Portuguese Macau


was under Portuguese rule from the establishment of the first official Portuguese settlement in 1557 until its handover to China in 1999. It comprised the Municipality of Macau and the Municipality of Ilhas. Macau was both the first and last European holding in China.
Macau's history under Portugal can be broadly divided into three distinct political periods. The first was the establishment of the Portuguese settlement in 1557 to 1849. The Portuguese had jurisdiction over the Portuguese community and certain aspects of the territory's administration but no real sovereignty. Next came the colonial period, which scholars generally place from 1849 to 1974. As Macau's importance among other territories grew within the Portuguese Empire, Portuguese sovereignty over Macau strengthened and it became a constitutional part of Portuguese territory. Chinese sovereignty during this era was mainly nominal. Finally, in the aftermath of the 12-3 incident in 1966, the third was the transition period or post-colonial period, after the Carnation Revolution in 1974 until the handover in 1999.
Wu Zhiliang, President of the Macau Foundation, more specifically identified six periods:
  • The early relationship between the Chinese and Portuguese
  • The Senado period
  • The decline of the Senado
  • The colonial period
  • The district autonomy period
  • The transition period
Macau was officially known as the Province of Macau until 1976, and subsequently Territory of Macau.

History

In 1277, about 50,000 supporters and some members of the Song dynasty, fleeing the Mongol invaders, arrived in Macau and built several settlements, the largest and most important being in the Mong-Há region in the north of Macau. It is believed that the oldest temple in Macau, the Temple of Kun Iam, was located in Mong-Há.
During the Ming dynasty, many fishermen from Guangzhou and Fujian settled in Macau and built the Temple of A-Ma.

Arrival of the Portuguese

The first Portuguese to visit China was Jorge Álvares in 1513, during the Age of Discovery. He erected a padrão with the arms of Portugal in the port of Tamão at the mouth of the Pearl River, near Macau. This visit was followed by the establishment of numerous Portuguese traders in the area, who would erect temporary wooden buildings that would be destroyed when the traders left. The Portuguese were not yet allowed to stay, obtaining only visitor status.
In 1517, Fernão Pires de Andrade, the head of a Portuguese expedition to China, managed to negotiate with the Chinese authorities in Canton for the entry of the Portuguese ambassador Tomé Pires to Beijing and the establishment of a trading post in Tamão. Due to the aggressive attitudes of his brother Simão de Andrade, Tomé Pires was thrown into prison by the Chinese authorities where he died and the Chinese Emperor forbade trade with the Portuguese. The Portuguese were then chased away from Cantonese waters in two successive battles, the 1521 Battle of Tunmen and the 1522 Battle of Sincouwaan, marking the end of the Tamão settlement.
Despite this setback, Portuguese traders continued their activity up the coast of China, eventually settling in Shuangyu. In 1548, this community was razed by a Chinese army, dispersing the Portuguese to the Dongshan Peninsula, where Galeote Pereira was captured by the Chinese in 1549. During these battles the Chinese captured weapons from the Portuguese which they then reverse engineered and mass produced in China. These included matchlock arquebuses, which they named bird guns, and breech loading swivel guns which they named Folangji cannons because the Portuguese were known to the Chinese as "Franks" at this time.
The Portuguese later returned to the coast of Guangdong and the islands of Shangchuan and Lampacau to conduct their commercial transactions. They began establishing trade relations with the Chinese from the port of Macau. They presented themselves as Portuguese instead of Franks in the Luso-Chinese agreement and rented Macau as a trading post from China by paying annual lease of hundreds of silver taels to Ming China.

