Affonso de Albuquerque w the first European since Alexander the Great who dreamed of establishing an empire in India, or rather in Asia, governed from Europe. The period in which he fought and rules in the East is one of the entrancing interest and great historical importance, and deserves more attention than it has received from the English people, as the present ruling race in India. In the course of 20 years' studies relating to India, the author found that the history of the Portuguese has been shamefully neglected. In attempting to get better information, he found that the true history of the Portuguese in India furnishes most important guidance for the present day, and the assertions commonly made about it are utterly false, especially in regard to the ecclesiastical history. He plans to give a short list of the more important works on the history of the Portuguese in the East during the sixteenth century, while they were a conquering and a ruling power, in the hope that it may be useful to anyone wishing to investigate the subject further than it has been possible for him to do in this volume.
H. Morse Stephens (1857-1919) was an American historian and professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley who helped to purchase the Bancroft Library, and who worked to build archives of California history, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and World War I.
He was educated at Haileybury College, and attended Balliol College, Oxford University, where he was granted a B.A. in 1880 and an M.A. in 1892. He was a staff lecturer on the Oxford University Extension System from 1892 to 1894, and lecturer on Indian history at Cambridge.
AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE was the first European since Alexander the Great who dreamed of establishing an empire in India, or rather in Asia, governed from Europe. The period in which he fought and ruled in the East is one of entrancing interest and great historical importance, and deserves more attention than it has received from the English people, as the present ruling race in India. Dr. A. C. Burnell, an authority second to none in Indian historical questions, says in his prefatory note to A Tentative List of Books and some MSS. relating to the History of the Portuguese in India Proper: In the course of twenty years' studies relating to India, I found that the history of the Portuguese had been shamefully neglected.... In attempting to get better information, I found that the true history of the Portuguese in India furnishes most important guidance for the present day, and the assertions commonly made about it are utterly false, especially in regard to the ecclesiastical history.' I purpose, therefore, to give a short list of the more important works on the history of the Portuguese in the East during the sixteenth century, while they were a conquering and a ruling power, in the hope that it may be useful to any one wishing to investigate the subject further than it has been possible for me to do in this volume. I confine myself to the sixteenth century and to books on political history, as I have not the knowledge to classify the numerous works on the history of the Roman Catholic Missions in India, which is closely bound up with the ecclesiastical history of the Portuguese in the East.
Before mentioning books of general history, I must draw attention to the Commentaries of Albuquerque on which this volume is chiefly based, as indeed all biographies of the great governor must necessarily be. They were published by his son, Braz de Albuquerque, in 1557, reprinted by him in 1576, and republished in four volumes in 1774. They have been translated into English for the Hakluyt Society by Walter de Gray Birch in four volumes, 1875-1884, and from this translation the quotations in the present volume are taken. The nature and the authority of this most valuable and interesting work are best shown by quoting the first sentence of the compiler's dedication of the second edition to the King of Portugal, Dom Sebastian. In the lifetime of the King, Dom João III, your grandfather, I dedicated to Your Highness these Commentaries, which I have collected from the actual originals written by the great Affonso de Albuquerque in the midst of his adventures to the King, Dom Manoel, your great-grandfather.' The Commentaries have been for three centuries the one incontestable printed authority for Albuquerque's career. But in 1884 was published the first volume of the Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, seguidas de Documentos que as elucidam, under the direction of the Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, and edited by Raymundo Antonio de Bulhão Pato. This collection includes a large number of despatches to the King, dated February, 1508; October, 1510; April, 1512; August to December, 1512; November, 1513, to January, 1514; October to December, 1514; and September to December, 1515; of which two, dated 1 April, 1512, and 4 December, 1513, are of great importance, and veritable manifestoes of policy. It contains also a more correct version of Albuquerque's last letter to the King than that given in the Commenturies. It is to be hoped that the many and serious lacuna, shown by the above dates, will be filled in the long-expected second volume of the Curtas.
Turning to the more general authorities on the history of the Portuguese in India in the sixteenth century, it will be well to take them in a rough classification of their importance and authenticity.
João de Barros (1496-1570), for many years treasurer and factor at the India House at Lisbon, published Asia: dos Feitos que os Portuguezes fizeram no Descobrimento e Conquista dos Mares e Terras do Oriente. This work is a primary authority, as the writer had access to all documents, and was the recognised historian of the events he described during his lifetime.
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