In it were gathered and sold all the Asian spices: pepper, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg etc. After their arrival in India the Portuguese soon became aware of the importance of the city. An expedition sailed to Malacca in but failed and many of the Portuguese were captured and imprisoned by the Sultan.
In the Viceroy of India, Afonso de Albuquerque, decided to organize an expedition destined to conquer Malacca. At the head of 1, — 1, men and 14 ships Afonso de Albuquerque arrived in view of Malacca in June and immediately demanded the rescue of the Portuguese, who were taken prisoners in the expedition.
The Sultan tried to gain time to strengthen the town defenses. He was well aware of the small number of Portuguese troops and was confident of his powerful army of 20, men and 2, guns. Albuquerque wasted no time. At dawn of 25 July the Portuguese attacked the town concentrating the assault on the bridge of the river dividing the town. After a fierce battle the bridge was conquered by the Portuguese, but at nightfall they were forced to retreat. After some days of preparations the Portuguese renewed the attack on 10 August Albuquerque had the assistance of some Chinese junks, which anchored in the port.
The use of junks, offered by the Chinese merchants, was decisive, as these junks were used as a bridgehead. This time the attack was successful and the Portuguese finally succeeded in establishing a bridgehead in the town.
Then there were several days of siege, during which the Portuguese bombarded the city. On 24 August the Portuguese again attacked only to discover that the Sultan had escaped.
Malacca was now in Portuguese hands. Diffie and G. Author T0lk. Malacca was one of the three key-points with Goa and Hormuz, which gave Portugal the control over the main Asiatic trade routes. After the conquest Albuquerque immediately ordered the building of a fortress on the south side of the river. Shortly thereafter Albuquerque prepared the ships for the return with the booty of Malacca.
Several Florentine merchants took part in the Portuguese enterprises in Asia. Amongst them Giovanni da Empoli was present in Malacca during the siege and the conquest. He described his experiences in an interesting letter to his father. From his base at Johore the old Sultan of Malacca repeatedly attacked Malacca in , , and At last, in , a peace treaty was signed.
Malacca was repeatedly under siege in , , The main enemies were Johore and Atjeh in Sumatra. The exiled Malaccan Sultan sent more messages to China when the Portuguese mission arrived in China, and this time, the Chinese took action against the Portuguese. After Pires reached Beijing in the Chinese decided to arrest the embassy. The deposed Malaccan Sultan Mahmud Shah sent another message to China, and this time, China responded by executing the Portuguese diplomatic embassy.
The Chinese Imperial Government imprisoned and executed multiple Portuguese diplomatic envoys after torturing them in Guangzhou. The Malaccan envoys had informed the Chinese of the Portuguese seizure of Malacca, to which the Chinese responded with hostility toward the Portuguese.
The Malaccans told the Chinese of the deception the Portuguese used, disguising plans for conquering territory as mere trading activities, and told of all the deprivations they had passed at the hands of the Portuguese. Due to the Malaccan Sultan lodging a complaint against the Portuguese invasion to the Chinese Emperor, the Portuguese were greeted with hostility from the Chinese when they arrived in China. After the Portuguese set up posts for trading in China and committed piratical activities and raids in China, the Chinese responded with the complete extermination of the Portuguese in Ningbo and Quanzhou [20] Pires, a Portuguese trade envoy, was among those who died in the Chinese dungeons.
Chinese traders boycotted Portuguese Malacca after it fell to the Portuguese in the Capture of Malacca, some Chinese in Java assisted in Muslim attempts to reconquer the city from Portugal using ships. Among those taken were many of great size muy grossas ,and one very beautiful piece which the King of Calicut had lately sent.
De Barros incidentally mentions the existence of match-locks in the defence of Malacca. Some guns discharged leaden balls at intervals, which passed through both sides of the vessel, doing much execution among the crew.
Among them there was one large piece sent by the King of Calicut to the King of Malacca. All the artillery with its appurtenances was of such workmanship that it could not be excelled, even in Portugal. There were found also match-locks espingardao , blowpipes for shooting poisoned arrows, bows and arrows, lances of Java, and divers other arms, all which created surprise in those that captured them.
The greater number most likely consisted of the small pieces called by the natives rantaka or hand-guns. Castanheda also mentions match-locks espingardao , and while he reduces the captured cannon to , he says that they threw balls, some of stone, and some of iron covered with lead. The cannon bombardia were some of them of brass and some of iron. By his account the bridge, the chief scene of combat in the storm of Malacca, was defended by seventy-two pieces of ordnance.
During the two days we passed in the city they were often discharged. Cannon had reached even as far as the Philippine. When, however, Legaspi discovered the main island of Luson, he not only found cannon, but a foundry of them at Manilla and Tondo in that island, the knowledge of fire-arms having been introduced by the Mahommedan Malayan nations of the west, along with their religion.
Several thousand artillery pieces, around out of of large size were captured by the Portuguese in Malacca. Firearms such as Matchlocks and artillery were both used by the Malays to defend Malacca before it fell.
Portuguese attempts to control spice trade didn't come to fruition however. The trade center still had to procure spices like nutmeg and cloves from Mollucas, pepper from Sumatra and required rice from Java to feed its inhabitants. Consequently many more Portuguese expeditions were launched throughout the archipelago. Subsequently several states came to replace Malaccas dominance in spice trade, especially Johor , Aceh and Banten.
