Acehnese–Portuguese conflicts were the military engagements between the forces of the Portuguese Empire, established at Malacca in the Malay Peninsula, and the Sultanate of Aceh, which was a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire, fought intermittently from 1519 to 1639 in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula or the Strait of Malacca. The Portuguese supported, or were supported, by various Malay or Sumatran states who opposed Acehnese expansionism, while the Acehnese received support from the Ottoman Empire and the Dutch East India Company.
When Aceh began expanding their empire overseas, onto the Malay peninsula, the Portuguese and their allies faced the Acehnese efforts at conquering Malacca and aided other Malay or Sumatran states at resisting Aceh, mainly during the reign of the expansionist Sultan Iskandar Muda.
Course of hostilities
Early conflicts, 1519
The conflicts between Aceh and Portugal started in 1519, when a Portuguese ship under Gaspar de Costa was lost near Aceh and attacked by the Acehnese, killing its crew. Gaspar was captured and later ransomed, and it was not long after this that another ship under Joano de Lima was attacked near Aceh. All its crews were massacred.
Battle of Aceh, 1521
In 1521, a Portuguese fleet of 6 ships under the command of Jorge de Brito departed from Goa and anchored in the harbour of Aceh, where they found nine Portuguese who had shipwrecked there, led by João de Borba. Borba told Brito how the sultan of Aceh had attacked and plundered a number of Portuguese vessels who either passed by his shore or were wrecked there. Brito asked the sultan to return the cargo, but as it was not forthcoming they attempted to sack a temple near the city of Aceh with 200 men. They captured a small settlement half-way between the port and the city of Aceh, but were later driven back aboard by an Acehnese counter-attack, having suffered more than 50 dead.
Battle of Pedir, 1522
Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah captured the neighbouring Sultanate of Pedir in 1522 by bribing its chief officials. The sultan of Pedir fled with his family to neighbouring Pasai, where the Portuguese held a fort and requested its captain military aid to recover his throne. The captain of the fort dispatched Manuel Henriques with 80 Portuguese and 200 auxiliaries to Pedir by sea while the sultan marched by land with a force of 1000 men and 15 elephants. The Acehnese attacked the Portuguese and killed 35 men including the commander, after which the Portuguese returned to Pasai, suspecting of a trap.
Siege of Pasai, 1523–1524
In 1523 Aceh invaded Pasai, a Portuguese ally and after a few months campaign occupied its capital with much slaughter. Turning towards the Portuguese fortress that existed there, they sieged it for several months. The Portuguese, numbering no more than 350 soldiers, many of them sick and wounded, repulsed several assaults, but after gathering a war-council decided to evacuate the fort.
Early Conflicts in the Indian Ocean
The first Portuguese-Acehnese conflict in the Indian Ocean erupted in 1526 when the Portuguese seized an Acehnese ship bound for Jeddah in the Arabian Sea, selling its cargo in Hormuz. Several years later, subsequent Portuguese attacks on Acehnese vessels off the Arabian coast resulted in the plunder of valuable cargoes.
Battle of Aceh, 1528
In 1527, Francisco de Mello sailed in an armed vessel with dispatches to Goa. On his journey, he met a pilgrim Acehnese ship coming from Mecca with a crew of three hundred Acehnese and forty Arabs. They bombarded and sank it from a distance. The Portuguese massacred the surviving crews, prompting the Acehnese to seek retaliation. The Acehnese then attacked and captured the Portuguese galley.
Battle of Aceh, 1529
In an attempt to negotiate a treaty of commerce with the Acehnese Sultan, the governor of Malacca dispatched a company with precious gifts and arrived in Aceh, Immediately after they departed, however, some boats followed them and captured them, killing their crews. The governor assumed these ships were lost in accidents.
The Acehnese sultan, wishing to ratify the treaty, wished for some Portuguese presence. The governor dispatched a large ship under Manuel Pacheco alongside several merchants; when they arrived, they were surrounded by a great number of Acehnese boats, which led to suspicion between the Portuguese. An arrow killed Manuel, and the ship was captured. The crew was arrested and massacred.
