Portuguese conquest of Ormuz

In the early 16th century, the coastal cities of Oman were a dependency of the kingdom of Hormuz, ruled by its governors.

On August 22, 1507, the squadron of Albuquerque reached Qalhat, whose governor preferred to deliver fruits and exchange hostages with the Portuguese.[9] Qurayyat further north however, erected stockades and attempted to resist, but the town was assaulted and sacked. Muscat was then governed by a eunuch and former slave of the King of Hormuz, who surrendered to Albuquerque, but the garrison overruled his decision, for which the town was likewise sacked.[10]

Sohar was then the only town in Oman protected by a small fort, but it promptly capitulated at the sight of the Portuguese. The town was spared, gifts were exchanged, and in return for a pledge of vassalage, its governor was entrusted with a Portuguese flag to hoist, and allowed keep the annual tribute for himself and his troops ahead of the fort.[11]

Finally, Khor Fakkan also attempted to resist, but it was sacked.[12] At Khor Fakkan, the Portuguese captured one of the three governors of the town - an elder who seemed so distinguished that he was brought before Albuquerque. Speaking courteous words, he claimed the Portuguese seemed "not inferior to the army of Alexander the Great". When questioned how he knew of Alexander, the man offered Albuquerque a crimson book written in Parsi of the life of Alexander. Most likely, this was the famous Eskandar Nameh written by Nizami Ganjavi, which Albuquerque "prized above anything else".[13] Thus, the Portuguese conquered Oman.

Portuguese naus and war-caravels

Portuguese carrack

The Portuguese were surrounded by some 50 armed merchant-ships on the land side and somewhere between 120[19] to 200 light oarcraft on the sea side. Albuquerque made no attempts to escape this encirclement; he would instead take advantage of the excessive number of enemy vessels specifically to allow the artillery to fire for greater effect.[20]

As negotiations broke down by about 9 a.m. of the following day, Albuquerque's flagship Cirne opened fire, and the rest of the fleet followed suit. Volleys were exchanged between the Hormuzi fleet and the Portuguese, with a clear advantage to the latter, and large clouds of smoke formed around the ships, greatly impairing visibility.[20]

From the beaches, the inhabitants of Hormuz, the King included, observed the battle attentively; some were killed by stray cannonballs, and scattered.

The Hormuzi light-oar ships, carrying a great number of mercenary Persian bowmen, maneuvered to attack the Portuguese fleet en masse. At this point, the Portuguese experienced some difficulties due to their lack of personnel, but the compact group of shallow enemy vessels made for an ideal target for Portuguese gunners: about a dozen were sunk and many more disabled, thus obstructing the path of the ones following.[20]

As confusion and discoordination set in amongst the Hormuzis, the Portuguese passed on the offensive: Albuquerque had his ship grapple the great carrack of Gujarat, which was boarded and rendered submissive after a stiff fight. One after the other, the Portuguese captured or burned most ships afloat.[21] Finally, the Portuguese made a landing by the shipyards and began setting fire to the outskirts of Hormuz; fearing a bloody assault by the Portuguese, the vizier Cogeatar raised a white flag over the royal palace announcing the surrender.[22]

With no more than 500 men and six decaying ships, Albuquerque had subdued the most powerful naval power in the Gulf.

The vessels of Hormuz were probably similar to the Arabian baghlah

After long negotiations, on October 10 Afonso de Albuquerque met with the King of Hormuz Seyf Ad-Din, the vizier Cogeatar, and his right-hand man Rais Nureddin Fali, to sign the terms of capitulation: They consisted of a tribute worth 15,000 ashrafi (a Persian coin), Portuguese exemption from paying customs dues, and the right to erect a fortress on the island, in exchange for allowing the king to keep his position under Portuguese military protection, while the merchants had the vessels captured in the battle returned to them.[23]

Albuquerque ordered his soldiers to set about erecting the fort on the northernmost tip of the island in turns, and every night the Portuguese would reembark before landing the following morning (to avoid revealing how few the Portuguese actually were).[24] This astonished the Hormuzis, unaccustomed as they were to seeing fighting men engage in menial work.[25]

Hormuz was a tributary state of Persia, and in a famous episode, Albuquerque was confronted by two Persian envoys who demanded the payment of the tribute from him instead. Albuquerque had them delivered guns, swords, cannonballs, and arrows, retorting that such was the "currency" struck in Portugal to pay tribute.[26]

Yet, the construction of the fortress under the harsh Hormuzi climate raised grave complaints and disagreements among the Portuguese, especially the Portuguese captains, who contested Albuquerque's decision of lingering on Hormuz.[27]

Eventually, in December, four sailors deserted from the armada to Cogeatar, informing him of the real Portuguese numbers and the dissent among their ranks. Realizing the danger of the situation, Albuquerque evacuated all of his men from the incomplete fort back to the ships, and put Hormuz under blockade, hoping the lack of water sources on the island would force Cogeatar to return the renegades and Hormuz into submission. The Portuguese too, however, had to take lengthy journeys to the island of Qeshm or Larak for fresh water.[28] Eventually, at the end of January 1508, three of Albuquerque's captains - Afonso Lopes da Costa, António do Campo, and Manuel Teles[29] - deserted to Cochin, in India, with their respective vessels.[29] Realizing the weakness of his position, on February 8 so too did Albuquerque depart from Hormuz.[30]

Portuguese sketch of Socotra, 1541.

