the Portuguese, not satisfied with extending their commercial
transactions, attempted also to overthrow the native religions, just as
the Mohammedans did. For the Portuguese conquerors were not only
traders, but ardent Christians, firmly convinced of the truth of their
religion, and determined to spread it. The squadron commanded by Pedro
Alvares Cabral, which had been despatched to India directly after the
return of Vasco da Gama, had carried some Franciscan friars, who were
left at Cochin, in 1500, to preach their religion. They were speedily
followed by other missionaries, chiefly Dominican and Franciscan friars,
who increased in number, after the capital of the Portuguese sovereignty
was removed to Goa. Great convents arose there, and the missionaries
began their labours by preaching in the neighbouring districts, which
were divided into parishes after the European fashion, and regarded as
ecclesiastical units. The fame of the Goa missionaries was greatly
increased by the discovery or pretended discovery of the bones of St.
Thomas the Apostle at the spot, which had long attracted the common
worship of Mohammedans, Hindus, and native Christians, near Madras,
where he was reported to have been martyred. These bones were brought to
Goa in 1522, during the government of Duarte de Menezes, and buried
with great pomp in the sacred shrine in the Church of St. Thomas at Goa,
where they remain to this day. These first Portuguese missionaries were
delighted to find native Christians in India when they arrived, and to
find them a powerful military caste. They did not at first inquire too
minutely into the doctrines and ceremonies of these Christians, who
belonged to the Nestorian Church, and far from persecuting them with
especial fervour, as was the case later, they regarded the very
existence of these Christians as a proof of the vitality of their own
faith. After the discovery of the bones of St. Thomas missionaries
flocked in increased numbers to India, not only from Portugal, but from
Rome itself; and in 1539 Goa was made the seat of a Roman Catholic
bishopric, and João de Alboquerque was consecrated its first bishop. But
the greatest impulse given to the cause of the propagation of the
Christian faith was the arrival in India of St. Francis Xavier in 1542,
during the government of Martim Affonso de Sousa. This great preacher
and great man was not long in making a deep impression upon the natives
of India, and the news of the converts he had made without the limits of
the Portuguese settlements, attracted a crowd of followers. The Society
of the Jesuits, of which he was one of the founders, paid especial
attention to this field of mission work, and the progress of
Christianity became more and more rapid. This was the golden age of
proselytising effort; the Hindus listened with patience to the Christian
missionaries, and did not yet begin to persecute them, and the
Inquisition which was to bear so heavily upon the native Church of
Nestorian Christians, did not inaugurate its forcible methods of
conversion until the year 1560.
[Illustration: DOM JOÃO DE CASTRO.
(_After the copy given by the MS. of Pedro Barrato de Rezende of the
original portrait in the Palace of the Viceroys at Goa._)]
The name of St. Francis Xavier suggests that of his illustrious friend,
Dom João de Castro, who rivalled upon the battlefield the glories of
Francisco de Almeida, Affonso de Alboquerque, and Nuno da Cunha, but who
was distinguished above them all for the noble purity of his life. De
Castro was the intimate friend of the king’s uncle, Dom Luis, Duke of
Beja, with whom he had been educated, and had won his spurs and the
admiration of the Emperor Charles V., by his conduct in the expedition
to Tunis. He had served with distinction under Garcia de Noronha and
Estevão da Gama in the Indian seas, and on his return home had been
employed in the difficult task of evacuating the various Portuguese
stations in Morocco, which it had been decided to abandon. He was
renowned for the purity and even austerity of his character, and it was
for this reason that he was appointed, in 1545, viceroy of India. The
situation there was a difficult one, for the Sultan of Turkey had, it is
said, at the request of the Venetians, who were disgusted at losing
their profitable trade with the East, sent a powerful fleet down the Red
Sea to exterminate the Portuguese in India. When João de Castro arrived
at Goa, he heard that Diu was being again besieged by Mohammed III. of
Gujarāt. The news was true, and in spite of the gallant defence of
Dom João de Mascarenhas, the besieged were driven to extremities. The
viceroy at once proceeded thither, and not only relieved the fortress,
but defeated the King of Gujarāt in a pitched battle beneath the
walls. This victory, the greatest won by the Portuguese in India,
exalted the fame of the general, which was further enhanced by his
annihilation of the great Turkish fleet. After these victories João de
Castro turned to matters of internal reform, and, by a policy which
recalls that of Lord Cornwallis in Bengal in later history, he fixed the
salaries of the various civil officials and tried to put an end to the
system of corruption and peculation by which they had robbed the royal
treasury and the natives alike. He looked with especial disfavour upon
the loose and immoral life led by the Portuguese at Goa, and sternly
discouraged their luxury, which, as he declared, could only be paid for
by robbing the king of his dues. Unfortunately João de Castro, though he
was to inaugurate reforms, did not live long enough to see them carried
out, for he died in 1548, in the third year of his viceroyalty, in the
arms of his friend, St. Francis Xavier, and it is recorded to the glory
of this knight of the olden type, that, in spite of his opportunities,
he died poor, and bequeathed to his son only his sword, “ornamented,” in
the words of his biographer, “with a few stones of no great value, but
with a glory beyond price.”
