António de Abreu () was a 16th-century Portuguese

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

and naval officer. He participated under the command of

Afonso de Albuquerque Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa (; – 16 December 1515) was a Portuguese general, admiral, and statesman. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean ...

in the conquest of Ormus in 1507 and Malacca in 1511, where he got injured. Departing from Malacca in November 1511 with four ships, in an exploratory voyage to the 'Spice Islands' of Maluku, he led the first European expedition to reach

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, also ...

and the

Banda Islands The Banda Islands ( id, Kepulauan Banda) are a volcanic group of ten small volcanic islands in the Banda Sea, about south of Seram Island and about east of Java, and constitute an administrative district (''kecamatan'') within the Central ...

, in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, in 1512. Abreu was born about 1480 in Madeira, the son of nobleman João Fernandes de Andrade. After serving in Morocco, he fought in the campaigns of Afonso de Albuquerque in India and the Red Sea. On 25 July 1511, during the conquest of Malacca, António de Abreu led the

Chinese junk A junk (Chinese: 船, ''chuán'') is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. There are two types of junk in China: northern junk, which developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk, which developed from Austronesian ...

that went up the

Malacca River The Malacca River ( ms, Sungai Melaka) which flows through the middle of Malacca City in Malacca, Malaysia, was a vital trade route during the heyday of Malacca Sultanate in the 15th century. The river starts from the foothills in the neighbouri ...

at high tide, allowing the Portuguese contingent to land and conquer the city in August. Severely wounded by a musket shot in the face, he lost several teeth and part of his tongue but indignantly refused Albuquerque's request to hand over his command.

Expeditions

In November 1511, after sending ambassadors to

Pegu Bago (formerly spelt Pegu; , ), formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located north-east of Yangon. Etymology The Burmese name Bago (ပဲခူး) is likely derived from the Mon langua ...

and

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

one month before leaving Malacca, Albuquerque trusted Abreu with the command of a fleet of four ships sailing in search of the "

Spice Islands A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices are ...

". Abreu was captain-major in the ship ''Santa Catarina'', the deputy commander was

Francisco Serrão Francisco Serrão (died 1521) was a Portuguese explorer and a possible cousin of Ferdinand Magellan. His 1512 voyage was the first known European sailing east past Malacca through modern Indonesia and the East Indies. He became a confidant of S ...

on the ship ''Sabaia'', and a third vessel, a caravel, was under command of Simão Afonso Bisagudo, having as pilot Francisco Rodrigues, an able cartographer who wrote about this expedition. With a crew of 120 Portuguese and 60 slaves they were guided by Malay pilots, recruited to guide them through

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

, the Lesser Sunda Islands and Ambon Island to the

, where they arrived in early 1512. They remained there for about a month, buying and filling their ships with

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

and cloves. Abreu then sailed to Amboina whilst his deputy commander Serrão stepped forward to the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

but sank, ending in

Ternate Ternate is a city in the Indonesian province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands. It was the ''de facto'' provincial capital of North Maluku before Sofifi on the nearby coast of Halmahera became the capital in 2010. It is off the ...

. Occupied with fighting elsewhere in the archipelago, such as Ambon and Ternate, he returned only in 1529. Abreu returned to Malacca in December 1512, from where he departed for India with Fernão Pires de Andrade in January 1513, then sailing for Portugal. He died in Azores, before reaching continental Portugal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abreu, Antonio de Explorers of Asia Portuguese colonialism in Indonesia Portuguese explorers 16th-century Portuguese people 16th-century explorers 1480s births 1510s deaths People from Madeira Maritime history of Portugal 15th-century Portuguese people

Expeditions

See also

References