1Malaysia(Races-Portugu​ese Eurasian)

A Family Of Kristang..

History of Portuguese Eurasian

Malacca was a major destination in the great wave of sea expeditions launched by Portugal around the turn of the 16th century, and it eventually was controlled as part of the Portuguese Empire . The first Portuguese expedition to reach Malacca landed in 1507. The Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) noted that the Malays first called them Bengali Puteh (White Bengalis), as the Portuguese brought to mind traders from Bengal but were more pale skinned. In the early years, the Malays called the Portuguese Serani (short for Malay Nasrani, meaning followers of Jesus the Nazarene. A story was recorded that the Portuguese landing party inadvertently insulted the Malaccan sultan by placing a garland of flowers on his head, and he had them detained. In 1511, a Portuguese fleet came from India to free the landing party.

At that time, Portuguese women were barred from traveling overseas due to superstition about women on ships, as well as the substantial danger of the sea route around cape Horn. Following the Portuguese colonization of Malacca (Malaysia) in 1511, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to marry local indigenous women, under a policy set by Afonso de Albuquerque, then Viceroy of India . To promote settlement, the King of Portugal granted freeman status and exemption from Crown taxes to Portuguese men (known as casados, or "married men") who ventured overseas and married local women. With Albuquerque's encouragement, mixed marriages flourished and some 200 were recorded by 1604. By creating families, the Portuguese men would make more settled communities, with families whose children would be Catholic and loyal to the Crown.