Publication Date
2009
Categories
Related entries
The facts and the protagonists of the 1500 fleet, which headed for India under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral and which played the leading role in the official discovery of Brazil, have given rise to studies presenting markedly dissimilar conclusions with respect to both the course of events and those who acted in them. In fact, the scanty number of documents available and the contradictory nature of much of the information transmitted by the chroniclers have caused the emergence of different versions by almost all those engaged in trying to reconstitute the main facts that took place between March 1500 and July 1501. It is, however, possible to present a coherent sequence of the events concerning this fleet if we base our research exclusively on the documents produced by the protagonists themselves and by the eye-witnesses; no contradictions arise from the information provided by these sources. On the contrary, the data collected through them are either coincidental or complementary, never divergent, as is the case of information gathered by a research that simultaneously uses the chronicles written a few decades later.
As a matter of fact, the texts of the chronicles seldom rectify the information that one may draw out of the sundry documents produced at the moment that the events took place. One may even presume that some of the enduring controversies and errors concerning the history of the Discoveries originate from the vain attempt to bring into accord the chroniclers' misunderstandings and the data contained in the primary sources. If, on the one hand, the chroniclers provide us with precious pieces of information that enable us to complement the reports of the primary sources, on the other hand they also introduce puzzling statements, causing a great deal of confusion. Gaspar Correia stands as an example of this with regard to this fleet. The value of the chronicles must not be denied, but simply seen in its proper light: put in perspective and hierarchically placed within the context of the whole mass of available documents. In accordance with this guiding principle, we move forward to the main events marking the 1500 expedition under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral.
The text below is from the Introduction to the book Descobridores do Brasil. Exploradores do Atlântico e Construtores do Estado da Índia [Discoverers of Brazil. Explorers of the Atlantic and Builders of Portuguese Índia] (pages 13-20). The reader will find there abundant critical information in support for the choices made in this chronology.
* * * The fleet was made up of 13 vessels "amid carracks, ships, and caravels". Eleven of them belonged to the Crown and two were the property of private ship owners, both being the result of Portuguese-Italian associations: one of them included the Count of Portalegre; the other had Dom Álvaro, Bartolomeo Marchioni e Girolamo Sernigi as associates. Two of the King's ships headed for Sofala.
As to the captains of these ships, Pedro Álvares Cabral was the Admiral of the Fleet, by decree of 15 February 1500. He sailed on a big carrack of which he was the captain. Sancho de Tovar, Vice-Admiral of the fleet was the captain of a "big carrack" named El-rei [the King], of 200 tons. Also sailing on carrack ships were the captains Vasco de Ataíde, Nicolau Coelho, Simão de Miranda de Azevedo, Aires Gomes da Silva, Simão de Pina and Diogo Dias. Pero de Ataíde commanded the caravel named São Pedro, of 70 tons, and very likely Bartolomeu Dias's vessel was also a caravel. The fleet also included Luís Pires, probably the captain of the ship of the Count of Portalegre, Nuno Leitão da Cunha, captain of the carrack named Anunciada [Annunciation], and Gaspar de Lemos, at the command of a small ship.
All commercial matters relating to the fleet fell under the responsibility of Aires Correia, who travelled in the company of his son, António Correia. Assisting him were the trading post expenses clerks Pero Vaz de Caminha and Gonçalo Gil Barbosa (accompanied by his nephew Duarte Barbosa), and the trading post revenues clerks Martim Neto and Afonso Furtado. Some clergymen were also travelling on the fleet, among whom were "friars of the observance" heading for the Calicut trading post, under the leadership of friar Henrique. Baltasar and three other Indian natives who had been brought by Vasco da Gama, as well as Gaspar da Índia, also sailed on the fleet.
The fleet set sail on 9 March. It went past Canary Islands on 14 that month, and Cape Verde on 22. Vasco de Ataíde's carrack got lost from the other vessels the following day. On 24 April Brazil was sighted.
The voyage was not resumed before several officers, namely Aires Correia and the captains of the ships wrote to King Manuel I. The admiral sent the ship carrying the supplies back to the Realm with the news of the discovery. It left for Portugal on 1 May and put into the port of Lisbon almost unnoticed. Some members of the fleet suspected that a mainland had been found, whereas others insisted that it was an island. The contact with the natives was peaceful. Two convicts and two cabin boys who escaped from the nau capitania [the main carrack ship] on the last night were left behind in Brazil. On the 1st of May, a Mass was celebrated on the beach with great solemnity, just before the voyage was resumed the following day.
