# Ten Days That Ended Melaka: Why the Archipelago's Richest Port Fell So Fast

> Melaka's fort held out for just ten days against the Portuguese, yet the same city held the Dutch off for seven months a hundred and thirty years later. The gap between those two numbers explains nearly the whole of the 1511 event — and where Melaka's royal lineage went afterward.

- Category: malaysia
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-24
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/malaysia/portuguese-melaka-1511

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Ten days. That's the gap between the Portuguese fleet's arrival in Melaka waters on 10 August 1511 and the moment the city changed hands on 24 August.

A hundred and thirty years later, the same city on the same site held out against a Dutch siege for seven months before surrendering.

The city hadn't moved. The strait hadn't changed. What changed was its walls — and the difference between ten days and seven months is the most honest explanation for why the richest port in the region fell so fast.

## What happened, according to the official record

The Melaka State Government's official portal records a sequence that is brief and dense:

| Date | Event |
| --- | --- |
| 1509 | Diego Lopez de Sequiera arrives with 18 ships from the Royal Fleet of Portugal |
| 1509 | A dispute breaks out; his expedition is attacked and 20 of his crew are detained |
| 10 August 1511 | Alfonso d'Albuquerque, Portuguese viceroy in Goa, arrives in Melaka |
| 10 August 1511 | His request to build a Portuguese base in Melaka is rejected by Sultan Mahmud Shah |
| 24 August 1511 | After a ten-day siege, the Portuguese capture Melaka city |
| January 1512 | Albuquerque returns to Goa after completing A' Famosa, a fort with a five-storey tower |

The Melaka Sultanate had ruled for 110 years before that date. The Portuguese then ruled for 130 years.

## The 1509 episode wasn't just a misunderstanding

Two years before Albuquerque's cannon, a Portuguese fleet had already anchored at Melaka's port.

Sequiera's expedition arrived with 18 ships in 1509, a dispute broke out, and 20 of its crew were detained. From Melaka's perspective, that was the action of a sovereign state against an armed foreign fleet in its own port.

From Lisbon's perspective, it became two things at once: an official pretext to return, and proof that Melaka could be reached. The 1509 fleet did not go home empty-handed — it went home with knowledge of the port.

When Albuquerque arrived on 10 August 1511 and requested permission to build a Portuguese base, the request was refused. The assault began after that refusal.

## Why only ten days? Look at the walls

This is where most explanations stop at political factors and miss the most verifiable cause.

Arkib Negara Malaysia records that, according to Admiral Cheng Ho's account of his visit to Melaka in 1409, the city of Melaka during the Sultanate era was built by Raja Parameswara out of **stout timber for its walls**, with four gates. Its function: a repository for royal treasure and a fortification against enemy attack.

That was an entirely reasonable design for fifteenth-century regional threats — pirate raids, rival seizures, tribute disputes. It was not a design meant to withstand naval cannon fire.

Notice what Albuquerque did the moment the city fell. According to Arkib Negara, he ordered the construction of a stronger new fort, first planned using timber and stone, then redesigned to be **entirely stone**:

- Stone walls 3.6 metres high, 2.4 metres thick
- Eight watchtowers 18 to 24 metres high
- Four entrances, with a drawbridge
- 60 armed guards around the perimeter
- Built with the labour of 300 to 400 slave labourers

Someone who has just seized a city knows exactly where its weakness lay. Albuquerque's first act tells us what he considered the weak point — and he fixed it with stone.

## The test that confirms it: 1641

If the "walls" theory is right, the stone fort should have produced a very different result when it was tested.

It was tested. When the Dutch attacked in 1641, they needed a siege of **seven months** before the city fell. Inside it, Arkib Negara records, they found 68 cannon and 74 muskets.

| Siege | Defences | How long it held |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Portuguese, 1511 | Wooden-walled city, four gates | 10 days |
| Dutch, 1641 | A' Famosa, entirely stone, eight towers | 7 months |

This doesn't mean leadership, internal divisions or the loyalty of foreign traders didn't matter. Those factors are indeed discussed at length in the historiography of Melaka. But when the same city, on the same site, held out 21 times longer after its walls changed from timber to stone, fortification technology deserves to be at the front of the explanation, not in a footnote.

Melaka was rich because it was open. Its wealth came from being an entrepôt port that anyone could enter — not from being a fortress that could keep anyone out. Its business model and its defensive model were the same thing, and that was its weakness when a cannon-armed fleet arrived intending conquest, not trade.

> A port that depends on openness cannot be built like a fortress. Melaka controlled the strait for a century without needing to be a fortress — until someone arrived who did not want to trade.

## The Portuguese fort stood at the foot of the palace hill

This one detail sums up the entire transition in a single image.

According to Arkib Negara, the Sultanate's palace stood on the hill now known as Bukit St. Paul — formerly Bukit Melaka — and is believed to have been a magnificent palace as described in the Sejarah Melayu written by Tun Seri Lanang.

The Portuguese fort, Arkib Negara notes, was completed standing solidly **at the foot of that same hill**. The hill that once held the seat of the Malay palace now lay in the shadow of a European stone wall.

And that fort didn't last either. In 1806, British commander William Farquhar demolished it to prevent the Dutch from reoccupying it, leaving only the fragments of gate and wall that we see today.

## Where did Melaka's royal lineage go?

The city was lost in 1511. Its institution was not.

