Foreign invation to Malabar

On May 21, 1498, Vasco da Gama, set foot on the ground in Kerala and became famous for doing what Christopher Columbus set to do five years back — naming random places, India.

Reaching Kerala was not easy; Vasco da Gama’s trip took more than a year since he had to circumnavigate around Africa. The friendly thrust of the south west monsoons helped them cross the Indian Ocean.  Twenty three days later they were in Calicut(Kozhikode), one of the largest ports of the time.

There was one reason why remote Malabar coast looked attractive to the residents of Portugal to undertake such perilous voyages. In Malabar, the global epicenter of spice trade, the traders got ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon, which were in great demand in Europe. But the treasure they were looking for was pepper; the vines which randomly grows on various trees in my back yard was to Kerala what oil is to Saudi Arabia. Pepper vine grew in many countries, but Malabar brand was considered the best and the monsoons which nourished the pepper vine also bought customers cross the ocean.

In fact, this was not the first time that traders came from distant lands. When Vasco da Gama’s homeland was a barren wilderness of Lusitanian tribesmen, Romans had done it on a much grander scale. 1500 years before the Portuguese trip, Strabo learned on a visit to Egypt that “some 120 ships complete the voyage from the Straits of Hormuz to India”.  During Pliny the Elder’s time Alexandria was the major Roman trading hub. Merchants went up the Nile to Coptos, traveled two hundred miles at night through the desert to Berenice, a port on the Red Sea and set sail from Berenice to Ocelis,  on the Arabia’s southern coast or Canes on the Africa’s eastern coast. Then taking advantage of the trade winds, they crossed the Arabian Sea in forty days in the mid-September and reached Malabar coast 

The profit margin was 100% for the Romans, but this trade also brought immense wealth to Kerala. In their trading voyages to West Africa, the Portuguese would trade trinkets for goods and Vasco da Gama was shocked his gifts — honey, hats, scarlet hoods and washbasins — were considered worthless by Calicut natives. The Zamorin instead demanded payments in gold and silver.