![A Famosa Fortress](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/A_Famosa_Fortress.JPG)
The Capture of Malacca in 1511 occurred when the governor of
Portuguese India
The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...
Afonso de Albuquerque
Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa (; – 16 December 1515) was a Portuguese general, admiral, and statesman. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean ...
conquered the city of
Malacca
Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...
in 1511.
The port city of Malacca controlled the narrow, strategic
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...
, through which all seagoing trade between
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
was concentrated.
[''The Cambridge History of the British Empire'' Arthur Percival Newton p. 1]
/ref> The capture of Malacca was the result of a plan by King Manuel I of Portugal
Manuel I (; 31 May 146913 December 1521), known as the Fortunate ( pt, O Venturoso), was King of Portugal from 1495 to 1521. A member of the House of Aviz, Manuel was Duke of Beja and Viseu prior to succeeding his cousin, John II of Portugal, a ...
, who since 1505 had intended to beat the Castilians to the Far-East, and Albuquerque's own project of establishing firm foundations for Portuguese India
The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...
, alongside Hormuz, Goa
Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...
and Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
, to ultimately control trade and thwart Muslim shipping in the Indian Ocean.
Having started sailing from Cochin
Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ...
in April 1511, the expedition would not have been able to turn around due to contrary monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...
winds. Had the enterprise failed, the Portuguese could not hope for reinforcements and would have been unable to return to their bases in India. It was the farthest territorial conquest in the history of mankind until then.
Background
The first Portuguese references to Malacca appear after Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link E ...
's return from his expedition to Calicut that opened a direct route to India around the Cape of Good Hope. It was described as a city that was 40 days' journey from India, where clove, nutmeg, porcelains and silks were sold, and was supposedly ruled by a sovereign who could gather 10,000 men for war and was Christian. Since then, King Manuel had showed an interest in making contact with Malacca, believing it to be at, or at least close to, the antimeridian of Tordesillas
Tordesillas () is a town and municipality in the province of Valladolid, Castile and León, central Spain. It is located southwest of the provincial capital, Valladolid at an elevation of . The population was c. 9,000 .
The town is located ...
. In 1505 Dom Francisco de Almeida
Dom Francisco de Almeida (), also known as the Great Dom Francisco (c. 1450 – 1 March 1510), was a Portuguese nobleman, soldier and explorer. He distinguished himself as a counsellor to King John II of Portugal and later in the wars against the ...
was dispatched by King Manuel I of Portugal
Manuel I (; 31 May 146913 December 1521), known as the Fortunate ( pt, O Venturoso), was King of Portugal from 1495 to 1521. A member of the House of Aviz, Manuel was Duke of Beja and Viseu prior to succeeding his cousin, John II of Portugal, a ...
as the first Viceroy of Portuguese India, tasked to, among other things, discover its precise location.
Dom Francisco, however, unable to dedicate resources to the enterprise, sent only two undercover Portuguese envoys in August 1506, Francisco Pereira and Estevão de Vilhena, aboard a Muslim merchant's ship. The mission was aborted once they were detected and nearly lynched on the Coromandel Coast
The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of the Indian subcontinent, bounded by the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west, extending over an ...
, narrowly making it back to Cochin by November.
City
Founded at the beginning of the 15th century, through Malacca passed all trade between China and India. As a result of its ideal position, the city harboured many communities of merchants which included Arabians, Persians, Turks, Armenians, Birmanese, Bengali, Siamese, Peguans, and ''Lusong'', the four most influential being the Muslim Gujaratis
The Gujarati people or Gujaratis, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who reside in or can trace their ancestry or heritage to the present-day western Indian state of Gujarat. They primarily speak Gujarati, an Indo-Aryan language. While G ...
and Javanese, Hindus from the Coromandel Coast
The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of the Indian subcontinent, bounded by the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west, extending over an ...
, and Chinese. According to the Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires
Tomé Pires (1465?–1524 or 1540)Madureira, 150–151. was a Portuguese apothecary from Lisbon who spent 1512 to 1515 in Malacca immediately after the Portuguese conquest, at a time when Europeans were only first arriving in Southeast As ...
, who lived in Malacca between 1512 and 1514, as many as 84 dialects were spoken in Malacca. The Portuguese factor Rui de Araújo said it had 10,000 homes. While Albuquerque estimated a population of 100,000, modern estimates place the population of the city at about 40,000. Malacca kept a group of captured cannibals from Daru to whom the perpetrators of serious crimes were fed.
