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Chinese people in Portugal

Chinese people in Portugal
Total population
15,000 - 17,000 (2008)
Unofficial estimates including non-PRC nationals
9,689 (2007)
Includes only legal residents with People's Republic of China nationality
Regions with significant populations
Lisbon
Languages
Chinese (primarily Wenzhounese and Mandarin among recent arrivals; Cantonese among established migrants), Portuguese
Religion
Mahayana Buddhism
Related ethnic groups
Ethnic Chinese in Mozambique, other overseas Chinese groups
Chinese people in Portugal
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 葡萄牙華人
Simplified Chinese 葡萄牙华人
Portuguese name
Portuguese Chineses em Portugal

Chinese people in Portugal (Chinese: 葡萄牙華人, Cantonese Yale: pòuh tòuh ngàh wàh yàhn) form the country's largest Asian community, but only the twelfth-largest foreign community overall. Despite forming only a small part of the overseas Chinese population in Europe, the Chinese community in Portugal is one of the continent's oldest due to the country's colonial and trade history Macau dating back to the 16th century.

Some Chinese slaves in Spain ended up there after being brought to Lisbon in Portugal and sold when they were boys. Tristán de la China was a Chinese who was taken as a slave by the Portuguese, while he was still a boy and in the 1520s was obtained by Cristobál de Haro in Lisbon, and taken to live in Seville and Valladolid. He was paid for his service as a translator on the 1525 Loaísa expedition, during which he was still an adolescent. The survivors, including Tristan, were shipwrecked for a decade until 1537 when they were brought back by a Portuguese ship to Lisbon.

There are records of Chinese slaves in Lisbon in 1540. A Chinese scholar, apparently enslaved by Portuguese raiders somewhere on the southern China coast, was brought to Portugal around 1549. Purchased by João de Barros, he worked with the Portuguese historian on translating Chinese texts into Portuguese.

In sixteenth century southern Portugal there were Chinese slaves but the number of them was described as "negligible", being outnumbered by East Indian, Mourisco, and African slaves. Amerindians, Chinese, Malays, and Indians were slaves in Portugal but in far fewer number than Turks, Berbers, and Arabs. China and Malacca were origins of slaves delivered to Portugal by Portuguese viceroys. A testament from 23 October 1562 recorded a Chinese man named António who was enslaved and owned by a Portuguese woman, Dona Maria de Vilhena, a wealthy noblewoman in Évora. In Evora, António was among the three most common male names given to male slaves. D. Maria owned one of the only two Chinese slaves in Evora and she used him from among the slaves she owned to drive her mules for her because he was Chinese since rigorous and demanding tasks were assigned to Mourisco, Chinese, and Indian slaves. D. Maria's owning a Chinese among her fifteen slaves reflected on her high social status, since Chinese, Mouriscos, and Indians were among the ethnicities of prized slaves and were much more expensive compared to blacks, so high class individuals owned these ethnicities and it was because her husband Simão was involved in the slave trade in the east that she owned slaves of many different ethnicities. When she died, D. Maria freed this Chinese man in her testament along with several other slaves, leaving him with 10,000 réis in money. D. Maria de Vilhena was the daughter of the nobleman and explorer Sancho de Tovar, the capitão of Sofala (List of colonial governors of Mozambique), and she was married twice, the first marriage to the explorer Cristóvão de Mendonça, and her second marriage was to Simão da Silveira, capitão of Diu (). D. Maria was left a widow by Simão, and she was a major slave owner, possessing the most slaves in Évora, with her testament recording fifteen slaves.


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