Garcia de Noronha
Garcia de Noronha (1479–3 April 1540) was a Portuguese nobleman and the third viceroy and tenth governor of Portuguese India. Born in Lisbon, he was a great-great-grandson of King Ferdinand I and came from a family closely tied to the royal court. He held several royal posts, fought in North Africa, and first sailed to India in 1511 as chief captain of a fleet of six ships. Some accounts say he sighted the island of Saint Helena on that voyage, a claim linked to its later use as a stopover for ships, though this is debated.
He married Inês de Castro, sister of João de Castro, and they had four children. He was a nephew of Afonso de Albuquerque. In March 1538, King John III named him viceroy of the Estado da Índia, succeeding Nuno da Cunha, and he landed in India on 6 April 1538. As viceroy, he promoted missionary settlements on Celebes and Macassar and temporarily banned the construction of Hindu and Buddhist temples within Portuguese India.
Garcia de Noronha died in Cochin on 3 April 1540 and was buried in the Cathedral of Goa. A street in Cascais (São Domingos de Rana) is named after him.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:49 (CET).