Founding of Macau

Macau as a commercial port dates back to 1535 during the Ming dynasty, when local authorities established a custom house, collecting 20,000 taels in annual custom duties. Sources also call this payment a rent or bribe. In 1554, the custom house was moved to Lampacao, likely due to threats of piracy. After the Portuguese helped the Chinese defeat the pirates, they were allowed to settle in Macau. By 1557, they established a permanent settlement, paying an annual ground rent of 500 taels.
The name of Macau seems to have originated in one of the first places accessed by the Portuguese, the Bay of A-Má, named after a local temple of the goddess A-Má. A-Ma Gao would become, Amacao, Macao and, finally, Macau.
At the time, the Portuguese commercial establishment of Macau was only a small village with a few blocks, churches, and residences, joined by a small number of streets. Most of the population lived on trade, so many left Macao for months and sometimes years to carry out their trading. At that time, it had a vaguely defined political-administrative organization, as the Portuguese Crown had not yet properly planned for Macau. Therefore, at that time, the Captain-Major of the Voyage of China and Japan was responsible for the affairs of the Portuguese during his stay in Macau. As the only existing authority, he sought to maintain order among the Portuguese while his great merchant ship was in port.
Over time, issues emerged whose resolution could not wait for the Captain-Major's return from his trips to Japan, so a kind of triumvirate was formed, which began to direct the administration of the establishment. It was composed of three representatives of the residents, called homens-bons, chosen by vote. In 1562, one of those elected became, by choice, Land Captain. These three representatives continued to be nevertheless dependent on the Captain-Major. Specifically, the function of these three representatives was to regulate all matters of public order and politics. In addition to the triumvirate, there was also a judge, and four merchants elected by the people who participated in the administration. These elements together formed a kind of council.
Although the Portuguese remained in Macau, the Chinese authorities maintained that Macau was an integral part of the Chinese Celestial Empire, so the Portuguese had been obligated to pay annual rent and certain taxes to the Chinese since 1573. The governor of Guangdong, the highest Chinese authority in the region, ordered some mandarins in the vicinity of Macau to watch and supervise the Portuguese commercial establishment, namely with regard to the collection of rent and taxes levied by the Guangzhou authorities on all Chinese products and on all products exported by the Portuguese. These Chinese officials exercised great influence over the administration of Macau and also exercised control and ultimate jurisdiction over all Chinese residents in Macau. Many of them lived in the north of the peninsula.
In 1573 or 1574, the Chinese authorities ordered the construction of a barrier on the northern border of the Peninsula, in a place very close to the present-day Portas do Cerco, to prevent the expansion of the Portuguese through the island of Xiangshan, to supervise better the collection of taxes on goods entering or leaving the city, and to control Macau's supply.

Catholic Church in early Portuguese Macau

Macau also became an important point of departure for Catholic missionaries to different countries in Asia, namely China and Japan. In addition to evangelization, these missionaries, especially the Jesuits, also promoted ethical, cultural, and scientific exchange between the West and the East; and contributed in an important way to the development of Macao. Belchior Carneiro Leitão, the first Governor of the Bishopric of Macau, founded, in 1569, the first hospital in Macau, Hospital dos Pobres, and the first European institution charity in this region, the Santa Casa da Misericórdia. These religious Catholics also contributed to the development of social assistance, creating orphanages and even a leper colony, and education in Macau.
The Colégio de São Paulo was founded in the 16th century and the Seminary of São José in the 18th century. These two institutions had the function of training missionaries and priests. Due to the great importance of Macau, Pope Gregory XIII created the Diocese of Macau on 23 January 1576. Due to the lack of priestly vocations, the seminary was closed and the College was destroyed by fire in 1835.
On several occasions, the Jesuits who regularly attended the court in Beijing used their influence to save Macau from various dangers and from various exaggerated demands imposed by the Chinese authorities in Guangzhou or by the Emperor himself.

