ANAIS DE HISTRIA DE ALM-MAR

Periodicidade Anual

Apoio

Direco Joo Paulo de Oliveira e Costa

Conselho Editorial Artur Teodoro de Matos; Lus Filipe Thomaz; Ana IsabelBuescu; Maria do Rosrio Pimentel; Joo Paulo Oliveira eCosta; ngela Domingues; Pedro Cardim; Jorge Flores

Secretrio Pedro Cardim

Edio, propriedade, Centro de Histria de Alm-Marassinaturas e divulgao: Faculdade de Cincias Sociais e Humanas

Universidade Nova de LisboaAv. de Berna, 26-C1069-061 Lisboacham@fcsh.unl.pt

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Composio e impresso: Barbosa & Xavier Lda.Rua Gabriel Pereira de Castro, 31 A-CTelefs. 253 263 063 / 253 618 916 Fax 253 615 3504700-385 Braga

Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed inHISTORICAL ABSTRACS and AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE

Apoio do Programa Operacional Cincia, Tecnologia,Inovao do Quadro Comunitrio de Apoio III

N. 4, 2003

Anais de Histriade Alm-Mar

NOTA DE ABERTURA, Joo Paulo de Oliveira e Costa ....................................................... 5

ARTIGOS

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A Preliminary Evaluation, Anthony Disney ......... 9

NOS PRIMRDIOS DA ANTROPOLOGIA MODERNA: A SIA DE JOO DE BAR-ROS, Zoltn Biedermann............................................................................................... 29

OS DESCOBRIMENTOS PORTUGUESES EM THE PRINCIPAL NAVIGATIONS DERICHARD HAKLUYT, Rogrio Miguel Puga................................................................ 63

A DIVULGAO DA PRIMEIRAS IMAGENS EXTICAS DO BRASIL ATRAVS DOSESCRITOS DE PERO DE MAGALHES DE GNDAVO, Maria Ceclia Guirado .... 133

A ROTA MISSIONRIA DO OCIDENTE: O INCIO DA ACTIVIDADE DOS JESUTAS,NO BRASIL, Nuno da Silva Gonalves......................................................................... 141

AS NDIAS DO CONHECIMENTO, OU A GEOGRAFIA IMAGINRIA DA CONQUISTADO OURO, Jnia Ferreira Furtado ............................................................................... 155

LA DIMENSION ATLANTIQUE DE LOPPOSITION ANTONIENNE ET LENJEU BR-SILIEN (1580-1640), Guida Marques ........................................................................... 213

RIVALIDADES IMPERIAIS E EMIGRAO: OS AORIANOS NO MARANHO ENO PAR NOS SCULOS XVII E XVIII, Jos Damio Rodrigues e Artur BoavidaMadeira ........................................................................................................................... 247

SER ESCRAVO: QUADROS DE UM QUOTIDIANO DOS TRABALHOS E DOS DIAS,Maria do Rosrio Pimentel ............................................................................................ 265

LVCH DU CONGO ET DE LANGOLA (1596-1760), Chantal Lus da Silva................ 295

EM NOME DO REI. O LEVANTAMENTO DOS RIOS DE SENA DE 1763, EugniaRodrigues ........................................................................................................................ 335

NDICE

AS CARTAS MALAIAS DE ABU HAYAT, SULTO DE TERNATE, A EL-REI DE PORTU-GAL E OS PRIMRDIOS DA PRESENA PORTUGUESA EM MALUCO, LusFilipe F. R. Thomaz ........................................................................................................ 381

DOCUMENTOS

A NDIA A PRETO E BRANCO: UMA CARTA OPORTUNA, ESCRITA EM COCHIM, POR D. CONSTANTINO DE BRAGANA, RAINHA DONA CATARINA, Antniodos Santos Pereira .......................................................................................................... 449

RECENSES ........................................................................................................................... 487

RESUMOS / ABSTRACTS ...................................................................................................... 549

Artigos

Charles Boxer and the Writing of History

Charles Boxer was an astonishingly prolific historian. In a writing careerthat stretched from 1926 to 1996 he produced over 350 separate scholarlyworks: in other words, he published on average one significant piece everytwo to three months, maintaining this rate uninterrupted for some seventyyears. Nor is it only the volume of Boxers scholarly output that impresses, butits chronological, geographical, linguistic and national range. Boxers interests,while focused particularly on the seventeenth century, extended from the fif-teenth to the nineteenth and covered a vast expanse of the globe includingmuch of Western Europe, West and East Africa, maritime Asia and Brazil.Moreover he published in Portuguese and Dutch, as well as in English.

The fact that Boxer published so extensively, on such a wide area and forsuch a prolonged period of time presents a challenge to any scholar seekingto understand his work. What animated him? Was Boxer just a particularlyproductive empirical historian, content to follow the Portuguese and Dutchthrough time and space as they went round the world trading, fighting, colonis-ing, converting and interacting with each other and the various exotic peoplesthey came across? It can readily be acknowledged that he was an exceptionallymeticulous researcher who industriously accumulated and processed infor-mation. But did he also trace patterns and draw conclusions from his evidence in short, extract some more profound meaning from his history?

The existing bibliographies of Boxers writings constitute an appropriatestarting-point for exploring such questions; but their obvious limitationsmean they cannot in themselves advance us very far 1. The seminal bibliog-

ANAIS DE HISTRIA DE ALM-MAR, Vol. IV, 2003, pp. 9-28

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER:A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION

by

ANTHONY DISNEY *

* La Trobe University, Melbourne, Austrlia.1 There are two published bibliographies of Boxers works S. George WEST (ed.), A List

of the Writings of Charles Ralph Boxer Published Between 1926 and 1984, London, Tamesis, 1984,and Homenagem ao Professor Charles Ralph Boxer/A Tribute to Professor Charles Ralph Boxer,

raphy compiled by S. George West simply lists Boxers writings in chrono-logical order, without providing annotations. The other bibliography Home-nagem ao Professor Charles Ralph Boxer which is largely based on West,provides a similar chronological catalogue but then adds another, thematiclisting, which divides Boxers works into three general categories and numer-ous sub-categories 2. This schematisation is clearly helpful to anyone seekingmaterial on the particular themes selected. However, its logic is not derivedfrom the writings themselves but borrowed from a classificatory systemdevised by the publishers for more general purposes 3. It can therefore tell uslittle about Boxers own approach to history.

