Jorge Álvares Reaches China
Jorge Álvares anchored off an island in the Pearl River estuary in 1513, the first European to reach China by sea. He sailed from Malacca, which Afonso de Albuquerque had taken two years earlier and which sat at the junction of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea trades, in a junk following the route Chinese and Malay merchants already used. The Portuguese knew from Malacca that Chinese ships came south annually and that the trade was worth having, and Álvares was sent to find where they came from. He reached Tamão, an island near modern Hong Kong or Macau, and was not permitted to land on the mainland or to travel to Guangzhou. Foreign contact was regulated through licensed intermediaries and the tribute system, which was the substantive intelligence he brought back. He traded from the island, set up a padrão — a stone pillar carved with the Portuguese arms — and returned with a cargo and a report that the trade was real. The formal embassy that followed under Tomé Pires in 1517 destroyed the opening. The Portuguese at Tamão built a fort, fired salutes that were read as insolence, and bought children who had almost certainly been kidnapped; the deposed sultan of Malacca, a Chinese tributary, complained to Beijing; and the embassy was detained, with most of its members dying in prison at Guangzhou. The Portuguese were expelled and traded illicitly along the coast for decades. Álvares died at Tamão in 1521 and was buried beside his own padrão.
- Year: 1513 CE
- Category: Exploration
