1Territorial appropriation, the subjugation of a population, social control, and economic exploitation are the most common forms of empire encountered over the course of history; however, consent is rarely discussed in such contexts. Nevertheless, the study of consent can highlight key issues, open up lines of enquiry, and prompt historiographical debate on the formation, evolution, and forms of empires. It can also provide a way of engaging with the diversity encompassed by the generic term, empire. But how should consent be understood in the framework of an expanding empire? How was it sought and granted? Without confusing consent with rendition or submission, it necessarily involved a certain degree of agreement or contractual accord within a process of demands being imposed, pressure applied, negotiation, and the quest for acceptable options between the parties involved. Consent depended on the specific conditions that were encountered, the balance of power, and the extent of the demands made by the expanding imperial force. Traditionally, expanding empires required a varying degree of political acceptance or submission from their opponents to obtain control over local resources or the payment of tributes. Naturally, granting consent assumed there might be the possibility of not reaching a lasting agreement and that force would have to be used to achieve what could not be attained through peaceful means. Therefore, consent encompassed the use of diplomacy and was closely linked to the notions of opposition and resistance.

2The distinctive features of the Portuguese Asian empire during the sixteenth century, the fact that it was not a territorial empire, but instead a maritime one centred around port cities, make this topic particularly relevant. The Portuguese had no ambitions to control the production of goods, instead they sought to manage and profit from their distribution. The principal aim was to obtain access or to control trade routes rather than subjugate kingdoms or populations. The empire was a heterogeneous and dispersed entity that extended from the East African coast to Japan and China, and it was linked to the metropolis by precarious and lengthy maritime journeys. Finally, this empire was an amalgam of diverse and often opposing interests, in which adapting to and accommodating the realities of maritime Asia and the demands it imposed was a real requirement for survival, one that went far beyond the strategic options defined and planned in Lisbon.

3The specific characteristics of Portuguese Asia have not always been considered by historians. Both European authors and their post-colonial peers have tended to focus their attention on the similarities between the Portuguese and other European powers, while minimizing any specific distinctive characteristics. Moreover, both have lapsed into the same biased perspective, essentially the view that the Portuguese were the absolute masters of the Asian seas during the sixteenth century. This approach is encountered in the works of some influential British scholars, such as Frederick Danvers (1894, 330) and R. S. Whiteway (1899, 325), who essentially thought that the Portuguese had dominated the Indian Ocean, albeit in an ephemeral manner. The post-colonial historians’ focus on indigenous resistance to foreign aggression has prompted them to also accept the view that Portuguese took absolute control of the Asian seas through superior military power and technological superiority (Panikkar 1953; Nambiar 1963). Thereby, both the colonial historiography and that which has emerged during the post-colonial era share the same foundational perspective, although this issue was subject to contrasting interpretations.

5It is within this broad framework, which views the Portuguese empire as having adapted to Asian constraints, that this article inserts the notion of consent. More specifically, it underscores how specific actions and moments led to the quest for consent being either considered, inserted into official directives, executed or neglected. Alternatively, consent was simply part of the informal practices of the Portuguese in Asia. In the first two sections, this study addresses the official strategies that were pursued during the formative period of the empire, and they highlight certain aspects of how the search for consent was pursued in dialogue with the war/diplomacy binomial. Section 3 turns to focus on the regional differentiation of the Portuguese empire in Asia, and it demonstrates how the consent provided by local powers was indispensable for the success of the Portuguese presence across most of the regions of maritime Asia. Finally, section 4 examines how consent was included or ignored in the writings of empire’s chroniclers and ideologues. Discussing a transversal notion like consent with regard to the Portuguese empire in Asia during the sixteenth century requires different levels of analysis and an engagement with a multiplicity of paths and topics. The approach presented here focuses exclusively on certain limited aspects of political history, and important areas such as the theoretical-legal framework of the concept of consent or its implications in the context of religious conversion are beyond the scope of this study. However, as a contribution to this special issue on the emerging topic of historicizing consent, this article undertakes a specifical discussion of this theme in the context of Portuguese Asia, above all from the point of view of imperial power.

