Portugal’s conquest of Malacca and spice monopoly: Manueline imperial policy as the motivating factor

• Main Author: Bakar, Osman
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: ISTAC-IIUM Publications 2020
• Subjects: D History (General); H Social Sciences (General); HM Sociology
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/87366/1/87366_Portugal%E2%80%99s%20conquest%20of%20Malacca%20and%20spice%20monopoly.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/87366/
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

The Portuguese missions to Southeast Asia and China beginning in the sixteenth century was mainly inspired by one man. That man was their reigning King, Dom Manuel I1 (reign: 1495-1521) known in Portuguese history as the Fortunate and the Great. To understand and appreciate the motives of these missions, it is necessary to discuss Manuel’s imperial vision and policy that served as their economic, political, and religious background. The Portuguese historian Luis Filipe Ferreira Reis Thomaz refers to this vision and policy as the “Manueline Imperial Idea.”2 Trade monopoly, territorial expansion, and Christianization both domestic and foreign, appeared to be the main pillars of Manuel’s imperial policy. Through this tripartite constitution of his policy Manuel inaugurated the first European embrace of the “three Gs” as the primary civilizational motivations for explorations and the creation of a new world order. The three Gs—Gold, God, and Glory—symbolise respectively material wealth, religious exclusivism, and political nationalism.3 The doctrine of monopoly ran through all the three Gs and, in fact, served as the guiding spirit in the pursuit of each one of them. It is possible to clearly show that Manuel’s three Gs policy was already well in place by the time he ordered the first Portuguese Malaccan mission in 1508.