Since I would like to study the heritage of Macau, I figured that a good book on Macau’s history, which is probably not widely known, is in the order. I found an exceedingly pleasant book called A Macao Narrative by Austin Coates in the library. In the last three and this entry, I summarize the key points that I took from his book as an overall introduction of Macau’s fascinating history.

In Portuguese Asia (1), I said that Macau’s experience as a colony was oddly pacific. There were simply no wars or atrocities that gave rise to its status as a colony. But the formalization of the Portuguese sovereignty over Macau was a result of a buildup of significant events. These events led to a decisive battle raged at the Chinese at Pak Shan Lan, a sagacious turn for Macau’s status as a Portuguese colony.

On the Issue of Portuguese Sovereignty in Macau

For centuries, the Chinese engaged in an approach on Macau that was somewhat akin to a carrot and stick policy.

Since Macau’s founding in 1557, the Portuguese had gained their legal rights to reside in Macau. As they were enriched by the Japan trade, they entrusted all the relatively menial tasks to the Chinese. From shipbuilding to food and agriculture, the Portuguese relied on Chinese labor for even the most basic aspects of living.

In the beginning, the Chinese had to get all their work done in the day. Then at night they all had to return to Canton through the barrier point, which served as a marker for a rough boundary between Canton and Macau. Eventually, however, the Chinese community did settle down between Macau’s city walls and the barrier point to Canton.

The carrot in the Chinese policy on Macau was the right for the Portuguese to conduct their trade undisrupted. The stick came in the various demands to which the Chinese authorities felt entitled, including the charging of customs by running customs posts, the charging of ground rent, and the ability to “call all the Chinese workers back to Canton” at their whim. On a day-to-day basis, it was the Chinese watch force that maintained law and order in Macau.

For centuries, neither the Chinese nor the Portuguese had any doubts about their respective sovereignty over Macau. When the British successfully wrestled with the Chinese to secure the Treaty of Nanking, which ceded Hong Kong in 1840, the Portuguese sensed the urgency to formalize their claim of sovereignty over Macau.

The Assassination of Governor Captain Amaral in 1849

The prelude to the Portuguese’s act to assert its sovereignty over Macau was the gruesome assassination of the one-armed Governor Captain João Maria Ferreira do Amaral by the Chinese in 1849. As the Portuguese crown tasked him with the assertion of Portuguese sovereignty over Macau, Governor Captain Amaral introduced a number of tough measures that angered both the Senate and the Chinese residents of Macau.

One example was the suggestion of clearing out the shacks of the Chinese that lied between the city walls and the barrier gate to Canton. He knew it would agitate the Chinese because such measure would result in moving the graves in that area. In a series of other events leading up to the 1849 closure of the main Chinese customs office in Macau, Governor Captain Amaral effectively imposed martial law in Macau that year.

The Chinese attackers of Amaral beheaded him and took the head and his only arm as their ransom to claim the rewards as promised by the Chinese government. The Macanese were horrified, as this was clearly the Chinese government’s act of terror against Macau. The Macanese were quite ready to strike back. Meanwhile, Chinese forces were gathering around the fort of Pak Shan Lan, a bit farther into Canton than the barrier point.

The Pak Shan Lan Battle of 1849 (Battle of Passaleão)

Lieutenant Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita was the very hero that would take the offensive against China. With a small troop of 16 men, Lieutenant Mesquita took with him the only howitzer of Macau and approached the Fort of Pak Shan Lan. The Chinese troops were shooting at them as they approached. Like Father Rho in the Battle of Macau during the Dutch invasion, Mesquita fired just one critical shot from the howitzer and hit the center of the fort. This effectively demoralized the Chinese forces there.

Mesquita went back to the Macau side and asked for reinforcement. With 36 men he advanced again, through the rice fields. The whole maneuver was a spectacle for all sides involved. The foreign representatives lined up the monte fort to watch as Mesquita led the charge. 2,000 local Chinese, in addition to those who were already at the Pak Shan Lan fort, were also witnessing the battle from the Chinese side.

As the procession were firing at the fort, they took down Chinese soldiers, and miraculously had not lost one man. By the time they reached the fort, the whole garrison of Chinese soldiers fled. In an act of symbolism, the troop severed the head and the arm of a Chinese officer at the fort, in revenge of Governor Captain Amaral’s gruesome death. They then blew up the fort in a fantastic show of victory.

With this decisive victory at Pak Shan Lan, the foreign troops, including the British, American, Spanish and French troops and warships, came around to support Portugal’s defense of Macau, including fortifying various defensive positions. The Portuguese assumed de facto sovereignty over Macau. What remained to be done was to reach formal agreements with Peking.

The Sino Portuguese Treaty

In 1862, Governor Captain Isidoro Francisco Guimarãres (1851-1863) traveled to Tientsin (Tianjin) to conclude the Sino-Portuguese Treaty with the Chinese, in hopes to formalize Macau as a Portuguese colony. Two years later, his successor Governor José Rodrigues Cohelho do Amaral (1863-6) wished to bring together the ratified treaty. But the Chinese tried to introduce modifications. To this, Governor Amaral declined. Thus, the Sino-Portuguese Treaty never took effect properly.