More helpful in this respect is the recent biography of Boxer by DaurilAlden, which traces the evolution of his career as a historian in considerabledetail, and links it to his life course. Alden shows that Boxer was at his mostproductive during a twenty year period between the late 1940s and the late1960s an era approximately coinciding with his tenure as Cames Profes-sor of Portuguese at Kings College, London. In these years he published an astonishing total of eighteen books or parts of books, as well as many articles 4. Alden succinctly reviews each of these major Boxer works, provid-ing descriptions of their content and accounts of the backgrounds againstwhich they were written. In the process he identifies much that was charac-teristic of Boxers historiographical method: his rigorous and exhaustiveresearch, his uncanny ability to ferret out and access rare published andunpublished sources, his sharp eye for detail, his scrupulous detachment and his systematic cultivation of contacts with other scholars 5. SimilarlyDiogo Curto, the editor of Boxers Opera Minora, notes his habit of accumu-lating exhaustive collections of sources before embarking on a writing enter-prise. Curto concedes that much of Boxers work concentrates onpersonalities and battles or events. But he goes on to argue that this kindof history attains an unusual level of sophistication in Boxers hands becauseof his meticulous research and his skilful application of comparative analy-sis even though his comparative method was not based on any specificmodel or theory 6.

ANTHONY DISNEY10

Figueira da Foz, CEMAR/AFMP, 1999, pp. 41-77. The latter has been used in preparing this article. It lists 274 separate items, some of which are in fact reprints. To these should be addeda further thirty-two items listed in Dauril ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer. An Uncommon Life, Lisbon,Fundao Oriente, 2001, pp. 581-84, and several others that have been overlooked in all these listings, including C. R. BOXER, The English and the Portuguese Brazil Trade, 1660-1780:Some Problems and Personalities, Bundoora, Institute of Latin American Studies, La Trobe University, 1981.

2 See Homenagem, pp. 59-77.3 Ibid., p. 41.4 D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 342.5 Ibid., pp. 51, 325 and passim.6 Charles Ralph BOXER, Opera Minora, Diogo Ramada CURTO (ed.), 3 vols., Lisbon, Fun-

dao Oriente, vol. 1, pp. xix, xxi-xxii.

In fact, it was precisely Boxers pre-occupation with personalities that lay at the heart of his historical writing and was fundamental to hissuccess as a historian. His published works suggest a tireless interest in indi-viduals, both great and obscure, who were in one way or another involved in the European presence beyond Europe in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He wrote copiously about men, and occasionallywomen, from a smorgasbord of nations particularly Portuguese, but alsoDutch, Spanish, English, Italian, Japanese and others. Among them wereindividuals of the sword, the pen, the cross, the toga and the ledger book, ordifferent combinations thereof. This focus persisted throughout Boxerscareer, as can be demonstrated by examining a selection of his writings invarious categories.

Major Biographies

That Boxer was especially pre-occupied with individual biographies is perhaps least obvious with reference to his major published works i.e.monographs or full-length books. Excluding edited works, Boxer producedfourteen monographs between 1948 and 1981: but only two of them couldreasonably be termed biographies. The first was Salvador de S and the Strug-gle for Brazil and Angola, widely considered to be one of his finest books 7. The second was a biography of the great sixteenth century chroni-cler and humanist, Joo de Barros 8. The latter work, not published untilalmost twenty years after Salvador de S, proved to be his final monograph.Given Boxers own career, there was something particularly appropriate in one of his major biographies being about a man of action and the other aman of letters.

Many of Boxers most characteristic qualities as a biographer are evidentin Salvador de S. The personage he selected for study Salvador himself had been a relatively obscure and neglected figure before Boxer wrote about him. Yet, particularly as governor of Rio de Janeiro and later ofAngola, he was deeply involved in many political and military struggles onboth sides of the Atlantic through the mid seventeenth century and played aquite significant role in shaping the future of the Luso-Brazilian world. In researching for the book Boxer utilised a mass of little-known sources: ashe pointed out in the preface, most of the book was based on documents inthe Portuguese and Brazilian archives 9. Though some of these documents

7 C. R. BOXER, Salvador de S and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola 1602-1686, London,the Athlone Press, 1952. Alden stresses the generally high regard in which this book was held.See D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 349.

8 C. R. BOXER, Joo de Barros. Portuguese Humanist and Historian of Asia, New Delhi, Concept Publishing, 1981.

9 C. R. BOXER, Salvador de S, pp. ix-x.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 11

had been previously published they had mostly appeared in obscure worksdifficult to access; so as far as possible he had personally checked all of themagainst the originals in the archives. He had also uncovered much relevantunpublished material in depositories in Lisbon, vora, Rio de Janeiro, Bahiaand Recife and, where appropriate, had used Spanish as well as Portuguesesources. (He modestly failed to add that, in addition, he had drawn freely onDutch West India Company documents in the Rijksarchief at the Hague andon manuscripts from the British Library and the Public Record Office inLondon.) Of course, he also consulted an exhaustive range of publishedworks some 250 are listed in the bibliography.

Salvador de S gave Boxer a good opportunity to draw on his personalexperience and linguistic skills in writing precisely the kind of comparativehistory at which he excelled. For Salvador de S himself had lived and operated in a number of quite different regions and situations, each with its pattern of interacting peoples, cultures and interests and Boxer foundhimself dealing, on the one hand, with investors in the Dutch West IndiaCompany and, on the other, unassimilated Amerindians of the BrazilianBacklands, or Joo IV and the mulatto pumbeiros of the Angolan interior.