1. The Imperial Project and Policy under King Manuel

6In 1498, the Portuguese reached Kerala having sailed directly from Lisbon, thereby concluding the decades-long and extensive process of exploring the Atlantic and the coast of Africa. However, the extent of their nautical knowledge and technical naval skills far exceeded the quality of information they possessed about Asia. The Europeans were flagrantly ignorant about Asia as a political and economic reality, despite the indirect contacts and the constant flow of merchandise and information that arrived both by sea and land. What was known was based on obsolete accounts focused on Inland Asia, such as those of Marco Polo and other travellers, and these were merged with legends and fantastic tales, as well as geographical concepts and notions inherited from Classical authors. The mistakes the Portuguese committed are well known, as are Vasco da Gama’s errors and ingenuity when he first established contact with the Kingdom of Calicut, on the Kerala coast. Their most significant misconception was of an ideological nature. The Portuguese arrived primed with optimistic expectations about India, which they believed to be populated by Christians whose religious solidarity would allow them to easily forge political alliances and trading agreements.

7The misunderstanding was not restricted to Calicut. The appendix that accompanied the account of their voyage listed a range of Asian kingdoms that extended beyond that city: Cranganore, Kollam, Coromandel, Ceylon, Sumatra, Siam, Tenasserim, Malacca, and Pegu are identified as Christian and governed by Christian kings (Ravenstein 1898, 97-102). Vasco da Gama, considering the Zamorin –Calicut’s Hindu ruler– to be Christian, did not understand his reluctant attitude towards the Portuguese, nor that he did not share their visceral hostility towards Muslims. Vasco da Gama lacked the necessary precious metals to acquire spices, and the gifts he presented to the Zamorin were completely inadequate. Naturally, doubt and mistrust soon set in, but the fleet returned to Lisbon with a cargo of pepper and its essential aims accomplished: a direct route to India had been charted and a political-trade agreement settled. However, it was by no means a firm accord, and it was based on misunderstandings between the two parties.

9Unlike Vasco da Gama’s fleet, Cabral’s had sufficient naval power to dispel any local hesitation and impose the king’s orders by force if necessary. Despite the initial warm welcome, the situation rapidly declined when a crowd attacked the Portuguese factory and massacred dozens of Portuguese who were inside. In response to the Zamorin’s refusal to punish those responsible, Cabral bombarded the city and captured various Muslim vessels as a reprisal. The Portuguese realized that India was not populated by Christians, and, furthermore, that maritime trade was in the hands of powerful Muslim communities, whose vessels transported Asian merchandise to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. It was precisely these Muslim ships the King of Portugal had authorized Cabral to capture and pillage. Therefore, the initial misunderstanding was swept away, and the leitmotif of the model of Portuguese naval operations in the Indian Ocean –or at least in terms of orders issued by the king– was established for the coming years.

10Essentially, this model was based on the imperial project of King Manuel, which was informed by his messianic and providentialist outlook and advocated a revival of past medieval ideas of the crusade. Despite not gaining widespread support, these plans were put into action through the king’s stubborn insistence and a small group of faithful supporters. Essentially, it was this that led to the creation of an empire in Asia, as a more prudent monarch would have shown greater restraint and been more attentive to those who opposed these plans in Lisbon and India. Therefore, King Manuel, prompted by the series of successes achieved by his fleets, as well as the sustained affluence of spices in Lisbon, sought to pursue his project up until his death in 1521. The title he assumed in the early years of the century reveals the scope of his ambition: “Senhor da conquista, navegação e comércio da Etiópia, Arábia, Pérsia e Índia (Lord of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India)” (Costa 2005, 175-179; Thomaz 1990).

11Portuguese hostility to Muslim shipping in the Indian Ocean was not solely a historic enmity, it was an essential vector within Manuel’s plan: to supply Europe with spices via the new Cape route while destroying the merchant channels linked to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The king’s plan consisted of a systematic attack on Muslim vessels, sealing off the Red Sea, and consequently the downfall of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Simultaneously, his orders insisted on the search for Christian kingdoms, wherever they existed along the Indian Ocean. Essentially, his plan envisioned the collapse of the Muslim world, which would be ruined and destroyed by the Portuguese fleets, while a Christian military coalition would destroy Mecca and recapture the Holy Land (Thomaz 1990; Marcocci 2012, 151-175). King Manuel’s aim is evident in the propagandistic texts he issued, such as the pamphlet, “On the Recent Deeds of the Portuguese in India, Ethiopia and Other Eastern Lands”, which he had printed and circulated across Europe in 1507. In this text, he announced that the will of God –as foretold in the Book of Ezekiel with regard to the destruction of Egypt, and likewise in the Book of Revelation– would soon bring about: “the destruction of Babylon and the diversion of the oriental resources from the hands of its commerce” (Costa 1958, 59, 65).

