Francisco de Almeida sails as Portugal's first viceroy of India, 1505

On a Sunday shortly before the fleet sailed, King Manuel I went to hear Mass at the Sé, Lisbon's cathedral. There, with great ceremony, he handed Dom Francisco de Almeida the royal banner. The captains and noblemen of the fleet were then escorted by the lords of the court down to the riverside quay, where they boarded. João de Barros, the official historian of Portuguese Asia, called it the most solemn embarkation the kingdom had seen for anyone not of royal blood.1 source1 source

Contrary winds kept the ships at anchor off Belém for days. The king came aboard Almeida's flagship expecting to see him off, and had to go home again. On 25 March 1505, the feast of the Annunciation, the weather eased. Manuel went out by boat to watch, and stayed until the fleet cast off to shouts and the roar of every gun aboard and on the shore.2 sources2 sources

Going down the Tagus, the crew of one caravel, fresh from the plough in Whiteway's phrase, could not tell larboard from starboard. Their captain, João Homem, hung a string of onions on one side of the ship and a string of garlic on the other, and told the pilot to steer by onions and garlic. After that, the chronicler Castanheda wrote, they steered straight.2 sources2 sources

Almeida was the seventh son of Lopo de Almeida, first Count of Abrantes. Accounts of his age differ: Whiteway made him 45, while the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica put his birth around 1450, which would make him about 55. He had been chosen at short notice. The king's first choice, Tristão da Cunha, was struck by a sudden blindness, and Almeida was called from Coimbra, where he was staying with his brother the bishop. His only son, Lourenço, sailed with him.3 sources3 sources

Vasco da Gama had reached India by sea in 1498. In the years that followed, Portugal sent a fleet every year that loaded pepper on the Malabar coast, in today's Kerala, and sailed home. That left its allies alone for most of the year. The rulers of Cochin and Cannanore traded with the Portuguese, while the Zamorin, ruler of Calicut, and the Muslim merchants who carried spices to the Red Sea and on to Egypt and Venice, fought them.2 sources2 sources

Barros put the problem plainly. Ships that came and went could not wage war on the Muslims and keep up trade with the Hindu rulers at the same time; each time they left, the Muslims became masters of the coast again. The answer was a governor who would stay three years, with ships, soldiers and fortresses where the cargo fleets could load in safety.2 sources2 sources

The orders also split the sea in two. One captain-major would cruise from Cape Guardafui, at the Horn of Africa, to Cambay, guarding the mouth of the Red Sea against ships from Calicut; another would patrol from Cambay to Cape Comorin, the southern tip of India. If a local ruler refused a fort, Whiteway summarised, a base was to be chosen and war made on him until he gave in.2 sources2 sources

The fleet reached the East African coast in July. On 22 July Almeida anchored off Kilwa, an island city in today's Tanzania that controlled the gold trade of Sofala. He complained that its ruler had not even raised the Portuguese flag Vasco da Gama had given him, and two days later he landed his men. Lourenço led 200 of them along the beach to the palace while his father, with about 300, fought through streets so narrow that his soldiers climbed onto the flat roofs to clear the defenders throwing stones. The ruler fled.1 source1 source

Almeida installed a new king, Muhammad Ankoni, a leading townsman of about sixty who was not of the royal line but had been friendly to the Portuguese. Then he built a fort in about twenty days, taking his turn at one end of a hand-barrow himself. He named it Santiago, because the city had fallen on the eve of St James's Day, and left 150 men there under Pêro Ferreira Fogaça.1 source1 source

Next came Mombasa, in today's Kenya. The fleet arrived on 13 August, and on the 15th the Portuguese stormed the town. Castanheda counted more than 700 of its people dead and nearly 200 taken captive, for no more than five Portuguese killed. Barros gave 1,513 dead, a figure he said came from the townspeople themselves. The town was looted and burned.2 sources2 sources

