were traditionally shrimp fishermen). In the native tongue, they also call themselves Gente Kristang (Christian people). History Portuguese Colonization Malacca was a major destination in the great wave of sea expeditions launched by Portugal around the turn of the 16th century. It eventually was controlled as part of the Portuguese Empire. The first Portuguese expedition to reach Malacca landed in 1507. The Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) noted that the Malays first called them Bengali Puteh (White Bengalis), as the Portuguese brought to mind traders from Bengal but were more pale skinned. In the early years, the Malays called the Portuguese Serani (a Malay contraction of the Arabic Nasrani, meaning followers of Jesus the Nazarene). A story was recorded that the Portuguese landing party inadvertently insulted the Malaccan sultan by placing a garland of flowers on his head, and he had them detained. In 1511, a Portuguese fleet came from India to free the landing party and conquer Malacca. At that time, Portuguese women were barred from travelling overseas due to superstition about women on ships, as well as the substantial danger of the sea route around Cape of Good Hope. Following the Portuguese colonization of Malacca (Malaysia) in 1511, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to marry local indigenous women, under a policy set by Afonso de Albuquerque, then Viceroy of India. To promote settlement, the King of Portugal granted freeman status and exemption from Crown taxes to Portuguese men (known as casados, or "married men") who ventured overseas and married local women. With Albuquerque's encouragement, mixed marriages flourished and some 200 were recorded by 1604. By creating families, the Portuguese men would make more settled communities, with families whose children would be Catholic and loyal to the Crown. The Dutch takeover A powerful sea power, the rising Dutch nation took Malacca from the Portuguese in 1641. This coincided with the Portuguese Restoration War in Portugal that ended the 60-year period known as the "Union of the Crowns" (1580–1640), when the crown of Portugal was joined with the crown of Spain by personal union. Almost all political contact between Portugal and Malacca ended, and a large number of people of Portuguese descent in the city were evacuated to Batavia (now Jakarta), the Dutch East India Company headquarters, as war captives, where they settled in an area called "Kampung Tugu". Portuguese trade relations with the former colonial outpost of Macau have