~ Estado del Reino ~
Parte III:
As Índias Orientais
(c. 1500 - 1550)
With Malaca captured in late 1509 by Albuquerque’s lieutenant Diogo Lopes de Sequeira (after a botched attempt by the Malacan sultan to take his visitors by surprise and destroy their fleet) the Portuguese found themselves thrust into an entirely new theatre - but one that, luckily, they had not completely ruined their reputation in as of yet. There were also many other factors in this new theatre that were much more favorable to Portuguese insertion than were found in India. For one, while the sultans of Malaca, Brunei, and Aceh (called Achém by the Portuguese) were most certainly Muslims, and fervent ones too, the rest of the East Indies was at the moment either imperfectly Islamified or completely unconverted. The arrival of the Portuguese east of Malaca thus came at a critical moment when many of the great states of the East Indies were teetering on the brink of Islamic takeover or conversion. In some cases - such as those of the kingdoms of Bali and Sunda - some states in the East Indies had solidified their adherence to their non-Islamic religions (especially Hinduism) and actively opposed their Muslim neighbors. For such states, the sudden entry of the Portuguese was something of a deus ex machina, ultimately propping up states and preserving cultural and religious traditions in the region that would otherwise have been swept away.
However, the Portuguese capture of Malaca had, quite paradoxically, strengthened Islam in the immediate vicinity and even served to accelerate its spread. The sudden expulsion of thousands of Islamic merchants and teachers from the region’s chief entrepot caused waves of them to relocate to previously underdeveloped or un-proselytized areas of Malaya, Sumatra, and Borneo, as well as further afield in Java, the Moluccas, and Celebes. During the decades following the fall of Malaca, the Portuguese essentially had to play catch-up, pushing further east and north in order to prevent cohesive Islamic statelets from taking root. The sultanate of Gowa was one such state. While nominally favoring Islam, Gowa still tolerated a great number of other faiths and also syncretized Islam with the Hindu and animist traditions of Celebes. However, when the sultan of Gowa died and was replaced by a much more hardline son, and with the sultan of nearby Buton requesting imams and Muslim mercenaries, the Portuguese sprung into action and, one the orders of Malaca’s governor Francisco de Almeida, seized Gowa’s chief port and administrative center, Macáçar [1], in 1511 (while also deposing its new sultan in favor of his more subservient, religiously-tolerant brother).
The Portuguese had also learned their lesson from Vasco da Gama’s embarrassing first encounter with the Zamorin of Calicut, and secured in 1517 a loan from the Crown for 400 pounds of American silver - ferried carefully around the Cabo de Boa Esperança and inspected at Goa - to be carried aboard the ships of Francisco de Sá and Lopo Vaz de Sampaio for the sake of wooing the local potentates in the East Indies (as well as the Chinese Emperor, if he was found there). After the gunboat diplomacy of Albuquerque and his comrades, this change in policy could only improve the situation.
The East Indies had been more or less united during the 14th century under the hegemony of Majapahit, a Hindu state, but this unity underwent a precipitous decline in the latter half of the 15th century due to the spread of Islam and the establishment of the Sultanate of Malaca. By the time the Portuguese had captured Malaca, the only cohesive and firmly non-Islamic realms left were those girding the isle of Java, Bali in the east and Sunda in the west. The island of Java formed the most immediate frontline of this conflict. Muslim sultanates had been formed at Demak and Cirebon, leaving Sunda and Bali as the only non-Muslim powers in the neighborhood. Lourenço de Almeida - the son of Francisco and governor of the Portuguese East Indies in the absence of clear orders on a new appointment from Portugal - had established friendly relations with the king of Sunda, Sri Baduga, in 1512, but Almeida’s recall to India in that same year put a halt on their cooperation.
Fortunately, Malaca’s new governor, Duarte Pacheco Pereira, arrived in 1516, and was followed by the shipment of silver (and reinforcements) from Portugal two years later. Pereira brought with him the valuable experience of many years’ service in the Portuguese holdings in India and the Gold Coast of Africa, and he knew all the diplomatic intricacies and measured shows of force necessary to establish a position of predominance in a region riven by tribal and religious differences. Albeit intended by King Miguel for the Chinese emperor (with the long term intention of inducing the emperor to convert), Pereira redirected most of the silver bullion to assist Sri Baduga - both to alleviate the king of Sunda’s expenses and to pay for the construction of a Portuguese fort at Sunda Kelapa. This assistance was timely. By the end of the first half of the 16th century, the Portuguese had not only provided Sunda and Bali enough aid to survive, but to expand: Sunda was able to repulse the sultanate of Cirebon and retain firm control of Galuh and Lampung, while Bali maintained vassalages over Madura, Probolinggo, Taliwang, Blambangan, and Lombok. The Portuguese silver and blood spilled for these two polities were repaid with very lenient concessions for trade, the establishment of forts and embassies, and the free movement and proselytization of Christian missionaries.
