Francisco de Almeida
Viceroy of Portuguese India | |
---|---|
In office 12 September 1505 – 4 November 1509 | |
Monarch | Manuel I of Portugal |
Preceded by | Tristão da Cunha (designate; never took office) |
Succeeded by | Afonso de Albuquerque |
Personal details | |
Born | Francisco de Almeida ca. 1450 viceroy of Portuguese India |
Known for | Establishment of Portuguese naval hegemony in the Indian Ocean. |
Dom Francisco de Almeida (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɾɐ̃ˈsiʃku ðɨ alˈmɐjðɐ]), also known as the Great Dom Francisco (c. 1450 – 1 March 1510), was a Portuguese nobleman, soldier and explorer. He distinguished himself as a counsellor to King John II of Portugal and later in the wars against the Moors and in the conquest of Granada in 1492. In 1505 he was appointed as the first governor and viceroy of the Portuguese State of India (Estado da Índia). Almeida is credited with establishing Portuguese hegemony in the Indian Ocean with his victory at the naval Battle of Diu in 1509. Before Almeida returned to Portugal he lost his life in a conflict with indigenous people at the Cape of Good Hope in 1510. His only son Lourenço de Almeida had previously been killed in the Battle of Chaul.
Exploits as soldier
Almeida was born at Lisbon. As was customary for men in his social circle, he joined the military at an early age. In 1476 he took part in the Battle of Toro. Then he fought in conflicts in different parts of Morocco and in 1492 participated in the Christian conquest of Granada on the side of the Castilians.[citation needed]
Mission to the east
In 1505 King Manuel I of Portugal made Almeida, then in his mid-fifties, the first viceroy of Portuguese India (Estado da Índia).[1] With an armada of 22 ships, including 14 carracks and 6 caravels, Almeida departed from Lisbon on 25 March 1505. The armada carried a crew of 1,500 soldiers. The flagship was the carrack São Rafael captained by Fernão Soares. The mission's primary aims were to bring the spice trade under Portuguese control, build forts along the east African and Indian coasts, further Portuguese spice trade through alliances with local chieftains, and construct trading posts.
African conquest
Almeida rounded the
In 1505, Francisco d'Almeida arrived with eleven heavily armed ships that destroyed
Viceroy in India
On 25 March 1505, Francisco de Almeida was appointed as Viceroy of India, on the condition that he would set up four forts on the southwestern Indian coast: at
On 13 September, Francisco de Almeida reached Anjediva Island, where he immediately started the construction of
Francisco de Almeida then reached
The
In 1507 Almeida's mission was strengthened by the arrival of Tristão da Cunha's squadron. Afonso de Albuquerque's squadron had, however, split from that of Cunha off east Africa and was independently conquering territories to the west.[citation needed]
In March 1508, at the request of the Arab merchants of Calicut, an Egyptian fleet under the command of
Afonso de Albuquerque arrived at Cannanore at the close of 1508 and immediately made known a hitherto secret commission he had received from the King empowering him as governor to replace Almeida at the end of his term as viceroy. Almeida, determined to avenge the death of his son and free the Portuguese prisoners taken at Chaul, refused to recognize Albuquerque's credentials immediately, and later arrested him.[citation needed]
In 1509, Almeida became the first Portuguese to arrive by ship in
His victory was decisive: the Ottomans and Egyptians left the Indian Ocean, enabling a Portuguese trade monopoly over Indian waters for over 100 years, into the 17th century when it was ended by the Dutch and English. Albuquerque was released after three months' confinement, on the arrival of the grand-marshal of Portugal with a large fleet, in November 1509.[5]
Return and death
Almeida sailed for Portugal in December 1509 and reached Table Bay near the Cape of Good Hope, where the Garcia, Belém and Santa Cruz dropped anchor in late February 1510 to replenish water. There they encountered the local indigenous people, the ǃUriǁ'aikua (recorded as "Goringhaiqua", a Khoe-speaking clan).[6] After friendly trade with the ǃUriǁ'aikua, some of the crew visited their nearby village, situated in modern-day Observatory where they tried to steal some of the locals' cattle. Almeida allowed his captains Pedro and Jorge Barreto to return to the village on the morning of 1 March 1510.[7] The village's cattle herd was raided with the loss of one man, while Almeida awaited his men some distance from the beach. As the flagship's master Diogo d'Unhos had moved the landing boats to a watering point, the Portuguese were left without a means of retreat. The ǃUriǁ'aikua sensed the opportunity for an attack, during which Almeida and 64 of his men perished, including 11 of his captains.[8][9] Almeida's body was recovered the same afternoon and buried on the shore front of the current Cape Town.[10] An archivist, Nicolaas Vergunst, suggested in a 2011 book that De Almeida was the victim of a plot by his own men, who intentionally cut off his retreat after the planned provocation of the ǃUriǁ'aikua[11]
Relatives and subjects
Almeida was the son of the 1st
See also
- Lourenço de Almeida, his son
- 7th Portuguese India Armada (Almeida, 1505)
- Chronology of European exploration of Asia
- Gujarati-Portuguese conflicts
- First Luso-Malabarese War
References
- ^ Marjay, Frederic Pedro; Habsburg, Otto von (1965). Portugal, Pioneer of New Horizons: Documentary Proof of Portuguese Priority in Discovering the Secrets of the Globe. Lisboa: Livraria Bertrand. p. 34.
- ^ ISBN 81-206-0446-6.
- ^ Sreedhara, A. Menon (1967). A Survey of Kerala History. D.C. Books Kottayam. p. 152.
- ISBN 0-8133-2053-4.
- OCLC 958470506.
- ^ Khoisan, Zenzile (27 February 2016). "Invaders Received a Lesson in Warfare". IOL. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-7486-4308-0.
- ^ "An Attempt to Falsify African History". The Herald. 29 February 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
- ^ City of Cape Town (June 2014). Stories of the South Peninsula: Historical Research, Stories and Heritage Tourism Opportunities in the South Peninsula (PDF).
- ^ Vergunst, Nicolaas (25 March 2012). "Knot of Stone: The Day that Changed South Africa's History". Knot of Stone. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
- ^ Vergunst, Nicolaas (29 April 2012). "5. First Encounters, Lasting Legacies—Part Two". Knot of Stone. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
- ISBN 972-97430-7-X.
- ^ Soveral, Manuel Abranches de. "Mello e Souza". Manuel Abranches de Soveral - História e genealogia (in Portuguese). p. III. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
- Fernão Lopes de Castanheda's account of Almeida's mission
External links
- Francisco de Almeida in the German National Library catalogue
- Blue Water Policy
- The Story of Almeida, by Ian D. Colvin, The Baldwin Project
- Paul Lunde, The coming of the Portuguese, 2006, Saudi Aramco World
- Knot of Stone: the day that changed South Africa's History, 2011, by Nicolaas Vergunst, Arena Books, UK