12At first sight, the King of Portugal’s plans envisioned an unremitting war waged against the Muslims. The same pamphlet stated there was to be: “no pact between Christ and Satan, nor any identical possibility between Saracens and Christians” (Costa 1958, 61). However, the reality was markedly different. Diplomacy was an obvious necessity, just as much, and if not more so than warfare. Indeed, it became the principal tool used by the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in their quest for supplies of spices, as well as bases to support their ships and maintain control over seafaring routes. The main Portuguese strategy consisted of exploiting local rivalries, as was the case in Kerala (Kochi and Kannur vs. Calicut), and on the Swahili Coast (Malindi vs. Mombasa). Local alliances were necessary and were sealed with commitments to amizade (amity), and these included support for trading activities and permission to build fortresses. Evidence of this is provided by the first known treaty, which the Portuguese signed with Calicut in 1503 (Thomaz 2006). In some cases, “amity” involved a declaration of “vassalage” to the King of Portugal and the payment of a tribute (referred to as páreas), which could vary in amount from being a merely symbolic sum to a genuine financial burden (Saldanha 1997, 639-654). Another fundamental instrument of this policy was the cartaz, which was a form of safe conduct for ships. The Portuguese captains granted them to kings and allied forces, while any ship sailing without safe conduct was subject to capture and pillage (Thomaz 2011).

2. Regimentos and Diplomacy

17The official Portuguese model of diplomacy, as described above, inevitably led to ruptures in the traditional trading practices of the Indian Ocean. The policies of blockading the Red Sea, attacking Muslim vessels and demanding exclusive rights for the spice trade placed the region’s port cities under an unprecedented degree of pressure. However, this model was restricted to maritime and port contexts. When it came to the continental powers, Portuguese naval and military strength were useless, whereby diplomacy was deployed differently. In the western Indian Ocean, the strategy was simple: the Portuguese sought allies –preferably Christian ones– to provide support against their enemies, namely Mamluk Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. The diplomatic etiquette used was refined and cautious and the quest for consent became a necessity.

18The clearest evidence of this is the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire, which dominated a considerable extent of the Indian subcontinent, and also shared the Portuguese antipathy towards the Muslims of the Deccan. In 1510, Governor Afonso de Albuquerque sent an embassy to the empire’s capital. He proposed a military alliance, requested assistance against Calicut, announced that the conquest of Goa would soon be undertaken, and, finally, he offered support for military action against the Sultanate of Bijapur. Through his ambassadors, Albuquerque reported that he had orders from the King of Portugal to wage a continual war against the Muslims, but that “all the gentile kingdoms of this land and of Malabar will be honoured, favoured and well-treated, and no ships or commodities will be taken from them” (Comentários 1973, 92).

20Beyond the Indian Ocean context, diplomatic strategy was also cautious and, except on certain occasions, devoid of any threat. In Bengal, Siam, Burma, China and, later, in Japan diplomatic contacts sought to engage the good will of the political leaders and ensure a welcome for Portuguese ships. Study of the Malay-Indonesian archipelago is especially revealing, and, to a certain extent, it offers a contradictory image of how the Portuguese moulded their policies in response to the conditions encountered in each region. Were the Malay or Javanese sultans any less Muslim than the emirs of the Red Sea or Persian Gulf? In this case the diplomatic encounters and relationships were, as a rule, peaceful, apart from in scenarios of sustained hostility –such as in Aceh, in Sumatra– and other highly specific contexts. There were even situations of clear collusion and private agreement between the sultans and the captains of Malacca, which clearly prejudiced the interests of the Estado da Índia. One significant example, which operated between circa 1570 and 1585, involved Malacca’s trade being channelled into the Sultanate of Johor (Pinto 2012, 18).

