioned earlier, whom the government struggled to control, even within the domestic
Correia, Lendas, 2:566; Castanheda, Historia, 5:4, 122. It can be deduced that roughly a dozen ships visited Guangdong each year from the list of ships that participated (willingly or unwillingly) in the battle against the Ming navy in 1521. The list of ships that were captured in this battle is given by Vieira, Letters 109–110. 70 Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 71 Fei, Guangdong, juan 58: “數掠十嵗以下小兒烹食之.” 72 Vieira, Letters, 105. Vieira’s letter in fact says that the Portuguese ate “dogs”: “Dezia a carta does mandaris de Cantão que . . . furtavão cães e que os comião asados.” However, this must be a copyist’s error, as Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.1, 14, quotes this same passage saying, “diziam que compravamos moços, e moças furtadas . . . e que os comiamos assados.” On this same matter, see Chang, Sino-Portuguese, 49. 73 Yang, Shuyu, juan 9: “居二三年 ，兒被掠益眾.” 74 Fei, Guangdong, juan 58: “ 廣人咸惴惴.” 75 For a brief introduction to slavery in China through the Ming dynasty, see Wei Qin gyuan 韦庆远, Qing dai nubi zhidu 清代奴婢制度 (Beijing: Zhongguo ren min da xue chu ban she, 1982), 7–21. 76 A similar ban on the sale of Chinese slaves appeared, for example, in the regulations for Macau. See Wills, “Relations,” 351. 68 69
100
journal of world history, march 2016
marketplace.77 It was nearly impossible to stop them from purchasing Chinese slaves on the mainland and then selling them on the islands. The black-market sale of Chinese slaves to foreigners was alarming the Ming court already in the fifteenth century. For example, in 1481, envoys from Siam and Samudera (northern Sumatra) were stopped in Guangdong when it was discovered that “their boat-men showed them how to purchase the sons and daughters of impoverished people.”78 This situa tion was accelerated by the easing of the maritime ban in 1509. A court memorial from June 1517—just prior to Fernão Peres de Andrade’s arrival—described the situation: Evil persons of Guangdong had privately traded in foreign goods, linked up with the external barbarians, joined with those coming to offer tribute in order to seek profits, beguiled people into absconding, kidnapped or purchased boys and girls, and came and went engaging in evil activities and bringing harm to the people.79
It is in this context that the accusations of Portuguese slave trade must be understood. Despite the rhetoric of certain Chinese sources, quoted above, the Portuguese were probably acquiring slaves not through kidnapping, but rather through the preexisting market structures. The sixteenth-century historian Gaspar Correia gives a revealing description of how Fernão Peres de Andrade procured supplies while in Guangzhou: Fernão Peres allowed none of our own men to go to land, and that which was of need, he ordered it to be bought by Chinese slaves, whom he had brought, from the ships that were in the river, which had every thing for sale.80
In other words, trade was mediated through a series of brokers. Portu guese-enslaved Chinese agents were making transactions with Guang dong yahang on the Pearl River. The slave trade likely followed this same pattern. A later sixteenth-century source would note the role of yahang, saying that “the young thugs of Guangdong were kidnapping 77 On Ming efforts to control the yahang, see Tong Guangzheng 童光政, “Minglu ‘sichong yahang butou’ tiao de changli ji qi shiyong 明律‘私充牙行埠头 条的创立及其适用,’ ” Faxue Yanjiu 法学研究 (2004): 116–125. 78 Mingshilu, vol. 38, Xianzong, juan 149. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 79 Mingshilu, vol. 68, Wuzong, juan 149. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. 80 Correia, Lendas, 2:527: “Fernão Peres nom consentio que nenhum dos nossos saysse em terra, e o que avia mester, por escravos chyns, que levava, o mandava comprar aos paraos que estavão no rio, que tudo tinhão pera vender.”
