Malacca Sultanate
The Portuguese Take Malacca
Europe seizes the spice-gate of the East, 1511 CE
917 AH / 1511 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Malacca (Melaka), on the strait, in the Malay peninsula
2.1896, 102.2501 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
In 1511 the city of Malacca, the greatest Muslim trading entrepot of Southeast Asia and the hub of the spice trade, fell to the Portuguese under their commander Afonso de Albuquerque, an ominous turning-point in the history of the Muslim East. The Portuguese, having rounded the southern cape of Africa and forced their way into the Indian Ocean barely a dozen years earlier, had come with a clear and ruthless purpose: to seize by arms the chokepoints of the rich eastern trade, the trade in pepper and cloves and nutmeg that the Muslim merchants of the Indian Ocean had long carried, and to turn its wealth to themselves while breaking the Muslim mastery of these seas. Albuquerque brought a fleet up the strait, demanded the city's submission and the surrender of the Portuguese who had earlier been seized there, and when the Sultan Mahmud Shah refused, he stormed the port. The Malay defence is remembered in the Sejarah Melayu, the Malay Annals, the court chronicle of the sultanate: the sultan's men fought at the great bridge that joined the two halves of the town, and the chronicle recalls the war-elephants and the bravery of the defenders. But the arms of the East were overmatched by the heavy artillery the carracks carried at the waterline and by the armoured assault from the river, and after bitter fighting the bridge and the waterfront were lost. The city was taken and put to the sack, its mosque and quarters burned, and Sultan Mahmud Shah withdrew up-country and then southward to carry on a long resistance and to found the successor sultanate of Johor. Upon the conquered city the Portuguese raised a strong fortress, A Famosa, to command the strait; the Portuguese conqueror's own record survives in the Commentaries attributed to Albuquerque, and the trade of the captured port is described by Tome Pires, who reached Malacca soon after, both used here only as a cross-reference to the Muslim account. The fall of Malacca was far more than the loss of a single city: it was the first great conquest of the European powers in the heart of the Muslim trading world of the Indies, the opening of an age of intrusion, monopoly and aggression by the Portuguese and the Europeans who followed, which would bring lasting harm and disruption upon the Muslim peoples of the Indian Ocean and the archipelago. This scene depicts the Portuguese assault on Malacca, the carracks firing from the roadstead and the port aflame behind the gate, seen from its spice-laden bridge; in keeping with the project's ethics any figure is anonymous and at a distance, and the violence is not graphically shown.
What you see
A great Muslim harbour-city sits at a river mouth on a tropical strait, the richest entrepot of the eastern seas. The viewer stands on the broad timber bridge that spans the river and joins the two halves of the town, the spice-gate through which the trade of the whole East has long flowed.
Out in the roadstead lie tall, high-sided ships from far away, square-rigged carracks the like of which these waters have never carried, and one billowing sail is marked with a red cross. Pale gun-smoke drifts at the waterline where their cannon fire on the town.
Along the bridge stand baskets and woven jars and corded sacks heaped with the wealth of the port, the pepper of Sumatra and the cloves, nutmeg and mace of the eastern islands, the cargo over which the whole assault is being fought.
On the bank rises a timber and palm-thatch town with a low stockade wall and a watch-tower over the river gate, an indigenous Malay port rather than a European one. There is no European fort here yet; A Famosa would be raised only after the city had fallen.
Black smoke climbs from the town behind the gate where the assault has set it ablaze. The defenders cannot hold the bridge and the waterfront against the heavy ship-borne cannon, and the port is being stormed and put to the sack.
These strangers have come the long way, round the southern cape of Africa and across the Indian Ocean, to fall upon the throat of the spice route by sea. Whoever holds this strait holds the trade between the Indies and the West.
This is the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese in 1511, the seizure under Afonso de Albuquerque of the greatest Muslim trading city of Southeast Asia, the first great conquest of a European intrusion that would bring long harm upon the Muslim lands and peoples of the eastern seas.
The conquest is recorded from the Muslim side in the Sejarah Melayu, the Malay Annals, and cross-checked against the Portuguese accounts. The scene shows the assault and the burning port; no person is shown by likeness, and the violence is not graphically depicted.
Further reading & cross-references
Sejarah Melayu (the Malay Annals / Sulalat al-Salatin), the Malacca court chronicle: The primary Muslim source for the defence: the fight at the bridge, the war-elephants, Sultan Mahmud Shah and the withdrawal that founded Johor. A court chronicle mixing recorded history with tradition; the conquest itself is firmly attested. Confidence high for the event, medium for the detail.
The Commentaries of the Great Afonso de Albuquerque (Portuguese; cross-reference): The conqueror's own record of the assault, the cannon, the storming of the bridge, the sack and the founding of A Famosa. The victors' account, used only to cross-check the Muslim source, not to frame the tone.
Tome Pires, Suma Oriental (c. 1512-1515; Portuguese; cross-reference): The Portuguese factor who reached Malacca just after the conquest and described the port, its spice and cloth trade and its many nations. Cross-reference for the entrepot and the goods on the bridge; not a religious frame.
Histories of the Portuguese in Asia and of the Indian Ocean spice trade: Modern syntheses for the Portuguese strategy of seizing the trade chokepoints by sea round Africa, and the long harm of European intrusion and monopoly on the Muslim trading world. Confidence high.
Malacca, the river-mouth port and the fortress A Famosa (material / geographic context): The strait, the river-divided city and the indigenous timber-and-thatch port form constrain the depiction; A Famosa post-dates the conquest and rightly does not appear. Little of the pre-conquest town survives. Confidence medium.
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