21There is one paradigmatic case of the Portuguese threat of using of force having disastrous consequences: China. The Portuguese were accustomed to dealing with port cities that were open to foreign agents, where they could negotiate and establish trade agreements in exchange for privileges, while also imposing demands and using intimidation tactics. None of this functioned in China, which was a powerfully centralized state with a strong navy, and an administration that zealously monitored the coasts of Guangdong and Fujian. At that time foreign trade was officially prohibited and contacts with foreigners were subject to rigid protocol; they were approached with caution and distrust. Furthermore, there was a flagrant contrast between the sphere of ports and maritime trade that the Portuguese were accustomed to, and the formalities of the Ming administration. The Portuguese were wholly unprepared. In 1517, an official Portuguese embassy failed due to a series of misunderstandings and the abuses committed by the Portuguese captains along the Guangdong coasts. The imperial fleets inflicted a series of defeats on the Portuguese, who were officially banished from the region for various decades until the foundation of Macau, as will be discussed below.

22Following King Manuel’s death, the projects for the conquest of the Middle East definitively came to an end, likewise the policy of direct confrontation with the Muslim world was abandoned. His successor King João III (r. 1521-1557) adopted more pragmatic and flexible approaches to managing the empire, and he sought solutions to address the serious financial problems that beset the Estado da Índia. The crown’s role was scaled down and greater scope was given to independent trading activities. The Ottoman threat grew until the 1530s but then declined. The Portuguese eventually ceased their attacks in the Red Sea, while the Ottomans abandoned their attempts to expel them from the Indian Ocean. Both sides accepted an undeclared truce, but it was never formalized despite diplomatic attempts to do so (Couto 2019).

24However, this data can be misleading because the empire evolved in different, sometimes opposing, directions in the late sixteenth century. At the same time as issuing these friendly general orders, King Sebastião was preparing the first attempt of territorial conquest in the Indian Ocean context. It was the expedition led by Francisco Barreto against the inland Kingdom of Mutapa (what is today Zimbabwe and Mozambique). Barreto sought to obtain Mutapa’s submission by force of arms, the payment of tributes by its ruler, access to its alleged mining riches, and the granting of freedom of movement for the Catholic missionaries (Vila-Santa 2021). In 1575, a similar project of conquista was launched on the western coast of Africa. The fascination with the successes achieved by the Spanish in America gradually contaminated the empire's management and it led the Portuguese to emulate them, seeking their own El Dorado on several occasions.

3. Estado da Índia and “Informal Empire”

26Malacca and the Moluccas were the only official Portuguese positions east of Sri Lanka during the sixteenth century. Throughout the rest of the region, including the Coromandel Coast, Bengal, Southeast Asia and the Far East, the King of Portugal did not possess a single fortress or city. There was a Portuguese presence in some locations with a significant economic, social or political importance, but these were beyond the official control of Estado da Índia. Therefore, this presence was only possible because the Asian powers consented to it. This “informal empire” emerged simultaneously as the Estado da Índia underwent consolidation. A key turning point was 1515 when Viceroy Lopo Soares de Albergaria (1515-1518), who succeeded Afonso de Albuquerque, brought an end to the obligation that Portuguese soldiers should remain billeted with their fleets or fortresses, and instead he allowed them to travel wherever they wished. Unlike his predecessor, Albergaria was not a supporter of King Manuel’s imperial plans and so he pursued a policy that ran contrary to the latter’s aims. Many soldiers set out independently, or else with Asian partners, spreading across the Bay of Bengal, Southeast Asia and the Far East, where they lived as mercenaries or merchants. These two approaches, one centralized and the other more liberal, alternated for much of the sixteenth century, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (2012, 87) has informally termed them the “Albuquerque and Albergaria tendencies”.

