Albuquerque takes Malacca
A Portuguese force under Afonso de Albuquerque stormed and held Malacca, the entrepôt commanding the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and the point through which Moluccan cloves, nutmeg and mace passed on their way west. The capture gave Portugal a position on the spice trade at its narrowest choke point and opened the way east to the Moluccas themselves; it also dispersed the merchant communities the port had concentrated, and much of the trade rerouted to rival harbours rather than submitting.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Malacca (Melaka) · city · Malaysia
- The Moluccas (Maluku Islands) · region · Indonesia
- The Cape route (Carreira da Índia) · trade route · Atlantic and Indian Oceans — Lisbon to Malabar via the Cape of Good Hope · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825
The standard single-volume account of Portuguese expansion: Ceuta, the African coast, the Cape route, the carreira da Índia, the Estado da Índia and the institutions that ran them. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted in this session. Boxer is a mid-twentieth-century imperial history and its framing has been substantially revised by later work, particularly on Asian agency and on the limits of Portuguese control; this pack uses it for structure, not for interpretation.
Hutchinson · 1969 · Partly verified
Charles R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825 (London: Hutchinson, 1969)
Recorded on Malacca (Melaka)
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- The Treaty of Zaragoza settles the Moluccas by sale · 1529-04-22
- The Victoria completes the first circumnavigation · 1522-09-06
- The Magellan expedition sails from Sanlúcar · 1519-09-20
- Cabral sights the coast of Brazil · 1500-04-22
- Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut · 1498-05-20
- Dias rounds the southern tip of Africa · 1488