The Portuguese India armadas (armadas da Índia) were the fleets of ships, organized by the Portuguese crown and dispatched on an annual basis from Portugal to India, principally Goa. These armadas undertook what was called the Carreira da Índia (“India Run”), following the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope opened up by Vasco […]
Late January, 1504 – Arriving at Cochin from his sojourn in Quilon, Albuquerque made the final preparations. He placed Duarte Pacheco Pereira in charge of Fort Sant’Iago of Cochin, with a garrison of some 150 armed men and two caravels, (one of which was the Garrida of Pêro Rafael) and one nau, the Concepção. January […]
Throughout much of this, the third squadron of the Fifth Armada were still fruitlessly looking for each other in Africa. Diogo Fernandes Pereira had long disappeared from sight somewhere after Cape Verde, and had hurried on ahead by himself, while the other two ships, António de Saldanha and Rui Lourenço Ravasco, ended up by mistake […]
The 4th Armada of Vasco da Gama had left India in the early months of 1503 with little resolved. Despite terror, bombardment and blockade, Calicut remained defiant, and the two fledgling Portuguese factories in allied cities – one in Cochin, the other in Cannanore – were vulnerable to her revenge. And revenge was not long […]
The Fifth India Armada was assembled in 1503 on the order of King Manuel I of Portugal and placed under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque. It was Albuquerque’s first trip to India. It was not a particularly successful armada – navigational mistakes scattered the fleet on the outward journey. Ships spent much time looking […]
Cochim is the largest city in the state of Kerala in India, about 220 km north of the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram. He was part of Portuguese India between 1503 and 1663. Today belongs to the Ernakulam district. It is also the largest city in India that has no more than half of the inhabitants professing […]
Outside of the fortified town center lie the three suburbs of Malacca. The suburb of Upe (Upih), generally known as Tranqueira (modern day Tengkera) from the rampart of the fortress. The other two suburb were Yler (Hilir) or Tanjonpacer (Tanjung Pasir) and the suburb of Sabba. Tranqueira Tranqueira was the most important suburb of Malacca. […]
In 1637, increasing suspicion of the intentions of Spanish and Portuguese Catholic missionaries in Japan finally led the shogun to seal Japan off from all foreign influence. Later named the sakoku period, this meant that no Japanese were allowed to leave the country (or return if they were living abroad), and no foreign ship was […]
The mission of the Jesuits used Macau as a point of departure & formation during the 16th century.
Portuguese Macau refers to Macau as a colony and later, a Portuguese overseas province under Portuguese administration from 1557 to 1999. Macau was both the first and last European colony in China. Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 16th century. In 1557 Macau was rented to Portugal by the Chinese empire as a […]