Capture of Ormuz (1622): Persia and England Oust Portugal

The capture of Ormuz (Hormuz) in 1622 ended more than a century of Portuguese control over the island port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Troops of the Safavid shah Abbas I, carried and supported by ships of the English East India Company, besieged the Portuguese fortress from February until its surrender at the turn of April and May 1622. The victory shifted Gulf trade to the new Persian port of Bandar Abbas and marked an early step in England’s rise as a commercial power in Asia.

Background: Portugal’s Gulf stronghold

Hormuz is a small, dry island in the strait that links the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean. In the late Middle Ages it was the seat of a wealthy kingdom whose port handled horses, pearls, spices, textiles and silk moving between India, Arabia and Iran.

The Portuguese commander Afonso de Albuquerque attacked Hormuz in 1507 and took firm control in 1515, building a strong fortress known as Our Lady of the Conception. The local kings stayed on as Portuguese clients, and the fortress became a key link in the chain of bases that Portugal built after the voyage of Vasco da Gama, along with Goa.

For Shah Abbas the Great, Portuguese Hormuz was both an insult and an obstacle. He had already taken Bahrain in 1602 and the mainland port of Gombroon around 1614. He wanted to export Iranian silk by sea on his own terms, without paying Portuguese customs or depending on Ottoman land routes.

The English alliance

The English East India Company had begun trading in Iran from 1616, landing goods at Jask on the Makran coast. Portuguese fleets attacked the English there, and in 1620 an English squadron fought a Portuguese force off Jask.

Abbas saw an opportunity. Persia had a capable army but no real navy, while the English had warships but needed silk and a secure harbour. The company’s officials in Iran were told that their privileges would depend on help against Portugal. After some hesitation, the commanders of a company fleet then in the Gulf, among them John Weddell and Richard Blyth, agreed to cooperate in return for a share of the customs revenue and of the plunder.

The campaign of 1622

The first target was Qeshm, a larger island next to Hormuz where the Portuguese commander Rui Freire de Andrade had built a fort to secure its water supply. English ships and Persian troops besieged the fort in January 1622. The Arctic navigator William Baffin, serving with the fleet, was killed during the attack. The garrison surrendered, and Freire de Andrade was taken prisoner.

The allies then turned to Hormuz itself in February. English ships ferried the Persian army, commanded by Imam-Quli Khan, the governor of Fars, across to the island. The Persians occupied the town while the Portuguese garrison under the fortress captain Simão de Melo withdrew behind the walls.

The siege lasted around ten weeks. English guns bombarded the fortress from the sea and from batteries on land, the Persians dug mines under the walls, and the English sank or burned Portuguese ships in the harbour. Disease and hunger spread inside the crowded fortress, and no relief fleet arrived from Goa in time.

The garrison finally capitulated in late April or early May 1622. Dates differ partly because the English still used the older Julian calendar, ten days behind the Gregorian calendar used by Portugal. The surviving Portuguese were allowed to leave, most of them for Muscat, which Portugal held until 1650.

Consequences

For Iran, the victory removed a foreign power from its coast. Abbas did not try to revive Hormuz town. Instead he developed Gombroon on the mainland, renamed Bandar Abbas (“Port of Abbas”), which became Iran’s main Gulf port for the rest of the century.

For the English company, the reward was the right to half of the customs revenue at Bandar Abbas and freedom from duties on its own goods. In practice the Persian authorities paid much less than half, and the share became a long-running grievance. The company did gain a lasting base in the Gulf.

At home in England, the episode had an awkward side. Since 1580 Portugal had been ruled by the king of Spain, with whom England was at peace. King James I and the Lord Admiral, the Duke of Buckingham, nonetheless demanded large payments from the company out of the prize money, which it reluctantly provided.

For Portugal, the loss of Hormuz was one of the first major blows to its Asian empire. Within a few decades it would also lose Muscat, Malacca and much of its position in Ceylon to Omani and Dutch rivals.

Timeline

• 1507: Afonso de Albuquerque first attacks Hormuz.
• 1515: Portugal establishes lasting control of Hormuz and its fortress.
• 1602: Safavid forces take Bahrain.
• c. 1614: Persians capture the mainland port of Gombroon.
• 1622, January: English and Persian forces besiege the Portuguese fort at Qeshm; William Baffin is killed.
• 1622, February: The allied army lands on Hormuz and besieges the fortress.
• 1622, late April or early May: The Portuguese garrison surrenders.
• 1650: The Portuguese lose Muscat, their last major base in the region.

Legacy

The ruins of the Portuguese fortress still stand on Hormuz Island, now part of Iran’s Hormozgan province. The episode is remembered in Iran as a victory over European colonial power, and in Portuguese history as the beginning of the end of their dominance in the Indian Ocean.

Historians also see it as a sign of things to come. A European trading company, acting partly on its own initiative, had used warships to win commercial privileges from an Asian ruler. Over the next century and a half the English and Dutch companies would play that role on a much larger scale.

Why it matters

The capture of Ormuz ended Portugal’s control of one of the world’s great trade chokepoints. It strengthened Safavid Iran under Shah Abbas, created the port of Bandar Abbas and gave the English East India Company its first significant foothold in the Persian Gulf.