Page 281 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

The presence of Malay sailors and merchants in the area that used to be under the
hegemony of the Majapahit kingdom, gave the Malays enormous influence ovr the
population in the trade centers of the archipelago. One of the effects that really stood
out was the use of Malay in the world of trade throughout the archipelago that had been
initiated by the kingdom of Majapahit and also become the means of communications
with other foreign merchants (outside the archipelago), among others: the Chinese, Arab,
Indian, and then the Europeans: Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English and Danish traders.
The Portuguese eventually found out about the progress and wealth of Malacca. The
information encouraged the king of Portugal to send Diego Lopes de Sequeira to find his
way to Malacca, establish a relation with its ruler, and settle there as the representative
of Portugal. Sequeira finally arrived in Malacca in 1509. At the beginning of his arrival, the
Portuguese envoy was well-received by Sultan Muhammad Shah (1488-1528), but then
he began to see the Portuguese as a serious threat to his power. Consequently, the sultan
turned against the Portuguese envoy, and murdered and detained a number of Portuguese
in Malacca and attacked the four Portuguese vessels at the port. The attempt to detain and
attack and the ship failed, because the skippers of the ships escaped and sailed out to sea.
The incident pushed Afonso de Alburquerque (1459-1515), who conquered Goa in 1510
to turn the place into a Portuguese permanent home base, to prepare his military power to
attack Malacca. In April 1511, he sailed to Malacca with a military force numbering about
1200 troops on board 18 ships. He conquered and occupied Malacca in November 1511,
and subsequently prepared a defense in place to anticipate retaliation from the Malays. He
then sought further information about the sailing route to the islands of spice.
In 1512 he sent a merchant fleet consisting of three sailing ships under the command of
Antonio de Abreu to find the regions that produced commodities. The fleet followed the
sailing lanes of the Malay traders who had left Malacca. The fleet finally arrived in Banda. In
that place, they acquired so many spices that De Abreu bought a Chinese junk to transport
them to Malacca. He entrusted the leader of the flotilla with the Chinese junks to Francisco
Serrao, and chose a number of Portuguese crew and inhabitants of Banda as the crew. In
his voyage, the junk was hit by the storm and the waves which damaged the ship forcing
it to land in Penyu Island. When a boat of Bajo people (sea living people) visited the island,
the crew caught him. After a negotiation, Bajo sailors agreed to take them to Ambon, on
condition that the boat of Bajo People would not be seized. As agreed, the Bajo People
took Serrao and his crew to Ambon and landed in Nusatelo, west island Ambon (Amal,
2007: 236-237, Poelinggomang, 2014: 142-143).

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