Salvador de S was Boxers first major work with a Brazilian emphasis,and it enabled him to write on a subject few people in the English-speakingworld knew anything about. This was a situation that would certainly haveappealed to him. In Britain, as Boxer remarked in his preface, virtually nothing had been published on colonial Brazil since Robert Southeysfamous three-volume history of 1810-19 10. Salvador was therefore a partic-ularly apt choice for a biography, from several viewpoints. Though a much-neglected figure, he could nevertheless be rescued from obscurity becausesufficient sources existed to reconstruct much of his career. Moreover, he hadbeen involved directly or indirectly in many important issues of the periodand his biography had the potential to cast considerable light on these issues.This raises a significant point concerning Boxers biographical writings: heseldom wrote about individuals just for their own sakes, but liked to viewthem within their contexts of time, place and society. He used individual livesto show what animated contemporaries more generally, what their valuesand modes of thinking were, how they interrelated, what held them togetheron the one hand and divided them on the other, and how their behaviourinfluenced the future. It was a particularly Boxerian form of history from thebottom up but it could only be written by focusing firmly on people whowere actually there.

Boxers other full-length biography, Joo de Barros, was a relatively slimwork of 159 pages, including bibliography and index; but it was more explic-itly biographical than Salvador de S, focusing firmly on Barros himself.

ANTHONY DISNEY12

10 Ibid., pp. vii-viii. Cf. Robert SOUTHEY, History of Brazil, 3 vols., London, 1810-19 (2nd. edn., New York, Greenwood Press, 1969).

Boxer was concerned primarily with Barros as a historian and humanist. He incorporated into the book chapters on each of Barross significant literary works, even though he considered himself to be more the Portuguesechroniclers biographer and expositor than his literary critic 11. Barros easilymet Boxers preference for writing about people who had led full lives andleft worthwhile written evidence behind them. Moreover, as in the case ofSalvador de S, even well informed English-speaking readers had only the haziest knowledge of Barros and Boxer himself pointed out that no previous biography of him existed in English, despite his being the leadingPortuguese chronicler of the sixteenth century and a humanist and peda-gogue of considerable stature on the European stage.

Joo de Barros displayed the usual qualities of Boxerian scholarship,such as systematic culling of primary sources (in this case mostly Barrossown works), great mastery of factual detail and a strong grasp of context. Theprose style was smooth, clear and evocative, and the referencing meticulous.The biography also demonstrated Boxers capacity to relate to and identifywith a man of letters and one, furthermore, who had felt himself inade-quately recognised in his own lifetime. Boxer would have readily empathisedwith Barross avid collecting of books and manuscripts in various languages,both Western and Eastern, being himself a renowned and insatiable collec-tor. The reader will hardly be surprised to learn that, in his personal library,he held such precious exemplars of Barross writing as the 1626 edition of thefirst and second decades of the Dcadas da sia, the very rare 1563 edition ofthe third decade, and the 1777-78 eight-volume edition of the entire work 12.

Projected but Uncompleted Major Biographies

In addition to Salvador de S and Joo de Barros Boxer projected, butnever completed, two other major biographical works. One of these was a lifeof Pde. Antnio Vieira 13. In Salvador de S Boxer had described AntnioVieira as one of the greatest Portuguese who ever lived and had lamentedthat of all the major European languages only English lacked a translation of his works 14. Boxer appears to have accepted the idea of writing Vieirasbiography by the mid 1960s at the latest, and to have had in mind a book ofabout 300 pages to be published by the University of California Press. He hadearlier written several short pieces on Vieira, including an article in the Hispanic American Historical Review, a short semi-biographical pamphlet,and brief sketches in Salvador de S and The Dutch in Brazil 15.

11 C. R. BOXER, Joo de Barros, p. 7.12 C. R. BOXER, Opera Minora, vol. 1, pp. 10-11.13 D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, pp. 576-77.14 C. R. BOXER, Salvador de S, p. vii.15 See C. R. BOXER, Padre Antonio Vieira S.J. and the Institution of the Brazil Company

in 1649, Hispanic American Historical Review, November 1949, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 474-97; C. R.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 13

Boxer had the greatest admiration for Vieiras talents as a writer. Heclaimed that, all the most competent literary critics are agreed that AntnioVieira is the finest exemplar of Portuguese prose, and that he and Lus deCames are the two writers who have extracted the most from the genius,style and structure of the Portuguese language 16. In fact, Vieira possessedeven more of the characteristics that were most likely to attract Boxer thandid Joo de Barros. He had great courage in adversity, he was extremely persistent, he had dash and flair, he seemed equally at home at court or inthe Brazilian wilderness and he was undeviatingly loyal to the causes heespoused. Given Vieiras long and colourful life, his remarkably gifted tongueand the relative abundance of surviving writings both by and about him,there was plenty of material available that a biographer could utilise. How-ever, apart from drawing up a plan and drafting a preface, Boxer made littleprogress with the project. Perhaps he was discouraged by reports that DenisBrass was also writing a biography of Vieira or perhaps he simply could notfind the time to come to grips with such a major project alongside his manyother commitments, until finally it was beyond him. Alden consideredBoxers failure to write this biography a great loss to posterity 17.

The other biography Boxer intended to write, but never completed, was that of the first marquis of Alorna (1688-1756), who was successivelygovernor of So Paulo and Minas Gerais and viceroy of the Estado da ndia.Alorna was a product of the Enlightenment, a cultivated aristocrat whoserved an unsympathetic king and a suspicious chief minister more thancompetently, in Portugal, Brazil and Asia. He was not only a man of action,but also of science and of letters again, precisely the kind of character withwhom Boxer readily identified. Boxer noted Barbosa Machados commentthat Alorna always maintained a relationship with the muses during activeservice and that no adequate biography of him had ever been written, eventhough there was extensive material concerning him in the archives of Lisbon, Minas Gerais and Goa 18.

Boxers interest in Alorna intensified after his personal acquisition in1959 of a substantial collection of the marquiss papers that related to histime as viceroy at Goa (1744-50) 19. It was probably following this purchasethat Boxer decided to write a full-scale biography of Alorna, an ambition hewould nurse for many years. In the end, however, apart from a brief biogra-

ANTHONY DISNEY14

BOXER, A Great Luso-Brazilian Figure: Padre Antnio Vieira, S.J., 1608-1697, London, The His-panic and Luso-Brazilian Councils, 1957; C. R. BOXER, Salvador de S, pp. 165-67; C. R. BOXER,The Dutch in Brazil 1624-1654, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957, pp. 271-73.

