Blog 119 - The Three "Nadirs" of Shipping

The Three Nadirs of Shipping ….. With a Fourth On the Way?

On March 30, 2023, Pope Francis renounced the 550-year-old Doctrine of Discovery, which granted European nations the right to claim the new lands they discovered on behalf of Christendom.

….. Which is what prompted and led me to write this piece.

On the basis of implementation and actions taken in fully utilising the - supposedly - God given right through the Doctrine of Discovery, some civilisations disappeared without a trace, leaving behind just wisps of a suuspicion that ‘here lay a once mighty civilisation’. Very few survived the onslaught and lived to tell the tale.

Thus the nadirs of humanity were reached by the far reaching effects of the “Doctrine of Discovery”.

Merriam Webster says

Nadir - Noun

the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer

the lowest point

Nadir Has Arabic Roots

Nadir is part of the galaxy of scientific words that have come to us from Arabic, a language that has made important contributions to the English lexicon especially in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. The source of nadir is naḍhīr, meaning "opposite"—the opposite, that is, of the zenith, the highest point of the celestial sphere which is positioned vertically above the observer. (The word zenith itself is a modification of another Arabic word that means "the way over one's head.")

The contents of this narrative are nuggets that have been gleaned from sources such as Google, Wikipedia and several books on piracy, slave trade, papal Bulls and Vatican research scholars’ dissertations.

The narrative is not chronological; centuries have been interchanged.

There is no intention of disparaging any one religious community. The text, whether copied or reframed, is available on line from sources such as the Vatican, Spanish or Portuguese History.

One could accurately say that the nadir of world shipping was reached during three extended periods in shipping.

The first nadir was when pirates sailed out of a home port with the covert blessings of the then ruling monarch to plunder and loot ships and lands of the enemy faction, under the proviso that a certain agreed percentage of the loot is quietly deposited into the monarch’s coffers. Not withstanding the fact that they had committed crimes against humanity, by raping and killing to obtain the plunder, they were tacitly given immunity from any crime by being decorated with honours in all European monarchs’ courts, including that of England.

Under the guise of ‘exploration of new worlds’ they would pirate ships of an opposing monarch, take them over and bring them to their home ports to divide the loot that would be on board. Often, those pirated ships would be carrying treasures looted from colonies.

Many pirates were knighted or given fiefdoms by their monarchs, for adding to the monarch’s treasury. Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Walter Raleigh come to mind, although they have been glamorized by traits such as ‘explorers’ or ‘discoverers’.

Ships of different European nations, laden with the ill gotten gains of plunder - either from the South Americas or the Indian sub continent or its neighbours - fought battles with each other to gain possession of the wealth stolen from a third country that did not have the arms and musketry to fight back. Humane behaviour or conscience were non existent in the methods used to gain such wealth.

Although what came to be known as ‘The Golden Age of Piracy’ was, historically, placed to be in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, piracy had existed for millennia, with Roman Empire era writers mentioning the distasteful legacy of piracy on water and land. Calling it ‘The Golden Age of Piracy’ and romanticising it through movies and such, does not take away the underlying trauma of being a victim of piracy. There was no romance over the blood and gore, the raping and looting that preceded the take over or destruction of the victim’s vessel.

Pirates looted other pirate ships laden with ill gotten wealth that had, in turn, been looted from other countries, other civilisations, after conquering the populace and raping the women, much as the conquistadores of Spain and Portugal systematically transferred the entire wealth of age-old civilisations through ships loaded to the gunwales into the Spanish or Portuguese monarch’s coffers.

Much as the English cleaned out the riches of sub-continental India over a two hundred year period, the Portuguese and Spanish did the same to various provinces of South America. The difference was that ancient South American civilisations succumbed to the superior forces and were annihilated, never to rise again. The conquistadores did what only earthquakes, natural calamities, volcanoes, pandemics, famine and devastating floods had done in ages past - wipe out entire tribes, entire civilisations. India, on the other hand was resilient enough to rise from the ashes and is, presently, stamping its civilisation’s fortitude and tenacity on the world at large.

The second nadir was definitely the more repugnant, as European nations, the pioneers being the Portuguese, raided the villages of North West Africa, chained and brought back entire village populations as slaves. Trusting villagers, the simpletons that they were, not knowing the greed behind the invaders, partook of their hospitality only to find themselves chained the next morning.

Many a time, the raided villagers would barter for their freedom by leading them to an adjoining tribe, who would then be chained and taken on board slave ships, only to find that the next raiding party would subjugate them into slavery.

