Glimpses of Macau

The expansion of the Portuguese empire began in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta.

A century and a half later the Portuguese had settled into Macau and their "black ships" were weighing anchor in Japanese harbours regularly. This was almost the final stage in the europeanization of the world.

In the intervening time, boats carrying the Cross had traversed the Atlantic, travelled the African coast, discovered Brasil, linked the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and entered the coveted trade routes in the East.

However, they had to advance and get into the profitable trade routes which were being established between the Great Chinese Empire and the Indian ports.

Thus, in 1508, Dom Manuel I sent Diogo Lopes to Malacca to make inquiries about those "Chinese and where they come from, how far off their country is and how often they come to Malacca, what goods they bring and how many boats arrive each year, if they have traders or warehouses in Malacca or anywhere else, if they are weak men or warriors and if they have weapons or artillery, what clothes they wear and if they are Christian or pagan... ".

In fact Diogo de Sequeira had already sailed to Malacca by 1509. One day while he was playing chess on board his boat he met up with some Chinese junks. He made contact with their crews and, according to Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, "they became such good friends that the following day they dined together".

This peace was not to last long, however. Malacca was of great strategic interest both as a central distribution point for spices from neighbouring islands and in its capacity as a naval base commanding the straits between the Indian Ocean, the Sea of Java and the South China Sea. At that time it was inhabited by the Moors, sworn enemies of the Portuguese. The Moors sent their fleet into action and Diogo de Sequeira fled to avoid capture, leaving some Portuguese captive.

In 1511, Afonso de Albuquerque appeared in Malacca and demanded the release of prisoners. When they were not handed over he took the city, turning down an offer of help from the Chinese "to disembark together on this land" with the retort that in their fight against the Moors the Portuguese generally needed help from no-one other than God.

Jorge Álvares, the first man to step foot in China, was one of Afonso de Albuquerque's officers. Accompanied by his son and a companion who served as scribe during the journey, he left Malacca in 1513 and reached the island of Tamão, referred to as the island of Lin Tin, fifty two kilometres northwest of Sanchuão and thirty two kilometres south of Macau.

Jorge Álvares went ashore and exchanged some goods for black pepper. He built a monument with the royal coat of arms and next to it he buried his son who had died. Then he returned to Malacca. Eight years later, when he was the scribe of Malacca, he returned to Tamão to be buried in the same tomb as his son.

Between 1513 and 1515, Tomé Pires, professional pharmacist and apothecary to the court, wrote in Summa Oriental, the most comprehensive work on oriental exoticism from the first half of the16th Century, that Canton and Macau were the "key to the Kingdom of China".

He was to go to China as the Portuguese ambassador in a ship captained by Fernão Pires de Andrade. In 1517, he left the ship in Canton to travel to the court of Peking and pay his respects to the Emperor.

However, Tomé Pires failed in his diplomatic mission and for several years relations between the two countries were tense although Portugal did make some unsuccessful attempts to renew direct trade contacts with Canton.

The Portuguese traders sought out the great commercial fairs where thousands of boats met up and also the isolated regions where their goods could fetch a high price.

Gradually they established meeting points, a kind of clandestine commerce which was started at that time with the more or less explicit permission of the local authorities. These prosperous but temporary settlements such as Liampo and Chincheu were established along the coast of China.

In 1542, at around the same time as the attempts to settle on the Chinese coast, the Portuguese were arriving In Japanese ports. When they realized that there was no sea trade or contact due to mutual prohibition, they took on the role of go-between and exchanged woven and raw silk for bars of gold and silver.

By 1544, the Portuguese had gained permission to hold an annual fair with the Japanese merchants on the island of Sanchuão, about fifty miles southwest of Macau, where St. Francisco Xavier had died two years earlier-"an island out in the sea where the Portuguese first lived in straw huts and houses. After holding a fair and doing their business, they burned the houses and left for India".

The fair was moved to the island of Lampacau situated further to the East where there were many rocks but no graves which made it an easy place for foreigners to live.

