The Portuguese Come to Melaka — Sulalat al-salāṭīn (‘The Malay Annals’)

In 1511 a small Portuguese and Indian force under Afonso de Albuquerque attacked and conquered Melaka, a city and Sultanate on the Malay Peninsula (Figure 1), then one of the largest cities in Southeast Asia and probably one of the most cosmopolitan societies on the planet. For around a century Melaka had dominated trade up and down the Strait of Malacca and further afield as well, and in conquering the city Albuquerque hoped (ultimately in vain) to be able to monopolise Southeast Asian trade for Portugal. This was a hugely important event: Melaka wouldn’t be out of European hands for more than four and a half centuries. The conquest gave Portugal a foothold from which to expand further into the archipelago; within a year Portuguese ships were in Banda and Maluku, home of nutmeg and cloves respectively. The region’s trade and politics were radically transformed by this new Portuguese presence and European contact created a conduit by which American products could enter, leading to revolutionary changes in Indo-Malaysian agriculture, diet, and ecology. <a href="https://indomedieval.medium.com/the-portuguese-come-to-melaka-sulalat-al-sal%C4%81%E1%B9%AD%C4%ABn-the-malay-annals-248c79f3f33e">Read More</a>