Portuguese Melaka at the center of a maritime empire?

Pinto concludes that the Portuguese in Melaka adapted to local practices and reached a delicate balance with Aceh and Johor. The Christianization of Melaka, however, caused significant tension with non-Christian merchants and made it increasingly difficult to maintain Melaka’s position. The arrival of northern European powers at the turn of the sixteenth century severely disrupted that delicate balance, and the founding of Batavia in 1619 sealed the fate of Melaka.

 

Bridging the gap

Historians of Southeast Asia tend to skip over the late sixteenth century, according to Pinto, because Portuguese sources are scattered and few of them have been translated. Pinto based his work on extensive archival research in Portugal, Spain, England, and India, as well as Dutch and Malay sources in translation. The story he constructs from these sources relates a struggle between three ‘successor states’ of the Sultanate of Melaka. The Portuguese occupied the physical position of the former sultanate, but Johor inherited the loyalty of many Malay and Chinese merchants, while Gujarati merchants moved to Aceh.

Through the eyes of Portuguese contemporaries we see how Johor utilized diplomacy and intermarriage to strengthen its control over parts of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and the Riau-Linga Archipelago. They survived their struggle with Melaka and Aceh, and regained their position as a regional power by the time the Dutch and English replaced the Portuguese in Southeast Asia.

Aceh profited from the Gujarati merchant community and their connections to Arab ports in the Indian Ocean. The emerging state failed in its attempt to create an alliance with Javanese Muslims against the Portuguese, but Portuguese accounts show that the Acehnese had more success with Muslim allies in the Indian Ocean. Ottoman support in 1537 and the 1560’s furthered Aceh’s territorial expansion on Sumatra.

Portuguese Melaka occupied the same physical position as in the Sultanate of Melaka and the Portuguese maintained many of the pre-existing practices and regulations, but “Melaka never again regained its erstwhile prominence.” (p. 234) The offices of the bendahara and the tumenggung are two examples of institutions that the Portuguese inherited and maintained. Pinto uses their development to illustrate the Christianization of Melaka and its decline as a commercial port.

Under the sultan of Melaka the bendahara and the tumenggong were comparable to a prime minister and a chief of security. Initially the Portuguese used them to govern the Keling and Muslim merchant communities respectively, but in the course of the sixteenth century their offices declined until the bendahara became a ‘captain of the local people’ and a Christian convert at that, while the tumenggung governed the villages in Melaka’s hinterland. Pinto explains that initially the Keling community enjoyed lower tariffs than other merchants, but as the power of the church grew in Melaka and more Portuguese casados settled there, the Christian merchants rose to prominence. Other merchant communities declined, and with them so did the offices of bendahara and tumenggung. In short, Portuguese Melaka Christianized and so lost the ability to attract other merchant communities. This severely weakened Melaka’s position in the region.

Pinto’s work is a valuable contribution to this neglected field, not just for its historical analysis, but also for the exciting and insightful translations of Portuguese letters that Pinto includes. The advice of the viceroy to the captain of Melaka to support Johor in its struggle against Aceh sheds light on the diplomatic relations between polities bordering the Straits of Melaka. (p. 327) While numerous references to Dutch rebels speak of the urgency of the situation that was created by the arrival of northern European ships. (p. 303-4; 314-9)

 

Melaka and the maritime empire of Portugal

Pinto describes the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia, in contrast with the Spanish territorial empire, as a “maritime network sustained by commercial ports and defended by patrolling armadas.” (p. 233) He also contrasts the Indian Ocean region and its network of Portuguese fortifications with Southeast Asia where the Portuguese only established fortified settlements in Melaka and Ternate.

Throughout The Portuguese in the Straits of Melaka Pinto describes Melaka as an isolated settlement. It “experienced an isolation that resulted from the distance that separated the city from the capital of the Estado da India. It was Goa where decisions were taken about this fortress, and the center that Melaka looked to whenever the city required assistance, very often in vain.” (p. 171) Pinto concludes that Melaka was “far removed from the heart of the Estado da India”. (p. 231)

The Sultanate of Melaka was at the center of a commercial and diplomatic network, based on redistribution of goods and reinforced by intermarriage of elites in the Straits of Melaka. Portuguese Melaka fulfilled a similar function only in Portuguese communication between Goa on the one hand and the Moluccas, China, and Japan on the other, but the Portuguese failed to control Southeast Asian trade to the extent that the sultans of Melaka did. Pinto argues that when the Estado da India went into decline the periphery started debates on ways of regeneration. Captains in Melaka received increasing autonomy in Southeast Asian trade as the Portuguese crown granted trade privileges in return for services rendered, or simply sold them. In the late sixteenth century captains of Melaka talked about autonomous government in Melaka and territorial expansion in the region. However, the union of the Portuguese and Castilian crowns dragged even Melaka into a conflict with the Dutch that would be the end of Portuguese Melaka.

The nature of the Estado da India is beyond the scope of Pinto’s work, but his portrayal of Melaka is certainly a contribution to our understanding of the nature of Portuguese activity in the region.

 

Conclusion

The English publication of Pinto’s work brings Portuguese sources one step closer to historians of Southeast Asia, while his treatment of the interaction between Melaka, Aceh, and Johor is a significant contribution to the neglected field of late sixteenth century Portuguese activity in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, in the appendices Pinto explores the issue of genealogies in Aceh and Johor, which can be particularly confusing for scholars unfamiliar with the history of these polities. Pinto also includes a number of maps, lists of Portuguese officials, and translated documents. All of this combined makes The Portuguese in the Straits of Melaka an important contribution to the field, as well as a useful reference work.

 

Sander Molenaar, Ph.D. student at History department, National University of Singapore (NUS) (sandermarkmolenaar@gmail.com)