The Portuguese undeniably owe the opportunity to recommence open trade with the Cantonese to Leonel de Sousa, Captain-Major of the Portuguese merchant fleet in China. The open trade was based on an agreement with the Portuguese authorities which gave it official sanction.

"And in this way I made peace and traded with China; everyone did his own business and made his own profits. Many Portuguese certainly went to Canton and other places where they spent a few days resting and doing deals as they wished and with no loss...", wrote Leonel de Sousa in a letter to Prince Dom Luís, brother of Dom João III.

The precise date of the first Portuguese visit to Macau is controversial but it is generally accepted that 1557 was the year when they were allowed to establish a settlement on the peninsula as compensation for the help they gave in getting rid of a fleet of pirates who were laying waste to the South China seas.

The story is told in the manuscript from 1629, "Account of the Origins of the City of Macau and how it has Developed up to the Present": "It happened at this time that a rebellious pirate came with a great fleet to rob and do injury to our villages and rivers where there were many vessels. Unable to resist these attacks the governors of Canton begged the Portuguese for help" who were successful in defeating him and, "for the great and memorable service which they did to the King of China they have been allowed to live on the island of Macau giving them the place where the pirate used to come to rob".

However it came about, the fact is that the Portuguese began to establish themselves on the island at around this date although they had not left Lampacau where, in 1560, around five to six hundred Portuguese inhabitants were still living.

That was the start of Macau, the most brilliant and lasting Portuguese settlement in the Orient, "the last in a persistent series of unsuccessful attempts made by adventurous merchants or simply adventurers", in the words of António José Saraiva, a minute opening into the Great Middle Kingdom which was to become the most important centre of European culture in Asia.

While all of this was taking place in Macau, what was happening in Portugal, distant and almost forgotten?

In 1557, Dom João III was on his death bed and the rapid end of Portugal's political independence was foreseen.

In the second half of the fifteenth century, Spain was at its peak both on land and at sea while the Portuguese oriental empire was in a stage of severe decline. The widespread financial crisis was worsening with effects which were immediately felt. Added to this was the defeat at Alcácer-Quibir, the prisoners taken and the painful ransom fees...

Finding themselves without money the noble classes turned to corruption with the Spanish and the highest classes attempted to guarantee the preservation of the threatened African and Oriental trade by joining the royal families.

With the exception of the masses who were violently opposed to Spain from where there came "neither good winds nor good marriages", the rest of society "agreed on waiting for definite advantages from the union of the crowns and sought a compromise with Felipe II."

(V. M. Godinho, Ensaios II).

1508 was not long in arriving!

These were bitter times for Portugal with inevitable side effects throughout all the territories of the empire.

And in Macau?

Luís Gonzaga says that: "the original population was probably composed of greedy merchants with few scruples who, having accumulated with ease an astonishing amount of wealth (from their trade with Japan), must have led an extremely turbulent life due to the fever of profit... It cannot have been easy to have control over rowdy and arrogantly undisciplined people affected by the unruly customs of the day. The only authority there was the Captain-Major of the Voyage to Japan", leader of all the boats and settlements from Malacca to Japan, the Portuguese representative to the Chinese and Japanese authorities and to all authorities dependent on the viceroyalty of Goa.

"On his voyages to Japan he made short visits to Macau and directed the affairs of the Portuguese there, making an effort to maintain order and to supervise the embrionic public services.

The transitory, occasional nature of this approach meant that there was little progress except in the early years. The great increase in mercantile interests required a more comprehensive and efficient organization with the result that gradually matters came up which could not wait for the Captain-Major's next visit to be resolved".

For these reasons and because of its distance from Goa and the motherland, Macau was obliged to assume responsibility over its own development and administration. Soon it created 'a municipal life which was unique within the Portuguese public services'.

This is how Almerindo Lessa described it: "Educated by their long experience of trading, the inhabitants decided to establish a small community in which each citizen was entitled from birth to participate fully in the democratic process, a privilege which other subjects of the Kingdom could attain once they had settled or married in the city. The elections took place every three years and the people organized a register with the names of those who were free to participate in the various ballots. The results were sent to the viceroy in Goa who requested to be informed on the people who were to hold office as he was aware that he could not choose or make any decision about them. As a result of no revenue nor any organized taxes, the first elections were funded by public donations where the money of the needy was mixed with that of the rich. And the Chinese looked on with wonder!".