27Thereby, small clusters of Portuguese formed across maritime Asia to the east of Sri Lanka, and they lived on the fringes of the Estado da Índia, yet they frequently acted as intermediaries for trade or diplomatic negotiations with Asian powers. Several cities emerged spontaneously or else acquired local and regional prominence as a result of the activities pursued by these Portuguese and their descendants. Their prominence was attained either with the permission of the local powers they depended on, or else without informing them. Mylapore, Pulicat or Nagapattinam on the East Indian coast, Chittagong or Hughli in Bengal, Macau in China and Nagasaki in Japan are the most relevant examples. Later, Kupang and Lifau in Timor also became important centres. This parallel empire, which eludes definition with its vague frontiers, has attracted the attention of historians from 1980s onwards. It has been termed a “shadow empire”, an “improvising empire” or an “informal empire” (Winius 1983; Subrahmanyam 1990; Newitt 2001). As Jorge Flores (2020, 399) has stated, “we are referring to the power of private interests which often surpassed the authority of the Estado da Índia, as well as a process of ‘Asianization’ of a considerable number of Portuguese who for a number of reasons physically and mentally distanced themselves from the orbit of formal empire represented by Goa”.

28The relationships between this “informal empire” and the Estado da Índia were neither simple nor straight forward. There was a degree of mutual interdependence, close ties and social, economic and political relationships between cities and trading centres across all of Portuguese Asia, independent of their status or condition. These informal centres did not refuse official recognition and connections with the trade routes controlled by the Estado, but they opposed to be controlled by the latter. Throughout the sixteenth century, the viceroys of Goa sought to impose their authority in a range of ways, above all by sending out “captains”, but their power, when not rejected outright, was temporary and limited. There were frequent conflicts, and a paradigmatic case was the order issued by Viceroy Dom Garcia de Noronha in 1539-40 to raze Mylapur, on the Coromandel Coast, and transport all its inhabitants to Goa (Subrahmanyam 1990, 54). Nagapattinam, further south, depended on the ruler of Thanjavur, who would not authorize the construction of any type of fortification in the city. However, when he gave permission for one to be built, the residents immediately rejected any such proposal, arguing that it would prompt the Portuguese authorities to create an official customs house. According to the chronicler António Bocarro, who wrote in the 1630’s, this “was what they feared most” (Bocarro 1992, 244-245).

29The most interesting cases are found in the far eastern reaches of maritime Asia, and they concern the two cities that formed the most lucrative economic partnership in all the Portuguese Asian empire: Macau and Nagasaki. Both cities emerged without any intervention from the Portuguese authorities but instead through the authorization given, respectively, by the administrative officials of Guangdong and the daimyo or feudal lord of Kyushu. Due to the specific social and political contexts of Ming China and Azuchi-Momoyama Japan, Macau and Nagasaki were transformed into prosperous cities, and the ties between them –managed by the Portuguese– acquired an immense economic importance in the region. For various decades, the official sphere of the Estado da Índia was limited to controlling this sea route. Both cities were subject to their respective mainland authorities, which is what dictated their contrasting fate: the Portuguese were definitively expelled from Japan in 1639, while Macau was under Portuguese control until 1999. Macau remained in Portuguese hands due to skilful and cautious diplomacy that sought to cultivate local consent. Specifically, the Portuguese tried to alleviate or evade Chinese authorities’ political and fiscal pressure. In the 1580s, the Portuguese authorities formally recognized the city and its city council, which was in practice the entity that governed the city. The residents only accepted the presence of a governor appointed by the king in the seventeenth century in the wake of a Dutch attack in 1622.

4. Historicizing the Portuguese Empire in Asia

31After a long life as a soldier in the service of the King of Portugal in Sri Lanka, Captain João Ribeiro wrote, at some time prior to 1685, a retrospective analysis of Portugal’s rule over the island, its characteristics and achievements, and finally, its decline and failure. His thoughts on what went wrong and why all the positions held in Sri Lanka were lost, are not nostalgic reminiscences, but a diagnosis that is both raw and dispassionate. He concluded his work stating what he considered to be historical evidence: despite its merits, Portuguese dominion was alien to the island and its peoples, as “we are Christians, that king and his [subjects] are Gentiles; we are white, they are black; we are Portuguese and they are Sinhalese; with us on the island they were slaves, and without us they are lords” (Ribeiro 1989, 197). It is a surprising statement of recognition of the difficulty of establishing an imperial domain without local consent. It is also an unexpected view given that it is devoid of the customary value judgements on Christian and European superiority, as well as the moralizing and often nostalgic tone that permeates the writings of other chroniclers who theorized about the Portuguese Asian empire.

