Portuguese Trade in Macau

Timeline

1. 1561–1565Macau · MacauPortuguese merchants built houses and a port in Macau, paying levies and tribute through the Guangzhou Maritime Trade Supervisorate to conduct legal trade with the Ming dynasty. Macau's harbor berthed European merchant ships, forming a relatively stable trading base with China, replacing the earlier pattern of mobile operations in the Pearl River estuary.
2. 1563–1569Pearl River estuary · GuangdongAmerican silver flowed into China through Portuguese and Spanish trade networks, with Macau as an important channel. The Portuguese also ran a China-Japan-Europe triangle trade, transshipping Chinese goods to Nagasaki and elsewhere, then purchasing Chinese goods with silver, advancing the commodity economy and silverization of currency in the mid-to-late Ming period.
3. 1567–1569Xiangshan County · GuangdongMing local authorities exercised limited jurisdiction over the Portuguese in Macau, collecting land rent and commercial taxes while watching for coastal defense risks and trouble from foreign peoples. In the later 1560s, as trade expanded, court and local discussion of the 'foreign residence' model increased, laying groundwork for later more explicit leased-land administration.