The immediate successors of Dom João de Castro, Garcia de Sá, Jorge
Cabral, Affonso de Noronha, and Pedro de Mascarenhas, found no great
perils to meet, since the victory of Diu had terrified the Mohammedans
for a time, and none of them left any important traces upon the history
of the Portuguese in India. The government of Dom Constantino de
Braganza, a scion of the most noble house in Portugal next to royalty,
marked a return to the system of Dom João de Castro, whom he imitated
not only in his internal reforms, but in his gallantry in the field. He
it was who took and occupied Daman, which, with Goa and Diu, remains to
this day a possession of Portugal. He was still in office when the death
of John III. left the crown of Portugal to a minor, and the greatness of
his country, and even its independence, was on the point of
disappearing.
But the Portuguese power in Asia must not be regarded as being confined
to India, though Goa remained its headquarters, and the centre from
which the homeward-bound fleets sailed. It will be remembered that
Affonso de Alboquerque made expeditions both to the east and west; and
his successors, during the century of the Portuguese monopoly of the
Asiatic trade, maintained and extended their commercial operations in
both directions. But before touching on these extensions attention must
be called to the care with which the greatest Portuguese governors kept
up the establishments on the south-eastern coast of Africa. Mozambique,
which still belongs to Portugal, Mombassa, and Melinda, were all
fortified with the utmost science of the time, for the homeward-and
outward-bound fleets always paused at one or other or at all of these
places before facing or after meeting the perils of the Indian Ocean, in
order to refit and take in provisions. The dangers of the passage round
the Cape of Good Hope were also sufficiently serious to need rest or
preparation, for to mention but two disasters, Francisco de Almeida,
the first Viceroy of India was wrecked in Saldanha Bay, and died there
on his way back from his command; and a few years after occurred the
wreck, imprisonment among the savages, and death of Dom Manoel de Sousa
and his wife, which Camoens has immortalized in touching words.[16] More
important than these African settlements was the city of Ormuz, at the
mouth of the Persian Gulf, which became the headquarters of the Persian
trade with Europe by means of the Portuguese fleets. It has been seen
that Aden was too strong for Alboquerque to capture; one of his
successors, Affonso de Noronha, was more successful in 1551, but he only
held the key of the Red Sea for a single year, after which it was
recaptured by the Turks.
Far more valuable was the settlement of Malacca, which was placed upon a
secure footing by Alboquerque. It became the centre of a great trade
with Java, Sumatra, and the Spice Islands, and from it Fernão de
Magalhães and Francisco Serrão prosecuted their discoveries among the
Moluccas and the Celebes. The history of this settlement is full of
interest; it was repeatedly attacked by the Achinese and other natives,
and some of its sieges are as famous as those of Diu, though not
conducted against such civilized opponents. But Malacca was not only the
headquarters of the Spice Islands trade, but the port from which
explorations were directed northwards. It was from Malacca that Duarte
Coelho started to explore the coasts of Cochin China, and made his
adventurous journey into Siam, and from Malacca also Fernão Peres de
Andrade started to open up trade with the mighty and populous empire of
China. There can be little doubt, according to a most distinguished
Portuguese historian,[17] that the embassy, which King Emmanuel
despatched in 1517 to the emperor of China, was caused by a knowledge of
Marco Polo’s travels, and by the interest inspired by his account of the
far empire of Cathay. At any rate it was as an ambassador from one
monarch to another, and not as a conqueror that Fernão Peres de Andrade
was sent to China with letters and presents. And the very fact of this
embassy suggests a doubt whether the Portuguese would have ever acted as
they did in India had there been a monarch there of such power as the
emperor of China was reported to possess, or would have been contented
to be traders only. De Andrade safely reached Canton by way of Malacca
in 1518, but in spite of his letters and presents he was long detained
there and not allowed to proceed to Pekin until 1521. When the Chinese
thoroughly understood that the Portuguese came only to trade and not to
conquer, they permitted the new-comers to establish a factory, first at
Lium-po; and in 1549 at Chin Chee; and, finally, in 1557, in the year of
the death of John III., at the request of the Chinese Government, the
Portuguese withdrew their other factories and established themselves in
the island of Macao, at the mouth of the Canton river. Here they carried
on a prosperous trade, and in 1583 they received leave to dispense
justice within their island, and in 1587 were recognized as independent
there.
