Portuguese India

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 3: Melaka and the Embarrassed Envoy

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16-century Malacca as drawn by Gaspar Correia

Our 16th-century traveller, among so many other things, arrives in Malacca (Melaka). From there he is sent out as envoy, leading to misadventure, near death, and criticism of the Portuguese Empire.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India, translated by Walter de Gray Birch. Hakluyt, 1875.

  • Boxer, C.R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825. Carcanet, 1991.

  • Diffie, Bailey Wallys. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, 1977.

  • Newitt, Malyn. A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion 1400–1668. Routledge, 2004.

  • Paine, Lincoln. The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. Knopf Doubleday, 2015.

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 2: The Red Sea and the Siege of Diu

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16th-Century Painting of an Ottoman Fleet - (Wikimedia)

Pinto visits the "Land of Prester John," faces trouble on the Red Sea, and brushes up against the 1538 Siege of Diu. He takes part in combat on the waters and along the Indian coast, grumbles as to his lot in life, and is whisked about by boat to Massawa, Mokha, Qeshm, Chaul, Goa, Honnavar, and Diu, before heading further east.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

3 Things:

  1. Article on ambergris, a substance which makes fairly frequent appearances on this podcast.

  2. Podcast episode on “The Ottoman Red Sea.”

  3. Article on the Ottoman coffee crackdown.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • Casale, Giancarlo. The Ottoman Age of Exploration. Oxford University Press, 2010.

  • Pearson, N.M. The Portuguese in India. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 1: From Lisbon, Poverty, and Pirates

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Detail from Duarte de Armas’ Livro das Fortalezas - (Wiki)

Fernão Mendes Pinto, respected by many of his contemporaries for the expertise knowledge which he'd gained through his travels, absolutely synonymous for others with lies and exaggerations. 

From humble beginnings and vaguely unfortunate events in his early life, Pinto would find a place for himself in the 16th-century world of colonial Portugal, would write himself into it if necessary.

He was, he said, “13 times a prisoner and 17 a slave.” As Rebecca Catz writes, he served as a “soldier, merchant, pirate, ambassador, missionary, doctor—the list is not complete.” He ran afoul of pirates, was shipwrecked, and robbed royal tombs. The characters in his story included a saint, an Indonesian ruler, the mother of Prester John, a Japanese lord, and someone who may or may not have been the Dalai Lama. He claimed to be among the very first Europeans to set foot in Japan, but then he claimed to be a lot of things.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

3 Things:

  1. Article on the history of the mango and a Portuguese connection.

  2. Article about the discovery of a shipwreck, thought to have come from Vasco da Gama’s armada.

  3. The story of the rhino of Lisbon.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History, edited by Malyn Newitt. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

  • Pearson, N.M. The Portuguese in India. Cambridge University Press, 2006.