Portuguese Empire

Legacy

Portuguese is spoken by some 250 million people on four continents, and the empire's Atlantic slave trade reshaped the populations of Brazil and Africa.

Timeline of Portuguese Empire

1. 1415
   Portugal conquers Ceuta in North Africa

   In the early 15th century Portugal was a small kingdom whose rulers wanted gold, trade and crusading glory against the Muslim states of North Africa. Ceuta, a rich Marinid port facing Gibraltar across the strait, was a key end point of Saharan trade routes. On 21 August 1415 a fleet under King John I and his sons, including Prince Henry (later called the Navigator), landed and took the city in a carefully prepared attack. Ceuta became Portugal's first overseas possession and a base for further raids. Its conquest is often taken as the start of the Portuguese Empire and of European overseas expansion.

2. 1488
   Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope

   Through the 15th century Portuguese captains sailed further down the coast of West Africa, seeking gold, slaves and a sea route around Africa to the spices of Asia. In 1487 King John II sent Bartolomeu Dias south with three ships. Storms carried him beyond the southern tip of Africa, and in February 1488 he reached Mossel Bay and sailed on to Kwaaihoek, near the Boesmans River, before his restless crew persuaded him to turn back. On the way home, in May 1488, he sighted the Cape of Good Hope. Dias had proved that the Atlantic and Indian oceans were connected, opening the sea route to India.

3. 1498
   Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut by sea

   King Manuel I sent Vasco da Gama with four ships to follow up Dias's discovery. Da Gama left Lisbon in July 1497, rounded the Cape, called at Mozambique, Mombasa and Malindi on the East African coast, and with the help of a local pilot crossed the Indian Ocean to reach Calicut, on India's Malabar Coast, in May 1498. Relations with the ruler, the Zamorin, were tense, but da Gama returned in 1499 with a cargo of spices that made the voyage highly profitable. It was the first direct sea voyage from Europe to India, and it made Portugal the first European power in the Indian Ocean trade.

4. 1500
   Cabral reaches the coast of Brazil

   In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral led a second, much larger fleet of 13 ships to India. Sailing far out into the Atlantic to catch favourable winds, he made landfall in April 1500. The land lay in Portugal's half of the world under the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), so he claimed it, naming it the Island of the True Cross, before continuing to India. Whether the landfall was an accident or planned is still debated. Brazil grew into Portugal's largest and richest colony, first for brazilwood and sugar, later for gold, and gave the empire its huge territory in South America.

5. 1510
   Afonso de Albuquerque conquers Goa

   To control the spice trade the Portuguese needed fortified bases in Asia, not just trading posts. Afonso de Albuquerque, governor of Portuguese India, took Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur in early 1510, lost it within months, and retook it with a larger force on 25 November 1510. Goa, an island port on India's west coast, became the capital of the Estado da Índia, Portugal's network of forts and trading towns from East Africa to East Asia. It stayed Portuguese for more than 450 years, until India annexed it in 1961.

6. 1511
   Malacca captured

   Malacca, on the strait between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, was the greatest trading port of Southeast Asia, where spices from the Moluccas and goods from China and India changed hands. After a Portuguese trading mission was attacked there, Albuquerque sailed from Goa with about 1,000 soldiers and some Indian allies. After weeks of fighting, the city fell in August 1511 and the sultan fled. The Portuguese built the fortress of A Famosa and controlled the strait for 130 years. Malacca gave Portugal a base for reaching the Spice Islands, China and Japan.

7. 1580
   Philip II of Spain becomes king: the Iberian Union (to 1640)

   King Sebastian of Portugal was killed in Morocco at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578, leaving no heir, and his elderly great-uncle, Cardinal Henry, died in 1580. Philip II of Spain, a grandson of King Manuel I, pressed his claim with an army that defeated his rival, António, Prior of Crato, and in 1581 the Cortes of Tomar accepted him as Philip I of Portugal. Portugal kept its own laws and administration, but shared a king with Spain for 60 years. During the Iberian Union, Spain's enemies, above all the Dutch, attacked Portuguese trading posts and colonies around the world.

8. 1641
   Malacca falls to the Dutch

   After throwing off Spanish rule in 1640, Portugal was still at war with the Dutch, whose East India Company had been seizing its Asian trade. The Dutch, allied with the Sultanate of Johor, besieged Malacca from August 1640. After more than five months of blockade, starvation and disease, the Portuguese garrison surrendered on 14 January 1641. Malacca became a Dutch possession. The loss ended Portuguese control of the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and marked the shift of Asian sea power from Portugal to the Netherlands.

