Events relating to the portuguese empire

A Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator, becomes fascinated by exploration down the coast of Africa and commissions successive voyages

The Portuguese, discovering the lush and uninhabited island of Madeira, send colonists to settle it

Portugal claims ownership of the region of Guinea, subsequently the centre of their slave trade on the west African coast

The caravel, a sailing ship developed in the Mediterranean and used down the west coast of Africa, is adapted by the Portuguese for Atlantic use

The Portuguese establish a further presence on the west coast of Africa, at the mouth of the Congo river

Bartolomeu Dias, sailing for the king of Portugal, becomes the first European navigator to round the Cape of Good Hope

Pope Alexander VI draws a line through the Atlantic, dividing new discoveries between Spain (west) and Portugal (east)

In negotiations about the New World at Tordesillas, the king of Portugal insists on a new demarcation line which later brings him Brazil

Vasco da Gama reaches the southern coast of India, at Calicut, after sailing across the Indian Ocean from east Africa

The Portuguese establish trading posts in east Africa, on the coast of Mozambique

Vasco da Gama wins a trading treaty for Portuguese merchants after bombarding the Indian port of Calicut into submission

The Portuguese take control of Malacca, in the Malay peninsula, as a base for trade further east

The first Portuguese governor general of Brazil selects Bahia (now Salvador) as his capital

Africans, bought in the Portuguese trading posts of west Africa, are shipped across the Atlantic as slaves

The Portuguese establish a trading post on Macao, a small peninsula off the south coast of China

The Dutch gradually exclude the Portuguese from the immensely lucrative trade in cloves from the Spice Islands (or Moluccas)

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