When Governor Amaral succeeded Governor Guimarãres, he improved the cityscape of Macau significantly. Meanwhile, France at the heyday of its colonial power was edging to become the greatest foreign presence in China. The British did not wish for France to rise. After the Second Sino-British War, Sir Robert Hart took up the role as the representative of the Chinese Customs. He attempted to control the import of opium into China. He was making an agreement with Hong Kong to adopt control measures similar to those in force in the Treaty Ports.

Hong Kong agreed to cooperate only if Macau would accede to the same terms. Otherwise, Macau would have an incredible advantage in the opium trade. Owing to this delicate situation, Macau’s status as a Portuguese colony was formalized. Sir Robert Hart drew up a protocol, which provided for China to conclude a treaty of amity and commerce with Portugal, as China has done so with other European nations. It was also by this treaty that China would confirm “the perpetual occupation and government of Macao and its dependencies by Portugal, as any other Portuguese possession.” Macao would then control the opium trade on the same terms as Hong Kong’s. To benefit the British (as against the rise of France), Portugal should undertake “never to alienate Macao and its dependencies without agreement with China.”

The treaty was signed in Tientsin in 1887 and ratified in 1888. Fast forward to 1974, the Portuguese revolution resulted in Portugal divesting all of its colonies. But again, Macau stood at this historical juncture as an anomaly. New China, at that point, wished for Macau to remained as it was. Portuguese troops were withdrawn anyway, and Macau reverted to the state of affairs like its very earliest times – an undefended territory in China where a mix of European, Asian and Macanese lived and did business.

How Macau Arose as the Gambling Hubs of Asia and the World

Macau’s gambling establishments were set up under the administration of Governor Guimarãres. He was the only successive governor of Macau after Governor Captain Amaral that managed to do anything of significance in the 1850s. In his tenure he concluded the Sino-Portuguese treaty, as well as setting up legal gambling as a business venture for Macau.

Originally, his intention of setting up licensed gambling establishments in Macau was to bring in the revenue required to administer other Portuguese colonies in the region – by then, only Portuguese Timor was left. The gambling dens were replaced by licensed operators, with immense initial success in serving their purpose.

Surprisingly, the gambling setup managed to put the city in order. When there was a wanted criminal, the small Macau police force simply approached the gambling “farmer’s” organization. Nobody could hide in the dark from the similarly dark force of the city.

As such, Macau rose again as the Monte Carlo of Asia, at some point even more glamorous than Las Vegas.

Source

Austin Coates, A Macao Narrative (1978, 2009)

Since I would like to study the heritage of Macau, I figured that a good book on Macau’s history, which is probably not widely known, is in the order. I found an exceedingly pleasant book called A Macao Narrative by Austin Coates in the library. In this and the next three entries, I will summarize the key points that I took from his book as an overall introduction of Macau’s fascinating history.

A Macao Narrative is a short book, consisting of only 140 pages. One can finish reading it comfortably in one or two days and I highly recommend reading it for general knowledge.

Macau — Whence Comes Its Name?

Few people know how Macau came to be known as Macau as its English name, because it is nothing like its Chinese name, which is pronounced Ao-men.

One might assume, quite naturally, that the name Macau must have borne some Portuguese influences. As it turned out, it is actually a transliteration of a Chinese reference to the region when it was simply a windswept peninsula at the Pearl River estuary, waiting to be discovered.

The “Ma” in Macau refers to Ma Cho, the temple of which (A-Ma Temple) was one of the only two things the Portuguese saw when they first set foot in Macau. The other one was a farmers’ temple, called Mong Ha Kwan Yin Temple. Traditionally, the coastal peoples of China, who were mostly seafarers, worshipped Ma Cho (the Ancestral Grandmother) for their safety at sea.

Because the early Macanese fishermen were of the Fukienese heritage, their way of addressing Macau became the name of Macau. They called Macau “Amakao” (the creek of Ma Cho, “kau” meaning a ravine). Therefore, Macau came to be known as Macau.

Macau Versus Hong Kong – Two Former Colonies Juxtaposed

Macao, a sturdy orphan and a very rich one, was an anomaly from the start, a colony without a governor.      ～Austin Coates at 33

To understand Macau only as a former colony of Portugal in China would have reduced the complexity of Macau’s long history into simplistic worldviews that do not do justice to its unique and exclusively European roots. Macau’s founding as a significant, somewhat-independent outpost of Portuguese Asia in China arose out of a centuries-long development of events. They are interwoven with fortunes, misfortunes, careful official maneuvers and the serendipity of collective actions taken by mercantile opportunists. As a city, it was founded by the Portuguese exclusively.

Paradoxically, if one is to understand Hong Kong only from the angle of being a former British colony in China, it is considered standard history and not a simplistic view. The colonial history of Hong Kong arose out of dramatic failures in trade relations and diplomacy that resulted in intentional wars waged against China and lost by it, but it was straightforward enough as the textbook denunciation of colonialism.