Goa-Macau-Nagasaki trade

From its founding until the loss of trade with Japan in 1639, Macau survived and prospered due to the China–Macau–Japan triangular trade. This lucrative trade, based on the exchange of silk and gold from China for silver from Japan, began when, in the 1540s, Portuguese merchants began selling Chinese products in Japan. Within a decade, Macau became a key entrepot and intermediary in trade between China and Japan, especially after Chinese authorities banned direct trade with Japan for over a hundred years. In these circumstances, the Portuguese monopolized trade between China, Japan, and Europe.
From 1550 onwards, this commercial monopoly was exercised and ensured by the Captain-Major of the Voyage of China and Japan, who also enjoyed the right to sell his post to others.

Macau during the Iberian Union

In 1580, the position of ouvidor was created. The first magistrate was sent from Lisbon to Macau, under the pretext of putting an end to the rivalries existing in the settlement. In 1581, the residents of Macau learned of the accession of Philip II of Spain to the throne of Portugal, which took place in the year 1580. This news saddened the citizens of Macau because it placed Macau in a dangerous situation, as the Chinese authorities had granted Macau to the Portuguese Crown and not to the Spanish. The Portuguese feared that they would be expelled by the Chinese authorities, losing their monopoly on trade with China. It was mainly for this reason, but also for the patriotic spirit of the Portuguese residents, that the Portuguese flag remained always hoisted during this period.
The new state of affairs in Portugal established a more organized, effective and representative administration. In 1583, on the initiative of the Bishop of Macau, the Senate, a municipal and senatorial body more representative than the oligarchic Junta, was founded to administer Macau better and to maintain Macau's autonomy from the Spanish authorities. The Senate, which feared the interference of Chinese authorities in the administration, the economy or even in the statute or in the very existence of Macau, prepared large sums of gifts for the Chinese authorities, with the intention of trying to distance them from Macao's internal affairs. This situation of subservience on the part of Macau would only be overcome with the measures imposed during the mandate of Governor João Ferreira do Amaral, although Macau continued to depend on China.
Due to the growing prosperity and importance of Macau, this commercial establishment was elevated to the status of city in 1586 or 1587, by decision of King Filipe II of Spain, changing its name to Cidade do Santo Nome De Deus de Macao. This Spanish monarch decided not to send a Governor to the city, preferring to keep things as they were.
It was during the period of Habsburg control of Portugal that Macau reached great prosperity, entering its "golden age". Some historians point to the period between 1595 and 1602 as the height of its "golden age". In this period, Macau became one of the busiest commercial cities in the Far East and served as an entrepot for many Portuguese and Spanish trade routes, mainly for the lucrative route to Japan. At that time, the Portuguese, although increasingly dependent on the capital of the great Chinese and Japanese merchants and also suffering from increasing Dutch competition, had exclusivity on this route because Japan did not allow the entry of other foreign ships. This route, especially when the Dutch began to disturb the routes to Goa and Malacca, became one of the main sources of income for Macau and provided a key support to Portuguese trade in the China Seas.
During this period, the Church of São Paulo and many other architectural works, built mostly according to European-inspired architectural styles, were completed, giving a strong touch of splendor and grandeur to the city.
During this period, the Leal Senado was able to avoid open conflicts with the mandarins, bribing them with significant sums, and compromises with the Spaniards, who wanted to end the commercial monopoly that the Portuguese enjoyed in China.
The Spaniards, based in Manila, even sent embassies to China and Japan, in an attempt to end the privileged position of the Portuguese, but they did not achieve what they sought, partially due to the pro-Portuguese actions of the Jesuits based in those Asian countries. In fact, the Jesuits were at the service of the Portuguese Empire at that time, within the scope of the Portuguese Padroado agreement.
Portuguese-Spanish relations were characterized more by distrust and rivalry than by cooperation and unity. For example, in 1589, the establishment of a Macau–Acapulco trade route greatly angered the Spaniards of Manila. In another example, some Spaniards even wanted the King of Spain to order the destruction of Macau, transferring the silver and silk trade between Japan and China to Manila; this proposal was not put into practice.
Alongside this, trade between Macau and Manila grew and was gradually regulated, also becoming an important source of income for the City of the Name of God.