16 C. R. BOXER, The Dutch in Brazil, p. 273.17 See D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 577.18 C. R. BOXER, entry on Portugal, D. Pedro de Almeida primeiro Marqus de Castelo

Novo e de Alorna, in Dicionrio de Histria de Portugal, 4 vols., Lisbon, Iniciativas Editoriais,1961-71, vol. 3. (Reprinted in C. R. BOXER, Opera Minora, vol. 3, pp. 182-83.)

19 D. Alden, Charles R. Boxer, p. 578.

phical sketch or two in The Golden Age of Brazil, a relevant entry in theDicionrio de Histria de Portugal and a description of the Alorna papers published in Stvdia, Boxer failed to produce anything substantial on thisinteresting figure 20. But he still remained committed to the project in 1975,declaring he had put Alorna aside just for a year or two, having so manyother irons in the fire to finish off first. Then three years later he had toadmit: I have made no progress with Alorna, as I have been sidetracked cataloguing all the State Papers Portugal 1661-1780 in the PRO 21. Time,age and repeated postponements eventually defeated him, and nothing substantial ever emanated from the Alorna project.

Biographical Essays

Over a thirty-year period between 1938 and 1967 Boxer published fiveworks of a biographical or semi-biographical nature that were not full-lengthmonographs, but were nevertheless substantial studies. Most fell within therange of about 50 to 100 pages of text, excluding documentary appendices.The earliest such work concerned Antnio Teles de Meneses, first count ofVila-Pouca. This competent and energetic seventeenth century noblemancommanded various Portuguese naval forces in Indian waters with notabledistinction during the 1620s and 1630s, then served as governor of theEstado da ndia in 1639-40. Later he was admiral of the Portuguese homefleet, then governor and captain-general of Brazil, before being nominatedviceroy of India but died prior to assuming this last post. Boxers studyfocused on one particular episode in Vila-Poucas career: his naval actionagainst the Dutch off Goa in January 1638. The work was therefore a contri-bution towards a biography rather than an actual biography. But in Boxerscharacteristic manner it was supported by substantial documentary appen-dices. One of the items included was a contemporary account of Vila-Poucasbattles with the Dutch during 1636-38 by Salvador do Couto de Sampaio anexceedingly rare work, published by Pedro Craesbeeck in Coimbra in 1639,of which Boxer possessed his own copy 22.

Another of Boxers publications in this category was entitled BreveRelao da Vida e Feitos de Lopo e Inacio Sarmento de Carvalho, Grandes

20 See C. R. BOXER, The Manuscript Livro do Governo da India e Africa Oriental of the Marquis Viceroy of Alorna, 1744-50, Stvdia, no. 49, 1989, pp. 215-34; C. R. BOXER, TheGolden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962,pp. 362-64; Dicionrio de Histria de Portugal, vol. 3.

21 C. R. Boxer to Anthony Disney, 30 July 1975 and 28 May 1978.22 See O general de mar, Antnio Telles, e o seu combate naval contra os holandeses na

barra de Goa, in Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama, no. 37, 1938, pp. 1-62, and Antnio Tellesem Goa. Apndice III. Relao dos sucessos vitoriosos que na barra de Goa ouve dos OlandezesAntonio Telles de Meneses por Salvador do Couto de Sampayo, ibid., no. 40, 1938, pp. 37-56.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 15

Capitis que no Seculo XVII Honraram Portugal no Oriente, published inMacao in 1940. This work described successively the lives and careers ofLopo (or Lobo) Sarmento de Carvalho and his oldest son, Incio. The formerwas a prominent Macao-based fidalgo renowned in both arms and trade; thelatter was remembered for his gritty defence of Cochin in 1659-63, but waslater foully murdered at Goa. At the start of the work Boxer tells us of a discussion he had had in Macao over who was the most distinguishedMacaonese, during which he put forward the view that the illustrious sev-enteenth century warrior, Incio Sarmento de Carvalho, had as strong aclaim to this distinction as anyone 23. There ensued a succinct outline of thecareers of both Sarmentos, followed by Boxers usual supporting documen-tation. In this case the documentation consisted of Ferno de Queirozsdescription of Lopos victory over the Dutch off Macao in 1622 and an anony-mous Relao of 1663 that described Incios military exploits 24. Bothwere works from Boxers own library, the second being particularly rare.

The next work may seem at first glance to sit rather oddly in this group; but its length and substantive content arguably earn it a place. It isentitled Subsdios para a Histria dos Capites-Gerais e Governadores deMacau 1557-1770 and was published in Macao in 1944, when Boxer was a prisoner-of-war in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong 25. This work consists of a series of mini-biographical sketches of which many, especially thoserelating to the period before 1623, are very brief. However, the entries forafter 1623 tend to be much more detailed. Some run to several pages and aresupported by documents. Boxer also provided an appendix of twenty-sevenpreviously unpublished documents from the British Library, which filledsome ninety pages.

Boxers first post-war work of this type was a small book totalling some135 pages on the life and career of Andr Furtado de Mendona, which hewrote jointly with Frazo de Vasconcelos and published in 1955 26. Despitethe formal joint-authorship it seems the book was largely Boxers work 27.The subject was another well-known seventeenth century figure a resource-ful fighting fidalgo who led an eventful career in various parts of South

ANTHONY DISNEY16

23 C. R. Boxer, Breve Relao da Vida e Feitos de Lopo e Inacio Sarmento de CarvalhoGrandes Capitis que no Seculo XVII Honraram Portugal no Oriente, Macao, Imprensa Nacional,1940, p. 9.

24 Ferno de QUEIROZ, Historia da Vida do Veneravel Irmo Pedro de Basto, Lisbon,Miguel Deslandes, 1689, pp. 305-8; Relaam dos Sucessos das Armas Portuguesas nas Partes daIndia Tomada de Aycota por Ignacio Sarmento de Carvalho, Lisbon, Domingos Carneiro, 1663.

25 C. R. BOXER, Subsdios para a Histria dos Capites-Gerais e Governadores de Macau,Macao, Imprensa Nacional, 1944. (Also reprinted in Obra Completa de Charles Ralph Boxer. Vol. 1. Estudos para a Histria de Macau. Sculos XVI a XVIII, Lisbon, Fundao Oriente, 1991,pp. 193-281.)

