Afonso de Albuquerque
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Afonso de Albuquerque was a Portuguese military commander and administrator who lived from 1453 to 1515 and played a major role in establishing Portuguese power in Asia during the Age of Exploration. He matters historically because his military campaigns and strategic planning helped Portugal build a maritime empire in the Indian Ocean region during a transformative period for European global influence.
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Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa (c. 1453 – 16 December 1515), was a Portuguese general, admiral, statesman, and conquistador. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean and built a reputation as a fierce and skilled military commander.
Albuquerque advanced the three-fold Portuguese grand scheme of combating Islam, spreading Christianity, and securing the trade of spices by establishing a Portuguese Asian empire. Among his achievements, Albuquerque managed to conquer Goa and was the first European of the Renaissance to raid the Persian Gulf, and he led the first voyage by a European fleet into the Red Sea. He is generally considered a highly effective military commander, and "probably the greatest naval commander of the age", given his successful strategy of attempting to close all the Indian Ocean naval passages to the Atlantic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and to the Pacific, transforming it into a Portuguese mare clausum. He was appointed head of the "fleet of the Arabian and Persian sea" in 1506.