The city however was built on swampy grounds and surrounded by inhospitable tropical forest
Tropical forests (a.k.a. jungle) are forested landscapes in tropical regions: ''i.e.'' land areas approximately bounded by the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, but possibly affected by other factors such as prevailing winds.
Some tropical fores ...
, and needed to import everything for its sustenance, such as vital rice, supplied by the Javanese. For supplying its population, Malacca depended on at least 100 junks
A junk (Chinese: 船, ''chuán'') is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. There are two types of junk in China: northern junk, which developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk, which developed from Austronesian ...
annually importing rice from various locations: About 50–60 junks from Java, 30 from Siam, and 20 from Pegu. Malacca is mainly a trading city without any substantial agricultural hinterlands at all. As Ma Huan noted in the century before: "All is sandy, saltish land. The climate is hot by day, cold by night. The fields are infertile and the crops poor; (and) the people seldom practice agriculture".
Malacca had no wall except for bamboo stockades that were erected for temporary defense. This type of city is similar to Johor, Brunei, and Aceh. The richer merchants kept their trade goods by storing them in a ''gedong'' (godown) or stone warehouse, which is built partly below ground level. Ma Huan wrote:Whenever the treasure-ships of the Middle Kingdom (China) arrived there, they at once erected a line of stockading, like a city-wall, and set up towers for the watch-drums at four gates; at night they had patrols of police carrying bells; inside, again, they erected a second stockade, like a small city-wall, (within which) they constructed warehouses and granaries; (and) all the money and provisions were stored in them.
According to Brás de Albuquerque, the son of Afonso de Albuquerque:
First contact with the Portuguese
Unimpressed with Almeida's lack of results, in April 1508, King Manuel dispatched a fleet directly to Malacca, composed of four ships under the command of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira
D.Diogo Lopes de Sequeira (1465–1530) was a Portuguese fidalgo, sent to analyze the trade potential in Madagascar and Malacca. He arrived at Malacca on 11 September 1509 and left the next year when he discovered that Sultan Mahmud Shah was pla ...
, who was also tasked with charting Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
and gathering information on the Chinese. Sequeira received royal orders specifically instructing him to obtain permission to open a trading post diplomatically and trade peacefully, not to respond to any provocations and not to open fire unless fired upon:
By April 1509 the fleet was in Cochin
Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ...
and the Viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, incorporated another carrack in the fleet to strengthen it. The decision was not entirely innocent, as aboard traveled several supporters of Almeida's political rival, Afonso de Albuquerque. Among its crewmen was also Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...
.[Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, 1552–156]
''História do Descobrimento e Conquista da Índia pelos Portugueses''
edited by Manuel Lopes de Almeida, Porto, Lello & Irmão, 1979, book 2 ch. 106
In the voyage he was well treated by the kings of Pedir and Pasai
The Samudera Pasai Sultanate (), also known as Samudera or Pasai or Samudera Darussalam or Pacem, was a Muslim harbour kingdom on the north coast of Sumatra from the 13th to the 16th centuries CE. The kingdom was believed to have been founded ...
who sent him presents. Sequeira erected crosses at both places. He cast anchor in the port of Malacca, where he terrified the people by the thunder of his cannon, so that every one hastened on board their ships to endeavour to defend themselves. A boat came off with a message from the town, to inquire who they were.
The expedition arrived in Malacca in September 1509 and immediately Sequeira sought to contact the Chinese merchants in the harbor. They invited him aboard one of their trade junks and received him very well for dinner and arranged a meeting with Sultan Mahmud. The Sultan promptly granted the Portuguese authorization to establish a feitoria
Factory was the common name during the medieval and early modern eras for an entrepôt – which was essentially an early form of free-trade zone or transshipment point. At a factory, local inhabitants could interact with foreign merchants, o ...
and provided a vacant building for that purpose. Wary of the threat that the Portuguese posed to their interests, however, the powerful merchant communities of Muslim Gujaratis and Javanese convinced Sultan Mahmud and the Bendahara
Bendahara ( Jawi: بنداهارا) is an administrative position within classical Malay kingdoms comparable to a vizier before the intervention of European powers during the 19th century. A bendahara was appointed by a sultan and was a heredit ...
to betray and capture the Portuguese.
Sequeira in the meantime was so convinced of the Sultan's amiability that he disregarded the information that Duarte Fernandes Duarte Fernandes (16th century) was a Portuguese diplomat, explorer, and was the first European to establish diplomatic relations with Thailand, when in 1511 he led a diplomatic mission to Ayutthaya Kingdom (Kingdom of Siam), after the Portuguese c ...