In India the work went quickly. A fort was begun on the island of Anjediva on 14 September 1505. At Cannanore the men landed on 23 October and, working in shifts with nobles and labourers side by side, raised the walls high enough for guns in five days. Almeida named it Sant'Angelo and left 150 men in it. At Cochin he spent much of the next year finishing the fortress. Castanheda says that when he was ashore he went at dawn to the shipyard or the fortress works and stayed until midday.2 sources2 sources

Lourenço de Almeida commanded the fleet at sea while his father governed from Cochin. He was famous for his strength, and the chroniclers made him a hero of romance. On 16 March 1506 a Portuguese squadron of three large ships and a brigantine fell on an armed convoy of 200 to 300 vessels that the Zamorin and his Muslim allies had fitted out on the Malabar coast, and killed, by Whiteway's reading of the sources, 3,500 to 4,000 men without losing one Portuguese. He also reached Ceylon, today's Sri Lanka, though he did little there but set up a stone marker.1 source1 source

Meanwhile the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, whose customs revenues were falling as the Portuguese choked the spice route, built a fleet at Suez with timber brought from the Mediterranean. Its commander, Amir Husain al-Kurdi, whom the Portuguese called Mirocem, reached Diu, the island port of the Sultanate of Gujarat, in 1507. Diu's governor, Malik Ayaz, joined him.2 sources2 sources

In January 1508 Lourenço went north on convoy duty with eight ships and dismissed the rumours of an Egyptian fleet. It found him in the river at Chaul, south of today's Mumbai. Whiteway puts the battle in March, as does the Encyclopaedia of Portuguese Expansion in its entry on Diu; its entry on Chaul says January.4 sources4 sources

After two days of fighting, with Malik Ayaz's light galleys tipping the balance, the Portuguese slipped out on the ebb tide. Lourenço's ship, holed at the waterline, ran onto fishing stakes and stuck fast. With part of a leg shot away, he sat in a chair by the mainmast and kept urging his men on until a second shot killed him.3 sources3 sources

His body was never found. The Portuguese lost 140 killed and 124 wounded; the Gujarati accounts put their own dead at about 400. Whiteway notes that Malik Ayaz treated his prisoners with great humanity.1 source1 source

In Correia's telling the news reached Cochin with a caravel that came in without firing its salute. The viceroy, watching from a window, sat down and said it brought the news he already had in his heart. He then sent his officers away, telling them words of comfort were for women. Whiteway thought his wish for revenge was the only thing that made sense of what Almeida did in the next year.2 sources2 sources

On 5 December 1508 Afonso de Albuquerque reached Cannanore from Hormuz and demanded the government of India. He had been named Almeida's successor in 1506, that year's fleet from Lisbon had brought the king's order for the handover, and Almeida's three years were up. Almeida refused to hand over until he had fought the Egyptians, and a week later, on 12 December, he sailed north with 18 ships and about 1,200 men by Castanheda's count. Gaspar Correia counted 21 sail. At the end of December he stormed and burned the port of Dabul.3 sources3 sources

On 2 February 1509, Candlemas, the lookout sighted Diu. Mirocem had twelve ships of his own (three naus, three galleons and six galleys), four large ships of Gujarat, Malik Ayaz's among them, and the light craft of Diu and Calicut: more than 100 sail in all. Castanheda has Malik Ayaz advising him to stay at anchor under the town's guns. His captains also persuaded Almeida not to lead the attack himself.2 sources2 sources

The Portuguese attacked on 3 February. From midday to nightfall there was a confused fight at close quarters among the anchored ships. It was said, Castanheda writes, that the viceroy's flagship alone fired 1,900 shots that day. The Egyptian fleet was destroyed: by his count more than 4,000 of the enemy died and only 22 Mamluks escaped, for 32 Portuguese dead. The Encyclopaedia of Portuguese Expansion quotes the naval historian Saturnino Monteiro calling it one of the rare sea battles in which the losing fleet was wiped out.3 sources3 sources

