TL;DRAbstract
In the first years after Vasco da Gama's arrival at Calicut, the Portuguese must often have seen cowries in use and on sale in Indian markets. They did not make contact with Maldive cowrie-carrying vessels until 1503, and that first contact the unfortunate Maldivians had good reason to rue. Gaspar Correa, in his Lendas da India, gives a vivid account of how Vicente Sodre, Chief Captain of the Fleet after da Gama's departure for home in 1502, captured four Maldive ships close off Calicut. That city had resisted the Portuguese cartaz, or pass system, and Sodre had forbidden the merchants of Calicut to trade with the islands. The Maldive merchantmen were carrying coir rope, dried fish, fabrics and cowries, which, says Correa, “are small white shells found among the islands in such quantity that ships make their cargoes of them. In these a great trade is carried on with Bengal, where they are current as money.” The ships had been chartered by a large number of “Moors of Calicut” who had pu
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In the first years after Vasco da Gama's arrival at Calicut, the Portuguese must often have seen cowries in use and on sale in Indian markets. They did not make contact with Maldive cowrie-carrying vessels until 1503, and that first contact the unfortunate Maldivians had good reason to rue. Gaspar Correa, in his Lendas da India, gives a vivid account of how Vicente Sodre, Chief Captain of the Fleet after da Gama's departure for home in 1502, captured four Maldive ships close off Calicut. That city had resisted the Portuguese cartaz, or pass system, and Sodre had forbidden the merchants of Calicut to trade with the islands. The Maldive merchantmen were carrying coir rope, dried fish, fabrics and cowries, which, says Correa, “are small white shells found among the islands in such quantity that ships make their cargoes of them. In these a great trade is carried on with Bengal, where they are current as money.” The ships had been chartered by a large number of “Moors of Calicut” who had pu
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