, a New Christian
New Christian ( es, Cristiano Nuevo; pt, Cristão-Novo; ca, Cristià Nou; lad, Christiano Muevo) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century ...
who spoke Parsi, obtained from a Persian innkeeper about the ongoing preparations to destroy the fleet, confirmed even by the Chinese merchants. He was playing chess aboard his flagship when the Malayan fleet, disguised as merchants, ambushed the Portuguese ships.[João de Barros, 1553, ''Décadas da Ásia'' decade 2, book 4, ch. 4] The Portuguese repelled every boarding attempt, but faced with the sheer number of Malayan ships and unable to land any forces to rescue those Portuguese who had stayed in the feitoria
Factory was the common name during the medieval and early modern eras for an entrepôt – which was essentially an early form of free-trade zone or transshipment point. At a factory, local inhabitants could interact with foreign merchants, o ...
, de Sequeira made the decision to sail back to India before the monsoon started and left them completely stranded in Southeast Asia. Before departing he sent a message to the Sultan and the bendahara in the form of two captives each with an arrow through his skull as a testimony to what would happen to them should any harm come to the 20 Portuguese left behind, who surrendered.
Preparations for the conquest
Upon reaching Travancore
The Kingdom of Travancore ( /ˈtrævənkɔːr/), also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. At ...
in April, Sequeira heard that Afonso de Albuquerque had succeeded Dom Francisco de Almeida as Governor of Portuguese India. Fearful of reprisals from Albuquerque for previously supporting Almeida, Sequeira promptly set sail back to Portugal.
At that same time in Lisbon, King Manuel dispatched another smaller fleet under the command of Diogo de Vasconcelos to trade directly with Malacca, based on the assumption that de Sequeira had been successful in establishing commercial ties with the city. Vasconcelos arrived in Angediva Island in August 1510 where he found Governor Afonso de Albuquerque, resting his troops after failing to capture Goa some months before, and revealed his intentions of sailing to Malacca straight away. Albuquerque had in the meantime received messages from the captives at Malacca, written by the factor Rui de Araújo, and sent through envoys of the most powerful merchant of Malacca, a Hindu named Nina Chatu who interceded for the Portuguese. Araújo detailed the Sultan's military force, the strategic importance of Malacca as well as their atrocious captivity. Hence, Albuquerque was fully aware that for Vasconcelos to proceed to Malacca with such a meagre force was suicide, and managed to convince him to, reluctantly, aid him in capturing Goa later that year instead.
With Goa firmly in Portuguese hands by December, Vasconcelos insisted that he be allowed to proceed to Malacca, which was denied. Vasconcelos mutinied and attempted to set sail against the Governor's orders, for which he was imprisoned and his pilots hanged. Albuquerque assumed direct command of the expedition and in April departed from Cochin along with 1000 men and 18 ships.
Crossing of the Indian Ocean
During the passage to South-East Asia, the armada lost a galley and an old carrack. At Sumatra, the fleet rescued nine Portuguese prisoners who had managed to escape to the Kingdom of Pedir; they informed Albuquerque that the city was internally divided, and that the Bendahara (treasurer) had been recently assassinated. There they also intercepted several tradeships of the Sultanate of Gujarat
The Gujarat Sultanate (or the Sultanate of Guzerat), was a Medieval Indian kingdom established in the early 15th century in Western India, primarily in the present-day state of Gujarat, India. The dynasty was founded by Sultan Zafar Khan Muza ...
, an enemy of the Portuguese.
Passing by ''Pacem'' (Samudera Pasai Sultanate
The Samudera Pasai Sultanate (), also known as Samudera or Pasai or Samudera Darussalam or Pacem, was a Muslim harbour kingdom on the north coast of Sumatra from the 13th to the 16th centuries CE. The kingdom was believed to have been founded ...
) the Portuguese came across two junks, one is from Coromandel
Coromandel may refer to:
Places India
*Coromandel Coast, India
**Presidency of Coromandel and Bengal Settlements
** Dutch Coromandel
*Coromandel, KGF, Karnataka, India
New Zealand
*Coromandel, New Zealand, a town on the Coromandel Peninsula
*Coro ...
, which is captured immediately, and the other is from Java which weighed about 600 tons. It is a very large junk, larger in fact than even their flagship, the Flor do Mar
''Flor do Mar'' or ''Flor de la Mar'' (Flower of the Sea), spelled ''Frol de la Mar'' in all Portuguese chronicles of the 16th century, was a Portuguese ''nau'' (carrack) of 400 tons, which over nine years participated in decisive events in the ...