26 C. R. BOXER and Frazo de VASCONCELOS, Andr Furtado de Mendona (1558-1610), Lis-bon, AGU, 1955, p. 2.

27 See D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 359, note 56.

and Southeast Asia. Andr Furtado de Mendona eventually became actinggovernor of Goa in 1609 before dying, debt-ridden but respected, later the same year. The book concluded with a series of previously unpublisheddocuments from various archives.

The final work in this group a study of the life and career of FranciscoVieira de Figueiredo, published in 1967 merits consideration at greaterlength. Francisco Vieira was a Portuguese Old Christian of rather modest origins who arrived in Asia in the early 1620s, then remained there until his death some forty-five years later. Initially a soldado, he quickly shiftedfrom arms to commerce and moved on to the Coromandel coast where hewas said to be, friendlier with Hindus than with Christians 28. Boxers bookis concerned primarily with the last two decades of Francisco Vieiras life, the1650s and 1660s, for which sources are relatively abundant. During most ofthis period Vieira was based in Makassar (Sulawesi), until forced to leaveunder pressure from the Dutch in 1665, when he moved on to Larantuka. For many years he was on extremely friendly terms with the sultans and chiefministers of Gowa on Sulawesi, and maintained numerous fruitful contactsalong the Southeast Asian, South Asian and East Asian maritime trading circuits. As well as his friends in Gowa, his business associates included theJesuits at Macao, the Dutch East India Company in Batavia, the Nawabs ofGolconda and various private traders ranging from Muslims to Englishmen.He clearly possessed remarkable commercial acumen, which he exercisedwhile steering a difficult course through competing political pressures andinterests.

Boxer used the Francisco Vieira case study to draw various conclusionsabout the nature of Portuguese commerce in Asia in the seventeenth century,and the men who drove it. He showed that Vieira himself, despite operatingfar from Goa, always remained loyal to his king, his nation and his Catholicfaith. In fact Vieira played a significant role in ensuring Portugals interestssurvived at an extremely difficult time for the Estado da ndia, especially in island Southeast Asia 29. Boxer considered the career of Francisco Vieiraillustrated the important role played by alien merchants in Asian maritimetrade. Successful merchants of this type did business over a wide area, some-times attained positions of considerable influence in the trading centreswhere they settled and dealt successfully with different cultures and polities.They could be extremely flexible, shifting their business operations from one place to another as conditions required. Francisco Vieira, married to aMacaonese wife and quite at home with Makassans and Dutch alike, repre-sented an element of the Portuguese presence in Asia that Boxer consideredwas too often overlooked. He combined, to an extraordinary extent, com-

28 C. R. BOXER, Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo: A Portuguese Merchant Adventurer in South-East Asia, 1624-1667, the Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1967, p. 2.

29 Ibid., pp. 50, 52-53.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 17

mercial know-how, local knowledge and cultural adaptability. To the Dutchat Batavia Vieira was a classic example of an enviable type: a Portuguesesmart merchant 30.

Boxer regarded Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo as no more than a prelim-inary study. He stated that he had not had the opportunity to undertake the extensive research in the archives of Lisbon, Goa, the Hague and Jakartathat he considered necessary to compose a full account of Vieiras life 31.Nevertheless, the book bore many of the characteristic hallmarks of a typicalBoxer biographical study. It was based largely on unpublished documents,many of which were in his own possession and its appendices containednineteen previously unpublished items that in total were almost as long asthe text itself. English abstracts were provided for all documents in Por-tuguese or Dutch. The subject of the work was a little-known historical fig-ure whom Boxer thought was an intriguing character 32. The book involvedcomparative analysis at several levels: Boxer was working with material indifferent languages and on subject matter that involved various competinginterest groups with widely differing perspectives Portuguese, Dutch andEnglish; Catholic, Calvinist and Muslim, and so on. Finally, the task Boxer hadset himself was manageable: though there were significant, largely untappeddocumentary sources on particularly the two final decades of Francisco Vieiraslife, these were neither so vast nor so numerous as to demand prolongedresearch and study at least for someone of Boxers experience and ability.

Translations

Boxer edited and published a number of translations of seventeenth century journals and personal memoirs, with appropriate scholarly intro-ductions. These publications did not in themselves constitute biographies,but amounted to an important step in that direction. They also re-empha-sised Boxers abiding pre-occupation with flesh-and-blood historical charac-ters. The most important of his works in this mode concerned the militaryand naval commanders M. H. Tromp, Rui Freire de Andrade and DomEstevo de Ataide, and the ambassador Manuel de Saldanha 33. Obviously in

ANTHONY DISNEY18

30 Ibid., p. 51.31 Ibid., foreword.32 Ibid.33 See C. R. BOXER (ed.), The Journal of Maarten Harpertzoon Tromp, Anno 1639, London,

Cambridge University Press, 1930; C. R. BOXER (ed.), The Commentaries of Ruy Freyre deAndrade, London, Routledge, 1930; C. R. BOXER, (ed.), Cercos de Moambique defendidos por D. Estevo de Ataide, Capito-General, Governador daquela Praa, por Antnio Duro, in Arquivo Histrico de Portugal, Lisbon, vol. 3, 1937-38, pp. 19-72, 198-223; Francisco PIMENTEL,Breve Relao da Jornada que Fez a Corte de Pekim o Sr. Manuel de Saldanha Embaixador Extraordinrio del Rey de Portugal ao Emperador de China e Tartaria (1667-1670), eds. C. R.BOXER and Jack BRAGA , Macao, Imprensa Nacional, 1942.

these kinds of writings the balance between the documents and Boxers owntext was the opposite of what it was in the biographies already discussedabove i.e. the documents themselves were the principal contents.

Biographical Pamphlets and Articles

We now come to a category of Boxers writings that is particularly cru-cial to an understanding of his work as a biographer. This is his pamphletsand articles i.e. stand-alone works in the range usually of about ten to fortypages that are biographical in nature. Boxer wrote a large number of workswithin this category about fifty to sixty separate pieces in all, depending onwhether or not some marginally biographical items are included. They werebeing produced virtually throughout his working life, the first published in1928 and the last in 1983. To convey some idea of the type and range of his-torical characters Boxer wrote about in these shorter pieces we shall dividethem up alphabetically into a number of sub-categories, indicating in eachcase the date of publication 34.

