Leonel de Sousa was the second

Captain-Major A donatary captain was a Portuguese colonial official to whom the Crown granted jurisdiction, rights and revenues over some colonial territory. The recipient of these grants was called a (donatary), because he had been given the grant as a (donat ...

Portuguese Macau Macau was under Portuguese Empire, Portuguese rule from the establishment of the first official Portuguese settlement in 1557 until its Handover of Macau, handover to China in 1999. It comprised the Municipality of Macau and the Municipality of ...

in 1558 (the equivalent of the later

governor of Macau The governor of Macau (; ) was a Portugal, Portuguese colonial official who headed the Portuguese Empire, colony of Portuguese Macau, Macau, before 1623 called captain-major (). The post was replaced on 20 December 1999 upon the handover of M ...

). In 1554 he had negotiated an agreement with the local authorities of Guangzhou known as the first Luso-Chinese agreement which allowed the legalization of Portuguese commercial activities in China through the payment of taxes. This agreement opened the way for the establishment of

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

as Portuguese warehouse three years later. This agreement which was negotiated by Leonel de Sousa, captain-chief of Japan's voyage, opened a new era in Sino-Portuguese relations, because since 1522 the Portuguese were officially prevented from trading: several embassies had failed and trade was carried out as contraband and fought by the authorities, who considered them 'folanji' fighting them as pirates.

Agreement negotiation

Since the arrival in Japan in 1543, the Portuguese had begun an intense commerce between Goa and

Malacca Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...

with Japan. Leonel de Sousa, the chief captain of Japan's voyage, arrived at the coast of

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

in 1552, where he learned that all foreigners were permitted to trade there for the fee payment, except the 'Folanji' (the pejorative name for the Europeans and for the Portuguese in particular, which were considered as pirates). He promised that the peace conditions and the taxes payment to be fulfilled providing the authorities to change this 'name'. In 1554 Leonel de Sousa, together with the chief captain of Chaul, made an agreement with officials of Canton to legalize the Portuguese commerce, on conditions that they would pay the stipulated customs duties. The only written testimony of this agreement is a letter from Leonel de Sousa of 1556 to the Infant D. Luís, where he affirmed that the Portuguese were to pay the fees and not to erect fortifications. The letter is one of the most important documents in the history of Sino-Portuguese relations, describes the prolonged negotiations with the superintendent of the navy of Canton, the Haitao Wang Po, identified in the Chinese sources as that who had accepted a bribe of the Portuguese by letting them pay taxes in Canton. As the port of

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

also faced impoverishment since it was closed to foreign trade the agreement was profitable for both sides. Leonel de Sousa tried to negotiate the payment of only 10% of the fees, to which Wan Po counterposed the obligatory 20% but focusing only on half the load, which Leonel de Sousa took with the help of the wealthy merchant Simão d'Almeida, and outside the Beijing government. This treaty would be followed by the recognition of Macao as a Portuguese official warehouse in 1557.The Cambridge history of China, Volume 2; Volume 8
Retrieved on 26 Feb 2018

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sousa, Leonel de Governors of Macau 16th-century Portuguese people Portuguese diplomats