The Johor State Government's official portal records that in 1528, Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah — **of the lineage of the Melaka Sultanate** — opened up Johor and settled at Johor Lama. The Johor Sultanate's portal records that he was also known as Raja Ali or Sultan Muda, and that he founded the state at Kota Batu, Johor Lama, in that same year, 1528.

Arkib Negara puts it more directly: after Melaka fell, "it was the Kingdom of Johor that took over the role Melaka had once played."

**That 17-year gap.** Between 1511 and 1528 there is a period not recorded in detail by these official portals. Chronicle tradition and historical writing mention several locations of the court's relocation during that period. We do not publish the route or dates of that relocation here because it cannot be confirmed against official sources — what is confirmed is the point of resumption: Johor Lama, 1528.

What happened afterward shows that the lesson of 1511 had been learned:

| Year | Event at Johor Lama |
| --- | --- |
| 1528 | Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II founds the state at Kota Batu, Johor Lama |
| 1540 | Kota Batu is built — solid stone, 50 metres long, 20 metres wide |
| 1564 | Aceh launches a major attack and captures the fort |
| 1576, 1578 | Portuguese attacks are successfully repelled |
| 1586 | A Portuguese attack fails again |
| 1587 | The Portuguese, with reinforcements from Goa, succeed in capturing Kota Batu |

This time the fort was stone, not timber — and the Portuguese needed four attempts plus reinforcements from Goa to breach it.

After 1587, the capital kept moving. The Johor State Government's portal records that Johor's capital relocated 20 times along the Johor River before finally settling in the Riau Islands. The dynasty of Melaka's lineage ruled until the year 1699, when the state's administration passed to the Bendahara Dynasty.

In other words: the palace lineage of the [Melaka Sultanate](/en/malaysia/melaka-sultanate) survived 188 more years after the city of Melaka itself was lost.

## The start of the European era in the archipelago

The year 1511 is often cited as the start of European colonisation in this region. That is correct in terms of sequence — but its scale needs to be understood.

| Period | Power | Duration |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1511–1641 | Portuguese | 130 years |
| 1641–1795 | Dutch | 154 years |
| From 1795 | British | Treaty of London 1824; Straits Settlements 1826 |

What changed hands in 1511 was a port city and the strait it controlled — not a peninsula. European powers spent the following three centuries extending that grip, and the timeline above only ends with [independence in 1957](/en/malaysia/independence-1957).

## Common mistakes

**"The Melaka Sultanate ended in 1511."** The city ended. The royal institution continued: Malay rule by Melaka's lineage resumed at Johor Lama in 1528, and that dynasty lasted until 1699.

**"The A' Famosa standing today is the Portuguese fort."** What remains is only fragments of gate and wall. The actual fort was demolished by William Farquhar in 1806.

**"Melaka fell simply because its defences were weak, full stop."** Its city was wooden-walled, yes — but it was designed for regional threats, not a cannon-armed fleet. That weakness was a generational one in technology, not mere carelessness.

**"1511 meant the Portuguese colonised the Malay Peninsula."** The Portuguese controlled the city of Melaka and the strait. Their influence over the peninsula's interior was far more limited than is often portrayed.

**"Melaka never withstood a long siege."** The same city withstood the Dutch for seven months in 1641. The difference was stone.

## What's next

If you want to understand what was actually lost in August 1511 — the language, court law, system of governance and trade networks built over 110 years — start with the [Melaka Sultanate](/en/malaysia/melaka-sultanate).

If you want to see how far back the history of statehood on this peninsula actually stretches before Melaka even existed, [Langkasuka](/en/malaysia/langkasuka) is a useful starting point.

This article is a draft and has not yet been reviewed by a human reviewer. Every date, measurement and duration in it comes from the official portal of the Melaka State Government, Arkib Negara Malaysia, or the official portal of the Johor State Government listed below. The figures for the Portuguese fleet in 1511 and the route of the court's relocation between 1511 and 1528 are deliberately not published because we could not confirm them against official sources.

## Sources

- Sejarah Melaka — https://www.melaka.gov.my/ms/kerajaan/info-negeri/sejarah.html (Portal Rasmi Kerajaan Negeri Melaka)
- Melaka History — https://www.melaka.gov.my/en/government/state-info/melaka-history.html (Portal Rasmi Kerajaan Negeri Melaka)
- Kota A' Famosa, Melaka — https://pustakailmu.arkib.gov.my/index.php/ms/pustaka-ilmu/mercu-tanda/kota-a-famosa-melaka (Arkib Negara Malaysia (Pustaka Ilmu))
- Kota Batu, Johor Lama — https://pustakailmu.arkib.gov.my/index.php/ms/pustaka-ilmu/mercu-tanda/kota-batu-johor-lama (Arkib Negara Malaysia (Pustaka Ilmu))
- Replika Istana Kesultanan Melayu Melaka — https://pustakailmu.arkib.gov.my/index.php/ms/pustaka-ilmu/mercu-tanda/replika-istana-kesultana-melayu-melaka (Arkib Negara Malaysia (Pustaka Ilmu))
- Sejarah Kesultanan Johor — https://kemahkotaan.johor.gov.my/pengenalan/sejarah-kesultanan-johor/ (Portal Rasmi Kerajaan Negeri Johor)
- Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II — https://royal.johor.my/timeline/sultan-aladdin-riayat-shah-ii/ (Portal Kesultanan Johor)

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