Water colour of the slave deck— by Lt. Meynell, Mate on the Slave Ship ‘Albatross’

The injustice and sheer horror of these actions were smothered over by the veneer of ‘absolution’ gained in advance from the high priests of a particular faith, as they were exhorted, by means of ‘edicts’, ‘dictates’ and ‘bulls’ to go and enslave peoples who were not considered to be human as they were not of a particular skin colour or belonging to a particular faith.

In parallel, land based caravans of enslaved tribes from other parts of Africa, owing allegiance to another faith, fed the slave markets of the Ottoman Empire.

Not long thereafter, the cotton rich Southern parts of North America joined the bandwagon in acquiring slaves for working on their vast cotton plantations, all transported by ships across the Atlantic Ocean. Most American slave owners were all, ironically, descendants of hordes of people who had fled Europe because of religious oppression. But this did not matter to their conscience.

These slave ships were golden eggs to their owners because - much like the liner services of today - their triangular voyages across the Atlantic were bountiful on all three legs.

On the first leg from Europe to Northwest Africa, they carried textiles, rum and some finished goods that found itself marketable amongst the African populace.

On the second leg - the most profitable - they carried slaves, and any raw material that they could find, from North West Africa to Brazil, the Caribbean and the continental United States, mostly Virginia and Maryland.

“It is estimated that between 1790 and 1860 approximately 835,000 slaves were relocated to the American South. The biggest sources for the domestic slave trade were "exporting" states in the Upper South, especially Virginia and Maryland, and to a lesser extent in Delaware, Kentucky, and North Carolina.”

The third leg from the Caribbean shores or from ports in the US to Europe - the cargo carried was sugar, tobacco and cotton, all fetching high prices in Europe and England.

Thus, these vessels were well funded by banks and merchantmen, well staffed by eager sailors who would - sometimes - be eligible for a share of the profits and welcomed by the ports for the revenue they brought in and, in the process, blanking out any compassion towards fellow humans.

Terra Nullius literally means “land that belongs to no one”. The term comes from the Papal Bull Terra Nullius issued by Pope Urban II in 1095 at the beginning of the Crusades. This religious decree allowed European princes and kings to “discover” or claim any land occupied by non-Christian peoples in any part of the known or yet-to-be-known world. This was the clarion call for the start of the Crusades and the many wars fought to liberate Jerusalem.

This edict continued to hold sway for more than a thousand years.

Under various theological and legal doctrines formulated during and after the Crusades, non-Christians were considered enemies of the Catholic faith and, as such, less than human. Accordingly, in the bull of 1452, Pope Nicholas directed King Alfonso to "capture, vanquish, and subdue the saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ," to "put them into perpetual slavery," and "to take all their possessions and property." Acting on this papal privilege, Portugal continued to traffic in African slaves, and expanded its royal dominions by making "discoveries" along the western coast of Africa, claiming those lands as Portuguese territory.

Quote

. . . to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever …[and] to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit . . .

Unquote

English soldier General John Burgoyne addresses a group of Canadian Indigenous People. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

History tells us that, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Spanish and the Portuguese were the dominant naval powers and had been raiding each other in an attempt to seize control of one area or another.

In order to bring about an end to these internecine wars and, as both nations owned allegiance to Rome, an extraordinary “Papal Bull” was proclaimed known as the “Doctrine of Discovery”, wherein the world was divided into two, for the purpose of conquest and full freedom given to enslave, rob, loot, rape and plunder at will, those areas in their sphere of influence.

Treaty of Tordesillas

Map showing the line of demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese territory, as first defined by Pope Alexander VI (1493) and later revised by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). Spain won control of lands discovered west of the line, while Portugal gained rights to new lands to the east.

The average seafarer of those days, though rough and ready, had the inherent and ever present fear that his nefarious activities will not gain him a place in Heaven and, therefore, will either have an everlasting place in Hell or be condemned to roam around in Purgatory. To quell their fears, a monk would come from the nearest monastery before the vessel sets sail and give them advance ‘absolution’ for all the gory crimes that they may be committing in the course of the voyage. Armed with this absolution, assuming their souls were safe, they went on the rampage.

The Dutch and the English, with the fear of being sidelined, defied the “Doctrine of Discovery” and the demarcation of the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese and set sail into areas where they knew there would be immense wealth into what transpired to be the “Third Nadir”.

The Third Nadir was reached when ship plying merchantmen spread their sails towards lucrative markets that had been denied to them previously because of the treacherous seas and fragile, small vessels that would have been at the mercy of the seas. The products of these markets were very well known all over Europe for centuries, dating back to Roman Empire times, but the transport of these goods had been, mostly, through land routes.

These merchantmen now found themselves in lands that were rich beyond their wildest dreams, the people peace loving and friendly, with hardly any sign of defensive armaments.