The first communication of the Portuguese with Japan is still more
curious, and is connected with the history of one of those adventurous
travellers who boldly traversed the most distant lands of Asia, long
before Englishmen or Dutchmen had ventured to assail the Portuguese
monopoly. Fernão Mendes Pinto has for generations been regarded as a
typical liar, an accusation generally believed in England from the
famous line of Congreve in “Love for Love:” (act ii. scene v.) “Mendes
Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.”
But modern inquiry has shown that though he doubtless exaggerated, and
drew strange inferences, his curious “Peregrinação” or Travels, which
was first published in 1614, and was translated during the seventeenth
century into English, French, and Spanish, contains essentially a true
account of his adventures. His career is typical of that of many another
Portuguese adventurer in the East. He first went to Asia in 1537, and
during his wanderings was five times shipwrecked, thirteen times taken
captive, and seventeen times sold as a slave. On his way out he was
taken prisoner between Socotra and the Persian Gulf, and sold as a slave
at Mocha, where he remained until ransomed by the Portuguese governor of
Ormuz. After many daring adventures, which savour of piracy, he was
engaged in 1542 in a strange expedition to Calempin, near Pekin, which
he had organized to plunder the tombs of seventeen Chinese emperors
there. On his way back from this sacrilegious attempt he was wrecked off
the Chinese coast, and set to work in repairing the Great Wall of China.
While there he was made a prisoner by the Tartars during one of their
invasions, and after being present at a Tartar siege of Pekin was
carried away into Tartary. After various adventures he managed to get
back to China, and he then paid his first visit to Japan. His account of
the wealth of the Japanese islands excited the minds of the Portuguese
officials on the Chinese coast, and a fleet of nine ships was placed
under his command at Ning-po, with orders to open up a trade with Japan.
Ill luck again pursued him; eight of his ships foundered, and the one
upon which he himself sailed, was wrecked on the Loo-Choo Islands.
Undiscouraged by all his reverses, he continued to represent the wealth
of Japan to his superiors in China and at Malacca, and in 1548 he
established a factory in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. Here he did good
service, and besides opening up a trade in Japanese goods, he made a
large fortune for himself. With this fortune he was on his way back to
Portugal in 1553, when the ecclesiastics at Goa worked upon his
religious sentiments, which, as in other Portuguese adventurers, must
have been very deep, though they do not seem to have influenced him in
his dealings with Asiatics, and persuaded him to devote nearly all his
wealth to the establishment of a seminary at Goa for the education of
missionaries to Japan.
The career of Mendes Pinto illustrates the extraordinary energy and
indomitable courage of the Portuguese in Asia, and it is a subject for
wonder how one little country, one of the very smallest of the European
states, could produce not only great governors and conquerors, like
Francisco de Almeida, Affonso de Alboquerque, Nuno da Cunha, and João de
Castro, and their lieutenants; and military heroes like Duarte Pacheco,
Antonio de Silveira, and João de Mascarenhas, and their soldiers; but
also daring adventurers like Duarte Coelho, who boldly penetrated into
the interior of Siam, and Mendes Pinto. These men, from the highest to
the lowest, seem to have had unbounded confidence in themselves, and, as
will be seen later, two Portuguese adventurers, with hardly any support,
Sebastião Gonzales and Philip de Brito, established themselves as
practically independent princes in Arakan. It has been shown that this
extraordinary energy and enterprise exhausted the kingdom of Portugal.
