Portuguese East India Company
Philip III of Portugal |
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The Portuguese East India Company (
Background
Portuguese trade with India had been a crown
The Iberian Union of 1580, which gave King Philip II of Spain the crown of Portugal, changed little at first. However, the increasing influence of the Dutch and English East India Companies on the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere in the East Indies after 1598 led the king to experiment with different arrangements to secure the Portuguese colonial empire. In 1605, he created the Conselho da Índia, to bring affairs in Portuguese India under closer supervision of the Habsburg crown. But this conflicted with older lines of Portuguese authority, and the council was eventually dissolved in 1614.
Proposal
It was around this time that the idea of a chartered private Portuguese East Indies company, organized along the lines of Dutch and English companies, was first conceived. This was promoted by Portuguese
King Philip III of Portugal put the idea in motion in 1624 and appointed D. Jorge Mascarenhas, mayor of Lisbon and member of the Council of State, to head a committee to implement Solis proposal. Despite being supported by Olivares, the proposal faced much skepticism and opposition, particularly by the Duke of Villahermosa (head of the Council of Portugal), and Mascarenhas had considerable trouble securing investment commitments.
The Company
The Companhia do commércio da Índia (or Companhia da Índia Oriental) finally came into existence in August 1628, when it was granted a charter by King Philip III. The Companhia was to be governed by a Câmara de Administração Geral, composed of a president (Jorge Mascarenhas) and six administrators, elected by the investors, with full powers, although its judicial acts, administrative practices and finances were subject to review by an advisory Conselho do Comércio (Board of Trade) in the king's court in Madrid. The charter envisaged a two-year transition period, during which the royal Conselho da Fazenda would continue to supervise the India fleets, the Casa da Índia and the Armazém da Índia, before passing them all over to the Companhia's administration. The Companhia would be in charge of running & collecting the customs dues payable at the Casa.
The Companhia was established with a joint-stock block of six years, renewable for another six with a minimum subscription of 100 cruzados. The Companhia was granted a monopoly on trade in coral, pepper, cinnamon, ebony and cowrie shells, and could be extended to other items upon request. It had full administrative & juridical privileges, including the right to keep all spoils from seizures of Dutch and English ships (after deducting the royal fifth).
The crown was the largest investor, committing 1,500,000 cruzados for the first three years. Although some municipalities (esp. Lisbon) also invested, private individuals were less interested. To make it attractive, subscribers were guaranteed an annual return of 4% plus dividends and the subscriptions were laced with various privileges (e.g. title in king's household, protection from debt seizure, even the capital of
The end
The Companhia proved unsuccessful. Investors remained skeptical, overseas Portuguese merchants rejected the new Companhia's authority, and the Anglo-Dutch breach of the old Portuguese empire in Asia had become irreparable, squeezing margins on the spice trade. The Companhia proved unprofitable, and soon ceased operating and was liquidated in April, 1633.[1] The Casa da Índia and the India trade was brought back under the supervision of the Conselho da Fazenda (royal finance council).
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-521-84644-8. Retrieved 2008-10-25.
Further reading
- de Silva, Chandra Richard (Winter 1974). "The Portuguese East India Company 1628-1633". Luso-Brazilian Review. 11 (2). JSTOR 3512844.
- Disney, A.R. (1977) "The First Portuguese India Company, 1628-33", Economic History Review, Vol. 30 (2), p. 242-58.