"Thus we find ourselves, with growing discomfort, in the company of motley bands of Portuguese fidalgos (gentry), mariners, soldiers, and ex-convicts, as they suffer the pangs of hunger, face shipwreck, board the vessels of Asian merchants, storm barricades, sack palaces, and put women and children to the sword. The more one reads, the more horrific the story becomes. The history of the Portuguese intrusion into the Indian Ocean is an epic of ruthless savagery."

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/06/23/portugals-empire-ruthless-intermingling/