Vasco da Gama’s fleet of four ships, funded and financed by the Portuguese king Manuel the First, wended their way down the west coast of Africa and up the east coast of Africa, but the gains in their trade was small. Their destination was India, but they had no idea as to where to go in India. A chance meeting with an Indian sailor at Mombasa led them first to the shores of Kozhikode in Kerala, where an unsuspecting ruler welcomed them, showed them his hospitality and traded with them. Vasco da Gama loaded all his 4 ships to the gunwales with all the items that he considered exquisite and would fetch a rare price back in Europe.

Vasco da Gama voyaged back to Portugal but lost two ships on the way. In spite of those losses, his financiers made 7 times the amount of money than what they had spent on the expedition.

The fire of Greed was stoked by the returns.

A second Vasco expedition went out with 10 ships.

The other Europeans very soon caught on and joined the fray.

The rape of a nation had begun.

First it was, ostensibly, only to trade.

Next came the trading posts.

Then came the soldiers with guns and ammunition to ‘protect’ the trading posts.

Then came the cannon and other military hardware to support the soldiers and protect the ever increasing hinterland trade.

They came, masquerading as traders, but settled themselves down as colonisers and conquerors.

They fought amongst themselves - the English owned East India Company was the victor, later taken over by the crown.

The prize was India, which became a colony.

India became the jewel in the English monarch’s crown, without whose riches Britain would never have survived.

The unkindest cut of all was when they collected heavy ‘taxes’ on anything that was grown or produced or manufactured by the local populace.

Their “Industrial Revolution” was spawned by manufacturing goods from raw material forcefully taken away from India.

They sold the very same manufactured goods back to the Indians at an inflated price and taxed that too.

They captured kingdom after kingdom with their superior arms and cannon, often using treachery by pitting one local king against another.

During the two hundred odd years of ruling India, they passed draconian laws and subjugated the subjects to keep them from rebelling. Millions died in famines that could have been prevented. But as they were considered sub human they were considered as not help worthy.

Once the superiority of the English was established and set in concrete, thousands of passengers would sail on the armada of ships plying between England and India. They included officers and soldiers joining the various regiments that had been formed, businessmen trying to make a quick buck, nobility and adventurers who wanted a slice of the hunt for wildlife, rapscallions wanting to live a good life, dregs of English society escaping from the law and … women wanting to find themselves rich husbands from amongst the colonisers.

The ships that carried these passengers, like all others, used to hug the European coast, the West African coast and East African coast, always keeping sight of land. And they would, likewise, return. So, outbound from England, the cabins on the portside would always have a view of land. The starboard side cabins would have this view when homebound to England. Thus came the word POSH - “Port Outbound and Starboard Homebound”. The richer passengers used to specify ‘Posh’ when booking their tickets on the steam liners of that period. Today, the word connotates riches, extravagance, luxury and more.

Instead of trading, they plundered. They plundered for 200 years, the longest lasting loot and rape of a country in history.

A small, poor, island became rich beyond measure, beyond their wildest dreams, at the expense of a large, traditionally rich nation and, in the process, nearly destroying a millennials’ old civilisation, rich in culture, rich in the modern sciences through the passing down of ancient wisdom through successive generations. The invaders sought to belittle the knowledge of India by calling them ‘myths’ and ‘superstitions’ and, at the same time, exporting that same knowledge to Europe, branding it as their own discovery which mankind’s history abrogated to them for all of posterity.

They rewrote the history of India in their own image, giving it their own time frame that, as per their reckoning, nothing existed till after 4,500 years ago.

India’a GDP around 1000 AD was 33%.

In 1700 AD it was 27%.

In 1947, when the British left, it hovered around 3%.

The estimation is that around 40 Trillion (US) dollars were looted in the 200 years that the British colonised India.

Priceless items of religious art and the finer arts, countless in number, were stolen and found pride of place in hundreds of palatial homes in Britain. The museums of London contain so much of looted artifacts that they may as well call them Indian Art Museum. World War II and Indian Independence ended what the colonisers started centuries ago.

The overt view that the populace of the colonized were ‘sub human’ had flourished over millennia. Even as late as the 1940s, one heard statements from famous statesmen buttressing this view, Winston Churchill being one of them.

Previously, the “Doctrine of Discovery” was overt. Now it is covert.

I have called each cycle a ‘nadir’, as it showed the lowest ebb, or point, of humaneness from a small proportion of humanity that, for its own betterment, subjugated - by the use of sophisticated weaponry - more than 80% of the world’s population, to serve its own nefarious needs and prosperity.

On March 30, 2023, Pope Francis renounced the 550-year-old Doctrine of Discovery, which granted European nations the right to claim the new lands they discovered on behalf of Christendom.

….. Which is what prompted and led me to write this piece in the first place.

A. Ranganathan