page_title: Portuguese discoveries
section_title: Southeast Asia expeditions
hierarchical_section_title: Portuguese discoveries / Indian Ocean explorations (1497–1542) / Southeast Asia expeditions
caption_attribution_description: English: Portuguese ruler and soldiers mounting an Elephant. Philips, Jan Caspar (draughtsman and engraver)
context_page_description: Portuguese discoveries are the numerous territories and maritime routes discovered by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European overseas exploration, discovering and mapping the coasts of Africa, Canada, Asia, and Brazil, in what became known as the Age of Discovery. Methodical expeditions started in 1419 along West Africa's coast under the sponsorship of prince Henry the Navigator, with Bartolomeu Dias reaching the Cape of Good Hope and entering the Indian Ocean in 1488. Ten years later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India, arriving in Calicut and starting a maritime route from Portugal to India. Portuguese explorations then proceeded to southeast Asia, where they reached Japan in 1542, forty-four years after their first arrival in India. In 1500, the Portuguese nobleman Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to discover Brazil.
context_section_description: In April 1511 Albuquerque sailed to Malacca in modern-day Malaysia, the most important eastern point in the trade network, where Malay met Gujarati, Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Bengali, Persian and Arabic traders, described by Tomé Pires as invaluable. The port of Malacca became then the strategic base for Portuguese trade expansion with China and Southeast Asia, under the Portuguese rule in India with its capital at Goa. To defend the city a strong fort was erected, called the "A Famosa", where one of its gates still remains today. Knowing of Siamese ambitions over Malacca, Albuquerque sent immediately Duarte Fernandes on a diplomatic mission to the kingdom of Siam (modern Thailand), where he was the first European to arrive, establishing amicable relations between both kingdoms. In November that year, getting to know the location of the so-called "Spice Islands" in the Moluccas, he sent an expedition led by António de Abreu to find them, arriving in early 1512. Abreu went by Ambon while deputy commander Francisco Serrão came forward to Ternate, were a Portuguese fort was allowed. That same year, in Indonesia, the Portuguese took Makassar, reaching Timor in 1514. Departing from Malacca, Jorge Álvares came to southern China in 1513. This visit followed the arrival in Guangzhou, where trade was established. Later a trading post at Macau would be established.
  The Portuguese empire expanded into the Persian Gulf as Portugal contested control of the spice trade with the Ottoman Empire. In 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered the Huwala state of Hormuz at the head of the Persian Gulf, establishing it as a vassal state. Aden, however, resisted Albuquerque's expedition in that same year, and another attempt by Albuquerque's successor Lopo Soares de Albergaria in 1516, before capturing Bahrain in 1521, when a force led by António Correia defeated the Jabrid King, Muqrin ibn Zamil. In a shifting series of alliances, the Portuguese dominated much of the southern Persian Gulf for the next hundred years. With the regular maritime route linking Lisbon to Goa since 1497, the island of Mozambique became a strategic port, and there was built Fort São Sebastião and a hospital. In the Azores, the Islands Armada protected the ships en route to Lisbon.
  In 1525, after Fernão de Magalhães's expedition (1519–1522), Spain under Charles V sent an expedition to colonize the Moluccas islands, claiming that they were in his zone of the Treaty of Tordesillas, since there was not a set limit to the east. García Jofre de Loaísa expedition reached the Moluccas, docking at Tidore. The conflict with the Portuguese already established in nearby Ternate was inevitable, starting nearly a decade of skirmishes. An agreement was reached only with the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529), attributing the Moluccas to Portugal and the Philippines to Spain.
  In 1530, John III organized the colonization of Brazil around 15 capitanias hereditárias ("hereditary captainships"), that were given to anyone who wanted to administer and explore them, to overcome the need to defend the territory, since an expedition under the command of Gonçalo Coelho in 1503, found the French making incursions on the land. That same year, there was a new expedition from Martim Afonso de Sousa with orders to patrol the whole Brazilian coast, banish the French, and create the first colonial towns: São Vicente on the coast, and São Paulo on the border of the altiplane. From the 15 original captainships, only two, Pernambuco and São Vicente, prospered. With permanent settlement came the establishment of the sugar cane industry and its intensive labor demands which were met with Native American and later African slaves.
  In 1534 Gujarat was occupied by the Mughals and the Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat was forced to sign the Treaty of Bassein (1534) with the Portuguese, establishing an alliance to regain the country, giving in exchange Daman, Diu, Mumbai and Bassein. In 1538 the fortress of Diu is again surrounded by Ottoman ships. Another siege failed in 1547 putting an end to the Ottoman ambitions, conf
caption: Portuguese ruler of Pegu riding an Elephant.
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