Portuguese Conquest of Goa (1510): Afonso de Albuquerque

The Portuguese conquest of Goa in 1510 gave Portugal its first permanent territorial base in Asia. Afonso de Albuquerque, governor of Portuguese India, seized the island city from the Bijapur Sultanate in March 1510, lost it two months later, and took it back for good on 25 November 1510. Goa soon became the capital of the Portuguese Estado da Índia and remained under Portuguese rule for more than four and a half centuries.

Background

In the first decade after Vasco da Gama’s arrival in India, the Portuguese relied on alliances with local rulers such as the Raja of Cochin and on small fortified trading posts. Their naval victory at the Battle of Diu in February 1509 had made them the strongest sea power in the western Indian Ocean, but they still lacked a secure base of their own.

Afonso de Albuquerque, who took over as governor in November 1509, believed Portugal needed a few strong points on land to control the sea. Goa was an attractive target. It stood on an island between two rivers, the Mandovi and the Zuari, with a sheltered harbour. It was a major port of the Adil Shahi Sultanate of Bijapur and the main entry point for Arabian and Persian horses, which were in great demand by the armies of the Deccan sultanates and the Vijayanagara Empire. Horses did not breed well in southern India, so rulers had to import them by sea every year, and whoever controlled the port could profit from both sides of the region’s wars.

The first capture and retreat

Albuquerque was encouraged by Timoji, a Hindu commander and privateer active on the coast, who reported that Goa was poorly defended. The ruler of Bijapur, Yusuf Adil Shah, had recently died, and his young son Ismail Adil Shah had only just succeeded him.

In early March 1510 the Portuguese fleet entered the Mandovi, and the city surrendered with little fighting. Albuquerque tried to win over the inhabitants by promising protection and lower taxes. However, Ismail Adil Shah sent a large army to recover the island, and in May 1510 the Portuguese were forced to abandon the city. The monsoon then trapped their fleet in the river for several months, short of food and under fire, before they could escape to the open sea in August.

The second capture

Albuquerque regrouped at Cochin and gathered reinforcements, including ships that had just arrived from Portugal. With a fleet of about 30 ships and, by most estimates, between 1,500 and 2,000 Portuguese soldiers plus allied Indian troops, he returned to Goa. On 25 November 1510, the feast of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the Portuguese stormed the city’s defences and took it after a day of heavy fighting.

The capture was followed by a massacre of the city’s Muslim inhabitants, which Albuquerque described in his own letters, giving a figure of around 6,000 deaths. Hindu residents were mostly spared, and Timoji was made the official responsible for the Hindu population. Saint Catherine later became the patron saint of Portuguese Goa.

Building a colonial capital

Albuquerque set out to make Goa a permanent Portuguese city. He built a fortress, set up a mint and encouraged Portuguese soldiers to marry local women, a policy meant to create a loyal settled population. He also banned sati, the practice of widow-burning, in the territory.

Bijapur’s forces tried to retake Goa several times in the following years, but the Portuguese held on. In 1530 the governor Nuno da Cunha moved the seat of government from Cochin to Goa, making it the formal capital of the Estado da Índia, the network of Portuguese possessions from East Africa to East Asia. Goa became a diocese in 1534 and an archdiocese in 1558.

Albuquerque’s wider plan

For Albuquerque, Goa was one part of a larger strategy. He believed that Portugal could control the Indian Ocean trade by holding a small number of fortified ports at its key points: Goa on the Indian coast, Malacca in Southeast Asia, Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea. He captured Malacca in 1511 and secured Hormuz in 1515, but his attack on Aden in 1513 failed.

Albuquerque’s methods were harsh, and many at the Portuguese court thought holding territory in Asia was too costly. King Manuel I eventually replaced him. Albuquerque died on 16 December 1515 on board ship within sight of Goa, after learning that he had been superseded. He was buried in Goa, and his remains were later taken to Lisbon.

Goa under Portuguese rule

Goa’s economy rested on trade, customs duties and the revenues of the surrounding lands. The Portuguese gradually extended their control from the island to the neighbouring districts of Bardez and Salcete, which were ceded by Bijapur in the 1540s. Hindu temples in these areas were destroyed in campaigns of forced conversion, and many Hindu families moved beyond Portuguese borders.

From the seventeenth century the old city declined. Dutch blockades hurt its trade, and repeated epidemics led the authorities to shift government towards Panjim, which officially became the capital in 1843.

Key people

• Afonso de Albuquerque (c. 1453–1515): governor of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, architect of the conquest and of Portugal’s strategy of fortified bases.
• Ismail Adil Shah: sultan of Bijapur from 1510, who recovered Goa briefly in May 1510.
• Timoji: Hindu commander who helped the Portuguese and was rewarded with authority in Goa.
• Manuel I of Portugal: king who backed Albuquerque’s plans despite objections at court.

Timeline

• 1509, November: Albuquerque becomes governor of Portuguese India.
• 1510, March: Albuquerque first occupies Goa.
• 1510, May: An army from Bijapur forces the Portuguese to abandon the city.
• 1510, August: The trapped Portuguese fleet escapes from the Mandovi River.
• 1510, 25 November: Albuquerque retakes Goa.
• 1530: Goa becomes the seat of the Portuguese government in Asia.
• 1542: The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier arrives in Goa.
• 1961, 18–19 December: India takes control of Goa.

Legacy

Goa grew into one of the richest cities in Asia in the sixteenth century, nicknamed “Golden Goa”. Its churches, including the Basilica of Bom Jesus, which holds the remains of Francis Xavier, are now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was also the centre of Catholic missions in Asia and, from 1560, the seat of the Goa Inquisition, which persecuted converts accused of keeping Hindu, Muslim or Jewish practices.

Portuguese rule lasted until the annexation of Goa by India in 1961. Over the centuries a large Goan Catholic community developed, alongside a Hindu majority in the territories added later. The Konkani language survived Portuguese rule and is today the official language of the Indian state of Goa. The Inquisition was suppressed in 1774, restored in 1778 and finally abolished in 1812, and the grand churches of Old Goa, among them the Sé Cathedral, stand as reminders of the city’s former wealth.

Goa’s distinctive culture, mixing Indian and Portuguese influences in food, architecture, music and religion, is a lasting result of the 1510 conquest.

Why it matters

The conquest of Goa turned Portugal’s presence in Asia from a string of trading posts into a territorial empire with a capital. It made possible the next steps of Albuquerque’s plan, including the capture of Malacca in 1511, and began a colonial history that lasted until 1961.