First Portuguese Empire: A Visual History

Portugal's overseas expansion began with the capture of Ceuta in 1415 and, under Prince Henry the Navigator, worked down the African coast. Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape in 1488, Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, and Cabral claimed Brazil in 1500. Afonso de Albuquerque seized Goa (1510), Malacca (1511) and Hormuz (1515), building a maritime empire (Estado da India) that monopolised the spice trade to Europe for a century, reached China and Japan, and traded slaves from Africa. Union with Spain (1580-1640) and Dutch attacks stripped away much of Asia; the loss of Malacca (1641) and Ceylon (1658) ended the first empire's dominance.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is First Portuguese Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Portuguese share of Europe's pepper imports

The Cape route briefly monopolised the spice trade before Venetian-Levantine routes recovered and the Dutch took over.

Timeline of the First Portuguese Empire

1. 1415
   Ceuta captured
2. 1434
   Cape Bojador passed
3. 1488
   Dias rounds the Cape
4. 1494
   Treaty of Tordesillas
5. 1498
   Da Gama reaches India
6. 1500
   Cabral lands in Brazil
7. 1510
   Goa taken
8. 1543
   Portuguese reach Japan
9. 1580
   Iberian Union
10. 1641
    Malacca lost to the Dutch

Down the African coast

After Ceuta, Prince Henry sponsored voyages that passed Cape Bojador in 1434, reached Senegal and the Gambia and brought back gold and slaves; Sao Jorge da Mina (Elmina) was built on the Gold Coast in 1482. King John II pushed south: Diogo Cao reached the Congo, Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 gave Portugal everything east of a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, including, it turned out, Brazil.

The Estado da India

Da Gama's 1498 arrival at Calicut broke the Venetian-Mamluk spice monopoly. Francisco de Almeida destroyed a Mamluk-Gujarati fleet at Diu in 1509, and Albuquerque took Goa, Malacca and Hormuz to control the chokepoints. Portuguese ships reached Canton in 1513, Japan in 1543 and settled Macau in 1557; Jesuits led by Francis Xavier followed. Brazil, initially neglected, grew sugar with African slave labour from the 1530s.

Overstretch and the Dutch

A country of a million people could not garrison a global empire. King Sebastian died invading Morocco at Alcacer Quibir in 1578, and Philip II of Spain took the throne in 1580, making Portugal's possessions targets for Spain's Dutch and English enemies. The Dutch took the Spice Islands, Malacca (1641), Ceylon (1658) and the Malabar coast, and held Brazil's north-east for 24 years. Portugal regained independence in 1640 and, at peace with the Dutch in 1663, turned to an Atlantic empire built on Brazil.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Second Portuguese Empire (1663 to 1822)
• Third Portuguese Empire (1822 to 1999)
• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• Dutch Empire (1602 to 1975)
• Mamluk Sultanate (1250 to 1517)
• Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922)
• Mughal Empire (1526 to 1857)
• Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644)
• Songhai Empire (1464 to 1591)
• Kingdom of France (Middle Ages) (987 to 1498)

Wars of the same era and region

• Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (1532 to 1572)
• Spanish conquest of New Granada (1525 to 1540)
• Akbar's conquest of North India (1556 to 1605)
• Japanese invasions of Korea (Imjin War) (1592 to 1598)
• Bahmani-Vijayanagar wars (1362 to 1509)
• Burmese-Siamese wars (1547 to 1855)

8 surprising things about the First Portuguese Empire

1. Portuguese was the lingua franca of Asian ports for two centuries; Japanese words like pan (bread) and tempura are Portuguese.
2. The Portuguese introduced chillies to India and Thailand, maize and cassava to Africa, and firearms to Japan.
3. Vasco da Gama's first voyage lost two-thirds of its crew, mostly to scurvy.
4. The padrao stone pillars planted by Portuguese explorers still stand from Namibia to Malaysia.
5. The Treaty of Tordesillas' line runs through Brazil, which is why Brazil speaks Portuguese and the rest of South America Spanish.
6. Portugal held Ceuta from 1415 to 1668, then lost it to Spain; it remains Spanish today.
7. King Sebastian's body was never found after Alcacer Quibir, and 'Sebastianism', the belief he would return, lasted for centuries.
8. The Portuguese fort at Elmina in Ghana is the oldest European building in sub-Saharan Africa.

Sources

• Portuguese Empire Wikipedia
• Portugal: The Age of Discovery Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Portuguese Empire World History Encyclopedia
• Roger Crowley, Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire (2015) Faber

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