Nuno da Cunha

Who was Nuno da Cunha?

Nuno da Cunha was a governor of Portuguese possessions in India from 1528 to 1538. 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 1528 to 1538.

On his passage to Goa, he subdued the pirates at Mombassa who had been harassing the coast of Portuguese Mozambique. Mozambique had been brought within the Portuguese trading orbit and provided watering stations essential to Portugal's lifeline to the west coast of India. Nuno's brothers Pero Vaz da Cunha and Simão da Cunha were expected to serve under him as second and third in command, a form of nepotism that was expected in the Portuguese Estado da Índia. However, they died on the voyage, and Nuno was forced to rely upon local networks of clientage in Goa during his long rule.

In 1529, Nuno sent an expedition that sacked and burned the city of Damão on the Arabian Sea at the mouth of the Damão River, about 100 miles north of Mumbai in the Muslim state of Gujarat. Forces under his control captured Baxay from the Muslim ruler of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, on January 20, 1533. The next year, renamed Bassein, the city became the capital of the Portuguese province of the North, and the great citadel of black basalt, still standing, was begun.