. The Portuguese ordered it to halt but it promptly opened fire on the fleet, after which the Portuguese quickly followed suit. They realized however that their bombards were mostly ineffective: Their cannonballs bounced off the hull of the junk. After two days of continuous bombardment though, the junk had its masts felled, its deck burned, 40 of its 300 crew killed, and both of its rudder destroyed, which compel it to surrender. Once aboard, the Portuguese found the king of Pasai, whom Albuquerque hoped he could be made a vassal for trading.
Malaccan preparations
At the time, the Malacca Sultanate covered the whole Malayan Peninsula and much of northern Sumatra. All of the sultan's possessions seem to have obeyed, to their capacity, his summons for war. Palembang, Indragiri, Menangkabau, and Pahang are all recorded as having sent troops, and possibly other territories did as well; the only renegade state recorded was Kampar, which provided the Portuguese with a local base. The sultan also recruited thousands of mercenaries from Java, who were paid in early August and given three months' wages in advance, and hired 3,000 Turkic and Iranian mercenaries. Finally, he assembled an armory of 8,000 gunpowder weapons, including cannons. The bulk of these were lantaka
The ''Lantaka'' (Baybayin: pre virama: ''ᜎᜆᜃ'': post virama: ''ᜎᜈ᜔ᜆᜃ'') also known as ''rentaka'' (In Malay) was a type of bronze portable cannon or swivel gun, sometimes mounted on merchant vessels and warships in Maritime Sou ...
or cetbang
Cetbang (also known as bedil, warastra, or meriam coak) were cannons produced and used by the Majapahit Empire (1293–1527) and other kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago. There are 2 main types of cetbang: the eastern-style cetbang which lo ...
guns firing 1/4 to 1/2 pound shots (they also included many heavy muskets imported from Java). In total the sultan's forces numbered, according to Chinese merchants who leaked information to the Portuguese, 20,000 fighting men. They had been gathered originally to campaign against Malacca's chief enemy in Sumatra, the Aru Kingdom
The Aru (كراجأن ارو; or Haru) was a major Sumatran kingdom from the 13th to the 16th century. It was located on the eastern coast of North Sumatra, Indonesia. In its heyday the kingdom was a formidable maritime power, and was able to co ...
.
Despite having a lot of artillery and firearms, the weapons were mostly and mainly purchased from the Javanese and Gujarati, where the Javanese and Gujarati were the operators of the weapons. In the early 16th century, before the Portuguese arrival, the Malays lacked firearms. The Malay chronicle, ''Sejarah Melayu
The ''Malay Annals'' (Malay: ''Sejarah Melayu'', Jawi: سجاره ملايو), originally titled ''Sulalatus Salatin'' (''Genealogy of Kings''), is a literary work that gives a romanticised history of the origin, evolution and demise of the gr ...
'', mentioned that in 1509 they do not understand “why bullets killed”, indicating their unfamiliarity with using firearms in battle, if not in ceremony. As recorded in ''Sejarah Melayu'':
After (the Portuguese) coming to Malacca, then met (each other), they shot (the city) with cannon. So all the people of Malacca were surprised, shocked to hear the sound of the cannon. They said, "What is this sound, like thunder?". Then the cannon came about the people of Malacca, some lost their necks, some lost their arms, some lost their thighs. The people of Malacca were even more astonished to see the effect of the gun. They said: "What is this weapon called that is round, yet is sharp enough to kill?"
''Asia Portuguesa'' by Manuel de Faria y Sousa recorded a similar story, although not as spectacular as described in ''Sejarah Melayu''.
Reflecting decades later on how poorly the Malayans had fared against the Portuguese in Malacca and elsewhere, cartographer Manuel Godinho de Erédia
Manuel Godinho de Erédia, or Emanuel Godinho de Erédia (16 July 1563 – 1623), was a Bugis-Portuguese writer and cartographer. He wrote a number of books, including an early account of the Malay Peninsula that is a source of information on th ...
enumerated many of the weaknesses of their ground troops. Among them were lack of ordered military tactics and formations, short weapon lengths, lack of armor, reliance on bows and javelins, and ineffective fortifications.
As the Malaccans had only been introduced to firearms recently after 1509, they had not adopted the practice of Europe and Indian cities of fortifying their port. As such, they relied upon the Gujaratis to help them build up such defenses. Gujaratis handled the work of building up the fortifications of Malacca entirely. A Gujarati captain who wanted to wage war to the Portuguese provided Malacca with Gujarati ships and promising a help of 600 fighting men and 20 bombards. Other foreign defenders of Malacca were Iranians, which were important traders in the Indian Ocean.
