Diogo Veloso, of Amarante - A Portuguese native in Cambodia
The presence of the Portuguese in Asia during the sixteenth century is marked by many historical figures whose adventures were so extraordinary that they appear to us today to border on the fantastic.
Among these, Diogo Veloso, a man from Amarante, a small town in the north of Portugal, left a permanent Portuguese mark in the kingdom of Cambodia. His adventures, now forgotten in Portugal, deserve to be told. Unfortunately, some of the facts surrounding his life have not been adequately recorded or studied.
Let us summarise what we do know about this famous personage, who was clearly so proud of his native town that in all contemporary documents he is referred to as 'Diogo Veloso, of Amarante'.
The first reference to Cambodia to reach Portugal appears in 1511, when Afonso of Albuquerque conquers Malacca and writes to King D. Manuel about the kingdom. Tome Pires, in Suma Oriental, describes the country and its products in some detail. Fernão Mendes Pinto in Peregrinaçã and Camões in Os Lusiadas also speak of Cambodia. But how did our Diogo Veloso end up there?
The Dominican Friar Caspar da Cruz, a native of Evora, was the first missionary to depart from Malacca for Cambodia, in September 1555. From his letters it is clear that he came into contact with Portuguese merchants already there. The work of the missionaries, however, was not particularly fruitful, due to a combination of a deeply Buddhist population and hostile local authorities.
The frequent wars between the kings of Cambodia and Siam led the monarchs of both countries to attempt to attract the services of Portuguese soldiers, whose courage and expertise with firearms were well known throughout the Orient.
King Satha of Cambodia (1570-1596) employed many Portuguese soldiers. This is how, in 1582 or 1583, Diogp Veloso arrived in Cambodia. Various sources hint that he was born in Amarante in either 1558 or 1559. With him were Pantelao Carneiro of Lisbon, Francisco Machado, Francisco Sagrego and certainly many others. But Diogo Veloso soon proved his exceptional worth and climbed the military hierarchy, gaining the King's high regard in the process. We know that he spoke the Khmer language and that he married the cousin of the King - two details that reveal the high social position he had reached.
In 1592, some Spaniards arrived in Cambodia from Manila in the Philippines. One of these, Bias Ruiz de Herman Gonzales, believed to have been born in Ciudad Real, was to become Veloso's lifelong companion and to share with him the trust of the King.
The following year, faced with the threat of invasion by the Siamese, the King of Cambodia sent Veloso and Blaz Ruiz to Manila with a letter, written on July 20th 1593 on a thin sheet of gold, asking for help from the governor of the Philippines, Gomez Peres Dasmarinas. The governor replied offering to mediate between the two parties in conflict. Killed shortly afterwards, he was succeeded by a son, Luiz Peres Dasmarinas, who himself sent a letter with Veloso, signed in Manila on February 8th 1594.
When Veloso and his companions returned to Cambodia, they found that the country had been invaded by the King of Siam. There were a series of battles and they were taken prisoner, with Veloso being injured in the process. All of the captured Portuguese and Spanish soldiers were sent to Siam.
Diogo Veloso was forced to march over land, together with the priests Jorge de Mota, LUIS da Fonseca and Gregorio Ruiz. Bias Ruiz followed aboard a Siamese ship. During the sea voyage, the prisoners revolted, captured the crew, and dropped them ashore. Led by Bias Ruiz they then changed course for Manila.
Veloso was taken to Ayuthia, the capital of Siam. By the time he arrived, however, he had worked his charm on the King, who decided to free him and send him to accompany a Siamese Embassy that was leaving for Manila. Upon reaching Malacca, Veloso learned about the rebellion and escape of Bias Ruiz. Gaining strength from the Portuguese fortress nearby, he refused to carry on his journey with the Siamese. Soon after, armed with a letter from the Bishop of Malacca, D. Joao Ribeiro Gaio, he departed for Manila, arriving on June 1st 1595. Together with Bias Ruiz, he attempted to convince the local authorities to intervene in Cambodia, on the side of King Satha who they assumed was still on the throne. The governor agreed to sign a treaty on August 3rd 1595, together with Veloso, who was now acting as an Ambassador for the King of Cambodia. This treaty endorsed the deployment of Spanish forces into Cambodia and stated that the King and Queen should be converted to Catholicism. Did Veloso, who had been separated from his King for such a long period of time, have the authority to sign such a document? It seems that the question never entered his mind. For him, the important issue was clearly the urgency of obtaining troops to be sent in to help free Cambodia.
On January 18th 1596, three ships set sail from Manila, captained by Juan Gallinato and carrying 120 or 130 soldiers. The captain's ship, however, was thrown off course by a storm and was forced to seek refuge in Malacca. The ship with Bias Ruiz sailed up the river to the capital Phnom Phen. The third ship, with Diogo Veloso on board, was shipwrecked in the estuary of Mekong, but Veloso and his companions managed to save themselves and proceed towards the capital on foot.
When they reached Phnom Phen, they were faced with an entirely new situation from the one they had left. Their old friend and protector, King Satha, had been overthrown and had fled with his family to the North, to the kingdom of Laos. In his place was a cousin, the usurper Chung Prei, who had settled with his court just north of the capital, in the village of Srei Sathor.
