Albuquerque Seizes Goa

November 10, 1510

The Portuguese governor Afonso de Albuquerque stormed the Indian port of Goa, slaughtering its Muslim defenders and claiming the harbor as the capital of a new seaborne empire. He encouraged his sailors to marry local women, creating a hybrid Luso-Indian colony that would outlast every rival for four centuries. His policy of intermarriage created a distinctive Luso-Indian community whose descendants still inhabit Goa's churches and old quarters.