After the abolition of slavery in the Portuguese overseas territories in the 1830s, the slave trade definitely went into serious decline.

With the decline of Portuguese power, especially during the period when the crown of Portugal was combined with the crown of Spain ( 1580 – 1640 ), the Portuguese coastal settlements were ignored and fell into a ruinous condition.

Meanwhile, with competition in the new joint Chinese and South Indian naval powers, Song and Chola, the thalassocracies of Indonesia were in rapid decline, though the Portuguese still encountered Javanese sailors in Madagascar in the.

Although very well developed during the 1960s and early 1970s, industrialisation declined rapidly with the decline of most Portuguese after independence.

But there were also new points of conflict: the decline of Spanish power at the end of the Thirty Years ' War in 1648, the colonial possessions of Portugal ( already in the midst of Portuguese Restoration War ), and perhaps even of a beleaguered Spain, were up for grabs.

The resulting failures in administration brought on a gradual decline of the Portuguese trade monopoly.

The yumi ( Japanese bow ) as a weapon of war began its decline after the Portuguese arrived in Japan in 1543 bringing firearms with them in the form of the matchlock.

Map of Macau Peninsula in 1639, long after the first Portuguese settlement there and in the same year that the city began to decline due to halt of trade shipments from Japan.

In 1688 the most powerful navies were the French, English, and Dutch ; Spanish and Portuguese navies had suffered a serious decline in the 17th century.

The war prompted unrest in Portuguese society and helped lead to the decline of the Salazar regime.

The PCP, now in the Unitarian Democratic Coalition ( Portuguese: Coligação Democrática Unitária or CDU ) with the Ecologist Party " The Greens " ( Portuguese: Partido Ecologista " Os Verdes " or PEV ) and the Democratic Intervention ( Portuguese: Intervenção Democrática or ID ), saw an electoral decline to 12. 18 % and 31 seats.

However, by then the last Schism of Reformation had taken place in Europe in those few decades along political lines, and the different views on the Value of human lives of different races were not taken to correction in the lands of Northern Europe, which will join the Colonial race at the end of the century and over the next, as the slow decline of Portuguese and Spaniard Empires waned.

Portuguese rule saw a decline in the Hindu population on the island and the abandonment of the Shiva cave ( main cave ) as a regular Hindu place of worship, though worship on Mahashivratri, the festival of Shiva, continued and still does.

By the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century, effective occupation by the Portuguese had caused a fairly rapid decline in the power of the heads of these kingdoms, but Ovimbundu continued to think of themselves as members of one or another of the groups based on these political units after World War II.

But after a time, soil exhaustion, lack of support of African agriculture by the colonial authorities, incursions of Portuguese settlers who took over valuable property in the highlands, and a number of other factors contributed to a decline in the success of Ovimbundu cash-crop agriculture.

The Japanese started to manufacture the Portuguese acquired matchlocks and the use of these firearms in warfare caused the gradual decline in the use of the centuries old lamellar armour that the samurai were known for ; the Japanese armour makers started to use solid iron plates in their armour designs which were based on European armours, and eventually plate armour became the standard for samurai warriors.

Macanese use was already in decline while Macau was a Portuguese territory, and that situation is unlikely to improve now that the territory is under Chinese administration.

The decline of the wokou (" Japanese pirate ") threat among other factors led to the gradual loss of Chinese preferential treatment ; the kingdom also suffered from increased maritime competition from Portuguese traders.

It also includes the height of the Portuguese Empire during the reign of Manuel I and the beginning of its decline during John III's reign.

With the decline of the Portuguese power other colonial powers and Christian organisations gain influence.

After the abolition of slavery in the Portuguese overseas territories in the 1830s, the slave trade went into serious decline.

* Portuguese Asia

The British and the Dutch succeeded more often to break the monopoly of the Spaniards and Portuguese in Asia.

Gaspar da Cruz ( c. 1520 – 1570 ), who worked all over the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia, was probably the first Christian missionary to preach ( unsuccessfully ) in Cambodia.

He led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time.

Francis devoted much of his life to missions in Asia, after being appointed by King John III of Portugal to take charge as Apostolic Nuncio in Portuguese India, where the king believed that Christian values were eroding among the Portuguese.

Then, due to displeasure at what he considered un-Christian life and manners on the part of the Portuguese which impeded missionary work, he travelled from the South into East Asia.

The European powers had control of other parts of Asia by the 1900s, such as British India, French Indochina, Spanish East Indies, and Portuguese Macau and Goa.

In the 16th century, the Portuguese broke the monopoly of the Arabs and Italians of trade between Asia and Europe by the discovery of the sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope.

However, with the rise of the rival Dutch East India Company, Portuguese influence in Asia was gradually eclipsed.

Early in the 16th century Afonso de Albuquerque ( left ) emerged as the Portuguese colonial viceroy most instrumental in consolidating Portugal's holdings in Africa and in Asia.

Portuguese viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque ( 1509 – 1515 ) resolved to consolidate Portuguese holdings in Africa and Asia, and secure control of trade with the East Indies and China.

Rival European powers began to make inroads in Asia as the Portuguese and Spanish trade in the Indian Ocean declined primarily because they had become hugely over-stretched financially due to the limitations on their investment capacity and contemporary naval technology.

The existing Portuguese interests in Asia proved sufficient to finance further colonial expansion and entrenchment in areas regarded as of greater strategic importance in Africa and Brazil.

It was as recent as the 1960s and 1970s that the Portuguese began to relinquish their colonies in Asia.

When the two crowns of the Iberian peninsula were joined in 1581, the Dutch felt free to attack Portuguese territories in Asia.

The Portuguese presence in East Africa served the purpose of controlling trade within the Indian Ocean and securing the sea routes linking Europe to Asia.

During the age of discovery Portuguese sailors explored the coasts of Africa and Asia.

The Guyanese historian Walter Rodney describes mercantilism as the period of the world-wide development of European commerce, which began in the fifteenth century with the voyages of Portuguese and Spanish explorers to Africa, Asia and the New World.

With its strong control of the Red Sea, Suleiman successfully managed to dispute control of the Indian trade routes to the Portuguese and maintained a significant level of trade with the Mughal Empire of South Asia throughout the 16th century.

Taiwan ( historically called " Formosa " especially prior to 1945, from Portuguese: Ilha Formosa, " Beautiful Island ") is an island and an archipelago in East Asia, composed of Taiwan Island and several much smaller islands such as the Penghu Islands, Orchid Island, Green Island, and Hsiao Liuchiu.

Spanish and Portuguese sailors and explorers brought vanilla into Africa and Asia later that century.