9. 1822
   Brazil declares independence

   When Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807, the royal family and court fled to Brazil, and Rio de Janeiro became the capital of the empire; in 1815 Brazil was raised to a kingdom equal to Portugal. After King John VI returned to Lisbon in 1821, the Portuguese parliament tried to reduce Brazil to colonial status again. His son Pedro, left behind as regent, refused, and on 7 September 1822 declared Brazil independent, becoming its emperor. After a short war, Portugal recognised independence in 1825. The empire lost its largest and richest territory, leaving only scattered colonies in Africa and Asia.

10. 1890
    British Ultimatum blocks Portugal's plan to link Angola and Mozambique

    In the 'Scramble for Africa', Portugal hoped to join Angola and Mozambique with a broad band of territory across central Africa, the 'Pink Map'. This clashed with British interests pressed by Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company and by British missionaries north of the Zambezi. On 11 January 1890 Britain sent an ultimatum demanding that Portuguese forces withdraw from the lands between the two colonies, in what became Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Portugal gave way. The humiliation fed republican anger that helped bring down the monarchy in 1910, and Angola and Mozambique stayed separate.

11. 1961
    Colonial war begins in Angola; India annexes Goa, Daman and Diu

    After the Second World War most European empires were giving up their colonies, but Portugal's dictatorship, the Estado Novo, insisted its colonies were overseas provinces of one nation. In February and March 1961 armed uprisings broke out in Angola, beginning the colonial wars that later spread to Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. In December 1961 India, after years of failed negotiations, sent its army into Goa, Daman and Diu and took them in about two days. Portugal lost its oldest colonies in Asia, and from 1961 it fought three wars in Africa for 13 years.

12. 1974
    Carnation Revolution in Lisbon ends the colonial war

    By the early 1970s the colonial wars took a large share of Portugal's budget and kept many thousands of young men under arms, with no victory in sight. On 25 April 1974 junior officers of the Armed Forces Movement overthrew the Estado Novo dictatorship in an almost bloodless coup; crowds put carnations in the soldiers' rifles, giving the Carnation Revolution its name. The new government quickly agreed to end the wars and grant independence. Guinea-Bissau's independence was recognised in 1974, and Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola followed in 1975, ending Portugal's African empire.

13. 1975
    Angola becomes independent on 11 November

    Angola was Portugal's largest and richest colony, but three rival independence movements fought there: the MPLA, the FNLA and UNITA. In January 1975 Portugal and the three signed the Alvor Agreement, setting 11 November 1975 as the date for independence under a shared transitional government, but the coalition soon collapsed into civil war, with foreign powers backing different sides. As the last Portuguese troops left, the MPLA, holding the capital Luanda, proclaimed the People's Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975. With Angola gone, almost nothing remained of the Portuguese Empire except Macau, returned to China in 1999.

Periods and reigns

• John I (r. 1385–1433) 1415–1433
• Afonso V 1438–1481
• John II 1481–1495
• Manuel I 1495–1521
• John III 1521–1557
• Sebastian 1557–1578
• Philippine dynasty (Spanish Habsburg kings) 1580–1640
• John IV 1640–1656
• Peter II 1683–1706
• John V 1706–1750
• Joseph I 1750–1777
• Maria I 1777–1816
• John VI 1816–1826
• Maria II 1834–1853
• Luís I 1861–1889
• Carlos I 1889–1908
• Manuel II 1908–1910
• First Portuguese Republic 1910–1926
• António de Oliveira Salazar (prime minister) 1932–1968
• Marcelo Caetano (prime minister) 1968–1974

Rulers

• John I 1385–1433

  Captured Ceuta in 1415; father of Prince Henry the Navigator

• Manuel I 1495–1521

  Vasco da Gama reached India and Cabral reached Brazil in his reign

• John III 1521–1557

  Began the colonisation of Brazil; trade reached Japan

• John IV 1640–1656

  Restored independence from Spain, founding the Braganza dynasty

• John VI 1816–1826

  Ruled the empire from Rio de Janeiro after fleeing Napoleon

• António de Oliveira Salazar 1932–1968

  Dictator who fought to keep the African colonies

Realms on the map

• Portuguese Empire 1502–1910
• Portuguese Empire 1502–1823
• Kingdom of Portugal 1147–1911
• Portuguese Republic 1911–1925
• Estado Novo 1926–1975
• Portugal since 1976
• Portuguese Colonies 1564–1910
• Portuguese Africa 1507–1581

Wars

• Seven Years' War 17 May 1756 – 15 February 1763
• Napoleonic Wars 18 May 1803 – 20 November 1815
• First World War 28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918

Chapters

• The world in 1500: Sea Roads Open
• The world in 1530: Conquerors and Reformers
• The world in 1715: Peace of Utrecht