Almeida made peace with Malik Ayaz, who handed over the Portuguese prisoners taken at Chaul, and the viceroy trimmed his beard for the first time since his son's death. On the way south he forced tribute from the coastal towns. Whiteway records that at every Muslim town he passed he executed captives in batches and fired their limbs from his guns over the town. He was back in Cochin on 8 March.2 sources2 sources

Victory did not end the quarrel. Almeida still would not hand over, arguing that the king had ordered him to sail home in a particular ship, which had not arrived (it had been wrecked). Albuquerque's servants and friends were taken from him, his supporters were jailed or sent away, and a petition was got up asking that he should not be given the government. In the monsoon he was sent to Cannanore, in effect a prisoner. Almeida later told the Marshal that Albuquerque was not under arrest and stayed there by choice.2 sources2 sources

The deadlock broke when the Marshal of Portugal, Fernando Coutinho, a relative of Albuquerque, arrived with a large fleet and royal powers no one could resist. In November 1509, at the gate of the Cochin fortress, Almeida inside and Albuquerque outside, a notary recorded the handover of India, its forts, ships, guns and men. Most of the noblemen in India sailed home with Almeida, Castanheda says, because none dared stay after what they had done to Albuquerque.2 sources2 sources

Almeida's three ships left Cochin on 19 November 1509, by Castanheda's account (Whiteway says 1 December), and Cannanore on 1 December. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope safely, they put in to take on water at what the Portuguese called the watering place of Saldanha, Table Bay, beside today's Cape Town. Castanheda says Almeida made his will the day before they arrived, saying he did not know whether a pulley block might fall on his head.2 sources2 sources

At first the Khoikhoi herders of the area traded cattle for cloth and iron. Then a party of about twelve Portuguese went to a village inland, and a fight broke out. The chroniclers disagree on why. Castanheda says the sailors tried to carry off one of the villagers by force; Correia says they tried to take a cow without paying the price asked. Only Barros blamed the Khoikhoi.2 sources2 sources

Some of the captains argued that the insult was not worth avenging; others said the watering place would be unsafe for every future fleet unless the villagers were punished. Almeida agreed to an attack. At dawn on 1 March 1510 between 150 and 200 men, most without armour so they could move faster, raided the village and drove off its cattle.3 sources3 sources

The herders, who could stop and move the cattle with calls, used the herd as a moving shield and attacked with stones and fire-hardened throwing spears. The retreat to the boats became a rout. When Lourenço de Brito, one of his captains, told him three times that the cattle were being taken, Castanheda has Almeida reply, in translation: “Give the cattle to the devil now, for they will take it from us, and us with it.” Near the shore a throwing spear with no iron head went through his throat; he fell to his knees, raised his hands to the sky and died.3 sources3 sources

Castanheda counted 65 dead, the viceroy and eleven captains among them; Whiteway, from the same chronicles, gives the viceroy, 12 leading noblemen and 50 others. The royal banner was lost. Almeida was a little over fifty. He had survived Kilwa, Mombasa and Diu.3 sources3 sources

The chroniclers who wrote within living memory were uneasy about the ending. Damião de Góis suggested that God let the Portuguese die at the hands of unarmed men to punish cruelties committed in their victories, and Camões linked the death to the ruin of Kilwa and Mombasa. The literary historian David Johnson notes that the Khoikhoi victory was remembered only sporadically for 500 years.2 sources2 sources

It came back into South African politics on 26 March 1999, when President Thabo Mbeki, speaking in Parliament at Nelson Mandela's retirement, said the 1510 victory in Table Bay had “lit our skies for ever”. Johnson reads that speech as one more use of the story for the politics of its own time.1 source1 source

In Asia, Diu stayed in Portuguese plans for four and a half centuries. In 1509 Albuquerque won only a trading house there; after several failed attacks, Portugal began its own fortress at Diu in 1535. It held the island until the Indian army took Goa, Daman and Diu in December 1961.2 sources2 sources