Jorge Flores

A schemer’s plan to create a Portuguese Calcutta (1784)

When, in 1784, a certain George Gearmain submitted to the Queen of Portugal a plan to found a colony in Bengal, the Portuguese involvement in the lands of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta was already more than two and a half centuries old. The Portuguese were quick in adapting to the geographical

1704: Forging Macau 2.0 in Cambodia

Hunched over the South China Sea, Portuguese Macau began as a shadowy settlement (povoação) in the mid-1550s and eventually received city status three decades later. In its early phase, Macau’s political and commercial success rested largely on the city’s pivotal role in the silk-for-silver trade between China and