Dutch capture of Malacca
After a siege of more than five months the Dutch East India Company and its ally Johor stormed Malacca, ending 130 years of Portuguese rule over the key port of the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
- Date
- 3 August 1640 – 14 January 1641exact date · duration: ≈ 5 months
- Place
- Malaccatoday: Malacca, Malaysia · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Participants
- Dutch East India Company, Johor Sultanate, Kingdom of Portugal
- Threads
- History of Portugal since the Battle of Aljubarrota
- Also known as
- Siege of Malacca (1640–1641); Осада Малакки
The Dutch had besieged Malacca in 1606 and 1608 and attacked it repeatedly in the 1620s. On 3 August 1640 about 600 VOC soldiers with Javanese and Bandanese auxiliaries and 500–600 warriors from Johor landed near the city, which was held by some 260 Portuguese soldiers and a few thousand local and mixed-race defenders. Hunger and disease ravaged both sides — three Dutch commanders died one after another — until on 14 January 1641 about 650 Dutch troops stormed the fortress.
The Portuguese claimed to have lost 7,000 people; the Dutch reported just under a thousand dead. Malacca fell six weeks after Portugal had broken away from Spain, and the truce that the new King John IV soon made with the Dutch did not return it. For the Dutch, whose centre was Batavia, the port was of secondary importance, but its loss badly weakened the Portuguese position in the East Indies.
Connections
Causes and preconditions
- Cortes of Tomar: Philip II becomes King of PortugalApril 1581 · Western and Central Europethe union drew Portugal into Spain’s long war with the Dutch, who attacked Portuguese Asia
Related events
- Capture of Malacca25 July – between 10 August and 24 August 1511 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniathe Portuguese had held Malacca since Albuquerque’s conquest in 1511
- Restoration of Portuguese independence1 December 1640 · Western and Central EuropeMalacca fell six weeks after the revolt in Lisbon, and the new king’s truce with the Dutch did not bring it back
Adjacent events in the thread
- Bento de Góis’s journey from India to Chinabetween October 1602 and February 1603 – 11 April 1607 · Central and Northern Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Restoration of Portuguese independence1 December 1640
Latin America
- Insurrection of Pernambuco: the Dutch expelled from Brazil15 May 1645 – 26 January 1654
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Siege of Malacca (1640–1641)
- Wikipedia (Russian): Осада Малакки (1641)
- Boxer C. R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825. — London: Hutchinson, 1969.
- Wikidata: Q4337398