The Portugese, not content with paying the tax, launched maritime expeditions to reach India and managed to find a direct route from Europe to India going around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
It’s worth adding that the Portuguese then took advantage of their stoutly-built, cannon-armed ships to loot and annihilate the existing shipborne traffic in the Indian Ocean. “Age of the Protection Racket” would be a better term than “Age of Discovery”.
Oh the first Portugese colonists including Vasco da Gama was inhumane monsters no doubt. The absolutely horrific, inhumane shit he did to take control of the Indian Ocean trade route makes him notorious.
What’s funny is how little people in previously colonial empire nations know their own history. A lot of these Christopher Columbus-esque folk are lionized in the European nations they came from. Which is a pathetic lack of introspection for such a highly educated place, in my opinion.
I mean humans have a great capacity for evil but European behaviour during the colonial era? Damn. Based on scale alone that has to be the benchmark for evil in the modern era.
It’s worth adding that the Portuguese then took advantage of their stoutly-built, cannon-armed ships to loot and annihilate the existing shipborne traffic in the Indian Ocean. “Age of the Protection Racket” would be a better term than “Age of Discovery”.
Oh the first Portugese colonists including Vasco da Gama was inhumane monsters no doubt. The absolutely horrific, inhumane shit he did to take control of the Indian Ocean trade route makes him notorious.
What’s funny is how little people in previously colonial empire nations know their own history. A lot of these Christopher Columbus-esque folk are lionized in the European nations they came from. Which is a pathetic lack of introspection for such a highly educated place, in my opinion.
I mean humans have a great capacity for evil but European behaviour during the colonial era? Damn. Based on scale alone that has to be the benchmark for evil in the modern era.
I mean … for all time. Even the Assyrians would be like “damn, you rode those people like horses and cut off their hands? We never did shit that bad.”