Portuguese Casa da Índia (House of India)

Timeline

1. c. 1501–1510Lisbon · LisbonAfter Vasco da Gama opened the route to India, the Portuguese crown established the Casa da Índia on the Tagus riverfront in Lisbon around 1501–1503, unifying the unloading, weighing, tax assessment, and royal pre-emption of cargoes from ships returning from Asia. The agency was staffed with clerks, warehouse keepers, and customs inspectors; its monopoly barred private trade in Asia.
2. 1510–1515Lisbon · LisbonAfter Goa became the capital of Portuguese India in 1510 and Malacca fell in 1511, the Casa's trade volume surged; it expanded its staff, added warehouse accounting departments for specific spices such as cloves, nutmeg, and pepper, and established an annual manifest reconciliation system from Goa to Lisbon to ensure maximal royal extraction of spice profits.
3. 1515–1520Lisbon · LisbonBetween 1515 and 1520 the Casa received bulk spice cargoes each year from the annual India fleet, and Lisbon became Europe's largest spice transshipment port. Working with the Portuguese feitoria in Antwerp (Feitoria de Antuérpia), it wholesaled pepper and cloves to German and Italian bankers in exchange for underwriting funds to equip and supply the following year's fleet.