Siege of Malacca, 1537
The first attack launched by Aceh on Malacca in September 1537 was led by Alauddin al-Kahar. This surprise attack, supported by about 3000 fighting men, landed at night near Malacca, and began ravaging the outskirts. However, over the following two nights, the Acehnese force was driven out by the Portuguese with a loss of 500 Acehnese.
Action of 1546
In 1546, the Acehnese attacked a Portuguese junk belonging to Antonio de Sousa and successfully captured it. Due to this, the Portuguese governor, João de Castro, ordered all Portuguese ships to sail in convoy from India to Malacca.
Battle of Perlis River, 1547
The Sultanate of Aceh attempted in 1547 to attack Portuguese Malacca by surprise under the command of the King of Pedir Bayaya Soora. The large Acehnese fleet, which included 3 galleys, 57 lancharas, 5000 men among sailors and warriors, 300 hulubalangs (ourobalões in Portuguese), plus 80 mercenaries from the Ottoman Empire, of which a number were former Janissary defectors was however detected by the Portuguese, ambushed while landing in the middle of the night and forced to withdraw north.Through the encouragement of renown missionary Francis Xavier the Portuguese assembled a small flottilla and under the command of Dom Francisco de Eça set out after the Acehnese. Having anchored within Perlis River to try and subjugate the region, the Acehnese were cornered within the river. After a stiff but brief fight in December 6, almost the entirety of the Acehnese force was destroyed or captured. The Sultan of Perlis signed an alliance with Portugal and became a tributary vassal in the aftermath.
Battle of Qishn, 1561
In March or April 1561, a large 50-gun Acehnese ship manned by 500 Acehnese and other nations, including Turks, Arabs, and Abyssinians, was intercepted by a Portuguese fleet of two galleons and some foists near Qishn. A fierce battle ensued till night in which both Portuguese galleons and Acehnese ships caught fire, two of the Portuguese ships burned and drowned, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. The next day, the consort of the ship was spotted, and the Portuguese successfully forced her to engage; however, at night, the ship slipped away. Tired of chasing their prey, the Portuguese disengaged and cruised in the Red Sea for some time. The remaining crews of the Acehnese ship later arrived in Aden.
Battle of Maldives, 1562
In 1565, the Portuguese received word that five Acehnese galleons loaded with pepper, spices and other goods were preparing to depart to Mecca while 9 Ottoman galleys coming to escort them. Hearing this, the Portuguese dispatched a force of 5 galleons and six galleys to Maldives to intercept them. Having learned of their arrival, the commander, Diego Pereyra, divided his forces into two and patrolled the Maldives channels. The Ottomans made a ruse and fired their cannons at several locations; they convinced both patrols that they had encountered the enemy. One Acehnese ship of 400 men ran into one of the galleons, Sao Sebastiao. The galleon began boarding the ship, and fierce fighting ensued. Both ships caught fire and destroyed. The rest of the Ottoman-Acehnese ships successfully evaded the Portuguese.
Siege of Malacca, 1568
In 1568 Sultan of Aceh Alauddin attacked Portuguese Malacca. The Ottomans supplied cannonneers to the alliance, but were unable to provide more due to the ongoing invasion of Cyprus and an uprising in Aden.The army of the Sultan was composed of a large fleet of long galley-type oared ships, 15,000 troops, and Turkish mercenaries. The city of Malacca was successfully defended by Dom Leonis Pereira, who was supported by the king of Johor.
Battle of Aceh, 1569
The Battle of Aceh was fought in 1569 off the coast of Sumatra between a lone Portuguese carrack (nau, in Portuguese) and an armada of the Sultanate of Aceh, that was about to stage an attack on Portuguese Malacca with 20 galleys, 20 war junks and 200 smaller craft. It ended in Portuguese victory and the withdrawal of the Aceh fleet after suffering heavy losses.
