Shipbuilding in Seventeenth-Century Western India

Abstract

The history of Indian shipbuilding is a relatively well-studied topic. There are two strands of literature on Indian shipping. First there is the Indian: R.N. Mukherjee (1923) is, in spite of some minor criticism which could be levelled at it, still the basic work on the topic. Among the more recent contributions should be mentioned those of L. Gopal and J. Qaisar. The second strand is Portuguese. Much of the Portuguese work on ‘Portuguese’ shipbuilding in the sixteenth century deals with shipbuilding in Goa. Now, was this ‘Portuguese’ shipbuilding or ‘Indian’ shipbuilding? ‘European’ and ‘Indian’ technology were so closely interlinked on the west coast of India that it is impossible to make a clear distinction. The seminal contributions on this topic are the already very well-established works of Commodore Quirinho da Fonsequa and of Frazāo de Vasconselhos. Their articles, which have appeared in several Portuguese journals, very much deserve an English translation. More recently the important work by A. Marques Esparteiro on the ships used in the carreira da Índia has appeared.