Seminar paper from the year 1998 in the subject History of Europe – Middle Ages, Early Modern Age, grade: 14 of 15, University of Lisbon (Faculdade das Letras), course: Historia da Expansao e Descobrimentos Portugueses, language: English, abstract: Eine kurzer geschichtlicher Überblick über die Zeit der portugiesischen Herrschaft auf den Molukken (1511 – 1640) in englischer Sprache.
For virtually the whole of the 16th century a Portugal managed to secure and retain a dominant position in the seaborne trade in the Indian Ocean and east of the Straits of Malacca. They reached the Indonesian archipelago at a uniquely fortunate time: The Javanese Hindu empire of Majapahit was then reduced to a steadily declining kingdom and had not yet been supplanted by the rise of the Muslimic empire of Mataram, and the Asian countries were prevented from uniting against the Portuguese because of internal and external rivalries.
Supplies of spices were so abundant and cheap that if the Portuguese were to keep the prices high in Europe it was essential to establish a monopoly and restrict export. The chief difficulty lay in the fact that shortly before the arrival of the Portuguese the Spice Islands had been converted to Islam, but the Molucca Islands were one of the few regions where Muslims did not act hostile against the Portuguese, because the Portuguese offered them much better conditions in the clove trade than the Muslim merchants had.
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