Fujitani: Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy
101
small children, competing aggressively.”81 The Guangdong Tongzhi report that the Portuguese paid one hundred wen (文) in gold for each child.82 Thus, the Portuguese did not introduce slave trade into Guangdong, but rather flowed into local practice—albeit illegal practice. Nonetheless, there was one aspect that was perhaps new and more clearly imperialistic. Previously, visiting foreign merchants often pur chased slaves in order to replace lost crew members aboard their ships. The Portuguese, in contrast, were purchasing in view of the world mar ket, in order to resell their victims for profit across the Indian Ocean.83 This required larger numbers of slaves. *** Up to this point, we have seen that the Portuguese fleets behaved much like Southeast Asian merchant convoys, and that that is how the Ming court viewed them. It now remains to show that the rejection of the embassy in 1521 followed this same logic. From the beginning, the court’s debate over the Portuguese was inte grated into a larger debate over Southeast Asian trade. The Ministry of Rites, which had jurisdiction over foreign diplomacy, had never accepted the imperial decision of 1509 to allow private foreign commerce in Guangdong. It had objected to the policy in 1509, and it reiterated its objections in 1514 and 1515.84 However, its voice was repeatedly ignored. In June 1517, the court officially backed the Ministry of Revenue against the Ministry of Rites and decided to uphold the policy.85 Just a couple of months later, in August 1517, Fernão Peres de Andrade’s fleet arrived in Guangdong. The coincidence between the court’s decision and the Portuguese arrival was noted. The compilers of the Mingshilu later added a revealing, if anachronistic, commentary to the afore-mentioned memorial of June 1517: “The grand coordinator, regional inspector and the Ministry of Revenue were alldeluded and this proposal was approved. Not many years later, the Folangji troubles started.”86 In 1521, in his argument to reject the Portuguese embassy, He Ao would present this same view: 81 Gu Yanwu 顧炎武, Tianxia junguo libing shu 天下郡國利病書 (Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian chuban she, 2002), ce(冊) 33: “廣之惡少掠小兒競趨之.” Gu himself is quoting an earlier text, the Yueshan congtan 月山叢談. 82 Fei, Guangdong, juan 58. 83 On the Portuguese slave trade as a manifestation of a new global labor market, see Malyn Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400–1668 (New York: Rout ledge, 2005), 262–263. 84 These three occasions are recorded in Mingshilu, vol. 63, Wuzong, juan 48; Mingshilu, vol. 66, Wuzong, juan 113; Mingshilu, vol. 67, Wuzong, juan 123. 85 Mingshilu, vol. 68, Wuzong, juan 149. 86 Mingshilu, vol. 68, Wuzong, juan 149. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia.
102
journal of world history, march 2016
This [trade policy] has resulted in foreign ships continually coming to our coastal bays and foreigners residing together in our subprefectural cities. Also, as the laws and the defences have been neglected, these people have become increasingly familiar with the routes. These Fol angji have taken advantage of this situation to rush here.87
In the eyes of He Ao, the Portuguese and the free-wheeling foreign trade of Guangdong were two inseparable issues. The Portuguese were the epit ome of allthe problems brought by the South China Sea merchants: occupying islands, threatening security, kidnapping children. Accord ingly, his recommendation was not only to reject the Portuguese, but also to overturn the 1509 policy. After asking the court to dismiss the Portuguese embassy, he then requested that the old regul ations be examined and restored, that allthe foreign ships in the bays and allthe foreigners who have secretly entered and reside there be expelled, that non-official interactions be prohibited.88
In short, he wanted a restoration of the traditional maritime ban. The memorial ends with the Ministry of Rites’s ringing support for He Ao’s recommendations. In another memorial, from August 1521, the minis try would again urge these two joint recommendations: calling for the Portuguese ships to be expelled and for allprivate foreign merchants in Guangdong to be turned away.89 In fact, the court did not have to insist again. At that very moment, the Ming navy was already in the middle of a battle with the Portuguese merchant marine off the coast of Guang zhou.90 The first period of official Sino-Portuguese relations had ended. In conclusion, this article has sought to reassess the traditional inter pretation of the failure of the Portuguese embassy. Rather than viewing it as a focused struggle between China and Europe, I have argued that it should be viewed as part of the perennial tension between the Ming court and the Southeast Asian trade networks. For the Chinese officials, the Portuguese did not represent an entirely strange, unfamiliar force, but rather a new varia tion on an old theme of piracy. The 1521 clash cannot be limited to a binary opposition between East and West. It was a global event, in the broadest sense of the word.
Mingshilu, vol. 69, Wuzong, juan 194. Wade, trans., Southeast Asia. Ibid. 89 Mingshilu, vol. 70, Shizong, juan 4. 90 The Portuguese ships were unable to escape the Ming navy until a wind arose on September 8, 1521. See Barros, Da Asia, 3.6.2, 18. 87 88
Related documents
The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517 A Reassessment fujitani2016
17 Pages • 7,344 Words • PDF • 663.8 KB
The Consequence of Rejection- Rachel Van Dyken
377 Pages • 52,365 Words • PDF • 1022.8 KB
Electroglottography of speakers of Brazilian Portuguese through
6 Pages • 4,374 Words • PDF • 415.9 KB
The Comfort of a Brother
10 Pages • 5,288 Words • PDF • 64.4 KB
A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language
897 Pages • PDF • 32.6 MB
The biomechanics of soccer A review
14 Pages • 11,162 Words • PDF • 541.1 KB
A sense of place _ The Economist
5 Pages • 1,726 Words • PDF • 411.9 KB
2. For the Love of a Boy
146 Pages • 46,907 Words • PDF • 1.4 MB
The Effects of a Calisthenics and a Light Strength
9 Pages • 6,323 Words • PDF • 205.7 KB
2004-Teitz-Both Sides of the Coin_ A Decade of
73 Pages • 29,078 Words • PDF • 4.1 MB
The Way of a Man With a Maid
504 Pages • 186,925 Words • PDF • 6 MB
The Mass. A Study of the Roman Liturgy Fortescue
456 Pages • 153,168 Words • PDF • 73.9 MB