AFFONSO D'ALBOQUERQUE) (1453-1515 ), surnamed THE GREAT, and THE PORTUGUESE MARS, was born in 1453 at Alexandria, near Lisbon, and educated at the court of Alphonso V. In 1503 he set out on his first expedition to the East. He sailed round the Cape of Good Hope to India, where he obtained from the king of Cochin permission to build a Portuguese fort. He re turned home in July 1504, and King Emmanuel gave him the command of a squadron of five vessels in the fleet of 16 which sailed for India in 1506 under Tristan da Cunha. After a series of attacks on the Arab cities on the east coast of Africa, Albu querque separated from Da Cunha, and captured (Sept: 1507) the island of Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, which was then one of the chief centres of commerce in the East. He was unable long to maintain his position.
With his squadron increased by three vessels, he reached the Malabar coast at the close of 1508, and produced a commission from the king empowering him to supersede the governor Fran cisco de Almeida. The governor's reply was imprisonment, from which Albuquerque was only released on the arrival of the grand marshal of Portugal with a large fleet. An unsuccessful attack upon Calicut in Jan. I 5 I o was immediately followed by the investment and capture of Goa. Albuquerque abandoned the town in August, to return with the reinforcements in November, when he obtained undisputed possession. He next directed his forces against Malacca, which he subdued after a severe struggle. He remained in the town nearly a year to con solidate the position. In 1512 he sailed for the coast of Malabar. On the voyage, Albuquerque's vessel, the "Flor de la Mar," which carried the treasure he had amassed in his conquests, was wrecked, and he himself barely escaped with his life. In Sep tember of the same year he arrived at Goa, where he quickly suppressed a serious revolt headed by Idalcan.
Albuquerque had been for some time under orders from the home Government to undertake an expedition to the Red Sea, in order to secure that channel of communication exclusively to Portugal. He accordingly laid siege to Aden in 1513, but was repulsed ; and a voyage into the Red Sea, the first ever made by a European fleet, led to no substantial results. His last success was the recapture in 1515 of the island of Ormuz, which remained in the possession of the Portuguese until 1622. Albuquerque had several enemies at the Portuguese court, and on his return from Ormuz, at the entrance of the harbour of Goa, he met a vessel from Europe bearing despatches announcing that he was superseded by his personal enemy, Soarez. He died at sea on Dec. 16, 1515. Before his death he wrote a letter to the king in dignified and affecting terms, vindicating his conduct and claiming for his son the honours and rewards due to himself.
His body was buried at Goa, and it is, perhaps, the most con vincing proof possible of the justice of his administration that, many years after, Mussulmans and Hindus used to go to his tomb to invoke protection against the injustice of his successors. His natural son Affonso published a selection from his father's papers under the title Commentarios do Grande Affonso d'Albo querque.