Portuguese conquest
By 1 July, the armada arrived at Malacca, salvoing their guns and displaying battle arrangements, which caused great commotion in the harbour. Albuquerque declared that no ship should set sail without his permission and immediately he tried to negotiate the safe return of the remaining prisoners still trapped in Malacca. As Albuquerque considered the Sultan's conduct to have been treasonous, he demanded that the prisoners be returned without a ransom as a token of good-faith, but Mahmud Shah replied with vague and evasive answers and insisted that Albuquerque sign a peace treaty beforehand. In reality, the Sultan was trying to buy time to fortify the city and call back the fleet, whose admiral the Portuguese identified as ''Lassemane'' (''laksamana'', literally, "admiral").
Albuquerque in the meantime kept receiving messages from the prisoner Rui de Araújo, who informed Albuquerque of the Sultan's military strength, through Nina Chatu. The Sultan could muster 20,000 men, which included Turkish and Persian bowmen, thousands of artillery pieces, and 20 war elephants
A war elephant was an elephant that was trained and guided by humans for combat. The war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant ...
, but he noted that the artillery was crude and lacking enough gunners. Albuquerque himself would later report to the King that only 4,000 of those were battle-ready.
The Sultan on his part was not too intimidated by the small Portuguese contingent. Albuquerque would later write to King Manuel that, to his great consternation, the Sultan had somehow managed to correctly estimate the total number of soldiers aboard his fleet with a margin of error of "less than three men". Thus, he remained in the city organizing its defence, "not realizing the great danger he was putting himself into".
After weeks of stalled negotiations, by the middle of July the Portuguese bombarded the city. Startled, the Sultan promptly released the prisoners and Albuquerque then took the chance to further demand a heavy compensation: 300,000 ''cruzados'' and authorization to build a fortress wherever he wished. The Sultan refused. Presumably, Albuquerque had already anticipated the Sultan's response at that point. The Governor gathered his Captains and revealed that an assault would take place the following morning, 25 July, Day of Santiago.
During the negotiations, Albuquerque was visited by representatives of several merchant communities, such as the Hindus, who expressed their support for the Portuguese. The Chinese offered to help in any way that they could. Albuquerque requested no more than several barges to help land the troops, saying that he did not wish the Chinese to suffer reprisals should the attack fail. He also invited them over to a galley to watch the fighting safely from afar, and authorized any who wished to leave to set sail from Malacca, which left the Chinese with a very good impression of the Portuguese.
First assault
Albuquerque divided his forces in two groups, a smaller one under the command of Dom João de Lima and a larger one which he commanded personally. The landing commenced at 2 am. While the Portuguese fleet bombarded enemy positions on shore, the infantry rowed their boats onto the beaches on either side of the city's bridge. They immediately came under artillery fire from the Malayan stockades, though it was largely ineffective.
Albuquerque landed his forces west of the bridge, known as Upeh, whereas Dom João de Lima landed on the east side, Hilir, where the Sultan's palace and a mosque were located. Once ashore, the Portuguese threw the barges' protective pavises on the sand to walk over the caltrops and gunpowder mines scattered all around.
Protected by steel helmets and breastplates, and with the ''fidalgos'' clad in full plate armour in the lead, the Portuguese charged the Malayan defensive positions, shattering any resistance almost immediately. With the stockades overcome, the squadron of Albuquerque pushed the defenders back to the main street and proceeded towards the bridge, where they faced stiff resistance and an attack from the rear.
On the east side, the squadron of Dom João faced a counter-attack by the royal corps of war elephants, commanded by the Sultan himself, his son Alauddin, and his son-in-law, the Sultan of Pahang. Briefly shaken, the Portuguese ''fidalgos'' raised their pikes and attacked the royal elephant, causing it to turn away in panic, scattering the other elephants and throwing the troops that followed into disarray. The Sultan fell from his elephant and was wounded, but managed to escape amidst the confusion. By the middle of the day the two Portuguese groups had met at the bridge, surrounding the last defenders who jumped to the river where they were intercepted by Portuguese landing barge crews. With the bridge secure, the Portuguese raised canvas sheets to protect the exhausted infantry from the intense sun. The assault was called off however when Albuquerque came to realize how short on provisions they were, and ordered the troops to embark again, setting the royal palace and the mosque on fire along the way.