32From the sixteenth century onwards, several other Portuguese authors engaged in similar forms of historicizing and theorizing about what was considered to be the empire’s decadence and its causes. Their most widely held view, was a biased one that can be summed up as the “myth of the Golden Age”, an ideological theme that persists in a deeply entrenched manner up to the present day. Essentially, this outlook tends to overvalue, in an almost hyperbolic terms, the early years of the empire and the military, political and, above all, moral qualities of the men who built it, in contrast to later periods. The most important writer to systematically address this was Diogo do Couto (1542-1616), the chronicler and guarda-mor (overseer) of the archives of Goa. In his works, Couto portrayed the empire of his day in grey and pessimistic terms, as having been in decline and continual and irreversible fragmentation ever since the mid-century (Pinto 2019, 288-292). To explain the decline of the Estado da Índia, he focused on the mistakes and flaws of the Portuguese themselves, namely endemic corruption, social injustice, lack of organization, and inability to engage in reform. However, the validity and legitimacy of the empire was not questioned.

33The empire’s legitimacy was principally based on the invocation of papal bulls, the Treaty of Tordesillas, and the pioneering activities of Portuguese ships. The polemic concerning the appropriation of territories and the subjugation of their people, and in particular, whether it was legitimate to use force to permit the pursuit of evangelization was debated on a much lesser scale than in Castile, and with a number of variations (Marcocci 2012, 282-333). One of these was the form in which the debate was framed by an entity specially created by King João III to resolve doubts on these matters, the “Mesa da Consciência” (Marcocci 2014). The theoretical-legal problem of the “just war” did not, as a general rule, give rise to any major doubts when it involved contact with the Muslims, as it was thought that they had essentially usurped and illegally taken land that had previously belonged to Christians, and therefore it was just for it to be restored to Christianity. As was discussed above, King Manuel’s imperial ideology underscored the traditional enmity between Christians and Muslims in order to justify pillage and war in the Indian Ocean, but once the initial impetus had subsided and the plan for absolute global control over the spice trade and the defeat of Egypt had waned, it became necessary to explain and legitimize the Asian empire in a different manner: why had the Portuguese used military force? And why was it legitimate to continue doing so?

34João de Barros (1496-1570) served as the principal ideologue of King João III’s imperial project, above all in his text Ásia (Buescu 2002). This monumental work traced the Asian empire’s evolution from its origins, but not back to the voyages patronized by the Infante Dom Henrique, instead he looked further back to the foundation of Islam by the “Antichrist Muhammad”. Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century were thus presented as the distant causes of the Portuguese Asian empire, and which was framed as Christianity’s response to the historic Muslim seizure of its land. The special merit of the Portuguese consisted in extending their activity as far as Asia, and this was achieved thanks to their pioneering efforts to identify a maritime route. The author later went on to address the titles of the King of Portugal (“Senhor da conquista, navegação e comércio da Etiópia, etc.”) and gave his justification for them. He concluded that the presence of the vessels of “Muslims and Gentiles” was only permitted to those who possessed the “cartaz” (safe conduct) issued by the Portuguese captains, because they lived “outside the Law of Jesus Christ” and were therefore excluded from the natural benefits derived from it (Barros 1973, 16).

36A range of chroniclers, jurists and theologians engaged in the historicization of the Asian empire. What role did they attribute to the Asian agents in this development? The most important role was that of an antagonist, and above all this was the case for the Muslims. Others performed different roles, in accordance with their degree of proximity and acceptance of the Portuguese, as well as the Catholic religion. To a large extent, in the discourses on the Portuguese empire the role of Asian agents was merely passive or secondary. Could opposition to the Portuguese ever be considered legitimate? The acceptance of opposition is occasionally encountered in the chroniclers’ narratives, but only as comprehensible reaction to the abuses or arbitrary actions committed by profit-seeking or corrupt Portuguese captains. Marcocci mentions a singular case in which this possibility emerged amidst the context of the theoretical-legal debate on the empire’s legitimacy; it was not written by a Portuguese, but by the Navarrese Martin de Azpilcueta (1492-1586). He stated that, in certain circumstances it was legitimate to resist the Portuguese, and that many Asians did so, but not out of religious hatred, nor because they sought to seize Portuguese possessions. Instead, it was because their own lands had been unjustly captured by the Portuguese (Marcocci 2012, 315). This view was aligned with the core arguments concerning the legal doubts about and response to the form in which Castile had undertaken the conquista of the New World; these are generically identified with the “Salamanca School”.

