European Malacca (HIST 1301 History)

EXCHANGE in EAST ASIA and THE INDIAN OCEAN HIST 1301 | History European Malacca With orders from the Portuguese monarch to start commerce with Malacca, a Portuguese vessel landed in Malacca in 1509 and brought Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. This allowed Portugal to displace Venice as the hub of the European spice trade. "Whoever is Lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice," said Tomé Pires, the Portuguese king's apothecary, who journeyed to Southeast Asia in quest of spices. Mahmud Shah, the sultan in power at the time, and other members of his court were drawn to the prospect of dealing with the Portuguese and perhaps even using their warships to subjugate neighbouring countries, as several Indian kings had previously done. However, a large number of Muslims from India, particularly those from Gujarat, were against doing business with Europeans since they were aware of Portuguese attacks on Muslim traders in India. In 1510, Mahmud Shah first allowed the Portuguese to build a factory (a trading centre), but he later dispatched ships to attack them at the behest of Muslim traders from Java and India. Sequeira and his vessels were able to flee, but a number of Portuguese were captured. With a big ship and over a thousand armed soldiers, Portuguese military leader Alfonso de Albuquerque arrived from India in 1511 and sought the release of the Portuguese who had been taken prisoner the previous year. The sultan held off while trying to raise an army to drive out the Portuguese, but Albuquerque bombed the city after he waited a week. Albuquerque's requests for restitution and the permission to construct a castle were denied by the sultan, but the captives were swiftly freed. Then, with the assistance of Chinese, Hindu, and Burmese traders, Albuquerque sent his army into the city with the intention of using Portuguese power to subjugate their Muslim competitors. Mahmud Shah fled after the Portuguese took over Malacca in less than a month. A fortification was built by Albuquerque to secure the city's entrance, and Nina Chatu, a Hindu trader who had assisted in the release of the Portuguese captives, was appointed as the city's senior administrator. People received freshly struck coins and were told business would continue as usual. However, things did not exactly go as the Portuguese had hoped. The overthrown ruler built a new stronghold in Indonesia's Riau Islands and started assaults on the Portuguese in Malacca. Mahmud Shah's sons persisted in attacking the Portuguese from their kingdoms in Johor and Perak after his death in 1528. Many Muslim traders avoided the port of Portuguese Malacca, preferring to trade in the northern Sumatra regions of Johor or the Sultanate of Aceh. In 1606, the Dutch government negotiated a deal with the Johor ruler, hoping to get an advantage over its rivals in Europe. The sultan granted the Dutch sovereignty of the port in return for their assistance in overthrowing the Portuguese in Malacca and releasing Johor from Aceh's rule, provided that they agreed to refrain from attacking Johor or gaining more territory in the area. With the aid of the Dutch, Johor forces defeated Aceh's navy in 1629, killing around twenty thousand soldiers from Aceh. Following their victory over the Portuguese in 1641, the Dutch East India Company seized control of Malacca together with troops from Johor. Just capturing Malacca has not pleased the Portuguese. The fabled Spice Islands, the source of the sought nutmeg, mace, and cloves, were their bigger target. Afonso de Albuquerque sent three ships with Malay pilots to locate the Banda Islands in the Indonesian archipelago, thinking they were the Spice Islands, after learning of their location and the amount of nutmeg and cloves there. However, the Portuguese were discouraged from attempting to create a factory there by the Bandanese's enmity. One of the first three ships continued searching for the Moluccas (Malaku), another group of islands rich in spices. Here, the Portuguese were able to start trading contacts with the Moluccas city-state known as the Sultanate of Ternate. Sultan Hairun of Ternate was primarily interested in utilising Portuguese military might to subdue enemy nations. Meanwhile, the Portuguese had noticed with unease that Ternate was frequently visited by pilgrims from Mecca, the Ottoman Empire, and other Islamic sultanates in Southeast Asia. As Catholics who aspired to convert the inhabitants of the Indian Ocean to their faith and saw Muslims as foes, they were concerned that the spread of Islam in the area would jeopardise