Portuguese Fidalgos and Merchant Adventurers:

D. Antnio de Ataide (1934), D. Jorge de Meneses Baroche (1976), SisnandoDias Bayo (1938), Nuno lvares Botelho (1928), Antnio de AlbuquerqueCoelho (1934, 1940), Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho (1965, 1969), FranciscoVieira de Figueiredo (1940), D. Francisco da Gama, 4th count of Vidigueira(1930), Antnio Coelho Guerreiro (1940), Pedro de Melo (1937), SebastioJos de Carvalho e Melo, marquis of Pombal (1955), D. Lus Carlos deMeneses, 5th count of Ericeira (1974, 1979), Jos Pinto Pereira (1941, 1942),Joo Ribeiro (1955), Salvador Correia de S (1948), Gonalo da Siqueira(1938), D. Francisco de Tvora, 1st count of Alvor (1937), Lus Velho (1947-8).

Portuguese Writers or Men of Learning:

Joo de Barros (1948), Antnio Bocarro (1948, 1956), Lus de Cames(1940, 1972), Diogo do Couto (1948, 1972, 1985), Lus Gomes Ferreira(1973), Garcia de Orta (1963), Ribeiro Sanches (1970).

Priests:

Pde. Jacinto de Deus (1937), Pde. Joo Rodrigues Tuzu (1950), Pde. Ant-nio Vieira (1949, 1957).

34 It would occupy too much space within the compass of this article to provide here thefull bibliographical details of all these short works. However, the reader who wishes to identifythem can easily do so by consulting either of the published Boxer bibliographies cited in footnote 1 above, under the appropriate dates.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 19

Dutchmen:

Piet Heyn (1963), Adriaen Janszoon Pater (1959), Michiel Adrianszoon deRuyter (1957, 1958, 1976), Cornelis Speelman (1958), Isaac Titsingh (1939,1949), Marten Haarpertszoon Tromp (1953, 1954).

Other Europeans:

Robert Blake (1950), Beauvollier de Courchand (1979), Ferdinand Cron(1971), Robert Knox (1954), Nicols Monardes (1963), Don Antonio deOquendo (1959), Marshall Schomberg (1976), Jean Baptiste Tavernier(1985), Lord Tyrawly (1970).

Asians:

Nicholas Iquaan (1941), Rin Shihei (1932), Hosakawa Tadaoki (1935).

Women:

Doa Maria Guadalupe de Lencastre, 6th duchess of Aveiro (1973).

Some of these articles and essays bear sub-titles indicating that theyfocus on a particular element in the life of the individual concerned anadministration, a campaign, a particular battle, an embassy and so on. Butmany others are of a more general nature and have terms like esboobiogrfico or a biographical sketch in their sub-titles. The bulk of thesesketches concern men of action of one kind or another, particularly militaryor naval commanders; but merchants, missionaries, writers, medical menand others are also represented. In quite a number of cases Boxers subjectscombined elements from more than one of these types. As already noted, hewas particularly attracted to those who combined both military and literarycareers or, as Boxer himself put it, that union of arms and letters onwhich so many Iberian conquistadores prided themselves 35.

For further consideration here, let us select two examples of Boxerswritings within this category. In 1942 Boxer published an article on the seventeenth century fidalgo Jos Pinto Pereira, which consisted of twenty-four pages of text and seventeen pages of documents 36. Pereira, who spentmany years in crown service in Asia, was clearly someone for whom Boxerhad considerable respect indeed, he referred to him in such terms asheri and to ilustre varo 37. As a biography the work was patchy; but

ANTHONY DISNEY20

35 C. R. BOXER, Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche and the Battle of Mulleriyawa, 1560,Mare Luso-Indicum, vol. 3, 1976, p. 95.

36 C. R. BOXER, Jos Pinto Pereira Vedor da Fazenda Geral da ndia e Conselheiro Ultra-marino del Rei Dom Joo IV, Anais da Academia Portuguesa de Histria, vol. 7, 1942, pp. 71-118.

37 Ibid., pp. 75, 98.

this was unavoidable, given the many large gaps in Pereiras life about whichno information was available. Moreover the article possessed many typicallyBoxerian characteristics. It brought together an impressive collection of previously unpublished sources, the appendices containing seventeen sub-stantial documents in Portuguese, Dutch and English of which sevenwere from Boxers personal library. The article also showed Boxer seekingout help and advice from Portuguese scholars in this case Frazo de Vas-concelos and Armando Corteso. This was something he was always carefulto do, valuing and nurturing his professional friendships and contacts.

The second piece we shall consider in this grouping was a more maturework. In 1963 Boxer gave a lecture at the Wellcome Historical MedicalLibrary in London on Garcia de Orta and Nicols Monardes, physicians whowrote pioneering treatises on the medicinal plants of Asia and the Americas.The lecture, which was later published as a 36-page pamphlet, containedbrief accounts of the lives of these two men and an evaluation of their writings 38. Boxer saw interesting parallels and some curious contrastsbetween the two; but his pamphlet focused mainly on Orta. He argued thatthe traditionally accepted version of Ortas life was riddled with errors which he proceeded to correct. For this purpose he relied heavily on anobscure work that had been recently published by Augusto da Silva Carvalho,a Portuguese medical doctor whom he praised highly for having completelyrevolutionized knowledge concerning Orta 39. Next Boxer reviewed withgreat clarity Ortas Colquios, the celebrated book on which that physiciansreputation rested. He also informed readers that he knew of twenty-fourexisting copies of the 1563 edition of this work, fourteen of which he hadexamined personally. Only two of these were in private hands one being hisown. Finally he showed that Monardess Dos Libros, contrary to what hisbiographer Francisco Guerra had argued, could not have been inspired byMonardes himself reading Ortas book. In short, the pamphlet displayed anumber of typical components of a classic Boxer piece: a meticulous criticalreview of the existing literature, the correcting of past mistakes, extensive useof original sources, incisive comparative analysis.