Military Wiki Explore. Popular pages. Raaen, Jr. Project maintenance. Register Don't have an account? Capture of Malacca While the Sunda passage is appropriate for ships coming from the Cape of Good Hope, it is a major detour for Indian, Persian, and Arab merchants. Furthermore, the winds along the west coast of Sumatra can be unreliable, and the open ocean swells spawned by massive storms in the Southern Ocean provide for excellent surfing in the Mentawai Islands but dangerous sailing for small craft.
The placid waters between the northeast coast of Sumatra and the west coast of the Malay Peninsula are well-protected from ocean swells and can seem like a lake when compared to the towering waves of the Indian Ocean. The monsoon wind cycle adds a final and historically decisive factor to the history of global trade patterns. Siberia pulls wet and warm air off the Indian Ocean, bringing heavy rain and dominant winds that blow toward the northeast.
In winter, the pattern is reversed, with Siberian low pressure pushing relatively cooler and dry air to the southwest. In the age of sail, it was next to impossible for boats to travel against these winds. Mariners sailed downwind from India or China toward the southern edge of the Straits of Malacca from November to April.
From May to October, they used the monsoon winds to push boats northward to India or China. As merchants going from South Asia to China realized that it was easier and quicker to simply exchange goods with each other at a halfway point in the straits, ports in the region developed into trade emporia where goods from afar could be imported, stored, and exchanged amongst foreign merchants.
Such a system allowed Indians and Chinese to bring goods from home, exchange them for foreign goods, and return home in close to six months, rather than the almost two years it would take to travel the full distance. The Braudelian factors of geography, ocean patterns, and wind cycles made the Straits of Malacca a natural pivot point of commerce in maritime Asia.
Before Malacca, there were two great thalassocracies , or sea-going empires: Srivijaya eighth through twelfth centuries and Majapahit — However, with the Straits of Malacca home to various pirate bands, merchants in the age of Funan used the overland route at the narrow Isthmus of Kra near the present- day Thai-Malaysian border.
In the seventh century, Srivijaya opened up the Straits of Malacca. Using naval power to crush pirates and rivals, the kingdom grew from the region around present-day Palembang in South Sumatra Province in Indonesia to claim control over most of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, much of Java, and thousands of smaller islands. For centuries, Srivijaya expanded the volume of trade through the straits as it led military expeditions against potential rivals while ensuring foreign merchants safe passage and necessary port facilities.
After half a millennium of power, the maritime empire fell to the rising Javanese Majapahit kingdom. Another sea-going empire, Majapahit controlled an even larger amount of territory at its imperial zenith in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Javanese combined access to the spice islands of the Moluccas with domination of the Straits of Malacca. These thalassocracies set the example of incredible wealth that would come from servicing the maritime Silk Roads between China and the Indian Ocean basin.
Following these precedents, the rise of Malacca was simply the newest phase of a centuries-old pattern. While specific details on the founding of the city remain murky and often the stuff of legend, we do know that prior to , Malacca was a small fishing village.
Malay, Portuguese, and Chinese sources hold that the displaced Malay nobleman Parameswara — was in search of a kingdom. Finding a small river that met a beach in the protected waters of strait— all at the foot of a nearby hill that allowed one to observe the coming and going of ships— Parameswara must have realized that the site would make an ideal port that could both service trade and project military power.
If he strongarmed some ships into his port, once there they found reliable trading practices and security in a dangerous area. Under the watchful but protective eyes of the fierce orang laut, merchants who came into Malacca found that the city offered safe and secure warehouse facilities. Ensuring smooth transactions, Parameswara established a system with clear rules on the percentage of incoming cargo that would be taxed. Avoiding opportunities for graft and petty corruption, the local government had a hierarchy of officials with four harbormasters, each for an ethnically defined group of merchants such as Gujarati, Bengali, Malay, or East Asian.
An executive officer stood above them all to arbitrate interethnic disputes and ensure harmonious multicultural commerce. Serving as a marketplace for imports to be traded amongst foreigners, the city produced and consumed relatively little. Within a few years, the successful system made Malacca the most important trading center in Southeast Asia. With this prosperity, the young city grew. The Yongle Emperor — tasked Zheng He — with building and commanding hundreds of ships, some estimated to be over feet in length.
Maritime powers were encouraged to enter into the Confucian-based tribute-state relationship with the Middle Kingdom. Parameswara himself traveled to the Chinese capital to kowtow before the emperor in In return for his tribute and respect, the Malaccan ruler received honorary robes from the Chinese court, a symbol of prestige, and, more practically, assurances of Chinese military assistance should it be needed. Furthermore, the Chinese court granted the city what we might call most-favored-nation status.
While it is unclear if Parameswara converted to Islam, he adopted titles associated with the faith the Persian Iskandar Shah and the Arabic Sultan and intermarried with Muslim royal families. This is not surprising, as increasing numbers of Indian, Persian, and Arab merchants began to arrive in Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra and the Straits of Malacca.
Muslims from South Asia, Arabia, or North Africa knew that they would be able to find places of worship, individuals familiar with Arabic, and communities governed by familiar trade practices and influenced by Islamic law codes.
As a tribute state, the city became familiar to Chinese who soon began to reside in the port. Muslim merchants from thousands of miles away settled in the city, adding to its ethnic diversity.
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