Portuguese colonial administrator
Nuno da Cunha
(c. 1487 ? March 5, 1539) was a Portuguese admiral who was governor of
Portuguese possessions in India
from 1529 to 1538. He was the governor of Portuguese Asia that ruled for more time in the sixteenth century in a total of nine years. He was the son of Antonia Pais and
Tristao da Cunha
, the famous
Portuguese
navigator, admiral and ambassador to
Pope Leo X
. Nuno da Cunha proved his mettle in battles at Oja and Brava, and at the capture of Panane, under the viceroy
Francisco de Almeida
. Named by
Joao III
ninth governor of Portuguese possessions in
India
, he served from April 1529 to 1538. He was named to end the government of governor Lopo Vaz de Sampaio (1526?1529) and brought orders, by King
John III of Portugal
, to send Sampaio in chains for Portugal. This delicate mission by the King was justified by their close connection ever since the king was still a prince.
On his passage to
Goa
, he
subdued the pirates at Mombasa
who had been harassing the coast of
Portuguese Mozambique
. Mozambique had been brought within the Portuguese trading orbit and provided watering stations essential to Portugal's lifeline to the west coast of India. Nuno's brothers Pero Vaz da Cunha and Simao da Cunha were expected to serve under him as second and third in command, a form of
nepotism
that was expected in the Portuguese
Estado da India.
However, they died on the voyage, and Nuno was forced to rely upon local networks of clientage in
Goa
during his long rule.
In 1529, Nuno sent an expedition that sacked and burned the city of
Damao
on the
Arabian Sea
at the mouth of the Damao River, about 100 miles north of
Mumbai
in the Muslim state of
Gujarat
. Forces under his control captured Baxay (now
Vasai
, often mistaken for Basra in Iraq) from the Muslim ruler of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, on January 20, 1533. The next year, renamed Bassein, the city became the capital of the Portuguese province of the North, and the great citadel of black basalt, still standing, was begun. (It was completed in 1548.)
Forced to return to Portugal as a result of court intrigues, he was shipwrecked at the
Cape of Good Hope
and drowned. His first marriage was to Maria da Cunha, and his second marriage was to Isabel da Silveira. The main source for Nuno da Cunha's career is the Portuguese historian
Joao de Barros
(1496?1570), famous for his history of the Portuguese in their overseas territories. The work,
Asia de Ioam de Barros, dos fectos que os Portuguezes fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente,
is full of lively detail, with incidents described like the king of Viantana's killing of the Portuguese ambassadors to
Malacca
with boiling water and their bodies thrown to dogs.
Gallery
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Statue of D. Nuno da Cunha in
Diu
.
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Map of
Bassein
(c. 1539).
See also
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External links
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Note: The head of Portuguese India could have either the title of "Governor" or the more prestigious "Viceroy" though their responsibilities were the same
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