Portuguese Migration and Settlement in Asia

This chapter follows the story of the Portuguese in Asia—the soldiers, officials and missionaries who established the Estado da India in the sixteenth century. The Portuguese established fortified trading ports around the western Indian Ocean with Goa as the main seat of government. In the Far East, Macao and Nagasaki became centres of trade and missionary activity. Intermarriage with Asian women resulted in the emergence of “Portuguese” populations in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India which spoke their own creole language, adhered to Catholicism and survived as a distinct caste into the twentieth century. Goa itself generated its own diaspora, with Goans settling in British India and finding employment elsewhere in the Portuguese and British empires.

Ancient history · Caste · Creole language · Diaspora · Ethnology · Geography · Government (linguistics) · Indian ocean · Political science · Portuguese · Settlement (finance) · South asia · Sri lanka · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Oceanography