On 20 May, three of the royal ships and the one belonging to the Count of Portalegre were lost in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. Luís Pires, Aires Gomes da Silva, Bartolomeu Dias, and Simão de Pina were the captains. Another ship, commanded by Diogo Dias, went off course at the same time.
Six ships (the carracks commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral, Sancho de Tovar, Nicolau Coelho, Simão Miranda de Azevedo, and Nuno Leitão da Cunha, as well as the caravel of Pero de Ataíde) were rejoined at Kilwa, on 26 July, and remained there for three days; before that, the carracks that sailed with Cabral had passed by Mozambique on the 20th. They arrived at Malindi on 2 August; on 6f August the Admiral set on shore two convicts who had been commissioned to try to find the land of Prester John. The king of Malindi provided them two Gujarat seamen to lead them in heir voyage. The fleet set sail on 7 August.
They reached the coast of India on 22 August. They stayed two weeks at Anjediva, where the clergymen celebrated many Masses and where many members of the crew confessed and took communion. After that, they set sail again and arrived at Calicut on 13 September.
After the first meetings, the negotiations dragged on for a long time, and the ships remained unloaded. During the impasse, a big carrack carrying war elephants arrived at Calicut. The Zamorin asked Cabral to capture that ship. The request was answered through the intervention of Pero de Ataíde and his caravel, which was the smallest ship in the fleet. Its garrison was momentarily reinforced with some noblemen, namely Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Vasco da Silveira, and João de Sá.
By 16 December, only two carracks were loaded. In face of this, Pedro Álvares Cabral attacked a Moorish ship said to be "full" of spices, upon the belief that the permission granted to him by the Zamorin was trustworthy, but the Moors' response to the attack led the Zamorin to authorize aggressive force against the trading post. More than 50 Portuguese died in the fight, and about 20 survived, among whom was the son of Aires Correia. The survivors were rescued by a flotilla of boats under the command of Sancho de Tovar, who replaced Pedro Álvares Cabral who had fallen ill. As a result of the Admiral's order to strike back, 10 Moorish carracks were captured and sacked, and their crews were massacred; after that, the fleet bombarded the town. Two Portuguese stayed hidden in Calicut: Fernão Peixoto, from Vila Franca, and João Rodrigues.
The fleet left for Kochi. Its arrival there, on 24 December, met with an excellent welcome, and the carracks were loaded with spices in 12 or 15 days. Cabral decided to leave seven men in the trading post. The factor was Gonçalo Gil Barbosa; the clerks were Lourenço Moreno and Sebastião Álvares; the interpreter was Gonçalo Madeira de Tânger. Some convicts were left with them. They met some syro-malabar Christians at Cranganore and two of them wanted to go to Portugal with the fleet. Messengers from Kollam invited the Portuguese to trade at their port.
On 9 January, when the fleet had almost secured a full cargo, a squadron from Calicut appeared. Cabral avoided a fight because Sancho de Tovar's carrack "had gone far through the sea". The fleet left the port to face the enemy, but did not return to Kochi; it anchored before Cannanore on 15 January, where it was once again warmly welcome. As the ships were already fully furnished with cargo, only 100 bahares (c. 400 quintais ) of cinnamon and some ginger were purchased, in spite of the willingness of the local authorities to sell a lot more goods. From this port, Cabral wrote letters to the king of Kochi and to Gonçalo Gil Barbosa, explaining the reasons of his sudden departure. The return voyage began on 16 January. With them went two representatives from Kochi and one from Cannanore.
After Sancho de Tovar's carrack was lost, on 12 February, in the aftermath of running aground in the African coast, Cabral put Tovar in charge of the caravel and sent him to investigate conditions in Sofala, accompanied by a local pilot. The remaining ships were repaired in Mozambique and left together, but one of the carracks (Nicolau Coelho's or Simão Miranda de Azevedo's) went off course before the Cape of Good Hope was reached.
Some time after, Cabral sent Anunciada, which was the fastest ship, ahead of the others to inform the King of the latest news. The nau capitania and its auxiliary vessel met early in June, near the coast of Guinea, not far from Cape Verde, the fleet of Gonçalo Velho, who was on an exploratory journey of the Brazilian coastline with Americo Vespucci. They were told that Diogo Dias's carrack had reached Cape Verde, after a troubled voyage along the eastern African coast all the way up to Cape Guardafui, which had cost the life of almost all the members of the crew.
The Anunciada arrived at Restelo on the afternoon of Saint John's Day. By the end of July, four other ships arrived: first came Cabral's carrack and the one travelling with it; the following day, the caravel which had visited Sofala and the ship which had gone off course. Diogo Dias's ship arrived later.