However, the Portuguese strategy in the western half of the East Indies did not always follow the usual black-and-white religious gridlock, with Portuguese Malaca often allying with the sultanate of Aceh or declaring a ceasefire with the sultanate of Johor depending on which state they felt needed to be knocked down a few pegs. Ultimately, this approach kept Malaca firmly in Portuguese hands and continuously stymied Johor, but also drove numbers of capable Muslims to Sumatra and Borneo (where they continued to take up arms against the Portuguese) and gave Aceh the advantage it needed to become a serious regional threat - the destruction of which Spain would eventually offer other maritime powers a hefty reward for.
- Os Mouros do Oriente -
As Portuguese ships began to explore in every which direction, the vastness of the archipelago east of Malaca began to occur to the Portuguese, as well as the apparent primitiveness of the natives and their eagerness for Christianity. It was one Portuguese navigator and veteran of King Miguel’s wars in Morocco, named Fernão de Magalhães, who first drew a comparison between these lands and the virgin territory being explored and conquered by the Castilians in the Americas, prompting him to designate the islands east of Borneo and Java (encompassing, at the time, the “Spice Islands” of Celebes, Mindanão, the Moluccas and the Lesser Sunda Islands) as the “Ilhas Miguelinas,” after his liege. Such a comparison was not an invention of Magalhães, however, as the expansion of the Portuguese into the East Indies beyond Borneo and Java very quickly began to resemble the travails of the Castilian conquistadores.
As Índias Orientais, c. 1520
(Green = Muslim states, Blue = Hindu/Animist/non-Islamic states, Teal = Portuguese control/dominance, Orange = Buddhist/non-aligned Indochinese states, White = disputed or not organized)
(1 = Sultanate of Johor, 2 = Portuguese Malaca, 3 = Sultanate of Aceh, 4 = Kingdom of Sunda, 5 = Sultanate of Cirebon, 6 = Sultanate of Demak, 7 = Kingdom of Bali, 8 = Macáçar, 9 = Sultanate of Buton, 10 = Flores & Timor, 11 = Sultanates of Ternate and Tidore, 12 = Davão, 13 = Bruneian dependencies, 13a = Maynila/Seuldong, 14 = Sultanate of Brunei)
Magalhães and his cousin Francisco Serrão had been the first to lead substantial expeditions into the Spice Islands. During the years 1517 to 1520, Serrão married a Javanese woman and established a Portuguese presence on the islands of Ceram, Ambon, and of Banda, and had taken up residence on the isle of Ternate - where he was made the Sultan’s personal advisor - while Magalhães continued north, eventually charting the southern coast of “Maluku Besar” (which he named Mindanão after the locals) and setting up shop on the isle of Samal in the gulf of Davão. However, jealous courtiers in Ternate caused a falling out between the sultan and Serrão, who was poisoned on the sultan’s orders in 1521 - a deed which Magalhães then began to coordinate with Serrão’s brother João to avenge. The two were in luck, as the sultan of Johor (and former sultan of Malaca), Mahmud Shah had been captured by Lopo Vaz de Sampaio on the island of Belitung, and the ceasefire that followed allowed Portuguese sailors to percolate east of Malaca in greater numbers - with roughly 250 going to Sunda Kelapa, 400 going to Bali, Nusa Tengara, and Timor, and 200 going to the Moluccas (almost all of whom joined Magalhães’ expedition).
