THE WHITE INVADERS
tic Ocean.
As the American
historian
Daniel Boorstin
remarks,
they
"changed the course of both Western and Eastern history,"?
During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese government sent annual
fleets round the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean. They brutally
destroyed the Arab shipping they encountered
in the Indian Ocean and
began to divert the European trade with southeast Asia from the ancient
routes via the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to the oceanic route via the
Cape. During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese established fortified
bases at Goa on the west coast of India, Malacca on the northern side of the
strait between Malaya and Sumatra, and Ormuz, gateway to the Persian
Gulf. From West Africa, they started the nefarious export of slaves to the
Americas. In East Africa, they built forts at Mombasa and Mozambique.
Lured by gold in what is now Zimbabwe, they created garrison towns on
the Zambezi River and established trading posts in the auriferous area.
They also founded prazos (great estates) in the Zambezi valley. By the
eighteenth century, though the Portuguese had lost control of the East
African interior, they 'were exporting slaves to Brazil and North America
from the coastal fortress at Mozambique.