French privateering and the Carreira da Índia in the first half of the sixteenth century

Abstract

This article analyses French privateering in relation with the carreira da Índia, in the first half of the sixteenth-century. Deriving its argument from a wide array of differing sources, it is shown that Portuguese vessels sailing from India were a primary target for the French, in a scope not always fully grasped by traditional historiography. In fact, long before the 1580s, Portuguese ships loaded with spices faced an organized network of enemies, which acted on intelligence collected by espionage networks operating within Portugal.