Portuguese ships wandering eastward were gradually scooped up by Magalhães with promises of removing the only obstacle to complete Portuguese dominance of the Spice Islands, and, by late 1522, a significant enough force had been accumulated at Ambon - now the center of Portuguese operations in the area - to assault Ternate. The sultanate of Ternate was rich and capable of defending itself, but crumbled quickly against the shock and awe tactics of the heavily armed Portuguese and their superfluous ordnance. The fall and sack of Ternate left the Portuguese as the virtually unopposed masters of the Moluccas, and initiated a rapid colonization of the archipelago and its surrounding islands: the Tidore and Buton sultanates fell in 1525 and 1536, respectively; north of the Moluccas, trade posts, forts, missions, and ports were established at Menado in 1530, Cebu in 1532, Dumaguete in 1536, Minajouro [2] in 1537, Gorontalo in 1542, and Palauan [3] in 1545; and by the turn of the half-century, there were merchant communities of Tamils and Christian Malays (known as “Kristangs,” from the Portuguese “cristãos”) imported by the Portuguese living as far away as Mindanão. News of wealth and easy conquest, as well as the attraction of Eastern exoticism, pulled at first hundreds, then thousands, of Portuguese into the East Indies over the course of the first half of the 16th century (many to avoid mandatory service in King Miguel’s African wars, in which the Portuguese had to pull an almost disproportionate amount of weight) - even more so than settled in the much closer colony of Brasil [4]. However, the victory in the Moluccas and consequent northward expansion left the Portuguese entangled in another, less terminable war.
The sultanate of Brunei had been one of the few Islamic states in the East Indies to prosper from the fall of Malaca - an event which brought it a wealth of refugee imams, merchants, and soldiers, all of whom were used to further Brunei’s growing maritime empire. In the early 16th century, Brunei was a realm in its prime, with a hegemonic system of vassals encompassing not only the the northern half of the isle of Bornéu [5], but also the a multitude of footholds on the isles of Luçon [6], Palauan, Sulu, and Minajouro. The Bruneian vassal state in Luçon, known as Maynila (also known as Seludong/Selurong), was the most important of these overseas possessions and had been founded in 1500 along the Pasig River. Nonetheless, just like the Aztecs so far away, the Bruneian empire would see its golden age snuffed out before any real solidification could be accomplished.
After he and Serrão were pardoned for the sack of Ternate by Pereira in 1524, Magalhães was awarded with a captaincy over the isle of Mindanão - something which he began to enforce vigorously. This brought him into open conflict with the recently Islamified natives that lived on the western coast of the island and in the basin of the island’s great river (later named the Rio Grande de Mindanão). When Magalhães sent Cristóvão de Távora to capture Cotabato, the primary port and center of power for the Islamic Mindanãoans (located at the mouth of the Rio Grande), he believed he was merely removing a regional nuisance. However, the capture of Cotabato (and the consequent scattering to the wind of most of Mindanão’s cohesive Islamic society) brought the nascent Portuguese presence in the upper Miguelinas into the crosshairs of the powerful Bruneian sultan Bolkiah, who was quick to denounce these transgressors who had wiped out his trading partners and persecuted his missionaries. Magalhães, quick of temper and hardened by his years in North Africa, refused to apologize or back down in any shape or form, and began conscripting native Mindanãoans to construct fortifications at Davão and Cotabato.
These fortifications would largely be unnecessary (for at least the first few years), as Magalhães could rely on Portuguese naval power. As was the case when the Portuguese burst into the Indian Ocean in their sturdy carracks profusely armed with their pulverizing, high quality bronze cannons, the navies of the states of the East Indies simply could not compete. While not necessarily the best for the transport of troops and supplies, the Portuguese carrack turned virtually every assault made against it into a debacle, with the weaker, smaller boats of their enemies almost always dispelled or simply blown out of the water. The Bruneians, so long the masters of the seas in their vicinity, now suddenly found themselves incapable of dislodging an uppity captain, his four ships, and his ragtag contingent of Portuguese sailors (who at the time numbered no more than 300) and their foreign complement of Moluccans, Javans, and Tamils. Magalhães’ aggression and naval acumen had left his position so secure, in fact, that he was able to personally found a settlement at Samboanga [7] in 1527 as a forward position against the Bruneians, and from there intimidate the sultan’s vassals in the Sulu archipelago into paying tribute.
While Magalhães could hold his own against the Bruneians, the weaknesses in his defense became more apparent with time: his sailors were growing exasperated with the constant maneuvering in these strange, uncharted seas, with the lack of the substantial riches they were promised, and with the constant harassment from the locals; many Mindanãoans found Magalhães an overbearing presence and conspired against him; and, to top it all off, the governor, Pereira, had revoked Magalhães’ pardon and requested his presence in Malaca, effectively cutting Magalhães off from any further resupply by his countrymen. Magalhães and his fellow Portuguese had become restricted to the interiors of Samboanga, Cotabato, Davão, and the sea lanes between the three cities by 1528, but two developments rescued his enterprise.