To prevent the Malays from retaking positions on the bridge, the following day the Portuguese seized a junk, armed it with artillery, which included fast firing breech-loading guns and very long pikes to prevent it from being rammed by incendiary rafts, and towed it towards the bridge. At the rivermouth, it ran aground and immediately came under heavy fire; its captain, António de Abreu, was shot in the face but was unrelenting of his post, declaring he would command the ship from his sickbed if necessary.[Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, 1552–156]
''História do Descobrimento e Conquista da Índia pelos Portugueses''
edited by Manuel Lopes de Almeida, Porto, Lello & Irmão, 1979, book 3 ch. 58
Second assault
On 8 August, the Governor held a council with his captains in which he invoked the necessity to secure the city in order to sever the flow of spices towards Cairo and Mecca through Calicut and to prevent Islam from taking hold. For this assault, Albuquerque landed the entirety of his force, divided into three groups, on the western side of Malacca — Upeh — supported by a small caravel, a galley, and landing barges armed as gunboats. As the junk was dislodged by the rising morning tide, drawing the defenders' fire as it sailed towards the bridge, the landing began, while the armada bombarded the city. Once ashore, the Portuguese again quickly overcame Malayan defenses and recaptured the bridge, by then devoid of defenders. On either side the Portuguese set up barricades with barrels full of dirt, where they placed artillery. From the east side a squadron proceeded to assault the mosque, which again shattered the defenders after a drawn out struggle.
With the bridge fortified and secured with enough provisions, Albuquerque ordered a few squadrons and several ''fidalgos'' to run through the streets and neutralize Malayan gun emplacements on the rooftops, cutting down any who resisted them, with the loss of many civilians.
On 24 August, as the Sultan's resistance waned, Albuquerque decided to take full control of the city, commanding 400 men in ranks of 6 men wide through the streets, at the sound of drums and trumpets, eliminating any remaining pockets of resistance. According to Correia, the Malayans were greatly frightened by the Portuguese heavy pikes "which they had never seen before".
The cleanup operation took 8 days. Unable to oppose the Portuguese any further, the Sultan gathered his royal treasure and what remained of his forces and finally retreated into the jungle.
Sack
With the city secured, Albuquerque ordered the sack of Malacca, in the most orderly manner possible. For three days, from morning to nightfall, groups were given a limited time to run in turns to the city and return to the beach with whatever they could carry back. They were strictly forbidden from sacking the property of Chinese, Hindus, and Peguans, who had supported the Portuguese and were given flags to mark their households. The general population of Malacca was unharmed. The plunder was immense: Over 200,000 ''cruzados'' reverted to the Crown along with 3,000 bronze and iron bombards and several slaves. The cannons found were of various types: ''esmeril'' (1/4 to 1/2 pounder swivel gun
The term swivel gun (or simply swivel) usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun wi ...
, probably refers to ''cetbang
Cetbang (also known as bedil, warastra, or meriam coak) were cannons produced and used by the Majapahit Empire (1293–1527) and other kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago. There are 2 main types of cetbang: the eastern-style cetbang which lo ...
'' or ''lantaka
The ''Lantaka'' (Baybayin: pre virama: ''ᜎᜆᜃ'': post virama: ''ᜎᜈ᜔ᜆᜃ'') also known as ''rentaka'' (In Malay) was a type of bronze portable cannon or swivel gun, sometimes mounted on merchant vessels and warships in Maritime Sou ...
''), '' falconet'' (cast bronze swivel gun larger than the ''esmeril'', 1 to 2 pounder, probably refers to '' lela''), and medium ''saker'' (long cannon or ''culverin
A culverin was initially an ancestor of the hand-held arquebus, but later was used to describe a type of medieval and Renaissance cannon. The term is derived from the French "''couleuvrine''" (from ''couleuvre'' "grass snake", following the La ...
'' between a six and a ten pounder, probably refers to ''meriam''), and ''bombard __NOTOC__
Bombard may refer to the act of carrying out a bombardment. It may also refer to:
Individuals
*Alain Bombard (1924–2005), French biologist, physician and politician; known for crossing the Atlantic on a small boat with no water or food
...
'' (short, fat, and heavy cannon). The Malays also has 1 beautiful large cannon sent by the king of Calicut
Kozhikode (), also known in English as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. It has a corporation limit population of 609,224 and a metropolitan population of more than 2 million, making it the second la ...
. Malaccan gunfounders were compared favourably with those of Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, who were then the acknowledged leaders in the manufacture of firearms, and the Malaccan gun carriages were described as unrivalled by any other land, including Portugal.[''Lettera di Giovanni Da Empoli'', with introduction and notes by A. Bausani, Rome, 1970, page 138.] The Portuguese also captured 3000 of the 5000 muskets
A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually dis ...
which had been furnished from Java.
