Nuno da Cunha, Portuguese admiral and politician, Governor of Portuguese India (born 1487)
Nuno da Cunha
Nuno da Cunha was a Portuguese admiral who was governor of Portuguese possessions in India from 1529 to 1538. He was the governor of Portuguese Asia that ruled for more time in the sixteenth century in a total of nine years. He was the son of Antónia Pais and Tristão da Cunha, the famous Portuguese navigator, admiral and ambassador to Pope Leo X. Nuno da Cunha proved his mettle in battles at Oja and Brava, and at the capture of Panane, under the viceroy Francisco de Almeida. Named by João III ninth governor of Portuguese possessions in India, he served from April 1529 to 1538. He was named to end the government of governor Lopo Vaz de Sampaio (1526–1529) and brought orders, by King John III of Portugal, to send Sampaio in chains for Portugal. This delicate mission by the King was justified by their close connection ever since the king was still a prince.
List of governors of Portuguese India
The government of Portuguese India started on 12 September 1505, seven years after the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, with the nomination of the first Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida, then settled at Cochin. Until 1752, the name India included all Portuguese possessions in the Indian Ocean, from Southern Africa to Southeast Asia, governed – either by a viceroy or governor – from its headquarters, established in Old Goa since 1510. In 1752 Portuguese Mozambique was granted its own government, and in 1844 the Portuguese government of India ceased administering the territory of Portuguese Macau, Solor and Portuguese Timor, seeing itself thus confined to a reduced territorial possessions along the Konkan, Canara and Malabar Coasts, which would further be reduced to the present-day state of Goa and the union territory of Daman. Portuguese control ceased in Dadra and Nagar Haveli in 1954, and finally ceased in Goa in 1961, when the area was occupied by the Republic of India. This ended four and a half centuries of Portuguese rule in parts – though tiny – of India.