Battle of Macau

After the Portuguese gained permission from the Ming mandarins in Guangdong to establish a permanent settlement and trade base in Macau in 1557, the port of Macau benefited greatly from being the intermediary of the lucrative China–Japan trade, since the direct routes were banned by the Ming court due to fears of the wokou pirates. Portugal's success in Macau drew the envy of other European maritime powers who were slower to gain a foothold in East Asia. When Philip II of Spain became King of Portugal after the 1580 Portuguese succession crisis, Portuguese colonies came under attack from Spain's enemies, especially the Dutch and the English, who were also hoping to expand their overseas empires. Macau had encountered the Dutch in 1601, 1603, and 1607, but the Dutch invasion of 1622 represented the first real attempt to capture the city. The Dutchmen, frustrated that their trading post at Hirado was unable to compete with the Portuguese traders at Nagasaki as a result of the latter's easy access to China, hoped that the capture of Macau would grant them a commercial base in China while at the same time depriving the Portuguese of the profitable Macau–Nagasaki route. The fall of Macau would also leave the Spaniards in the Philippines without means of support and make it easier for the Dutch to mount an attack on Manila. Despite the raids, the Portuguese authorities had not raised an extensive defensive system for the city because of interference by Chinese officials. Macau's defenses in 1622 consisted of a few batteries, one at the west end of the Macau Peninsula (later site of the Fort São Tiago da Barra), and one at each end of the southern bay of Praia Grande (São Francisco on the east and Bom Parto on the west), plus a half-completed Fortaleza do Monte that overlooked the Cathedral of St. Paul. The sorry state of Macau's defenses became known to the Dutchmen when the Dutch ship Gallias seized a Portuguese ship carrying a case of letters off the coast of Malaya at the end of 1621. Judging by these intercepted letters and information available from Japan, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies Jan Pieterszoon Coen considered that Macau was not in a position to resist a serious attack, and set his invasion plan in motion. Before the invasion, the Portuguese authorities, aware of the territory’s lack of artillery and the imminence of the Dutch attack, sought help from Spanish East Indies in the name of Iberian Union. The Captaincy General of the Philippines answered by sending some pieces of artillery (this was essential in providing cannons for the city's defenses) and one hundred Castilian and Filipino soldiers. == Expedition to Macau ==

At Batavia, headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Coen organized an initial fleet of eight ships for the expedition to Macau, with orders that any Dutch vessel encountered along the way was to be incorporated into the invasion fleet. The soldiers that composed the landing force were specifically selected, and even among the crew there were fewer lascars and Malays than usual; it had been customary for Europeans to carry locals for navigation. The VOC directors did not share Coen's enthusiasm in this venture, stating that they had enough wars at the time, and ordered Coen to wait until they could make a more informed decision. But the fleet, under the command of Cornelis Reijersen, had already left Batavia on 10 April 1622 before the order was sent. Coen had previously ordered Admiral Janszoon to detach a few ships from the Manila blockade to join Reijersen's fleet; as a result, two Dutch and two English vessels had waited outside Macau since 29 May. The four ships had tried to disrupt Macau's sea traffic while waiting for the invasion fleet to arrive, but they were unsuccessful in capturing any Portuguese prize, because Macau's leader at the time, Captain-Major of the Japan voyage Lopo Sarmento de Carvalho, had hurriedly fitted seven junks with guns to provide escort. == Battle ==