Firstly, and most importantly, was the arrival of João da Silveira and Sancho de Tovar. The two had spent a number of years in East Africa, India, and Java, but had been pushed onward by both some unsavory rumors and by their desire to carve out bona fide personal fiefdoms - something difficult, if not impossible, to do in regions in which the intricate political situation of the Portuguese had already been solidified. Upon hearing of what was essentially a gold rush for spices in the Moluccas after the fall of Ternate, Silveira and Tovar acquired two ships and 119 men to form an expedition in mid 1528. This small flotilla quickly became lost in the maze of islands, and possibly would have disappeared if not for a chance encounter with Cristóvão de Távora, who just happened to be heading a brief reconnoiter of the gulf of Davão. Magalhães offered these welcome arrivals a lion’s share of the treasure if they accompanied him in seizing the port of Brunei, but Silveira and Tovar had other plans; the two had already agreed on a strict contract between themselves and were also un-enthused by the idea of striking at the heart of a hostile Muslim empire. Silveira and Tovar continued sailing after deciding to investigate rumors they had heard from a number of seafaring Luções of a spacious, temperate harbor with a rich, bustling port frequented by the Chinese to the north. What they found - the port of Maynila (the region and harbor eventually Lusitanized to Mainila) - might not have been as bustling or as free from the conflict with Brunei as they had hoped, but the harbor was indeed good and there was also a large Chinese merchant community. While these Portuguese were at first received amiably by the rajah, Sulaiman I, this reception quickly went south once their origins were ascertained.
Having left without ample victuals, Silveira and Tovar’s only options were either death by scurvy, starvation, or worse in the harbor, or an assault on the town. After several hours of bombardment, this paltry force mustered together what they still had and disembarked on shore, blocking the town’s only southerly road. Fearful of their opponent’s numerical superiority, Silveira and two of his comrades were able to slip over the walls by night, setting fires (it being the dry season) and opening gates. Before the garrison had time to organize a response, the Portuguese had engaged them in street to street fighting, resulting in a massacre of the defendants and the death of Sulaiman I. The city, taken on January 21st of 1529 and promptly renamed São Lourenço de Celudão [8], went to Silveira, with Tovar moving south to survey the land before eventually taking the isle of Majas [9] as his own. Mainila would very quickly surpass Davão as the most frequented port in the northern Miguelinas, although Magalhães and his successors would retain a cut of the profits by their control of Samboanga and the Sulu archipelago. While Magalhães’ captaincy may have been run like a pirate kingdom with little regard for the wellbeing or evangelization of the natives, Silveira and Tovar perhaps went a step further, organizing their self-named captaincies of Mainila and Majas in a fashion resembling that of a Castilian encomienda in the Americas. This unauthorized conquest and virtual enslavement of populaces not properly assessed or deemed a threat by Portuguese authorities earned Silveira and Tovar summons for court-martial identical to those received by Magalhães. Later arrivals, such as Galeote Pereira (who would become the captain of Portuguese Tamão on the Pearl River Delta) or the Castilians Juan de Ayolas and Juan de Fustes, would be instrumental in consolidating these conquests - especially in terms of subduing the outer Visaías and exploring the interior of Mindanão.
The second development was the appointment of a new governor. The proliferation of Portuguese adventurers into the Miguelinas may have been a godsend to the spice-deprived markets of Europe, but to the immediate Portuguese authorities it was a significant headache. Pereira, during his governorate, had to scramble incessantly to assemble sufficient soldiery and funds in his defensive campaigns against the sultanates surrounding Malaca - especially against the endlessly hostile sultanate of Johor - as well as to protect the heavily endangered kingdoms of Sunda and Bali (all of which yielded better returns than anything that had come back from the Miguelinas). Consequently, he did not at all like the idea of able-bodied Portuguese - much needed manpower in such a manpower-starved theatre - fleeing the struggle with the Muslims and running off to the eastern isles for the easy sexual favors of pagan women and promises of personal aggrandizement based on mere hearsay. While Pereira and his predecessors focused Portuguese efforts on the Straits of Malaca and the Greater Sunda Islands (specifically Java), he had authorized António de Abreu’s expedition to strengthen the Portuguese presence on the isle of Timor as well as Fernão de Magalhães’ port at Davão.