Bibliography: COSTA, João Paulo Oliveira e (coord.) Descobridores do Brasil. Exploradores do Atlântico e Construtores do Estado da Índia, Lisboa, Sociedade Histórica da Independência de Portugal, 2000.
Translated by: Leonor Sampaio da Silva.
As a matter of fact, the texts of the chronicles seldom rectify the information that one may draw out of the sundry documents produced at the moment that the events took place. One may even presume that some of the enduring controversies and errors concerning the history of the Discoveries originate from the vain attempt to bring into accord the chroniclers' misunderstandings and the data contained in the primary sources. If, on the one hand, the chroniclers provide us with precious pieces of information that enable us to complement the reports of the primary sources, on the other hand they also introduce puzzling statements, causing a great deal of confusion. Gaspar Correia stands as an example of this with regard to this fleet. The value of the chronicles must not be denied, but simply seen in its proper light: put in perspective and hierarchically placed within the context of the whole mass of available documents. In accordance with this guiding principle, we move forward to the main events marking the 1500 expedition under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral.
The text below is from the Introduction to the book Descobridores do Brasil. Exploradores do Atlântico e Construtores do Estado da Índia [Discoverers of Brazil. Explorers of the Atlantic and Builders of Portuguese Índia] (pages 13-20). The reader will find there abundant critical information in support for the choices made in this chronology.
* * * The fleet was made up of 13 vessels "amid carracks, ships, and caravels". Eleven of them belonged to the Crown and two were the property of private ship owners, both being the result of Portuguese-Italian associations: one of them included the Count of Portalegre; the other had Dom Álvaro, Bartolomeo Marchioni e Girolamo Sernigi as associates. Two of the King's ships headed for Sofala.
As to the captains of these ships, Pedro Álvares Cabral was the Admiral of the Fleet, by decree of 15 February 1500. He sailed on a big carrack of which he was the captain. Sancho de Tovar, Vice-Admiral of the fleet was the captain of a "big carrack" named El-rei [the King], of 200 tons. Also sailing on carrack ships were the captains Vasco de Ataíde, Nicolau Coelho, Simão de Miranda de Azevedo, Aires Gomes da Silva, Simão de Pina and Diogo Dias. Pero de Ataíde commanded the caravel named São Pedro, of 70 tons, and very likely Bartolomeu Dias's vessel was also a caravel. The fleet also included Luís Pires, probably the captain of the ship of the Count of Portalegre, Nuno Leitão da Cunha, captain of the carrack named Anunciada [Annunciation], and Gaspar de Lemos, at the command of a small ship.
All commercial matters relating to the fleet fell under the responsibility of Aires Correia, who travelled in the company of his son, António Correia. Assisting him were the trading post expenses clerks Pero Vaz de Caminha and Gonçalo Gil Barbosa (accompanied by his nephew Duarte Barbosa), and the trading post revenues clerks Martim Neto and Afonso Furtado. Some clergymen were also travelling on the fleet, among whom were "friars of the observance" heading for the Calicut trading post, under the leadership of friar Henrique. Baltasar and three other Indian natives who had been brought by Vasco da Gama, as well as Gaspar da Índia, also sailed on the fleet.
The fleet set sail on 9 March. It went past Canary Islands on 14 that month, and Cape Verde on 22. Vasco de Ataíde's carrack got lost from the other vessels the following day. On 24 April Brazil was sighted.
The voyage was not resumed before several officers, namely Aires Correia and the captains of the ships wrote to King Manuel I. The admiral sent the ship carrying the supplies back to the Realm with the news of the discovery. It left for Portugal on 1 May and put into the port of Lisbon almost unnoticed. Some members of the fleet suspected that a mainland had been found, whereas others insisted that it was an island. The contact with the natives was peaceful. Two convicts and two cabin boys who escaped from the nau capitania [the main carrack ship] on the last night were left behind in Brazil. On the 1st of May, a Mass was celebrated on the beach with great solemnity, just before the voyage was resumed the following day.
On 20 May, three of the royal ships and the one belonging to the Count of Portalegre were lost in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. Luís Pires, Aires Gomes da Silva, Bartolomeu Dias, and Simão de Pina were the captains. Another ship, commanded by Diogo Dias, went off course at the same time.
