Francisco de Almeida

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Francisco de Almeida (disambiguation) .

Francisco de Almeida, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

Francisco de Almeida (* around 1450 in Lisbon ; † March 1, 1510 at the Cape of Good Hope ) was a Portuguese navigator and military. In 1505 he was appointed the first governor and viceroy of the Portuguese Estado da Índia .

origin

Francisco de Almeida comes from the old Portuguese noble family of the Lords of Abrantes . His father, Lopo de Almeida , was the first Count (Conde) of Abrantes and, as a member of the Royal Council, one of the Finance Ministers (vedor da fazenda) Alfons V of Portugal. Many of his siblings also held important offices, for example one of his brothers, Diogo Fernandes de Almeida, was prior of Crato, another, Pedro de Almeida, Commander of the Knights of Avis, a third bishop of Coimbra . Francisco de Almeida was married to Brites Pereira. This marriage had two children and he had a number of other illegitimate descendants.

Life

As is customary in his circles, Francisco de Almeida embarked on a military career at a young age. In 1476 he took part in the Battle of Toro , he fought in various places in Morocco and in 1492 took part in the Christian conquest of Granada on the side of the Castilians .

In 1505 he was appointed second viceroy of India by King Manuel I of Portugal. Since his predecessor Tristão da Cunha never took office due to illness, he was de facto the first viceroy of the Estado da Índia . He set sail for India in March of the same year with one of the largest royal Indian fleets of 22 ships (including 14 Naus and 6 caravels ), a crew of 1,000 and 1,500 soldiers. Among the participants in the expedition was Fernão Magalhães , who later (August 1519) was to begin the first circumnavigation of the world in Spanish service. Three ships of the fleet were equipped for the spice trade by Augsburg trading houses like the Welsern . Among their representatives was the Tyrolean Balthasar Sprenger , who wrote down his impressions and experiences in his later famous travelogue Meerfahrt .

De Almeida's flagship was the Nau São Rafael under captain Fernão Suarez. Francisco de Almeida's most important task was to bring the spice trade under Portuguese control. For this purpose he was supposed to secure the East African and Indian coasts with forts and develop Portuguese trade through alliances with local rulers and the establishment of factories.

On board was a microcosm of the Portuguese society at that time. All social classes, from the uppermost social class of the nobles, to the middle class of merchants, doctors, judges, shoemakers, carpenters, cannon founders, to slaves and prison inmates, were represented. Apart from trading goods, they had loaded on board prefabricated parts and stones for building fortresses, wood for building ships in India, tools, etc. The fleet should finally provide the basis of the Estado da Índia and was also successful.

Francisco de Almeida reached East African coastal waters via Sofala and the island of Mozambique . In July 1505 he conquered the east African port city of Kilwa with 8 ships . The city's good harbor - ships up to 500 t could anchor here - prompted the Portuguese to build a fort and to leave a crew of 80 soldiers in the city under Pêro Ferreira. In August 1505, the Portuguese reached the city of Mombasa , which had a population of around 10,000 , which they plundered and burned down after fierce fighting with the troops of the local Arab sheikh. In these battles they were supported by the Sultan of Melinde ( Malindi ), who was hostile to Mombasa .

In August 1505, a caravel of the Francisco de Almeida fleet under Captain Johann (João) Homere took possession of the island of Zanzibar for Portugal. In India he strengthened the Portuguese fortress in Cochin Fort Emmanuel and had 2 new forts built. On the island In Diva was Fortaleza de Ange Diva and Cannanore Castelo de Santo Ângelo built.

On March 17, 1506, his son Lourenço de Almeida achieved an important victory over the fleet of the Prince of Kalikut in a sea battle in front of the port entrance of Cannanore . Before that, Lourenço de Almeida explored the coastal waters as far as Colombo in what is now Sri Lanka . In his duties the viceroy was supported by two other squadrons under Tristão da Cunha and Afonso de Albuquerque .

In March 1508, at Chaul or Dabul, an Egyptian-Arab-Indian fleet built with the support of Venice , which feared for its trade connections, defeated a Portuguese squadron under Lorenço de Almeida, who lost his life in this battle.

In 1508 the suspicious viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque, who was supposed to replace him as governor of India, was arrested. It was not until 1509 that the commander of another Portuguese fleet confirmed the replacement of Francisco de Almeida by Afonso de Albuquerque as governor.

On February 3, 1509, Francisco de Almeida with 23 Portuguese ships succeeded in the naval battle of Diu , destroying the united Egyptian-Arab-Indian fleet and avenging his son. This victory marked the beginning of Portuguese naval domination in the Indian Ocean , which was only ended by the appearance of the Dutch and English in the 17th century.

After handing over power as governor to Afonso de Albuquerque, Francisco de Almeida left the port of Cochin on December 19, 1509. On March 1, 1510 he fell in violent clashes with the Khoi Khoi on the coast of Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope . The fighting broke out after the Portuguese stole cattle from the African inhabitants of the Table Mountain region to supply their ship crews with fresh meat. After these events, Portuguese ship crews largely avoided docking at the Cape of Good Hope and going ashore.

Web links

• Literature by and about Francisco de Almeida in the catalog of the German National Library