Portuguese East Indies

The Portuguese East Indies were the chain of trading posts, forts and Christian missions that Portugal built across the Indonesian archipelago from the early sixteenth century. After Afonso de Albuquerque captured Malacca in 1511, expeditions sent from that city reached the Moluccas in 1512, and the Portuguese became the first Europeans to establish a colonial presence in the region. They sought to control the sources of nutmeg, mace and cloves and to spread Catholicism. Rather than conquering whole territories, they allied with local rulers and built fortified factories at Ternate, Ambon, Solor and elsewhere. Malacca served as the regional headquarters of the Estado da India until the Dutch took it in 1641. Portuguese power then contracted to Flores, Solor and Timor, where the Dominican mission and the sandalwood trade sustained a lasting presence. Lisbon's authority was gradually absorbed into the wider Spanish and then Portuguese imperial framework, and the remaining eastern islands were administered from Goa. Portuguese Timor survived until 1975, when it declared independence and was shortly occupied by Indonesia.