Jorge Álvares

Jorge Álvares (died July 8, 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is credited as the first European to have reached China by sea during the Age of Discovery.

Jorge Álvares
Jorge Álvares statue in Macau
BornLate 15th century
Freixo de Espada à Cinta, Kingdom of Portugal
DiedJuly 8, 1521
Tamão
NationalityPortuguese
OccupationExplorer
Known forFirst European explorer to reach China by sea during the Age of Discovery

Exploration

In May 1513, Álvares sailed under the Portuguese Malacca captain Rui de Brito Patalim in a junk from Pegu. The expedition was accompanied by five other junks. Álvares himself was accompanied by two other Portuguese mariners.[1]

Álvares made first contact on Chinese soil on an island near the historic city of Guangzhou in southern China in May 1513.[2] The location of the island, which the Portuguese called Tamão, is not exactly known except that it is in the Pearl River Delta, and scholarship has suggested islands such as Lantau Island and Lintin Island as potential candidates. Upon landing on Tamão, Álvares raised a padrão from the king of Portugal.[1] Based on information from their captain, they hoped to find trade. Soon after this, Afonso de Albuquerque, the Viceroy of the Estado da Índia dispatched Rafael Perestrello—a cousin of Christopher Columbus[3]—to seek trade relations with the Chinese. In a ship from Malacca, Rafael Perestrello landed on the southern shores of Guangdong later that year in 1513.[3]

Álvares later joined the venture of establishing the settlements in Tamão around 1513 to 1514.[4] He died on July 8, 1521 in Tamão in the arms of his friend Duarte Coelho.[5]

See also

Notes
  1. Porter, Jonathan. [1996] (1996). Macau, the Imaginary City: Culture and Society, 1557 to the Present. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3749-6
  2. Edmonds. [2002] (2002) China and Europe Since 1978: A European Perspective. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52403-2
  3. Brook, 124.
  4. Ride, Lindsay. Ride, May. Fairbank, John K. The Voices of Macao Stones: Abridged with Additional Material by Jason Wordie. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 962-209-487-2
  5. Braga, J. M. (May 1939). "The "Tamao" of the Portuguese Pioneers". Tien Hsia Monthly. VIII (5): 423.

References
Library resources about
Jorge Álvares
  • Brook, Timothy. (1998). The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22154-0 (Paperback).
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