On the night of 22 June Reijersen sent ashore a scouting party of three men and a Chinese guide to see if the 10,000 Chinese residents of the city would remain neutral. They soon returned after finding the Chinese had fled the city ahead of the invasion. The following morning, Reijersen himself boarded a launch with some senior officers to scout for a suitable landing site. It was decided that the invading army would make their landing on the eastern Cacilhas Beach () the next day, 24 June.), the ships withdrew for the night without inflicting any casualties on the Portuguese side. Nonetheless, the Dutch celebrated their expected victory in advance by blowing their trumpets and beating their drums all night. The Portuguese responded with similar martial festivities in the city's bulwarks. entrenched at the beach under the command of António Rodrigues Cavalhino gave some initial resistance by shooting into the smoke, killing 40 and wounding Admiral Reijersen in the belly, taking him out of action. Captain Hans Ruffijn took command of the landing force and speedily overran the entrenchment, forcing Cavalhino to pull back, after which the rest of the landing force disembarked without opposition. The beachhead now secure, Ruffijn left two companies at the beach as rear-guard and advanced into the city with 600 men, fighting skirmishes with Cavalhino's retreating men along the way. The Dutch marched toward the centre of the city in orderly fashion until reaching the artillery range of the Fortaleza do Monte, where they came under heavy bombardment by a varied mosaic of militiamen, including retired Portuguese soldiers from the State of India who had married and settled in Macau, Eurasian traders and their domestic servants, local and maritime Chinese, Spanish merchants and their Tagalog helpers, and hundreds of African slaves from Portuguese Mozambique. When the invaders passed by a small spring called Fontinha, the Dutch ammunition cache exploded in their midst, causing many casualties. Portuguese records attribute the cause of the explosion to the Jesuit priest Giacomo Rho, who is said to have fired a cannon-shot from the Fortaleza do Monte at the Dutch. The Dutch commanders halted the advance to deliberate their next steps. They decided to climb Guia Hill, upon which a hermitage was situated, to get a better view of the enemy, but their ascent was resisted by a party of 30 Macanese and blacks, whose ferocity and effective use of terrain forced the Dutch to turn back. The invaders moved toward a patch of high ground near the Guia Hill, with the intention of retreating for the day due to fatigue and low ammunition (most was lost in the explosion). By then it had become apparent to the Portuguese that the main Dutch force was attacking from the east and that the bombardment of São Francisco was just a feint. The commander of the São Thiago garrison therefore sent 50 men under Captain João Soares Vivas to aid the inland defense. When the Portuguese realized the Dutch intentions, the defenders occupied the high ground ahead of the Dutch. With the battle cry "Santiago!", Lopo Sarmento de Carvalho signaled the counterattack, and the combined forces of the Portuguese defenders, Macanese citizens, Dominican friars, Jesuit priests, and black slaves charged the enemy, forcing the Dutchmen to retreat. One black woman was even compared to the legendary Brites de Almeida by a contemporary Jesuit for her incredible skill with a halberd during the battle. The next day, Admiral Reijersen sent ashore a flag of truce to negotiate the release of prisoners. The negotiation was in vain, and the dejected Dutch fleet soon left Macau waters to head for the Pescadores. == Aftermath ==

The battle was the most decisive defeat ever dealt by the Portuguese to the Dutch in the Far East, as the losses of the attackers far outweighed those of the defenders. At Batavia, Jan Pieterszoon Coen was extremely bitter about the outcome of the battle, writing "in this shameful manner we lost most of our best men in this fleet together with most of the weapons." Coen would from there on advocate for the employment of slaves for warfare in preference to Dutch soldiers. they apparently relayed stories of the blacks' bravery as well, causing the impressed Provincial Admiral (; referred in European sources as haitao) to send a gift of 200 piculs of rice to be distributed among them. With the new arrangement the Captain-Major's authority was limited to the merchant fleet to Japan, and lost all privileges he might have had in Macau to the Governor of Macau. Later in 1622 when the Dutch fleet arrived in the Pescadores, the place that Coen believed to be better than Macau from a strategic viewpoint, Admiral Reijersen built a fort there and carried out Coen's orders to indiscriminately attack Chinese ships, to coerce the Chinese authorities into allowing trade. It was hoped that if this harassment campaign succeeded, the Pescadores might supplant Macau and Manila as a silk entrepôt for the Japan market. However, the Chinese started to regard the Hollanders as pirates and murderers because of these raids and the attack on Macau, and refused to trade with them. The Chinese then waged war against the Dutch and defeated them during the Sino–Dutch conflicts from 1623 to 1624, forcing the Dutch to abandon the Pescadores in 1624 for Taiwan. At that point, the Chinese began to consider the Dutch offer for trade. In the two years in between, Macau had reaped the benefits of increased trade. == Commemoration ==

, a park in Macau with a monument commemorating the battle. Being a great victory for the Portuguese in Macau, the battle was commemorated in a number of ways. When the English traveler Peter Mundy arrived in Macau in 1637, he described a children's dance which depicted a "battaille betweene the Portugalls and the Dutch... where the Dutch were overcome, butt withoutt any reproachfull speeche or Disgracefull action to thatt Nation." Also, after the victory, the residents of Macau began to celebrate on 24 June as the City Day to commemorate the victory. This day was a public holiday on the Macau Peninsula and was observed every year until the handover of Macau to China in 1999. In 1871 a monument of the battle was erected in the Victory Garden. == See also ==