The Kingdom of Hormuz, Its Conquest by Portugal in 1515 and Portugal's

chapter 5 The Kingdom of Hormuz, Its Conquest by Portugal in 1515 and Portugal’s Defeat at the Hands of Persia and Britain in 1622

Thus haveinge made a brief relation of the most remarkable matters that have happened in the Siege and Conquest of Ormus and the Cas- tle thereof and haveinge seene the desolation therof together with the banishment of her late inhabitants the Portugalls, ets., I cannot chose but sett downe and wonder what people and off what minds they weare which were the first inhabiters of soe barren and discommodious an Iland that affordeth nothing of it selfe but salte.1 ∵

The history of the Kingdom of Hormuz stretches from the eleventh or twelfth century (when it is said its founder emigrated from Oman to the coast of Persia2) to the seventeenth century when, in 1622, the last of the Kings of Hormuz (he and his predecessors having been vassals of the Portuguese since the kingdom’s conquest by Portugal in 1515 – actually re-conquest, as the initial subjugation of the kingdom occurred in 1507, when the Portuguese defeated

1 Extracted from a letter of Edward Monnox, agent of the British East India Company in Persia, following the defeat of Portugal at Hormuz by forces of Persia and Britain, April 1622. Reprinted in C.R. Boxer, ed. Commentaries of Ruy Freyre de Andrada (London: Routledge, 2005), 309–310. 2 Vosoughi notes that “[w]hat we know of the early history of these kings [of Hormuz] is scanty” and that “[t]he political history of Hormuz during the twelfth century is not very clear.” He considers, however, that the origins of the Kingdom of Hormuz can be traced to the decline of the economy of the Omani coast in the mid to late eleventh century as a result of the “revival of the commercial sea route through the Red Sea” which accompanied the rise in power of the Egypt’s Fatimid caliphs and the consequent shift in the flow of merchandise away from the Gulf, which led to the migration of the merchants and residents of the princi- pal Omani ports, most importantly Sohar, to the Persian coast. Mohammad Bagher Vosoughi, “The Kings of Hormuz: From the Beginning until the Arrival of the Portuguese,” in The Persian Gulf in History, ed. Lawrence Potter (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 90–91.

266 chapter 5 and imposed a treaty of submission on Hormuz) and his Portuguese overlords were defeated by a combined force of Persians and English. This defeat led to the “complete fall of Hormuz and its disappearance from the Persian Gulf’s economic scene”.3 In fact, after its defeat, much of the contents and very struc- tures of the island kingdom of Hormuz were literally dismantled and carried off by Persian soldiery.4 Of concern for purposes of our work, however, is not the entire historical evolution of the Kingdom of Hormuz, which has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate,5 but rather the specific question whether there is evidence that this State possessed the islands which are the subject of this book as its own territory prior to its defeat by and submission to Portuguese rule at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and whether, as a consequence of its conquest, Portugal became the sovereign owner of the islands. The importance of this question may be explained briefly. From the stand- point of Iran’s claim over the islands, and notwithstanding the question whether its ancient empires were sovereign over them or not, an argument has been advanced by some scholars seeking to trace the ownership of the islands that, in fact, the Kingdom of Hormuz possessed them prior to and during the fifteenth century. This assertion is, it would appear, supported by the observa- tions of Duarte Barbosa,6 a Portuguese official and adventurer who may have accompanied D’Alboquerque on one of his voyages of conquest of Hormuz at the beginning of the sixteenth century or visited the island around that time. Quoting Barbosa, Bavand states that Hormuzi territories included both of the Tunbs and Abu Musa.7 An assertion is then made that, in reality, the Kingdom

3 Vosoughi, “Kings of Hormuz”, 99. 4 In a letter written by the British East India Company’s agent in Persia, Edward Monnox, who was a witness to the defeat of the Portuguese at Hormuz in 1622, the extent of pillaging was noted in graphic terms: “[W]e repayred againe unto the Castle where we found such havocke made and so many chiests and suppettas broken open and whatsoever of value was in them carried away that a man would thinke if halfe the camp had bin given their libertie freelie to take the spoyle, in soe shortt a tyme they could hardlie have made soe great havock; and yet ther was a guard of English to prevent the same; but it is to apparent that those men did more hurt then good in that place and attended more their owne private gaine then the publique good of the Company.” Reprinted in Boxer, ed. Commentaries of Ruy Freyre, 295. 5 See, e.g., Dejanirah Couto and Rui Manuel Loureiro eds., Revisiting Hormuz, Portuguese Interactions in the Persian Gulf Region in the Early Modern Period (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008). 6 Mansel L. Dames, ed., The Book of Duarte Barbosa, An Account of the Countries Bordering on the Indian Ocean and their Inhabitants. Written by Duarte Barbosa and Completed about the Year 1518 a.d. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1918), Vol. 1. 7 Davoud Bavand, “The Legal Basis of Iran’s Sovereignty over Abu Musa Island”, in Small Islands, Big Politics, The Tonbs and Abu Musa in the Gulf ed. Hooshang Amirahmadi (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996), 79–80.