Portuguese Conquest of Malacca
Afonso de Albuquerque took Malacca in August 1511 after a siege of six weeks, giving Portugal control of the strait through which the trade between the Indian Ocean and China passed. Malacca was the greatest entrepôt in Southeast Asia, a sultanate whose harbour handled Chinese junks, Gujarati and Arab traders, Javanese rice and the spices of the Moluccas, and where Tomé Pires estimated eighty-four languages were spoken. A Portuguese mission under Diogo Lopes de Sequeira had been attacked there in 1509, with about twenty men seized. Their release was Albuquerque's stated pretext. He arrived with about 1,200 men and eighteen ships against a city of perhaps 100,000 with a large but disunited defence. He exploited the divisions directly, securing the neutrality or help of the Chinese merchants and of Hindu and Javanese communities who resented the sultan's exactions. The attack focused on the bridge over the river dividing the town, taken and lost and taken again with fire ships and a captured junk sailed alongside it. The sack that followed was systematic, and the loot included the sultan's treasury. Albuquerque built the fortress A Famosa with stone from the mosque and the royal tombs, and kept the port open to every trader who accepted Portuguese licensing. He then sent expeditions onward to Siam and to the Moluccas. The ship carrying his own share of the plunder, the Flor de la Mar, sank in a storm off Sumatra and has never been found. Malacca fell to the Dutch in 1641.
- Year: 1511 CE
- Category: Military