João da Nova returned with his vessel, the Flor do Mar to India, while Albuquerque returned to Socotra with Francisco de Távora, where he found the Portuguese garrison starving.[31] From there, Francisco de Távora on the Rei Grande was sent to Malindi in east-Africa to fetch for more supplies, while Albuquerque remained with his Cirne in the Gulf of Aden, contacting the Somalis of the Horn and raiding merchant ships.[32] In April, Francisco de Távora returned to Socotra in the company of Diogo de Melo and Martim Coelho and their respective vessels, whom he encountered on east-Africa on their way to India. For the garrison of Socotra, they bore the first news of Portugal in two years.[33]

In August, Albuquerque again set sail to Ormuz to scout its situation, and on the way sacked Qalhat, for having given spoilt foodstuffs the previous year[34] Upon seeing that Hormuz had been duly fortified, and that the Cirne was taking in a dangerous amount of water, he returned to India.[35]

Albuquerque vowed not to cut his beard until he had conquered Hormuz.[36]

Plan of the Portuguese fortress of Hormuz. The primitive fort laid down by Albuquerque is marked in red.

With Hormuz secured, Albuquerque resumed building the fortress, employing his men and hired local labour, a work in which he participated personally.[45] The site at the northern tip of the tear-drop shaped island of Hormuz, strategically overlooking the city and both harbours on either side, was selected for its construction. Its layout resembled an irregular pentagon with seven towers and was christened in honor of Our Lady of Conception, Fortaleza da Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Hormuz, in Portuguese. It had a garrison of 400 Portuguese soldiers.[46] A large pillory was erected in the marketplace, and later a large courtyard opened between the fortress and the city.

In 1550, the old fortress was renovated and expanded under the guise of architect Inofre de Carvalho, who designed a larger fortress better adapted to the precepts of modern gunpowder warfare.

Persians of Hormuz as depicted by the Portuguese in the Códice Casanatense

At Hormuz Albuquerque adopted the principle of indirect rule: the king was allowed to rule his kingdom as a vassal of the Portuguese Crown, but it was disarmed and the Portuguese took control of defence, leaving only a royal guard, effectively turning it into a protectorate.[47] The yearly tribute of 15,000 ashrafi was enforced, and Albuquerque collected the tribute in arrears: 120 000 ashrafi.[48] Throughout the 16th century, this sum would progressively be raised.

The old state of violent intrigue between the various court factions at Hormuz and the brutal repression by Rais Ahmed had dissuaded many merchants from seeking the city in recent years, causing trade to decline; such a tendency was only reversed by the Portuguese takeover. At the same time, the presence of Portuguese forces at Hormuz also made navigation much safer in the Gulf. The kings of Basra, Bahrein, Lar and neighbouring Persian governors dispatched embassies to Albuquerque, seeking friendly relations.[49] Great crowds would form to witness Albuquerque whenever he rode through the streets, and painters were sent to Hormuz to take his portrait.[50]

As all seagoing trade between India and the Middle-East passed through Hormuz, the total yearly revenue of Hormuz was estimated by certain Portuguese authors such as Gaspar Correia at about 140,000 cruzados, 100,000 of those from the customs alone; the Portuguese historian João de Barros reported that in 1524, the customs had yielded 200,000 cruzados. With Hormuz secured, Albuquerque captured the strategic war-horses trade, that was exported from Arabia and Persia to India via Hormuz, which he directed to Goa. Of all the Portuguese possessions in the Orient, Hormuz came to be a vital source of income for the Portuguese State of India.

In 1521 the king of Bahrein, a vassal of Hormuz rebelled against Hormuzi suzerainty, refusing to pay the due tribute; Bahrain was then conquered by António Correia with the support of Hormuzi troops, and annexed to the Kingdom of Hormuz. Henceforth it was administered by an Hormuzi governor. Later that year, the city of Hormuz itself rose in revolt against the Portuguese, but it was suppressed. In 1523, Sohar in Oman likewise rebelled, but it was pacified by Dom Luís de Menezes, while Muscat and Qalhat rebelled in 1526 but were likewise pacified.[51]

In 1552, Ottoman vessels under the command of Piri Reis attacked the city, but he failed to capture it. Hormuz, and the Persian Gulf as a whole, would see intense competition between the Ottomans and Portuguese during the 1550s as part of the Ottoman-Portuguese conflicts (1538-1559). Portuguese and Turkish fleets would clash before Hormuz in 1553 at the Battle of the Strait of Hormuz and in 1554 at the Battle of the Gulf of Oman, the Turks being destroyed outright in the latter. In 1559, the Ottomans made a final attempt to capture Bahrain, but failed.

An account of the history of Hormuz was first published in Europe in 1569, when the Portuguese friar Gaspar da Cruz published in Évora the "Chronicle of the Kingdom of Hormuz", likely translated from original documents during his stay in the city; he included it in his Tratado das Cousas da China, the first European book with an exclusive focus on China.

Hormuz would remain a Portuguese client-state until the fall of Hormuz to a combined English-Persian force in 1622.