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The Portuguese Empire was one of the earliest overseas empires. There are several reasons for its early colonial flourishing: Hemmed in territorially on all sides by territories controlled by Castille, Portugal had nowhere to expand besides seawards. This resulted in the first and largest colonial empire of the 16th century.1 Creation through 1600
Throughout the 15th century, Portuguese ships organized by Henry the Navigator explored the West coast of Africa, mapping the territory and pursuing trade, particularly in gold and slaves. By 1487, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India and established the first Portuguese outposts there.
The discovery of the sea route around Africa to India and the rest of Asia opened enormous opportunities to trade for Portugal, and Portugal moved aggressively to establish both trade outposts and fortified bases to control this trade.
In East Africa, small Islamic states along the coast of Mozambique, Kilwa , Brava and MombasaMombasa is a major port and is the second largest city in Kenya. The port serves both Kenya and countries of the interior using the Uganda Railway. The city has a population of around 900,000 and is located on Mombasa Island. The town is mainly occupied b were destroyed or became subjects or allies of Portugal. Pedro de Covilha had reached Abyssinia as early as 1490. In the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, one of Pedro Alvares Cabral's ships discovered MadagascarSee also Madagascar (movie) Madagascar is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, off the eastern coast of Africa. Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world. It is the home of five percent of the world's plant and animal species, 80 per cent of them, which was partly explored by Trista da Cunha (1507); Mauritius was discovered in 1507, Socotra occupied in 1506, and in the same year D. Lourenço d'Almeida visited Ceylon.
The Portuguese empire in the East was guaranteed by the Treaty of TordesillasThe Treaty of Tordesillas (signed at Tordesillas ( Castile), June 7, 1494) divided the world outside of Europe in an exclusive duopoly between the Spanish and the Portuguese along a north-south meridian 370 leagues (1770 km; 1100 miles) west of the Cape V, and Portugal established trading ports at far-flung locations like GoaGoa ( is India's smallest state in terms of area and the second smallest in terms of population. Goa is internationally renowned for its fabled tropical beaches and world heritage architecture. A former colony of Portugal, parts of it were ruled by the Po, MalaccaPeninsular Malaysia Malacca (or Melaka in Malay) is a state of Malaysia, located in the southern part of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. The state's capital is also called Melaka or Malacca. Although the first Malay sultanate started in Ma, the Maluku Islands, Macau, and Nagasaki. Guarding its trade jealously from both European and Asian competitors, Portugal dominated not only the trade between Asia and Europe, but also much of the trade among different regions of Asia, such as India, Indonesia, China, and Japan. Jesuit missionaries followed the Portuguese to spread Roman Catholic Christianity to Asia with mixed success.
Brazil was discovered in 1500 by Pedro Alvares Cabral. Although initially less important, Brazil would become the most important colony of the empire, from which Portugal gathered resources such as gold, precious stones, sugar cane, coffee and other cash crops.