Battle of Formoso River, 1570
In November 1570, the Portuguese ambushed and destroyed an Aceh fleet of 100 ships by the mouth of River Formoso to the south of Malacca, killing the prince-heir of Aceh, and thus forcing the Sultan to postpone the attack to a later date. Dom Luís de Melo then returned to India with his forces the following January.
Siege of Malacca, 1573
Portuguese Malacca was scarcely defended in October 1573 as most soldiers were embarked on commercial missions. The sultan of Aceh therefore requested the assistance of the Queen of Jepara in Java to siege it and assembled an armada of 25 galleys, 34 half-galleys, and 30 craft and 7000 men. Aceh had material support from the Sultanate of Golkonda in India.
The Acehnese landed on October 13 south of Malacca and dealt severe casualties to the Portuguese who attempted a sortie. Thereafter they began attacking the fortress with incendiary projectiles, causing several fires but a sudden storm put out the fires and scattered the fleet, and the assault was called off. The Aceh commander then decided to establish a naval base by the Muar River and force the city to surrender through a naval blockade instead, but they were challenged by a Portuguese fleet of a carrack, a galleon, and eight half-galleys under the command of Tristão Vaz da Veiga. Despite having Turkish gunners and cannon, the Acehnese artillery was not overly effective. Once their flagship captured by the Portuguese, the remainder of the Aceh fleet scattered. The Portuguese suffered ten dead.
Siege of Malacca, 1575
After Malacca was sieged in 1573 and 1574, the garrison was left decimated, crops destroyed, and foodstuffs and gunpowder in the city nearly exhausted.
In the final day of January 1575, a new Acehnese armada of 113 vessels, once more laid siege to Malacca. The Acehnese defeated the Portuguese vessels led by Joao Pereira, Bernadim da Silva, and Fernando Pallares. They killed 75 Portuguese, including the three captains, and captured 40 prisoners. Five Portuguese escaped by swimming. Within Malacca there were now only 150 Portuguese soldiers to defend it plus the corps of native soldiers; Tristão Vaz realized that to keep them behind the walls could be disadvantageous, as it might hint the enemy of their dwindling numbers. Because of this, he had his last remaining men perform short sorties to fool the Acehnese of their numbers.
Ultimately, the third siege of Malacca was brief: only seventeen days after landing, fearing a trap, the Acehnese lifted the siege and sailed back to Sumatra. In June, Dom Miguel de Castro arrived from Goa with a fleet of a galleass, three galleys, and eight half-galleys to relieve Tristão Vaz as captain of Malacca, along with 500 soldiers in reinforcements.
Battle of Johor, 1577
On January 1, 1577, the Portuguese fleet led by Mathias de Albuquerque was intercepted near Johor by the Acehnese fleet on their mission to protect a Chinese junk. The Acehnese fleet consisted of 150 ships and 10,000 men and was led by the sultan Ali Ri'ayat Syah I. The Acehnese were defeated and 1,600 were captured, while the Portuguese only suffered 13 deaths.
Battle of Malacca and Johor, 1582
The Acehnese fleet attacked Malacca in 1582. With a fleet of 150 ships, they intercepted two ships lying in a river and began bombarding them. However, seeing the little damage inflicted, they resolved to burn them. However, the Portuguese successfully diverted them from the burning vessels that were sent to burn them. Later, a Portuguese galliot led by Nuno Monteiro with 50 men engaged the Acehnese fleet, which began boarding it. However, the galliot caught fire, and all on board were killed, including Nuno. The Acehnese, satisfied with this success, then retired to attack Johor.
The Sultan of Johor requested assistance from the Portuguese at Malacca, and 12 ships were dispatched to his aid. The Acehnese were caught unprepared and some of their largest galleys were torched before any resistance could be organized. The head of one of the Acehnese commanders was presented to the sultan of Johore, who had it set on the beach. Struck by their losses, the Acehnese lifted the siege shortly afterwards.