37Early modern Asian writers historicized and legitimized consent and opposition to the Portuguese empire in parallel ways. On occasions amicable and pragmatic, on others fanatical, brutal, and profiteering, the Portuguese feature in the sources and chronicles of Asia with a number of overarching features: infidels, Christians, traders, and a constant association with firearms and the sea led to the Portuguese being compared to frogs in Korea, and fish in China (Flores 2014). In Southeast Asia and in the Far East, where the Portuguese presence was basically informal, impressions were generally more favourable. In contexts of greater violence, where their presence was imposed by force, the panorama was different. A good example is provided by a chronicle from Kerala, written circa 1580 by the Muslim Zain al-Din Ma’bari and entitled Tuhfat-al-Mujahidin. It leaves no doubt about how the Portuguese presence in the region was historicized at a local level: it was a punishment from God and a catastrophe for the people of Kerala, and it should be combatted at all costs. However, for Zain al-Din Ma’bari the war against the infidel Christians was by no means limitless, as those who resided in their own lands were not necessarily the target of their hostility. Nevertheless, those who invaded and occupied Muslim lands had to be fought to the very end. This was an obligation no Muslim was exempt from (Nainar 1942, 19). His work traces the Portuguese presence back to the years of Vasco da Gama's arrival in 1498 and legitimizes the Muslim resistance to the oppression that followed, invoking the Jihâd as a necessary tool to fight it. Thereby, his theoretical instruments look curiously identical to those set out in Europe and in Portugal about just war, the overseas expansion, and essentially, the foundation of the Asian empire.

5. Conclusion

38Consent is a fluid yet useful concept for a better understanding of the processes of the formation and development of empires. With regard to the Portuguese empire in Asia during the sixteenth century, consent provides insightful lines of enquiry that engage with a range of fields, but it needs to be properly framed within the specific concerns and events that shaped the empire’s construction and adaption to the realities of maritime Asia. The reign of King Manuel I is of particular relevance because it corresponded to the initial phase of the empire, and furthermore because the resulting form of the empire arose from this monarch’s imperial plan. Consent can be traced to the official orders issued by the king, albeit in a somewhat unclear and occasionally contradictory manner. It was embedded into the diplomatic strategy that sought to win over the “amity” of Asian powers; however, depending on contexts and circumstances, the means of obtaining this involved peaceful negotiation, as well as intimidation and the use of force. Naturally, the contemporary diplomatic rhetoric emphasized the peaceful, loyal, and mutually advantageous nature of the Portuguese proposals, but force was to be used whenever necessary. This ambiguous strategy is encapsulated in the expression “whether it pleases the locals or not,” which was used in the king’s orders to his subordinates, clearly indicating that the most important goals had to be achieved regardless of the will and consent of local powers.

39The impact of the Portuguese arrival in the Indian Ocean and the rapid success of their fleets in the early years of the sixteenth should not mislead us into overlooking the actual extent of Portuguese control exercised in the Asian seas. Contrary to what the traditional historiography has established, this dominance was limited in both space and time. The Portuguese engagement with Asian port cities and trade networks was largely achieved in an informal way, particularly in the Bay of Bengal, Southeast Asia, and the Far East. In these regions, local consent was a fundamental condition for Portugal’s success. Macau and Nagasaki serve as exemplary cases of this model. On a different level of approach, consent was not a relevant category in the historicization of the Asian empire. With a few exceptions, the efforts to justify and legitimize the empire by chroniclers and ideologists were centred around the premises underpinning the European ideological framework, such as the “just war” and the legitimacy of war against Islam, as well as the pioneering role played by the Portuguese. The will, interests, and consent shown by Asian agents was rarely given any consideration, and any space granted to them was generally limited and marginalized.