Latest / The History of Portugal: The Small Nation That Built a Global Empire — Fexingo History / The Portuguese in Ming China: Macau and the Canton Trade
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Portuguese in Japan — the Nanban trade, the Shimabara uprising, all of that. But there's another side to Portugal's presence in East Asia that's just as fascinating, and it started a few decades earlier, right on the coast of Ming China. Luna: You mean Macau. Lucas: Exactly — Macau, or as the Portuguese called it, A Cidade do Santo Nome de Deus de Macau, the City of the Holy Name of God of Macau. But before Macau became a permanent settlement, the Portuguese spent about forty years trying to get a foothold in China. Their first attempt was in 1513, when a Portuguese captain named Jorge Álvares landed on an island just off the coast of Guangdong — an island the Chinese called Tamão, probably modern Lintin Island. Lucas: Álvares erected a padrão, a stone pillar with the Portuguese coat of arms, and started trading. The Ming authorities were suspicious but allowed it because the Portuguese brought goods the Chinese wanted — pepper, sandalwood, and above all, silver from Japan. Luna: Wait — so the Ming were already trading with Japan indirectly through the Portuguese? Lucas: Exactly. The Ming had a ban on direct trade with Japan due to piracy, but they allowed the Portuguese to act as middlemen. This triangular trade — selling Chinese silk for Japanese silver in Nagasaki, then using that silver to buy Chinese goods in Canton — that became the backbone of Macau's economy for centuries. Lucas: But the early relationship was rocky. In 1517, King Manuel I sent an ambassador to the Ming court — a Portuguese apothecary named Tomé Pires, who had written one of the first detailed accounts of Asia. He arrived in Canton with a fleet under Fernão Pires de Andrade, and at first things went well. The Ming emperor Zhengde received them in Beijing. Luna: So that sounds promising. Lucas: It was, until Fernão's brother, Simão de Andrade, showed up in 1519 and started acting like a thug — building a fort on Tamão without permission, kidnapping Chinese children, and generally behaving like a pirate. The Chinese had a phrase for this: they said the Portuguese were 'like dogs and goats' — meaning barbaric and untrustworthy. Lucas: The backlash was brutal. Emperor Zhengde died in 1521, and his successor, the Jiajing Emperor, was furious. He ordered all Portuguese expelled from China. Tomé Pires was thrown into prison in Guangzhou — Canton — and died there, probably in 1524. And for the next thirty years, the Portuguese were banned from Chinese ports. Luna: So how did they get back in? Lucas: They smuggled. They shifted their base to the islands near the Pearl River estuary — places like Sanchoão, Lampacau, and then finally a small peninsula called Macau. The local Chinese officials, known as haishidao — maritime defense intendants — were often willing to look the other way in exchange for bribes. The Portuguese were good customers: they paid their port fees, they helped suppress pirates, and they didn't try to build forts on Chinese soil. Luna: And that's how Macau started — as a bribe? Lucas: Sort of, but with a veneer of legitimacy. The conventional story is that in 1557, the Portuguese were officially allowed to settle in Macau in exchange for an annual tribute of 500 taels of silver — about 18 kilograms. But recent scholarship suggests the settlement was already happening, and the tribute was formalized later. The key figure in that negotiation was a Portuguese merchant named Leonor de Sousa — actually a woman, which was unusual for the time. Luna: A woman negotiated the lease of Macau? Lucas: Yes — though she's often overlooked. Leonor de Sousa was the widow of a Portuguese captain, and she had extensive trading connections in China. She spoke Cantonese, understood the local customs, and in 1554 she helped broker a deal with the haishidao Wang Bo that reopened the Canton trade to the Portuguese. She even became a kind of intermediary — the Chinese called her a 'foreign woman who understands matters.' Lucas: From then on, Macau grew fast. The Portuguese built a walled city with churches, a senate house, and a fortress. But here's the crucial thing: the Ming never ceded sovereignty. Macau was technically Chinese territory where the Portuguese were allowed to live and trade. The Ming appointed a mandarin to collect taxes and administer justice for Chinese residents. The Portuguese had their own senate — the Senado da Câmara — but it operated under Chinese sufferance. Luna: So it was like a leasehold, not a colony. Lucas: Exactly. The Portuguese called it a 'colony' but the Ming never did. And this dual system — Chinese sovereignty, Portuguese administration — lasted right up to 1999, when Macau was returned to China. It created a unique hybrid culture. You had Portuguese merchants marrying Chinese women, resulting in a Macanese community that spoke a creole called Patuá. You had Jesuits like Matteo Ricci using Macau as a base to study Confucianism and win converts in Beijing. Luna: I've heard that Macau was also a center for the silver trade. Lucas: It was enormous. Between 1550 and 1640, the Portuguese shipped something like 100 to 200 tons of Japanese silver through Macau into China. That silver helped finance the Ming government's wars and bureaucracy. In return, China exported silk, porcelain, and gold. The Portuguese were the middlemen, and they got rich — but they were also totally dependent on Chinese goodwill. Lucas: That dependency became clear in the 1620s, when the Dutch tried to conquer Macau. The Portuguese held out, but only because the Chinese provided food and refused to trade with the Dutch. And later, when the Ming fell to the Qing, the Portuguese managed to stay on by switching allegiance to the new dynasty. They were pragmatic — they had to be. Luna: So Macau survived because the Portuguese were useful and didn't push their luck. Lucas: That's the short version. They paid their dues, they kept a low military profile, and they played by Chinese rules — mostly. Of course, there were tensions. In the early 1600s, the Ming actually built a wall across the Macau peninsula to keep the Portuguese contained. And the Portuguese were never allowed to bring their warships into the Pearl River. But for 442 years, that tiny peninsula remained the longest-lasting European outpost in China. Luna: It's a pretty incredible story — and one I didn't know much about. Lucas: It's a reminder that the Portuguese empire wasn't just about conquest. In Macau, they succeeded by adapting, by negotiating, and by knowing when to back down. And that's a very different kind of imperial story.