While both Macau and Hong Kong owe their success to the colonial powers of the day, the historical backdrop of their respective colonialism is the difference between the two poles of the earth. For the Portuguese was the very first European power to experiment with trade routes out to the Far East (yes, even before the Spaniards) beyond India in the early 16^th century. Great Britain’s trade and imperialist ambitions, on the other hand, came about a century after.

As viewed in the totality of their acts of assertion, Great Britain’s sovereignty over Hong Kong was formal, legal and ceremonial. In contrast, the Portuguese sovereignty over Macau took a few surprising and sagacious turns after about three centuries of ambivalent policies between the Portuguese and Chinese authorities.

That is not to deny the fact that Macau was a Portuguese colony. The point is just that its colonialism developed in an unusual historical course even as a settlement colony. It was oddly pacific as a matter of colonialism, as opposed to that of Hong Kong’s — or anywhere else in the world, including other Portuguese colonies.

Before the Founding of Macau

The Portuguese’s attempt at exploring the trade route in the Far East goes back to the times of the Ming dynasty in China, during the Wuzong reign. The Portuguese envoy Tomé Pires established preliminary contact with then Emperor Wuzong, and he received a rather warm welcome. Wuzong tended to agree with the views of his eunuchs, who were particularly open to foreign influences and trade. Yet, before the two parties sat down for formal talks in Peking, Wuzong died and Shizong ascended the throne in 1522. Shizong, in his early years as the emperor, adopted isolationist policies as advocated by the mandarins. The door for the Portuguese to secure proper trading rights in this part of the world was closed. In fact, China became so isolationist that no trade could be conducted even with the overseas Chinese.

Yet, the lucrativeness of the Japan trade meant that the Portuguese must press on, even with illicit trading. The fact that all Chinese ships, which at the time represented the most advanced of naval power, were called off the high seas had resulted in the proliferation of piracy. This opened up the unlikely historic opportunity for the Portuguese to rise to the occasion.

The Founding of Macau

It was due to serendipity that the Portuguese were able to establish a formal footing in Macao. In securing a route to engage in an immensely profitable trade with Japan, the Portuguese, with its advanced ships armed with defensive capabilities, managed to stall off the pirates in the area. A few of its decisive victories against the pirates were recorded in the local and national records in China.

In light of this development, the Chinese authorities embraced the Portuguese as “useful friends.” Their residency in Macau was officially permitted by the Chinese. The Chinese thought that the Portuguese, as non-tribute paying foreigners, could be used to play off the “other barbarians,” such as the Japanese and the pirates. At the very least, the Macanese paid their taxes to the Chinese government dutifully.

In 1557, Macau was founded as the Portuguese successfully established a footing in the Pearl River after decades of failed attempts to do so. The Macau settlers did not seek the approval from Goa, which was the first Portuguese colonial settlement (with established governance) in Asia. For a long time, Goa was simply not informed of the illicit Japanese trade.

Unlike the mat sheds of the Portuguese’s former settlements in China, Macau became a permanent settlement with proper, European-styled built structures. A city sprang up to fame, as a result.

Macau’s Golden Era as the Portuguese Entrepot

When the Portuguese founded Macau, what it managed to do was to normalize (and, for a long time, monopolize) the profitable trade route with Japan. To the extent that the trade was welcomed also by the Japanese government, which, at that point, had not harbored ill will against the western powers, Nagasaki became the preeminent community of Portuguese traders. The trade brought enormous prosperity to Macau for almost a century, and the route is consisted of the Malacca-Macau-Japan axis. At that time, the Japanese had heavy demand for Chinese silk and porcelain. They paid for the shipments with silver. Macau’s location is the perfect midpoint for sheltering and replenishing between Malacca and Japan. It also has strategic significance being at the doorstep to Canton.

This profitable trade went roughly like this:

At Macao, the principal cargo for Japan was loaded: Chinese silk, raw and prepared… Bric-á-Brac sold well in Japan; so did firearms, daggers, Persian carpets, battle pictures… Staple imports included Indian cotton, spices, and European wines.

The Portugues ships returned from Nagasaki, after their tremendous sales… This treasure could in its turn be sold on the fluctuating silver market of Canton, to even further advantage. With it, Macao merchants bought Chinese goods for delivery westward to India and Europe.  ～Austin Coates at 50

The golden era of Portuguese Macau would span roughly between Macau’s founding in 1557 and the fall of Portuguese Malacca in 1641.

Unlike the two established colonies of Portuguese Asia, Goa and Malacca, Macau established itself with a hankering for independence in running its own economic and administrative affairs. When it began its first chapter, Macau did not have a governor as a traditional colony would. It was run by the Captains-Major and the Senate instead. In many instances, the Captains-Major as often appointed by Goa clashed with the Senate, which consisted of the principal leaders and elders in the trade business. In so many ways, Macau did not feel obliged to Goa, and in fact neither to China — the relationship was cautiously pragmatic, with the Chinese exercising a carrot-and-stick approach, for most of the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

Source

Austin Coates, A Macao Narrative (1978, 2009)

The Wikipedia on Governor of Macau.