Why are most of the colonial possessions of the Portuguese Empire in Asia comprises of mostly port cities?

[u/Wide_Ride8849]

The Portuguese Empire was one of the most successful maritime empires in the 1600s and 1700s. It held huge landholdings in Africa such as Angola and Mozambique, as well as Brazil in the Americas.

But in Asia, it's a different story. Rival European Empires had entire countries under their possessions. The British had Burma, Malaysia and the Indian Subcontinent. France had Laos and Vietnam. The Spaniards had the Philippines and Taiwan at some point. The Dutch had Indonesia. But the Portuguese? It only had a string of colonial port cities like Goa, Malacca and Macau.

What is the reason for this? Why did Portugal failed in holding an entire Asian country or landmass similar to the British, Dutch, French and Spaniards?

Thanks to whoever can provide an insight. ❤️

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[u/Spacecircles]

You realise that the Mozambique and Angola that Portugal held before the 1880s does not correspond to the modern-day borders? 18th-century Angola was strip of territory along the coast. 18th-century Mozambique I think was a few coastal ports and some trading posts up the Zambezi.

[u/Blueman9966]

The Portuguese were mostly interested in controlling the Indian Ocean spice trade and European trade with China. This was best achieved by capturing or establishing ports along those sea lanes to project their naval power from. They simply didn't have the resources to take on the Mughal Empire or Ming/Qing China and try to conquer significant territories. They did for a time control parts of modern-day Indonesia, notably the Maluku Islands. But by the 17th century, Portugal faced competition from other colonial powers like the Dutch and English and ended up losing most of those islands.

[u/AnaphoricReference]

In the Dutch–Portuguese War (1598–1663) the Dutch made a major effort to push the Portuguese out of the colonial business. This failed in some areas (a big chunk of Brazil was lost but recaptured for instance) but was pretty successful in Asia.

The development of large colonies in already very densely populated and developed areas in Asia depended to a large extent on being able to maintain local client networks fighting on your side. Over time these would be dominated and gradually lose their independence. In the Ternatean-Portuguese conflicts the Sultanate of Ternate allied with the Dutch and won from the Portuguese and their allies, resulting in the Dutch in the long term establishing a strong client network in what is now Indonesia and Portugal losing it.

The Portuguese were strong enough defensively to hold on to key ports for trade, but after losing a few times in war against fellow Europeans were simply in a bad position to create a network of allies with land armies as the English were in India and the Dutch in Indonesia and (for some time) in Ceylon and Taiwan and adopted a conflict-avoidant posture.

They didn't try. They were doing quite well in other parts of the world and of course didn't have a large home population to draw from.

The Dutch made similar conflict-avoidant choices in Africa and North and South America.

[u/Watchhistory → u/AnaphoricReference]

So well explained in this wonderful book:

De Alencastro, Luiz Felipe (2018) The Trade In the Living: The Formation of Brasil in the South Atlantic, Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries.

[u/aardy]

The maritime power maintained maritime access. That makes sense. The knew what they wanted, and wanted what they got.

The maritime empire also was interested in the above in Africa. But also, if the inland stuff was easy to get and the soldiering part could be delegates to a local... sure, why not.

When we look at maps, I think we over-emphasize the 2d X-Y axis value of "land." There should be a vertical axis that indicates the VALUE of this or that square mile.

If my happy little empire controls the major port city in example one. And controls the major port city in example two, but in example two extracts 50% less wealth from the port because I'm maintaining an army keeping the peace over badlands..... who cares about the badlands, you can draw your little map and think control "less" all you want!

[u/Brickie78 → u/aardy]

When we look at maps, I think we over-emphasize the 2d X-Y axis value of "land." There should be a vertical axis that indicates the VALUE of this or that square mile.

There's an entire subreddit - r/peopleliveincities - sharing examples of this kind of thinking. AKA "Land Doesn't Vote". Keeping it historical, there's a really good example of this in the 1933 Presidential Election I was looking at recently.

Roosevelt took his home state of New York 54-41 against Herbert Hoover, but to look at the map of results by county it looks like Hoover swept it.

[u/IndividualSkill3432]

India and China were vastly more populous and technologically advanced the people who lived in Angola and Mozambique were. Until the mid 1700s Europeans had little inroads into India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#/media/File:Colonial_empires_in_1800.svg

The technology gap between Europe and the main powers in Asia opened up in the 18th century, mass productions of steel, big advanced in gunpowder and cannon manufacturing, mass production of rifles, the rise of the infantry line and bayonet replacing the squares and pikes.

Portugal was a much slower developer than the British, French and Dutch. So they were not really able to compete with them as they become more and more able to dominate large land areas in Asia.

[u/AlbinoAngelOF]

They focused on a trade post empire (Estado da Índia) rather than territorial conquest. Controlling key naval routes and ports like Goa and Malacca was way more profitable for spice trade than holding vast land.⁠

[u/Phoenix-Ash96]

The premise has a timing issue thats actually the whole answer. Portugal arrived first, around 1500, and thats exactly why it got ports instead of countries. in 1500 Asia wasnt available to be conquered. the Mughals, Ming China, Vijayanagara, Safavid Persia were all functioning states with real armies. Portugal had maybe a million people total. it couldnt have taken a subcontinent even if it wanted to, so it built the only empire that was actually possible, a chain of fortified ports controlling chokepoints. Goa, Hormuz, Malacca. control the straits, tax everyone elses shipping, dont govern anyone. the British and Dutch territorial empires came 250 years later into a completely different Asia. Plassey is 1757, fifty years after Aurangzeb died and the Mughal empire started coming apart. the EIC wasnt conquering a strong state, it was moving into a collapsing one and hiring its soldiers. thats a different job entirely. also your dates are a bit late, Portuguese Asia peaked in the 1500s. by the 1600s the Dutch were already taking Malacca and Ceylon off them. so not really a failure, more that they showed up in the wrong century for land grabbing and did remarkably well at the thing that was available.