According to Correia, regular soldiers received over 4,000 ''cruzados'' each, Captains received up to 30,000;[Gaspar Correia, ''Lendas da Índia'' Volume 2, p. 248] At the time, 1,000 ''cruzados'' was roughly the equivalent of the annual income of a Count in Portugal. Albuquerque recovered from the expedition a stool encrusted with jewels, four golden lions and even a golden bracelet which was said to have the magical property of preventing the wearer from bleeding. He estimated that two-thirds of the wealth of the city remained.
Aftermath
The operation cost the Portuguese 28 dead, plus many more wounded. Despite Mahmud Shah's impressive number of artillery pieces and firearms, they were largely ineffective. Most of the Portuguese casualties were caused by poisoned arrows.
The Sultan was evicted, but was not out of the fight. He retreated a few kilometers to the south of Malacca, to the mouth of the Muar River
The Muar River ( ms, Sungai Muar) is a river which flows through the states of Johor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang in Malaysia. The river also flows through Muar town.
History
The Muar River formed part of the '' Penarikan'', an ancient overlan ...
where he met up with the armada and set up camp, waiting for the Portuguese to abandon the city once they were done sacking it.
Fortress
Contrary to Sultan Mahmud Shah's hopes, Albuquerque did not wish to just sack the city, but to hold it permanently. To that effect he ordered the construction of a fortress close to the shoreline, which became known as ''A Famosa
A Famosa ( ms, Kota A Famosa; "The Famous" in Portuguese, also known as ''Fortaleza Velha'' Portuguese: the old fortress, and Dutch: ''Slavenburgh'' (slave castle) & ''De Misericorde'' (Our Lady of Mercy, from French: ''Notre Dame de Misér ...
'', due to its unusually tall keep, over eighteen meters high. Stone was brought in by ships as there wasn't enough in the city for its completion. It had a garrison of 500 men, 200 of which were dedicated to the service aboard the 10 ships left behind as the fortress' service fleet. After the conquest, the Portuguese found a sepulcher
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called ''immuremen ...
(rock-cut tomb) below the ground, which stones were used to build the fortress. Additional stones were sourced from the walls and foundation of the Malaccan mosque.
Administration and diplomacy
As hostilities ceased, Albuquerque immediately realized that the maintenance of such a distant city would depend greatly on the support the Portuguese could gather from the local population and the neighbouring polities. He assured the inhabitants that they would be able to proceed with their affairs as normally. Nina Chatu was nominated the new Bendahara of Malacca and representative of the Hindu community. The Javanese, Lusong and Malay communities also got their own magistrates (although the Javanese representative, Utimuta Raja, would be executed and replaced shortly after for conspiring with the exiled Sultan). The trial of Utimuta Raja was the first act of justice the Portuguese carried out in Malacca according to Roman Law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
, with which "the people of Malacca was much relieved from that tyrant, and considered us folk of much justice"
New currency was minted with the support of Nina Chatu and a parade was organized through the city streets, in which the new coins were thrown from silver bowls to the populace from atop eleven elephants. Two heralds proclaimed the new laws, one in Portuguese and another in Malay, followed by the Portuguese troops marching behind, playing trumpets and drums, "to great astonishment of the locals", as Correia puts it.
Diplomatic missions were dispatched to Pegu
Bago (formerly spelt Pegu; , ), formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located north-east of Yangon.
Etymology
The Burmese name Bago (ပဲခူး) is likely derived from the Mon lang ...
and Siam
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...
to secure allies, as well as new suppliers of vital foodstuffs such as rice, to replace the Javanese, who were hostile to the Portuguese. Albuquerque had already sent an envoy, Duarte Fernandes, to Siam in July, while the assault on the city was still ongoing, and an exchange of diplomats secured the firm support of the King of Siam, who despised Mahmud Shah. The Kingdom of Pegu also confirmed its support for the Portuguese and in 1513 junks arrived from the Pegu to trade in Malacca.
While he remained in the city, Albuquerque received envoys and ambassadors from many Malayan and Indonesian Kingdoms (which included even Sultan Mahmud's son-in-law, the Sultan of Pahang), with gifts dedicated to the King of Portugal.
The Portuguese recovered a large chart from a Javanese maritime pilot
A maritime pilot, marine pilot, harbor pilot, port pilot, ship pilot, or simply pilot, is a mariner who maneuvers ships through dangerous or congested waters, such as harbors or river mouths. Maritime pilots are regarded as skilled professionals ...
, which according to Albuquerque displayed:
Some of the information suggests adaptations had already been made based on Portuguese maps plundered from the feitoria in 1509. With such knowledge, the Portuguese learned the path to the fabled "Spice Islands", and in November, Albuquerque organized an expedition of three ''naus'' and 120 men to reach them, under the command of António de Abreu, who had previously been in the command of the junk. He was the first European to sail into the Pacific Ocean.
