Portuguese capture of Malacca
- Date
- August 1511
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Malacca (Malay Peninsula); Southeast Asia
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
In August 1511 the Portuguese governor of India, Afonso de Albuquerque, stormed and captured the Sultanate of Malacca, the principal entrepôt commanding the strait through which trade between China, the Indian Ocean and the Spice Islands flowed.
Arriving with roughly seventeen ships and twelve hundred men, Albuquerque seized the city after fierce fighting and built the fortress of A Famosa to hold it. Malacca's fall gave Portugal a strategic chokepoint in maritime Asia and a base from which to reach the Banda Islands and the Moluccas, the world's sole source of cloves, nutmeg and mace. The conquest was part of a deliberate royal strategy to break the Muslim spice monopoly by seizing key ports such as Hormuz and Goa. It extended European naval power deep into Southeast Asia for the first time, reoriented Asian trade networks, and provoked enduring conflict with Muslim sultanates and, later, other European powers.
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Empires active in August 1511
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Songhai Empire1464 CE – 1591 CE
- Inca Empire1438 CE – 1533 CE
- Aztec Empire1428 CE – 1521 CE
- Malacca Sultanate1400 CE – 1511 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War23 May 1618
- Battle of Chaldiran23 August 1514
- Fall of Tenochtitlan and conquest of the Aztec Empire13 August 1521
- Fall of Beijing and the Ming–Qing transition1644
- Battle of Mohács and the Ottoman conquest of Hungary29 August 1526
- First Battle of Panipat and the founding of the Mughal Empire21 April 1526
Further reading
The wider story
A History of Malaysia
The standard accessible history, strong on the Malacca sultanate.
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