Of the thousands who left their homes in Europe, but an infinitesimal
portion ever returned. Not one of the early governors of Portuguese
India died in Portugal until the time of Dom Constantino de Braganza;
they either died in India, like Alboquerque, Vasco da Gama, and Noronha,
or on their way home, like Almeida and Nuno da Cunha. The drain upon the
energies of the people was immense, and the wonder is not that Portugal
was soon exhausted, but that it ever put forth such vitality at all. The
greatness of the Portuguese in India was due to the courage and heroism
of the Portuguese people, and these qualities they owed to a succession
of great kings, who had trained the people to freedom, self-reliance,
and constancy; were it not for great kings like John “the Great” and
John “the Perfect,” and great princes like Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, and
Prince Henry “the Navigator,” the Portuguese nation would never have
done what it did, and the Story of Portugal teaches the useful lesson
that a people, trained to lofty thoughts and a high conception of duty,
will be sure to find scope for its energies, and exhibit the result of
its training in noble deeds.
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration]
X.
THE PORTUGUESE IN BRAZIL.
The history of the Portuguese in South America differs greatly from the
story of the growth of their power in Asia; in America they found no
wealthy cities and civilized peoples, only poor natives, and it was no
wonder that their chief efforts in the sixteenth century were devoted to
the development of the lucrative Eastern trade and to Asiatic
exploration. Had any one told King Emmanuel that the country which Pedro
Alvares Cabral discovered by a mere chance on his way to Asia, would
prove of more enduring value to Portugal than the settlements in India,
that monarch would not have believed him. Yet such has been the case.
Whereas at the present time the Portuguese possessions in Asia have
dwindled down to the settlements of Goa, Daman, and Diu in India, and
the island of Macao, which are of very little value to the mother
country, the great republic of Brazil has expanded into an independent
state containing fourteen millions of inhabitants, or more than three
times the population of Portugal.[18] It is true that the governments
of Portugal and her flourishing daughter across the Atlantic are
separated, and that they are politically independent of each other, yet
Brazil still continues in close alliance with Portugal, and receives
from the mother country the crowds of sturdy immigrants, who are
steadily expanding the resources of the greatest country in South
America. Brazilians are as proud of the great deeds of their European
ancestors as the Portuguese themselves, and even surpass the inhabitants
of the mother country in their admiration for Camoens, and the assiduous
study of his works. The story of the settlement and gradual colonization
of Brazil cannot rival in romantic interest that of the Portuguese
exploits in Asia, but it is nevertheless instructive to study the slow
growth of the colony which has now become a mighty empire.
It was upon April 24, 1500, that Pedro Alvares Cabral, the admiral
commanding the fleet which King Emmanuel had ordered to India, on
receiving the news of the successful voyage of Vasco da Gama, caught
sight of an unknown country towards the west He had stood out to sea
after passing the Cape Verde Islands, or, according to some authorities,
had been driven out to sea by a storm and had not expected to see land
at all, so that the discovery, which proved of the greatest value to
Portugal, was the result of chance, and not of deliberate exploration.
He was unable to land at first on account of the surf, and it was not
until he reached 15° north latitude, that he was able to find a harbour,
to which he gave the name of Porto Seguro or Safe Port. He landed and
took possession of the new country in the name of the King of Portugal,
and after erecting a cross gave it the name of Santa Cruz, which
remained its official name for many years, before the popular name of
Brazil, which was given to it from the quantity of brazil-trees it
contained, was adopted. Cabral found the country to be fertile and well
watered, and inhabited by a mild and inoffensive people, who allowed him
to explore a little, and to take on board fruit and water. He at once
perceived the value of his discovery, and sent off one of his ships to
Lisbon with information of it, and with one of the inhabitants on board
to be taught the Portuguese language. He also left two of his own men in
the country to learn the language of the natives and to explore, and
then proceeded on his way to India.
King Emmanuel sent various expeditions to explore this new country,
notably two under Amerigo Vespucci in 1501 and 1503, and the greater
part of the coast line down to the River Plate was visited and mapped
out by this industrious explorer. But neither Vespucci, nor the first
colonists despatched from Portugal, reported the existence of more than
a fertile country, and the Portuguese people being at that time in the
full excitement of their first conquests in Asia, and the rich trade to
be opened up there, paid but little attention to the new possession
across the Atlantic. It was soon discovered that there were no wealthy
cities or powerful dynasties among the inhabitants of Brazil, such as
Cortez met with in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru, and there seemed to be
little prospect of a lucrative trade. So little was known, indeed, of
the natural wealth of Brazil, that Spain, though by the Bull of
Alexander VI. it had a right to all discoveries in that quarter of the
globe, consented to give up to Portugal undisputed possession of the
whole coast line of Brazil from the River Maranham to the River Plate.
