Battle of Goa

Battle of Goa, (9–10 December 1510). The first part of India to fall to European colonial rule was Goa on the west coast. Its conquest was the work of energetic Portuguese viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque, who recognized that the port-city would make a perfect permanent base for Portugal’s navy and commerce in the Indian Ocean.

After the Portuguese naval victory at Diu in 1509, Francisco de Almeida was replaced as Portugal’s overall commander in the Indian Ocean by Albuquerque. He had at his disposal a fleet of twenty-three ships and more than a thousand men.

In January 1510, he was approached by a Hindu bandit chief, Timoji, with a suggestion that he should attack Goa while the city’s Muslim ruler, Ismail Adil Shah, was distracted by a rebellion inland. Timoji hoped to emerge as Goa’s ruler with Portuguese support. In March, Albuquerque duly occupied the city, but his hold on the conquest was tenuous and he soon withdrew to avoid facing a counterattack that might have been supported by the restive population. Fortuitously, reinforcements arrived in the form of a Portuguese fleet bound for Malacca. Albuquerque hijacked this fleet and diverted it to a second attack on Goa. The seaborne assault was made with overwhelming force. Within a day the Goan defenses were overcome, despite brave resistance by the Muslim garrison. About two-thirds of the Muslim defenders are said to have been killed, either struck down in the fighting or drowned trying to escape the Portuguese fury.

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Timoji was assigned only a subordinate role as Albuquerque set about turning Goa into the capital of Portugal’s naval and commercial empire in Asia. Goa was destined to remain under colonial rule until 1961; it was the last—as well as the first—European possession in India.

Losses: Muslim, 6,000 of 9,000; Portuguese, unknown.