"The Senate was composed of three city fathers who swore an oath on the Bible, three officials and a secretary. The president was rotated year by year. When there was any major problem they called a meeting of the clergy, the military and the most prominent citizens and they formed a General Council which could vote freely and anyone who opened his mouth afterwards was fined. There was either a unanimous vote or a simple majority. Once the decision had been made it was irrevocable and each member was a witness to it."

Macau began to take shape with inhabitants, missionaries, sailors, soldiers and civil servants who came from Portugal as well as with many other Orientals who lived there as if they were "in the most secure part of Portugal", as Fernão Mendes Pinto put it. In 1585, representatives of "the inhabitants, the Bishop and the Captain-Major of Japan" requested the King "to be so good as to make this a city as it needs political government". On the 10th of April, 1586, the viceroy Dom Duarte de Menezes sent the Senate of Macau confirmation of the name "City of the Name of God in China" with the same privileges and honours as the city of Évora. These were later confirmed by King Felipe II.

Jealous of its independence, the Central Government was reminded at every possible opportunity of the fact that it was a Free City even when it was considered as no more than an extension of Goa and of the fact that, "for having depended on the wishes of the inhabitants", it had a different government from that of all the Indian cities.

After the restoration of the monarchy, Governor Dom João Pereira said that "this community is so free that those who govern it have no option to do other than carry out their will". The power was held by the Senate described by Bocage as "a Senate which is above all others" during his fleeting stay in Macau.

Still, it was mostly composed of men "of little or no education who often signed the decrees with no more than a simple cross". But they were men in the tradition of the astute, prudent senators of ancient times, the "gentlemen", who functioned "as a kind of thinking chamber".

This prudence, linked to a singular survival instinct meant that the citizens never allowed the Spanish flag to be hoisted in Macau during the domination of the Spanish Crown.

In 1642, joyful news came of the liberation from the Spanish and not even fear of losing their riches in Manila could dampen the enthusiasm which was felt. There were great festivities in all of the Territory "so that all foreigners realize how much the Portuguese nation, even in the furthest corners of the world, love their royal family".

The city made haste in sending two of its inhabitants to the Portuguese court with a large sum of money and two hundred bronze coins minted in Macau. The Crown responded to this proof of loyalty by bestowing upon Macau the title of "There is None Other So Loyal".

What a community! At times proud of its independence, at times remembering its motherland in spite of its distance.

In the meantime trade with Japan was declining due to the expulsion of the Portuguese. Macau ceased to be a great trading post and was gradually reduced to the function of a simple commercial port. Apart from the odd disagreement with China there was peace and relative prosperity.

After being designated as "loyal", Macau began to strengthen its links with Portugal.

It was the Liberal Revolution of 1820 which substituted the absolutist regime with a new constitutional system which, paradoxically, meant that the city no longer had the power of its own autonomous government.

The Senate was reduced to the simple function of a Town Council although it still retains the name which gave it such prestige, and now its members are named by the Crown rather than elected.

The Sino-Portuguese pragmatism has found other motives for the future political and administrative life of Macau.

This "island of water-lilies" which has served as ground for social movement, ideological cohabitation, the spreading of Christian values and the door to the West can and should continue to be an outpost of Latin culture.

Time, space and men made of Macau a model of a different life which is neither European nor Asian. Something in the Portuguese character allows them to adopt easily the habits and customs of foreign people. They have an ability to live together and gain a closer understanding of the way that others live without interfering in it and they have a desire for peace between different worlds and people.

All of this makes Macau unique amongst the settlements established by Europeans in the East and it is this uniqueness which gives it the strength to survive and to hold fast to values irrespective of their political or economic worth.

It is to be hoped that the new path which this land will take will provide the same multiple enrichment which its inhabitants seek and which the joint history of the two peoples have built over almost five centuries.

Translated by Arminda Baldo

*Graduate in History (University of Coimbra); researcher on the History of Macau.