The Voyage of Pedro Álvares Cabral to Brazil and India

From Contemporary Documents and Narratives

William Brooks Greenlee, William Brooks Greenlee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317012245
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

Letters, narratives, and extracts from diaries, etc. of 1500-01, chiefly of Portuguese and Venetian origin, translated, with introduction and notes. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1938.

LETTER OF PEDRO VAZ DE CAMINHA TO KING MANUEL

WRITTEN FROM PORTO SEGURO OF VERA CRUZ THE 1ST OF MAY 1500

Before Cabral’s fleet departed from the new land which had been found to the west, Pedro Vaz de Caminha wrote a letter to the King of Portugal in which he related what happened during its sojourn there. This letter is the first and by far the most important document which has come down to us describing the discovery of that country. It has sometimes been called the first page in the history of Brazil. In this letter Caminha carefully wrote down each day what appeared to him to be new and curious, as well as almost every act of the members of the fleet in their dealings with the inhabitants. It is very important as the first account of the natives of that country. Later investigations have shown nothing to discredit the narrative from the standpoint of ethnology, and few subsequent writers have given us a better idea of the customs of the people inhabiting the coast of Brazil.

Unfortunately Caminha devotes but little space to that portion of the voyage prior to the arrival in Brazil regarding which there has been such uncertainty. When land was sighted, however, he is most minute in his descriptions. Because he recorded the events as they occurred, there can be no question as to their correctness so far as Caminha knew them.

The letter was addressed to the king, and may thus be con-sidered an official document, although written in the easy style of a narrative. It may have been written either because of instructions from the king before Cabral began his voyage or by Caminha of his own volition, since his personal interest in writing is shown at the end of the letter, where he asks a favour from the king. Both his position and family gave him the right to address a letter to Dom Manuel.

Master John states that Ayres Correia wrote a letter. As chief factor, Correia would have little about which to write to the king from Brazil, and it is possible that this letter, written by Caminha, was the one referred to as having been written by his superior. The authenticity of this letter cannot be questioned, although it does not seem to have been known to all sixteenth-century writers.

Pedro Vaz de Caminha was the son of Vasco Fernandes de Caminha, a cavalier of the household of the Duke of Guimarâes and mestre da balança da moeda in the district of Oporto. He inherited this position from his father,¹ and after his death in India it was given to his nephews, Rodrigo de Osouro and Pedro Vaz.² The office was one of honour and responsibility and was held by the family under four sovereigns, from Afonso V to John III. Caminha’s career indicated that he was a man who was more interested in trade than in politics or navigation. He had a good education for the time, but apparently had not studied Latin. When the fleet of da Gama returned to Lisbon with the report of the riches and splendour of India, Caminha accepted the position of writer in the fleet which was to follow under the command of Pedro Alvares Cabral. He was to go to Calicut, where he was to take part in the commercial activities at the factory to be established there. Caminha sailed in Cabral’s flagship with Ayres Correia, the chief factor, in company with other writers. He was killed in the massacre at Calicut in December 1500.

The chroniclers, Damiâo de Goes and Fernâo Lopes de Castanheda, are the only authors of this period who mention Pedro Vaz de Caminha, and they refer to him only as a writer at the factory in Calicut. Our knowledge of Caminha is obtained, therefore, almost entirely from his own statements, and the only document we have is this letter.

The manuscript³ was found by the Spanish historian Juan Bautista Muñoz, in the Archivo da Torre do Tombo at Lisbon prior to 1790, and was first published in 1817 by Father Manuel Aires de Casal in Corografia Brasileira from an inexact copy found to exist in the Real Arquivo da Marinha at Rio de Janeiro. It has been republished many times since, both in Portugal and Brazil, and has been translated into French and German. The best text is that given in Alguns Documentos do Archivo Nacional (Lisbon, 1892, pp. 108–21), and it is from this that the translation has been made.

SENHOR:

Although the chief captain of this your fleet, and also the other captains, are writing to Your Highness the news of the finding of this your new land which was now found in this navigation, I shall not refrain from also giving my account of this to Your Highness, as best I can, although I know less than all of the others how to relate and tell it well. Nevertheless, may Your Highness take my ignorance for good intention, and believe that I shall not set down here anything more than I saw and thought, either to beautify or to make it less attractive. I shall not give account here to Your Highness of the ship’s company and its daily runs, because I shall not know how to do it, and the pilots must have this in their charge.