Mini-Biographical Sketches

The next type of biographical writing produced by Boxer, and the last tobe discussed here, was what might be termed the mini-biographical sketchor biographical summary. This varied in length from just a paragraph or twoto several pages. It differed from the biographical articles and pamphlets

38 C. R. BOXER, Two Pioneers of Tropical Medicine: Garcia dOrta and Nicols Monardes,London, the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Councils, 1963.

39 Ibid., p. 5.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 21

discussed above not only in being appreciably shorter but also because it wasnot a stand-alone work; instead, it was inserted into the text or placed in theappendices of larger works. Finally, it was usually accompanied by signifi-cantly less bibliographical information.

Some of Boxers mini-biographical sketches are easily found, particu-larly those written for encyclopaedic compilations such as the Dicionrio de Histria de Portugal. For volume one of this work Boxer wrote entries onAntnio de Oliveira Cadornega, Antnio de Albuquerque Coelho de Carvalho,Joo Pereira Corte Real and Diogo do Couto. For volume two he wrote on D. Lus Carlos de Meneses (fifth count of Ericeira), Joo da Maia da Gamaand Gabriel de Magalhes, for volume three Vasco Fernandes, Cesar deMeneses, Garcia de Orta, Ferno Mendes Pinto, D. Pedro de Almeida e Portugal (first marquis of Alorna), Joo Ribeiro, Salvador Correia de S e Benevides and D. Brs Baltasar da Silveira, and for volume four Joo Fernandes Vieira. He had, of course, already written about some of theseindividuals in earlier works.

Boxers other mini-biographical sketches, most being buried withinlarger works, are not so easily located and it would require quite extensiveresearch to identify and list all of them. However, some selected examplesshould suffice to demonstrate just how integral they were to his historio-graphical method. In his first post-war monograph, Fidalgos in the Far East,Boxer included brief pen sketches of various individuals including the firstcount of Aveiras (pp. 140-42), Antnio de Albuquerque Coelho (pp. 201-11,217-21), Doa Ignez Gracias Cardozo (pp. 246-49), Lopo Sarmento de Car-valho (pp. 67-8, 109-14), D. Francisco Mascarenhas (pp. 94-103), AntnioJos Teles de Meneses (pp. 242-46), D. Joo Pereira (pp. 35-7), Andr Pessoa(pp. 52-62), D. Sebastio Lobo da Silveira (pp. 149-53) and Tristo Vaz daVeiga (pp. 37-8) 40. In his next major monograph set in Asia, The ChristianCentury in Japan, there were similar pen-portraits of Hasegawa Gonroku (pp. 345-46), Ferno Mendes Pinto (pp. 18-24), Alexandre Valignano (pp. 72-4)and Fray Juan Pobre de Zamora to mention just a few 41.

The Dutch in Brazil appears to have been the first of Boxers monographsin which he included a special appendix entitled Personalia. It containedshort biographical rsums of six Dutch and four Portuguese individualsprominent in the hard-fought seventeenth century struggle for NortheasternBrazil. Witte Corneliszoon de With, George Marcgraf, Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, Cornelis van den Brande, Adriaen Jacobszoon van derDussen, Michiel van Goch, Manuel de Moraes, Gaspar Dias Ferreira, Pde.Antnio Vieira and Joo Fernandes Vieira 42. The same approach wasadopted in The Golden Age of Brazil where an appendix on Personalia pro-

ANTHONY DISNEY22

40 See C. R. BOXER, Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550-1770, the Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1948.41 See C. R. BOXER, The Christian Century in Japan 1549-1650, Berkeley and Los Angeles,

University of California Press, 1951.

vided pen portraits of D. Pedro de Almeida e Portugal (marquis of Alorna),Manuel Nunes Viana, Joo da Maia da Gama, Antnio Rodrigues da Costa,D. Loureno de Almeida and Giovanni Antnio de Andreoni 43. In both The Dutch in Brazil and The Golden Age in Brazil there were also numerousother biographical sketches scattered throughout the texts including in the latter, for example, portrayals of Antnio Coelho de Carvalho de Albu-querque (pp. 75-6), Ren Duguay-Trouin (pp. 92-3), Gomes Freire de Andrade(p. 314), King Joo V (pp. 145-46), Francisca Xica da Silva (pp. 219-20), VascoFernandes Csar de Meneses (first count of Sabugosa) (pp. 144-45) and Pauloda Silva Nunes (pp. 287-89).

As a final example of how Boxer habitually incorporated biographicalsketches into his monographs we might cite Women in Iberian ExpansionOverseas. In this book the reader will find portraits of Catarina de San Juan(pp. 41-2), Soror Juana Ins de la Cruz (p. 39), Doa Catalina de los RiosLiperguer (pp. 45-8), Teresa Margarida da Silva e Orta (pp. 55-6) and variousother women 44. This last cluster of mini-biographies is particularly interest-ing because it demonstrates Boxers fascination with the oppressed, perse-cuted or under-privileged sectors of society such as Christian martyrs inJapan, Negro slaves in the Americas, people discriminated against because oftheir colour, ethnicity or faith or, as in this case, females. Boxers interest inthese groups seems to have increased over time, and to have become moreevident in his work published after about 1960.

