_ 11 _ Introduction to Volume One This volume covers the events of ten years, from 1497 to 1506, a period marked by Portuguese voyages around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa, along the eastern coast of Africa, and onward to India. During this time, the Portuguese were primarily focused on occupying India and solidifying their control over it, either through military conquest, employing firearms and cannons powered by gunpowder, which were unfamiliar to those societies, or through treaties that rendered those kingdoms subordinate to the King of Portugal in exchange for exorbitant payments. At this stage, however, the Portuguese had not yet approached the Sea of Oman. Their primary objective was to transport Indian goods from India to Portugal, using the Cape of Good Hope
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