Battle of Macau

Dutch ships firing their cannons in the waters of Macau, drawn 1665

Date	22–24 June 1622
Location	Macau, China
Result	Decisive victory by the Portuguese

Belligerents

Dutch Republic

Portuguese Empire

Portuguese Macau

Commanders and leaders

Cornelis Reijersen,
Hans Ruffijn †

Lopo Sarmento de Carvalho

Strength

1,300 (landing force of 800)
13 ships

~150 Portuguese troops
Unknown number of black slaves

Casualties and losses

300+ killed (136 Dutch)
126 wounded
4 ships sunk

6 Iberians killed
Small number of black slaves killed
~20 wounded

Portuguese Empire

The Battle of Macau in 1622 was a conflict of the Dutch-Portuguese War fought in the Portuguese settlement of Macau, in southeastern China. The Portuguese, outnumbered and without adequate fortification, managed to repel the Dutch in a much-celebrated victory on 24 June after a three-day battle. To date, the battle remains the only major engagement that was fought between two European powers on the Chinese mainland.

Ever since the Portuguese managed to gain permission from the Ming mandarins to establish a permanent settlement and trade base in Macau in 1557, the port of Macau benefited greatly from being the intermediary of the lucrative China-Japan trade, since the direct routes were banned by the Ming court due to fears of the wokou pirates. Portugal's success in Macau drew the envy of other European maritime powers who were slower to gain a foothold in East Asia. When Philip II of Spain became King of Portugal after the 1580 Portuguese succession crisis, Portuguese colonies came under attack from Spain's enemies, especially the Dutch and the English, who were also hoping to expand their overseas empires at the expense of a country that had largely ceased to exist. Macau had already sustained Dutch raids in 1601, 1603, and 1607, but the Dutch invasion of 1622 represented the first real attempt to capture the city. The Hollanders, frustrated that their trading post at Hirado was unable to compete with the Portuguese traders at Nagasaki as a result of the latter's easy access to China, hoped that the capture of Macau would grant them a commercial base in China while at the same time deprive the Portuguese of the profitable Macau-Nagasaki route. The fall of Macau would also leave the Spaniards in the Philippines without means of support and make it easier for the Dutch to mount an attack on Manila.

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