Negotiations began between the two factions. The new King was protected by a guard of Muslim Malays, and was suspicious of the bonds of friendship that tied the Portuguese and the Spaniards to his rival. The expedition set up camp in Phnom Phen, close to the ships. Suddenly, they saw appearing on the river a large fleet of Chinese vessels. (It is worth explaining at this point that the governor of the Philippines mentioned above, Gomez Peres Dasmarinas, had been assassinated by the Chinese crewmen aboard his galley. In retribution, his son had launched a bloody attack against the inhabitants of the Chinese quarter in Manila.)
The Chinese sailors, well aware of the massacre suffered by their compatriots in Manila, were preparing to attack the Christian ships. The Europeans, a total of 60 men, were joined by 20 Japanese Christians who were also in the town. Informed of the impending attack, they decided to launch a pre-emptive strike on the enemy vessels and set them ablaze. They then attacked the Chinese quarter of the town, convinced that its inhabitants were involved in the plot. Such violence did little to facilitate their relationship with a King already suspicious of their intentions. Veloso asked for a reception with the King, and left for the Court with a small group of men. The King refused to grant them an audience, and the atmosphere became increasingly hostile. Knowing that the King planned to have them imprisoned, Veloso and Ruiz decided to risk everything, and attacked the palace on the night of May 11th. In the ensuing confusion, the gunpowder storage room was blown up and the King was killed. Despite momentarily controlling the situation, our adventurers were surrounded by enemies and so were forced to retreat to Phnom Phen. It is there that captain Gallinato, finally recovered from the storm in Malacca, found them. Deeply concerned about the gravity of the situation, he ordered reparations to be paid to the court and to the Chinese community and ordered the Europeans to leave. Their ships set sail down the river Mekong in June 1596.
The story might have ended here! Perhaps... but not for men like Diogo Veloso and Bias Ruiz. Upon arriving at the coast, they convinced the captain to let them disembark in Faifo (today Hoi-An in south Vietnam) on August 21st. They proposed to travel by land, crossing what is today Vietnam and Cambodia, as far as the mountains of Laos, to reach the exiled King. In the middle of the rainy season, with temperatures around 35°C (95°F), facing malaria and dense forests full of wild animals, they made a truly remarkable journey. (I recommend that the curious reader pick up an Atlas to see the enormous distances we are speaking of). They reached Viantiane, in Laos, in October, where they were informed that King Satha had died a few months earlier. Instead of being discouraged, they convinced his son and the widowed Queen to return with them to Cambodia, which was in a state of upheaval with various pretenders fighting for power. In May 1597 the new King, Preah Reachea II, ascended to the throne. Beside him on that occasion were almost certainly our two adventurers, proud to see the outcome of their efforts. It was to be the high point of their careers. The new King showered them with honours and titles and made them governors of two provinces. Diogo Veloso was given Bapuno(Baphnom). But the new King was also weak and indolent. His court, dominated by the Malayan guards, was ripe with intrigue and conspiracy. The King asked Malacca and Manila for help to keep him in power, and at this moment, for the first time, our two friends did not see eye to eye. Diogo Veloso insisted on securing Malaccan-Portuguese support; Bias Ruiz preferred Manilan-Spanish aid. In August 1598 Embassies were sent to both cities. A new expedition thus departed from Manila on September 17th 1598. One of its ships disappeared and another was blown to the Chinese coast. The third reached Phnom Penh in October 1598. In early 1599 a Japanese ship also arrived, led by a young Luso-Japanese captain called Gouveia. Faced with the ever-deteriorating situation, Veloso and Bias Ruiz made peace with each other and set off towards the Court, in Srei Sathor, where they tried to force the King to take decisive action.
However, the situation was uncontrollable. While our friends were at the court, a fresh conflict broke out in Phnom Phen between the Spaniards and the Malays. Due to the general hostility, the King recommended to Veloso that he should leave and go back to his province where he would be safe. Instead, Veloso travelled to Phnom Phen by river in order to join the Christians under attack. There were violent clashes and a general massacre of the Europeans. Among the dead was Diogo Veloso. It was the summer of 1599. The King did not outlive his faithful servants by many weeks, having been assassinated at the end of the same year.
The memory of Diogo Veloso was still very much alive in Cambodia in the early twentieth century, where he was remembered for his great courage and loyalty towards the Kings he served. In 1934, the French governor of Cambodia had a bust erected in Neak Luong with an inscription that reads: 'D/ogo Ve/oso - Ne a Amarante, Portugal. Au Service du Roi do Cambodje Prah Alamkara, epousa sa cousine, /'a/da a reconquerir son royaume sur un usurpateur. Recu en recompense la province de Ba Phnom - Mourat en Combat en 1599:
The challenge remains for Portuguese historians to piece together the gaps in Diogo Veloso's life story. Amarante's authorities will certainly be keen to endorse such research, the same way they hope to collaborate with the authorities in Cambodia to restore a school that will carry the name Veloso, one of the most adventurous figures in the long history of the Portuguese in Asia.
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