Of the aboriginal inhabitants of this vast country, curious accounts
were written by the first Portuguese explorers. They were reported to be
partly nomadic, and to live chiefly on fish and fruit, and on the game
which they killed in their forests with bows and arrows. They wore
little or no clothes, and generally painted their bodies, and some
tribes used to smear themselves with gum, and stick beautiful feathers
all over them, which made them look at a distance more like great birds
than human beings. They grew no corn, but made cakes of cassava root,
and used to drink either the pressed juice of fruit or an intoxicating
liquor made from honey. They understood how to spin and weave, and build
huts; they were great smokers of tobacco, and had some knowledge of the
usefulness of the medicinal herbs and drugs which abound in Brazil.
Their country, though fertile, seemed destitute of everything of value
to Europeans, and it was at first thought that the discovery of Cabral
would in no way contribute to the wealth or prosperity of the Portuguese
people.
So firmly was this believed, and so absorbed were the king, nobles, and
people of Portugal in their Asiatic explorations and conquests, that for
many years no attempt was made to form settlements in South America, and
no effort to explore the interior of the continent. Two royal ships only
for a long time were despatched to Brazil every year to take out and
land there condemned convicts and women of bad character, and to bring
back parrots and different varieties of wood, notably the brazil wood
which gave the new country its popular name. A few families of settlers,
partly from Madeira and partly from northern Portugal, also went out on
their own account, and established themselves in various chosen spots,
where they introduced agriculture and tried in vain to make the natives
work for them as slaves. No attempt was made by the Portuguese monarch
to superintend these infant settlements, or to decree any form of
government for the stray colonists and convicts, who did what seemed
good in their own eyes, and in many instances treated the natives with
the utmost severity. While soldiers, governors, and officials were
despatched in numbers to Asia, there was no thought taken of America;
and as one instance of the manner in which Brazil was treated, it may be
mentioned that the importation of ginger from that country was
prohibited in order not to infringe the Indian monopoly.
This neglect suddenly ceased about the year 1530, when the rumour spread
throughout Portugal that Brazil abounded in gold, silver, and precious
stones. The natives had made no attempt to work mines, for they attached
no value to these commodities, but the knowledge that the precious
metals abounded in Peru caused people to believe that they also existed
in other parts of the South American continent. The discovery of gold in
small quantities, and the rumours of an El Dorado in the interior, soon
attracted crowds of adventurers from all parts of Europe; many families
from Portugal were then encouraged to emigrate in order to
counterbalance these adventurers, and the settlement of the new country
was thus commenced in earnest. King John III. was as much excited by the
news of the discovery of gold as his courtiers and people, and he sent
over to Brazil in 1531 the first royal governor, Martim Affonso de
Sousa, with instructions to assert the royal power over the rapidly
increasing population of colonists and adventurers, and to arrange for
the future government of the country. Martim Affonso de Sousa, who was
afterwards Governor-General of Portuguese India, was a wise and prudent
statesman; though unsupported by any soldiers he made a sort of royal
progress through Brazil, and he strongly advised the king to let the
country develop by itself without interference from home. For
government, he advised that the form of administration which had sprung
up in the various settled districts should be confirmed and not
interfered with. This form of government was simply the combination of
all the inhabitants of each settlement into a sort of little state,
which elected an officer called captain, who exercised a sort of
patriarchal authority, and superintended measures of defence against
either natives or other colonies of settlers. These captains held no
royal commission, and imposed no taxes; every man was able to do pretty
much what he liked in his own house, and each settlement was ruled not
by law, but by the general sentiment of the community. These captains
had no authority but what they derived from the willing obedience of the
settlers, and every captain exercised more or less authority according
to his personal character. Martim Affonso de Sousa saw the advantages of
such a system for a new colony, and he advised the king not to send out
royal officials from home whose authority would probably be ignored, but
to confirm these captains in their authority, and that the settlements
already made should be recognized as “captainships.” This was
accordingly done; the king was only too glad not to have to despatch
soldiers to America as he wanted all he could raise for Asia, and he
sanctioned the measures taken by his representative. But he further
subdivided the country into three vast “chief captainships,” which he
granted to João de Barros, the Portuguese Livy and historian of the
Portuguese in Asia, Ayres da Cunha, and Fernão Alvares de Andrade, with
instructions to search for gold mines and to exercise a general
supervision over the government of the country.