The World полностью

To the north, a dynamic oba (king), Ewuare the Great, was expanding a small Yoruba kingdom named Ibini – Benin (Nigeria). Descended from the Ogiso – Sky Kings – of a medieval Edo kingdom Igodomigodo,^* his real name was Ogun, an oba’s son driven out by his brother who, in exile, learned confidence and magic, partly by pulling a thorn from the paw of a lion which then granted him supernatural powers. Assassinating his brother and renaming himself Ewuare (Strife-is-Over), he simplified the succession rules, reducing the elective influence of the umaza (chiefs), before embarking on a spree of conquests and embellishing Ibini’s palaces. Calling himself the Leopard King, Ewuare centred all life around himself and his family, promoting the queen mother to special rank. His Benin City became the biggest city in sub-Saharan Africa, soon to be described by a European visitor as ‘larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king which is richly decorated and has fine columns.’ Ewuare commissioned naturalistic sculptures and carvings, made of coral, wood, terracotta, stone, iron and bronze, which portrayed earlier obas – who were worshipped as divine or as possessing supernatural powers – or himself and his pantherine avatars; his artisans also produced pillars, altars, doors and masks. All were used in a calendar of festivals to celebrate and restore the power of the oba and purge evil spirits that might threaten the kingdom.^*

The city contained many slaves captured in Ewuare’s wars, used as servants, as labourers and as currency to exchange for gold, ivory and copper. The free were distinguished from the enslaved by scarification rituals. Human sacrifice, attended by dancing rituals, honoured the oba and appeased the god-king of death. On the death of an oba, his guards were sacrificed, his wives committed suicide and all were buried with him.

Ewuare, already known as the Great, was just starting out – unaware that another family at the northmost corner of the continent were taking their first steps into Africa.

On 21 August 1415, while the Chinese visited the east coast of Africa, a fleet of 200 Portuguese ships, bearing 45,000 troops led by King João and his sons, invaded the north-west, landing at Ceuta (Morocco) on a minor crusading adventure that would gradually bring Iberian adventurers all the way around Africa to India.^*

Portugal was tiny, just 900,000 people, culled by the Great Mortality. On the edge of Iberia, a hinge between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, Europe and Africa, it was ideally located to trade north to England and south along the African coast.

Portugal had become an independent kingdom under a family of Burgundian adventurers in the 1140s, but its relationship with its larger rival Castile was intimate and suspicious, wars alternating with marriages for centuries. In consequence their royal families were densely interrelated to the extent that a Castilian takeover of Portugal or vice versa was never far away, while an English bid for the Castilian throne meant repeated interventions from London. The three Christian kingdoms, Portugal, Castile and Aragon, had all played heroic roles in the Reconquista, a crusade against the Muslims, that left Granada as the last Islamic kingdom in Spain. Portugal’s tough but poor noblemen, the fidalgos, were keen for new spoils – and their new king, the Bastard, had something to prove.

João had never expected to rule, but he had thrived in a murderous, louche court, ruled by his erratic and concupiscent father.^* As a late son by a mistress, the Bastard, promoted to the office of master of the crusading Order of Aviz, was more popular than his legitimate half-brother who succeeded to the throne. When that brother died, the legitimate line – through the king’s daughter married to the king of Castile – would have led to Castilian annexation. Instead the nobility backed João as the popular Portuguese option. Foiling Castilian attempts to seize the kingdom, he saved Portuguese independence. His marriage to an English princess, Philippa, delivered a line of five impressive infantes, who were now excited to embark on a Moor-killing invasion of Africa: war was God’s work, and vengeance for the many Moroccan invasions of Spain. João’s third son, Henry, later known by foreigners as the Navigator, was the most enthusiastic.

João’s timing was good. Morocco was hopelessly divided while the adventure satisfied his restless fidalgos.