Tomé Pires
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Malacca's wealth was built on a system, not luck. And that system did not measure people by race
At the height of the Malaccan port, it was said that eighty-four languages could be heard. This was no myth—it was built upon a system. Tomé Pires recorded the structure of this system: four harbourmasters (Syahbandar), each managing a group of merchants arriving from a specific direction. Look closely at this table, and you will find that Malacca classified people not by blood, but by the direction of the wind.