The first to officially shift the focus of Portuguese colonization in the East Indies was a certain Mem de Sá, who had arrived in Sunda Kelapa in 1525 and given the captaincy of Java a year later. De Sá spent only half his captaincy in Java, however, with most of his more active work taking place at São André de Selão in Nusa Tengara and being oriented northeastward. When de Sá was elevated to the governorate in 1532 after Pereira was recalled to India, he gave Malaca and its environs the necessary attention, but primarily worked to consolidate the Portuguese presence in the Miguelinas, with official pardon being granted to João Serrão, Fernão de Magalhães, João da Silveira, and Sancho de Tovar. The recognition of the captaincies illegally acquired in the Miguelinas not only eased the flow of goods through the Portuguese East Indies and provided these remote holdings a much needed military lifeline against the powerful enemies they had accumulated (which would allow Magalhães to ravage the Sulu archipelago, Palauan, and the coast of Sabah from 1542 to 1546), but it also accelerated the colonial process: King Miguel, frustrated by the occurrence of poor governance and brutality in the East Indies while simultaneously working to reverse similar developments in the West Indies, ordered the Portuguese Cortes to fund the passage to Malaca and the subsistence of 30 Dominicans, Franciscans, and Hieronymites each by 1525.
Once a passage from the Americas was discovered in 1535 by Sebastián Caboto, Castilians began to percolate into Luçon and the Visaías - primarily to work for the Portuguese - and eventually brought with them Bernardino de Sahagún’s Gregorians, whose strategy of developing native clergy worked wonders for the evangelization (and assimilation) of the multitudes that now found themselves under Portuguese hegemony. The Luções, Visaíans, Mindanãoans, and Moluccans proved to be so receptive to Christianity, in fact, that the Miguelinas received their own episcopate in 1556 (with Bartolomé de Las Casas himself as auxiliary bishop). This sudden circumnavigational connection allowed the Crown a comprehensive grip on affairs in the East Indies that it had not had when first establishing its domain in India or the Americas. Likewise, while the Treaty of Tordesillas heavily restricted Castilian involvement in the Portuguese Orient, the need for soldiers, sailors, clerks, and the like whose Catholicism and loyalty to the interests of Spain could be trusted - in this case, Castilians and Aragonese - necessitated a rather liberal immigration policy from the Americas and Iberia. The Miguelinas thus became the first most fully realized microcosm of Spain’s developing global empire - with Castilians, Portuguese, Indians, Chinese, and mestizos of every stripe working in tandem to exploit the riches of the spice trade.
Uma família mestiça portuguesa
While a great number of Portuguese flooded into the East Indies in the 16th century, their numbers in the region were always insufficient. The East Indies, for all their wealth, were not ideal for the average Portuguese lifespan. Apart from the obviously deleterious effect of tropical weather and disease, the bombastic successes the Portuguese had at Malaca, Sunda Kelapa, Ternate, or Mainila were also matched with copious accounts of failure - such as whole companies of armed men disappearing in the interior of Bornéu or overweening conquistadors being slaughtered by their native hosts in the Visaías. What bridged the gap for the Portuguese were the locals. Apart from the natives of the Miguelinas being particularly responsive to Christianity, the Portuguese found their womenfolk none too hard to look at, and virtually every European in the isles took one as their bride. The overwhelming diversity of languages in the Miguelinas also played into the hands of their colonial masters, with Portuguese easily becoming the lingua franca and a Portuguese-Malay-Min Chinese pidgin language becoming dominant amongst the denizens of the isles’ ports and urban centers.
As Índias Orientais, c. 1550
(1 = Sumbawa/Sumbava, 2 = Menado & Gorontalo, 3 = Capitania de Mindanão, 3a = Davão, 3b = Cotabato, 3c = Samboanga, 4 = Capitanias de Mainila e Majas, 4a = Mainila/Celudão, 4b = Majas, 5 = Sabah)
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[1]
OTL Makassar
[2]
OTL Mindoro
[3]
OTL Palawan
[4]
ITTL, from 1500-1550, ~7,500 Portuguese migrated to India and the Orient, while only ~7,000 migrated to Brasil.
[5]
OTL Borneo
[6]
OTL Luzon
[7]
OTL Zamboanga
[8]
OTL's city of Manila
[9]
OTL Panay