Page 178 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

178 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Warfare and civilians. Projections of warfare and piracy in
maritime communities: 16 century Portugal
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AMéLIA MARIA POLóNIA DA SILVA

glObal cOnteXt Of POrtuguese OVerseas eXPansiOn: challenges and re-
sOurces
To achieve the main aim of this paper, that is the discussion of the projections of warfare
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and piracy in maritime communities in 16 century Portugal, we have to stress some key
ideas related to the organisation of military structures during the Early Modern Age, in rela-
tion to war on land and naval war, and formal and informal military activities.
It is a fact that the process of overseas expansion, running parallel to the construction of a
colonial empire, introduced significant challenges and changes in the military domain.
The maintenance of a policy of mare clausum implied effective control of the seas, which
required sea patrols and permanent naval resources (ships and seamen), as well as the im-
provement of tactical and technical resources.
The appropriation of new territories and geo-economic networks in Africa, the East, Far
East and Brazil would be impossible without military campaigns on varying scales, and of
differing natures. Terrestrial war on land and naval war, in India and North Africa, in addition
to sea patrols, mostly in the Indian Ocean, became the inescapable tools of control.
it is essential to understand that, within this global contexts, the Portuguese crown did
not have a formal army or a naval fleet that could be organiszed in reasonable time and led
into battle, in order to achieve conquering or defensive strategies. The first attempt to form a
regular army, after the break up of the medieval structure based on the so-called “besteiros do
conto” (municipal militias), is tied to the constitution of the “Companhias de Ordenanças” .
1
These first attempts date back to the reign of Manuel I (1495-1521), and were then reinforced
in the reign of John III (1521-1557). However, resistance from the nobility, together with
the financial strain of supporting a regular army, prevented its institutionalisation until 1570,
during the reign of Sebastian (1568-1578), when the first regiment of these military units is
recorded. Nonetheless, the Ordenanças were still citizens and not a professionalised military
body. This means that we cannot establish a clear distinction between the military and civil-
ians. The former, professionalised, were in fact mercenaries, mostly from abroad.
With respect to the naval forces, the situation was even more difficult for the Portuguese
crown. In fact there was no royal fleet or even any naval fleet able to respond to the needs of
a central government. Moreover, there was no real distinction between merchant and naval

1 Amaral, Manuel Everard do, pref. – As Ordenanças e as Milícias portuguesas de 1570 a 1834 in Borrego,
Nuno Gonçalo pereira – As Ordenanças e as Milícias em Portugal. Subsídios para o seu estudo. Volume i,
Lisboa, Guarda-Mor/ Comissão Portuguesa de História Militar, 2006, pp. 57-60 and Rodrigues, Vítor Luís
Gaspar, “As companhias de ordenanças em Marrocos nos reinados de D. Manuel e D. João III”, in D. João III
e o Império. Proceedings of the Congresso Internacional comemorativo do seu nascimento, Lisboa, Cham,
Cepcep, 2004, pp. 185-196.