Colonization of Asia, Portuguese

A third external force comes into play with the arrival of the Portuguese in the archipelago.

They reach the rich and expanding Melaka, on the Malay Peninsula, in 1509 and seek trading rights there.

Some in Melaka's cosmopolitan trading community want to accept them (perhaps as a counterweight against Sultan Mahmud's controversial imperial policies), but others do not, heightening existing political tensions.

When the Portuguese return 1511 commanded by the more demanding Alfonso de Albuquerque, they defeat Melaka militarily, soon establishing themselves in the trading ports of Banten (western Java) and Ternate (Maluku), and contacting the much reduced Majapahit kingdom at Kediri in eastern Java.

These events do not, as is sometimes suggested, mark the beginning of Western colonial rule, or even European primacy, in Indonesia; that lies far in the future.

Rather, the "Western intrusion" is at this stage merely one dynamic bound up, in often unpredictable ways, with many others.

Thus, the final days of Majapahit, weakened by internal division, are determined by Trenggana, the half-Chinese Muslim ruler of its former vassal port Demak, who in 1527 conquers Kediri for reasons that had as much to do with economic and political rivalry (with Banten, the Portuguese, and Majapahit's remnants) as they do with religious struggle (with both Christianity and Hindu-Buddhist ideology).

India in the sixteenth century presents a fragmented picture of rulers, both Muslim and Hindu, who lack concern for their subjects and who fail to create a common body of laws or institutions.

Outside developments also play a role in shaping events.

The circumnavigation of Africa by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498 allows Europeans to challenge Arab control of the trading routes between Europe and Asia.

In Central Asia and Afghanistan, shifts in power push Babur of Ferghana (in present-day Uzbekistan) southward, first to Kabul and then to India.

The dynasty he founds will endure for more than three centuries.

Residents of Persia and India begin in the fifteenth century to consume opium mixtures as a purely recreational euphoric, a practice that makes opium a major item in an expanding intra-Asian trade.

Portuguese captains venturing across the Indian Ocean during the early sixteenth century soon grasp the economic potential of the opium trade.

The Portuguese begin exporting Malwa opium to China from their ports in western India, competing aggressively with Indian and Arab merchants who control this trade.

Afonso de Albuquerque, the conqueror of Malacca, writes to his sovereign from India in 1513, “If your Highness would believe me, I would order poppies...to be sown in all the fields of Portugal and command afyam [opium] to be made...and the laborers would gain much also, and people of India are lost without it, if they do not eat it.”

The early history of Aceh remains uncertain, but one tradition traces its origins to the Cham people.

The Acehnese language belongs to the Aceh-Chamic language group, which consists of ten related languages.

According to the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), the Champa king Syah Pau Kubah had a son, Syah Pau Ling, who fled when the Vietnamese Lê dynasty sacked the Cham capital, Vijaya, in 1471. He is said to have later founded the Aceh kingdom.

By the mid-fifteenth century, the ruler of Aceh converts to Islam, marking a pivotal shift in the region’s history.

The Sultanate of Aceh is formally established in 1511 by Ali Mughayat Syah, who launches campaigns to extend his control over northern Sumatra beginning in 1520.

His conquests include Deli, Pedir, and Pasai, and he wages war against Aru, solidifying Aceh’s growing influence.

The quest for wealth and power brings Europeans to Indian shores in 1498 when Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese voyager, arrives in Calicut (modern Kozhikode, Kerala) on the west coast.

In their search for spices and Christian converts, the Portuguese challenge Arab supremacy in the Indian Ocean, and, with their galleons fitted with powerful cannons, set up a network of strategic trading posts along the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

In 1510 the Portuguese take over the enclave of Goa, which becomes the center of their commercial and political power in India and which they will control for nearly four and a half centuries.

There are three native centers of political power at the onset of the European period in Sri Lanka in the sixteenth century: the two Sinhalese kingdoms of Kotte and Kandy and the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna.

Kotte is the principal seat of Sinhalese power, and it claims a largely imaginary overlordship not only over Kandy but also over the entire island.

None of the three kingdoms, however, has the strength to assert itself over the other two and reunify the island.

Portugal, which had already established its dominance as a maritime power in the Atlantic, is exploring new waters by the late fifteenth century.

In 1497 Vasco da Gama sails around the Cape of Good Hope and discovers an ocean route connecting Europe with India, thus inaugurating a new era of maritime supremacy for Portugal.

The Portuguese are consumed by two objectives in their empire-building efforts: to convert followers of non-Christian religions to Roman Catholicism and to capture the major share of the spice trade for the European market.

To carry out their goals, the Portuguese do not seek territorial conquest, which would be difficult given their small numbers.

Instead, they try to dominate strategic points through which trade passes.

By virtue of their supremacy on the seas, their knowledge of firearms, and by what has been called their "desperate soldiering" on land, the Portuguese gain an influence in South Asia that is far out of proportion to their numerical strength.

Muslim trading communities in South Asia, following the decline of the Chola as a maritime power in the twelfth century, had claimed a major share of commerce in the Indian Ocean and developed extensive east-west, as well as Indo-Sri Lankan, commercial trade routes.

As the Portuguese expand into the region, this flourishing Muslim trade becomes an irresistible target for European interlopers.

The sixteenth-century Roman Catholic Church is intolerant of Islam and encourages the Portuguese to take over the profitable shipping trade monopolized by the Moors.

In addition, the Portuguese will later have another strong motive for hostility toward the Moors because the latter play an important role in the Kandyan economy, one that enables the kingdom successfully to resist the Portuguese.

The Portuguese soon decide that the island, which they call Cilao, conveys a strategic advantage that is necessary for protecting their coastal establishments in India and increasing Lisbon's potential for dominating Indian Ocean trade.

These incentives prove irresistible, and, the Portuguese, with only a limited number of personnel, seek to extend their power over the island.

They have not long to wait.

Palace intrigue, then revolution in Kotte threatens the survival of the kingdom.

The Portuguese skillfully exploit these developments.

In 1521 Bhuvanekabahu, the ruler of Kotte, requests Portuguese aid against his brother, Mayadunne, the more able rival king who has established his independence from the Portuguese at Sitawake, a domain in the Kotte kingdom.

Powerless on his own, King Bhuvanekabahu becomes a puppet of the Portuguese, but shortly before his death in 1551, the king will successfully obtain Portuguese recognition of his grandson, Dharmapala, as his successor.

Don Lourenço de Almeida, son of the Portuguese viceroy in India, is sailing off the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka in 1505 looking for Moorish ships to attack when stormy weather forces his fleet to dock at Galle.

Word of these strangers who "eat hunks of white stone and drink blood (presumably wine)...and have guns with a noise louder than thunder ..." spreads quickly and reach King Parakramabahu VIII of Kotte (1484-1508), who offers gifts of cinnamon and elephants to the Portuguese to take back to their home port at Cochin on the Malabar Coast of southwestern India.

The king also gives the Portuguese permission to build a residence in Colombo for trade purposes.

Within a short time, however, Portuguese militaristic and monopolistic intentions become apparent.

Their heavily fortified "trading post" at Colombo and open hostility toward the island's Muslim traders arouses Sinhalese suspicions.