Six ships (the carracks commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral, Sancho de Tovar, Nicolau Coelho, Simão Miranda de Azevedo, and Nuno Leitão da Cunha, as well as the caravel of Pero de Ataíde) were rejoined at Kilwa, on 26 July, and remained there for three days; before that, the carracks that sailed with Cabral had passed by Mozambique on the 20th. They arrived at Malindi on 2 August; on 6f August the Admiral set on shore two convicts who had been commissioned to try to find the land of Prester John. The king of Malindi provided them two Gujarat seamen to lead them in heir voyage. The fleet set sail on 7 August.
They reached the coast of India on 22 August. They stayed two weeks at Anjediva, where the clergymen celebrated many Masses and where many members of the crew confessed and took communion. After that, they set sail again and arrived at Calicut on 13 September.
After the first meetings, the negotiations dragged on for a long time, and the ships remained unloaded. During the impasse, a big carrack carrying war elephants arrived at Calicut. The Zamorin asked Cabral to capture that ship. The request was answered through the intervention of Pero de Ataíde and his caravel, which was the smallest ship in the fleet. Its garrison was momentarily reinforced with some noblemen, namely Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Vasco da Silveira, and João de Sá.
By 16 December, only two carracks were loaded. In face of this, Pedro Álvares Cabral attacked a Moorish ship said to be "full" of spices, upon the belief that the permission granted to him by the Zamorin was trustworthy, but the Moors' response to the attack led the Zamorin to authorize aggressive force against the trading post. More than 50 Portuguese died in the fight, and about 20 survived, among whom was the son of Aires Correia. The survivors were rescued by a flotilla of boats under the command of Sancho de Tovar, who replaced Pedro Álvares Cabral who had fallen ill. As a result of the Admiral's order to strike back, 10 Moorish carracks were captured and sacked, and their crews were massacred; after that, the fleet bombarded the town. Two Portuguese stayed hidden in Calicut: Fernão Peixoto, from Vila Franca, and João Rodrigues.
The fleet left for Kochi. Its arrival there, on 24 December, met with an excellent welcome, and the carracks were loaded with spices in 12 or 15 days. Cabral decided to leave seven men in the trading post. The factor was Gonçalo Gil Barbosa; the clerks were Lourenço Moreno and Sebastião Álvares; the interpreter was Gonçalo Madeira de Tânger. Some convicts were left with them. They met some syro-malabar Christians at Cranganore and two of them wanted to go to Portugal with the fleet. Messengers from Kollam invited the Portuguese to trade at their port.
On 9 January, when the fleet had almost secured a full cargo, a squadron from Calicut appeared. Cabral avoided a fight because Sancho de Tovar's carrack "had gone far through the sea". The fleet left the port to face the enemy, but did not return to Kochi; it anchored before Cannanore on 15 January, where it was once again warmly welcome. As the ships were already fully furnished with cargo, only 100 bahares (c. 400 quintais ) of cinnamon and some ginger were purchased, in spite of the willingness of the local authorities to sell a lot more goods. From this port, Cabral wrote letters to the king of Kochi and to Gonçalo Gil Barbosa, explaining the reasons of his sudden departure. The return voyage began on 16 January. With them went two representatives from Kochi and one from Cannanore.
After Sancho de Tovar's carrack was lost, on 12 February, in the aftermath of running aground in the African coast, Cabral put Tovar in charge of the caravel and sent him to investigate conditions in Sofala, accompanied by a local pilot. The remaining ships were repaired in Mozambique and left together, but one of the carracks (Nicolau Coelho's or Simão Miranda de Azevedo's) went off course before the Cape of Good Hope was reached.
Some time after, Cabral sent Anunciada, which was the fastest ship, ahead of the others to inform the King of the latest news. The nau capitania and its auxiliary vessel met early in June, near the coast of Guinea, not far from Cape Verde, the fleet of Gonçalo Velho, who was on an exploratory journey of the Brazilian coastline with Americo Vespucci. They were told that Diogo Dias's carrack had reached Cape Verde, after a troubled voyage along the eastern African coast all the way up to Cape Guardafui, which had cost the life of almost all the members of the crew.
The Anunciada arrived at Restelo on the afternoon of Saint John's Day. By the end of July, four other ships arrived: first came Cabral's carrack and the one travelling with it; the following day, the caravel which had visited Sofala and the ship which had gone off course. Diogo Dias's ship arrived later.
Bibliography: COSTA, João Paulo Oliveira e (coord.) Descobridores do Brasil. Exploradores do Atlântico e Construtores do Estado da Índia, Lisboa, Sociedade Histórica da Independência de Portugal, 2000.
Translated by: Leonor Sampaio da Silva.