Capture of Malacca (1511)
| Capture of Malacca | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Portuguese drawing of Malacca in 1511, shortly after its conquest. |
|||||||
|
|||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
.svg){kind=small} Portuguese Empire
|
Sultanate of Malacca | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Afonso de Albuquerque | Mahmud Shah | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
700 Portuguese soldiers 300 malabarese auxiliaries 11 carracks, 3 caravels, 2 galleys |
20,000 men 2,000 or 3,000 artillery pieces |
||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 28 dead | Unknown | ||||||
700 Portuguese soldiers 300 malabarese auxiliaries
The Capture of Malacca in 1511 occurred when the governor of Portuguese India Afonso de Albuquerque conquered the city of Malacca in 1511.
The port city of Malacca controlled the narrow strategic strait of Malacca, through which all seagoing trade between China and India was concentrated. The capture of Malacca was the result of a plan by King Manuel I of Portugal, who since 1505 intended to beat the Castillians to the Far-East, and Albuquerque's own project of establishing firm foundations for Portuguese India, alongside Hormuz, Goa and Aden, to ultimately control trade and thwart Muslim shipping in the Indian Ocean.
Having set sail from Cochin in April 1511, the expedition would not have been able to turn around due to contrary monsoon 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.
The first Portuguese references to Malacca appear after Vasco da Gama'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 where transactioned, and was supposedly ruled by a sovereign who could gather 10,000 men for war and was Christian. Since then, King Manuel showed an interest in making contact with Malacca, believing it to be at, or at least close to, the antimeridian of Tordesillas. In 1505 Dom Francisco de Almeida was dispatched by King Manuel I of Portugal as the first Viceroy of Portuguese India, tasked to, among other things, discover its precise location.
De Almeida, 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 ship of a Muslim merchant, a mission that aborted once they were detected and nearly lynched in the Coromandel Coast, narrowly making it back to Cochin by November.
...
Wikipedia