Almeida

Almeida, DON FRANCESCO D', a famous Portuguese viceroy of the Indies, was the seventh son of the Count of Abrantes, and first distinguished himself in the wars with the Moors, but especially at the conquest of Granada in 1492. In 1505 his sovereign, Emanuel I., appointed him viceroy of the Portuguese possessions in the East Indies. On the voyage thither he deposed the king of Quiloa on the Mozambique coast, and, proceeding to Zanzibar, destroyed the town of Mombasa. In the Indian seas he asserted everywhere the superiority of the Portuguese flag, and strove to exclude the Egyptians and Venetians from all commerce with the East. At Cananor, Cochin, Ceylon, and Sumatra, he either built fortresses to protect the factories and commercial interests of his nation, or established new factories. With the king of Malacca, a commercial treaty was formed about the same time. His son, Lorenzo, carried on several expeditions as his father's lieutenant, visited Ceylon, discovered the Maldive Islands and Madagascar, but soon after was surprised and killed in the port of Chaul, near Bombay. His father speedily took measures to avenge the death of his son upon the hated Mussulmans, when Affonso d'Albuquerque appeared on the scene (1507), having been sent out by the Portuguese government to supersede Almeida, whom it had begun to distrust on account of his brilliant successes. The latter refused to recognise Albuquerque as viceroy, and for some months kept him prisoner at Cochin. He now sailed along the coasts, burning and plundering various seaports, amongst others Goa, and at length utterly destroyed the Moslem fleet at Diu. From this fierce and avenging expedition he returned to Cochin, resigned his office into the hands of his successor, and set out on his homeward voyage. But he was slain in an obscure affray with savages at Cape Saldanha, in the south of Africa, March 1, 1510.