And therefore, Senhor, I begin what I have to relate and say that the departure from Belem, as Your Highness knows, was on Monday, the 9th of March,¹ and on Saturday, the 14th of the said month, between eight and nine o’clock, we found ourselves among the Canary Islands, nearest to Grand Canary; and there we remained all that day in a calm, in sight of them, at a distance of about three or four leagues. On Sunday, the 22nd² of the said month, at ten o’clock, a little more or less, we came in sight of the Cape Verde Islands, that is to say, of the island of Sam Nicolao,¹ according to the assertion of Pero Escolar,² the pilot. On the following night, on Monday at daybreak, Vasco d’Atayde with his ship was lost from the fleet³ without there being there heavy weather or contrary winds to account for it. The captain used all diligence to find him, seeking everywhere, but he did not appear again. And so we followed our route over this sea⁴ until Tuesday of the octave of Easter, which was the 21st of April, when we came upon some signs of land, being then distant from the said island, as the pilots said, some six hundred and sixty or six hundred and seventy leagues; these signs were a great quantity of long weeds, which mariners call botelho,⁵ and others as well which they also call rabo de asno.⁶ And on the following Wednesday, in the morning, we met with birds which they call Jura buchos. On this day at the vesper hours we caught sight of land,⁷ that is, first of a large mountain, very high and round, and of other lower lands to the south of it, and of flat land, with great groves of trees. To this high mountain the captain gave the name of Monte Pascoal,¹ and to the land, Terra da Vera Cruz.² He ordered the lead to be thrown. They found twenty-five fathoms; and at sunset, some six leagues from the land, we cast anchor in nineteen fathoms, a clean anchorage. There we remained all that night, and on Thursday morning we made sail and steered straight to the land, with the small ships going in front, in 17, 16,15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 9 fathoms, until half a league from the shore, where we all cast anchor in front of the mouth of a river. And we arrived at this anchorage at ten o’clock, more or less. And from there we caught sight of men who were going along the shore, some seven or eight, as those on the small ships said, because they arrived there first. We there launched the boats and skiffs, and immediately all the captains of the ships came to this ship of the chief captain, and there they talked.¹ And the captain sent Nicolao Coelho² on shore in a boat to see that river.³ And as soon as he began to go thither men assembled on the shore, by twos and threes, so that when the boat reached the mouth of the river eighteen or twenty men were already there.⁴ They were dark, and entirely naked, without anything to cover their shame. They carried in their hands bows with their arrows.⁵ All came boldly towards the boat, and Nicolao Coelho made a sign to them that they should lay down their bows, and they laid them down. He could not have any speech with them there, nor understanding which might be profitable, because of the breaking of the sea on the shore. He gave them only a red cap [barrete]¹ and a cap [carapuça]² of linen, which he was wearing on his head, and a black hat. And one of them gave him a hat of long bird feathers with a little tuft of red and grey feathers like those of a parrot.³ And another gave him a large string of very small white beads which look like seed pearls;⁴ these articles I believe the captain is sending to Your Highness.⁵ And with this he returned to the ships because it was late and he could have no further speech with them on account of the sea. On the following night it blew so hard from the south-east with showers that it made the ships drift, especially the flagship.

And on Friday morning, at eight o’clock, a little more or less, on the advice of the pilots, the captain ordered the anchors to be raised and to set sail. And we went northward along the coast with the boats and skiffs tied to the poop, to see whether we could find some shelter and good anchorage where we might lie, to take on water and wood, not because we were in need of them then, but to provide ourselves here. And when we set sail there were already some sixty or seventy men on the shore, sitting near the river, who had gathered there little by little. We continued along the coast and the captain ordered the small vessels to go in closer to the land, and to strike sail if they found a secure anchorage for the ships. And when we were some ten leagues along the coast from where we had raised anchor, the small vessels found a reef within which was a harbour, very good and secure [seguro] with a very wide entrance. And they went in and lowered their sails. And gradually the ships arrived after them, and a little before sunset they also struck sail about a league from the reef, and anchored in eleven fathoms. And by the captain’s order our pilot, Affonso Lopez, who was in one of those small vessels and was an alert and dextrous man for this, straightway entered the skiff to take soundings in the harbour. And he captured two well-built natives who were in a canoe.¹ One of them was carrying a bow and six or seven arrows and many others went about on the shore with bows and arrows and they did not use them. Then, since it was already night, he took the two men to the flagship, where they were received with much pleasure and festivity.

In appearance they are dark, somewhat reddish, with good faces and good noses, well shaped.² They go naked, without any covering; neither do they pay more attention to concealing or exposing their shame than they do to showing their faces, and in this respect they are very innocent. Both had their lower lips bored and in them were placed pieces of white bone, the length of a handbreadth, and the thickness of a cotton spindle and as sharp as an awl at the end. They put them through the inner part of the lip, and that part which remains between the lip and the teeth is shaped like a rook in chess. And they carry it there enclosed in such a manner that it does not hurt them, nor does it embarrass them in speaking, eating, or drinking.¹ Their hair is smooth, and they were shorn, with the hair cut higher than above a comb of good size, and shaved to above the ears.² And one of them was wearing below the opening, from temple to temple towards the back, a sort of wig of yellow birds’ feathers, which must have been the length of a couto,³ very thick and very tight, and it covered the back of the head and the ears. This was glued to his hair, feather by feather, with a material as soft as wax, but it was not wax. Thus the head-dress was very round and very close and very equal, so that it was not necessary to remove it when they washed.

When they came on board, the captain, well dressed, with a very large collar of gold around Ins neck, was seated in a chair, with a carpet at his feet as a platform. And Sancho de Toar and Simam de Miranda and Nicolao Coelho and Aires Correa and the rest of us who were in the ship with him were seated on the floor on this carpet. Torches were lighted and they entered, and made no sign of courtesy or of speaking to the captain or to any one, but one of them caught sight of the captain’s collar, and began to point with his hand towards the land and then to the collar, as though he were telling us that there was gold in the land.¹ And he also saw a silver candlestick, and in the same manner he made a sign towards the land and then towards the candlestick, as though there were silver also. They showed them a grey parrot which the captain brought here; they at once took it into their hands and pointed towards the land, as though they were found there. They showed them a sheep, but they paid no attention to it. They showed them a hen; they were almost afraid of it, and did not want to touch it; and afterwards they took it as though frightened. Then food was given them; bread and boiled fish, comfits, little cakes, honey, and dried figs. They would eat scarcely anything of that, and if they did taste some things they threw them out. Wine was brought them in a cup; they put a little to their mouths, and did not like it at all, nor did they want any more.² Water was brought them in a jar;¹ they took a mouthful of it, and did not drink it; they only washed their mouths and spat it out. One of them saw some white rosary beads; he made a motion that they should give them to him, and he played much with them, and put them around his neck; and then he took t...