their safety as well as their efforts to further their missionary and economic goals. Portuguese attempts to convert individuals to Christianity eventually infuriated the local Muslims and increased their adherence to Islam. Following Hairun's demise, Sultan Babullah, his son and successor, launched a holy war against the Portuguese, forcing them to flee the Moluccas in 1575. A Portuguese veteran of Albuquerque's assault on Malacca, Ferdinand Magellan, too yearned to discover a path to the Spice Islands. Instead of taking the longer route eastward, which would have required circumnavigating Africa and the Indian Ocean, he intended to sail westward from Portugal in order to locate a westward path. After the Portuguese king refused to support the exploration journey, Magellan turned to the Spanish king, who gave him the money and ships he need. As was customary on ships at the period, the crew was multi-national. Magellan sailed from Spain in 1519, leading a crew of 277 people and a fleet of five ships. He sailed around the southern point of South America, where the fleet wintered, after crossing the Atlantic. After travelling across the Pacific for three months, they finally reached Guam on March 6, 1521, almost out of fresh water. Shortly after, they landed in the Philippines. The ruler of the island of Cebu, Rajah Humabon, greeted Magellan and the Spanish at the port of Sugbu. His ancestor, a monarch of the Chola dynasty from south India, had arrived in the Philippines from Sumatra. Like past Portuguese explorers, Magellan made an effort to win over the locals to Christianity. Humabon concurred, as did many of his followers and his wives. Humabon wanted to convert in order to get Magellan's help in overthrowing Lapulapu, a rival king. Magellan approved the proposal, and on April 27, 1521, at the Battle of Mactan, he was slain. For reasons that are unclear, Humabon assaulted Magellan's surviving soldiers. After making their way to the Moluccas, the survivors set sail for Spain. Spanish ships did not return to the Philippines until 1565, when they seized Cebu, and just eighteen men made it out of the expedition alive. Subsequently, in 1570, the Muslim commerce hub of Maynila was invaded by the Spanish after one of its kings declined to join them as an ally. After the Filipinos were routed, the Spanish founded Manila in 1571, making it their capital in the East Indies. The Dutch East India Company made an effort to build a fortification in the Banda Islands in 1609. However, the individuals who were dispatched to discuss the deal with the Bandanese ended up dead. When the Dutch returned in 1621, they made the locals sign a pact. Many of the most prominent leaders of the Bandanese people were slaughtered and their villages were set on fire by Dutch soldiers and Japanese mercenaries when they disobeyed the stipulations of the treaty. The islanders who survived were compelled to remove the important food source, sago palm trees, and replace them with spice trees. Dutch colonists received the islands' land in part, and they put Southeast Asians in slavery, European indentured servants, and convict labourers to work cultivating nutmeg, which they then sold to the Dutch East India Company. Ambon Island was an exception, set aside by the Dutch to cultivate cloves. Every other island had its clove trees removed, and anybody caught trying to cultivate or trade cloves without authorization risked execution. The Dutch had previously pushed off English immigrants trying to colonise several of the outer islands in order to retain a monopoly on the spices and, thus, keep prices high. The Dutch then killed all the nutmeg trees that grew on these islands after realising they might not be able to control them. Additionally, in order to construct Batavia (Jakarta), the Dutch transported Bandanese slaves to Java in 1619. But the Dutch attempt to hold onto their monopoly on spices was doomed to fail. Seeds are dispersed to neighbouring islands by winds and seagulls. Captains of ships from other nations were able to return to Europe with cargoes full of spices that they had bought from Southeast Asian kingdoms that were outside the jurisdiction of European powers. For instance, Sultan Babullah of Ternate sold cloves to the English commander Sir Francis Drake. The number of spices delivered to European ports rose as ships got bigger, which decreased prices and profits. But the Dutch were not just dependent on the spice trade; because of their dedication to the spread of Roman Catholicism, they were able to seize a chance that the Portuguese and Spanish were not. Trade with Japan was that opportunity.