When Albuquerque left Malacca in January 1512, the inhabitants mourned his departure. Around the northwesternmost tip of Sumatra, the fleet faced a storm that wrecked Albuquerque's flagship, the Flor do Mar, with the loss of paperwork, an official letter from the King of Siam and the spoils and gifts intended for King Manuel, with the exception of a large rubi, a decorated sword and a golden goblet sent by the King of Siam which the crew managed to salvage.
In 1513, Jorge Álvares
Jorge Álvares (died 8 July 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is credited as the first European to have reached China by sea during the Age of Discovery. His starting of settlements on an island in what is now Hong Kong is still considered a sign ...
would set sail from Malacca and arrive in Canton, finally making contact with China.
Defence of Malacca and the fate of Mahmud Shah
Shortly after Albuquerque's departure, the city suffered a harassment by the forces of Mahmud Shah, but by then the Portuguese could count on over 500 men provided by the inhabitants of the city to assist them in repelling the attack. In May, the Portuguese, along with over 2000 local allies under the command of Gaspar de Paiva, forced the Sultan out of his encampment by the Muar River
The Muar River ( ms, Sungai Muar) is a river which flows through the states of Johor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang in Malaysia. The river also flows through Muar town.
History
The Muar River formed part of the '' Penarikan'', an ancient overlan ...
. Mahmud Shah then retreated to the Pahang Sultanate
The Pahang Sultanate (Malay: ''Kesultanan Pahang'', Jawi: كسلطانن ڤهڠ ) also referred as the Old Pahang Sultanate, as opposed to the Modern Pahang Sultanate, was a Malay Muslim state established in the eastern Malay peninsula in 15 ...
, where he narrowly avoided an assassination attempt. Afterwards, he moved to Bintan
Bintan Regency (formerly Riau Islands Regency; id, Kabupaten Kepulauan Riau) is an administrative area in the Riau Islands Province of Indonesia. Bintan Regency includes all of Bintan Island (except for the city of Tanjung Pinang which is sepa ...
, an island-kingdom south-east of Singapore that he usurped to wage war on the Portuguese in Malacca, harassing the city, its trade and sabotaging their diplomatic relations with China, until the Portuguese eventually devastated Bintan in 1526, returning it to its rightful ruler and vassalizing the kingdom. Mahmud Shah then retreated to Kampar, Sumatra
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
and led a government-in-exile there until his death in 1527. His son, Alauddin, would go on to found the Sultanate of Johor
The Johor Sultanate ( ms, Kesultanan Johor or ; also called the Sultanate of Johor, Johor-Pahang, or the Johor Empire) was founded by Malaccan Sultan Mahmud Shah's son, Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II in 1528. Johor was part of the Malaccan ...
, and develop more or less pragmatical relations with the Portuguese.
See also
* Fortress of Malacca
A Famosa ( ms, Kota A Famosa; "The Famous" in Portuguese, also known as ''Fortaleza Velha'' Portuguese: the old fortress, and Dutch: ''Slavenburgh'' (slave castle) & ''De Misericorde'' (Our Lady of Mercy, from French: ''Notre Dame de Misér ...
* Portuguese Malacca
Portuguese control of Malacca, a city on the Malay Peninsula, refers to the 130 year period (1511–1641) when it was a possession of the Portuguese East Indies. It was conquered from the Malacca Sultanate as part of Portuguese attempts to ...
* Portuguese India
The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...
* Kristang people
The ''Kristang'' (otherwise known as "Portuguese-Eurasians" or "Malacca Portuguese") or ''Serani'' are a creole ethnic group of people of predominantly mixed Portuguese and Malaccan descent, with substantial Dutch British, Jewish, Malay, Chines ...
* Siege of Johor (1587)
The siege of Johor of 1587 was a military operation in which Portuguese forces successfully sieged, sacked, and razed Johor (''Jor'', in Portuguese), capital of its eponymous Sultanate. The city would later be rebuilt in a different location.
...
Notes
Citations
References
* Bailey W. Diffie, George D. Winius, ''Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580'' (1977)
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* {{PD-old-text, title=A descriptive dictionary of the Indian islands & adjacent countries, year=1856, author=John Crawfurd
Portuguese Malacca
History of Malacca
Malacca
Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...
Malacca
Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...
1511 in Portuguese Malacca
1511 in Asia
1511 in the Portuguese Empire
Malacca
Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...