Boxers output of mini-biographies was extremely copious over his longwriting career and was by no means confined to pieces inserted into hismonographs. Often they were included in or attached to articles sometimesin footnotes, sometimes incorporated into the body of the text. Thus in 1935he included in an article commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Anglo-Dutch truce of 1635 a sketch of the career of Antnio Teles de Meneses aswell as brief notices concerning Jos Pinto Pereira, Andr Coelho and severalothers 45. Boxer could seldom resist the temptation to include a biographicalsketch in any of his works, large or small, if it seemed to him in the slightestdegree relevant and appeared to possess intrinsic interest. Sometimes the relevance was barely marginal and this he occasionally admitted, as whenhe wrote: Although it is not strictly-speaking connected with our story, Icannot forbear from quoting [Antnio] Vieiras description of the Count [ofAveiras] 46. On the other hand Boxer would sometimes announce hisintention of providing a biographical sketch, begin it, but fail to complete

42 C. R. BOXER, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957, pp. 259-76.43 C. R. BOXER, The Golden Age of Brazil, pp. 362-70.44 C. R. BOXER, Women in Iberian Expansion Overseas, 1415-1815. Some Facts, Fancies and

Personalities, New York, Oxford University Press, 1975.45 C. R. BOXER, The General of the Galleons and the Anglo-Portuguese Truce Celebrated

at Goa in January 1635, Ethnos, no. 1, 1935, pp. 28 (note 5), 32 and 39 (note 19), etc.46 C. R. BOXER, Fidalgos in the Far East, p. 141.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 23

it, instead sliding off onto something else that had caught his interest 47.However, such lapses were rare, Boxers biographical sketches usually beingmodels of clarity, coherence and objectivity. He tended to maintain a contin-uing interest in characters who had once caught his eye and not infrequentlywrote up-dates, and occasionally corrections, of his earlier work. In 1978 hewrote in a private letter, a lot of individuals in whom I am interested,such as Joseph Pinto Pereira and Andr Salema were operating in Asia from 1602 and were big shots in Goa 48. Yet he had first published on Jos Pinto Pereira almost forty years before, in 1940 and 1941.

At their best, Boxers brief biographical sketches were extraordinarilylucid and vivid vignettes. They provided often brilliant pen portraits of thecharacter, achievements and failings of selected individuals, usually with just the right amount of factual detail and always with rigorous attention toaccuracy. Everyone familiar with Boxers writings will no doubt have his orher favourites from among these vignettes; for me one of the best is that ofPde. Antnio Vieira, inserted into Salvador de S. Here, in just a few para-graphs, Boxer seemed to convey all that was most important, and most inter-esting, about Vieira. His outline of Vieiras origins and lifes course, from hiseducation and upbringing through his long and eventful career in both Por-tugal and Brazil, brilliantly brought out the rich character and extraordinaryachievements of this remarkable man as missionary, master orator, lin-guist, propagandist, royal confidante, ambassador and political manipulator.He also took due note of Vieiras controversial theological views and hisambiguous public image, and assessed his impact on his own era 49.

Conclusions and Reflections

Having surveyed Boxers output in various categories we are now in abetter position to suggest what made him such an effective writer of biogra-phy, and especially of short biographical sketches. One factor was certainlyhis remarkable ability to unearth often obscure and long-neglected primarysources which he would then compare and evaluate with great compe-tence, systematically retrieving and processing useful information fromthem. Probably no historian has ever been a more complete master of hisdocuments. Of course, in many cases Boxer personally owned the sourcematerials with which he was working. As several scholars have noted, there

ANTHONY DISNEY24

47 For example see C. R. BOXER, Anglo-Portuguese Rivalry in the Persian Gulf 1615-1635,in Edgar PRESTAGE (ed.), Chapters in Anglo-Portuguese Relations, Watford, Voss and Michael,1935, pp. 59-60. Here, having expressed the need to devote some space to a sketch of the prin-cipal fidalgos who crossed swords with King James men Boxer begins a pen portrait of RuiFreire de Andrade, but then inexplicably reverts to the main narrative, without finishing it.

48 C. R. Boxer to Anthony Disney, 21 June 1978.49 C. R. BOXER, Salvador de S, pp. 165-68.

was a close correlation between Boxer as a historian and Boxer as a collec-tor of books and manuscripts, his collecting being both the instrument andthe inspiration for much of his writing 50.

In his biographical studies, as in his historical writings in general, Boxerpaid scant attention to theorising. He embraced no particular model ofhuman behaviour or of the human life-cycle indeed, he showed little inter-est in any particular theory, whether psychological, psychoanalytical, socio-logical or of any other kind. However, he did have a strong interest ininvestigating the mindsets or mentalities of the people about whom hewrote. Alden argues that he liked to experience an intimate intellectual rela-tionship with those who marched across his histories 51. But it was notonly the minds of his subjects that interested Boxer, but their physical attrib-utes. He had a profound commitment to knowing his characters as complete,functioning human-beings and he was deeply frustrated when, as was toooften the case, descriptive and iconographic material about them provedinadequate, unattainable or totally non-existent. Conversely, when he cameacross such material he was elated, for it enabled him to put flesh and blood into his subjects. This was the case, for example, when he discoveredPde. Antnio Vieiras vivid if somewhat uncomplimentary description of theviceroy count of Aveiras 52.

Despite being disinterested in behavioural science at an abstract level,Boxer was fascinated by individual human behaviour. In his working careerhe investigated a broad spectrum of historical figures, from the high andmighty to the oppressed and almost voiceless, and tried to understand all of them 53. He strove to penetrate the thought-processes that animated those whom he studied, but was scrupulously impartial and almost alwaysnon-judgemental even though he delighted in describing his subjects withcomplete frankness. When dealing with interactions between individuals orgroups of opposing faiths, nationalities or political orientations, he seldomtook sides. But he was easily drawn to those who displayed courage and fortitude, striving to make the best of their opportunities, whether they befidalgos, Jesuit missionaries or even, at the bottom of the heap, colouredslave girls.

Such attitudes were reflections of Boxers own values and beliefs. Weknow that he considered himself neutral in matters of religion but that hewas probably quite strongly attracted to Stoicism or at least to Stoicism asexpounded in The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius 54. It is hardly surprising

50 D. ALDEN, Charles R.. Boxer, p. 504; C. R. BOXER, Opera Minora, vol. 1, p. xix, vol. 3, p. lvi.51 D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 435.52 C. R. BOXER, Fidalgos in the Far East, p. 142.53 Cf. D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 492.54 A copy of Marcus Aureliuss Meditations was given to Boxer while a P.O.W., after which

he apparently always kept this work by his bedside. See D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, pp. 253, 272, note 12.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 25

that a form of practical philosophy that emphasised self-control, persever-ance and calm acceptance of the inevitable should have appealed to Boxer,given his strong personal discipline and rigorous work ethic. Nevertheless,there was also something of the Epicurean in him, for he was a greatsocialiser with notorious staying power on party occasions. He once quotedapprovingly some defiant words of Rui Freire de Andrade, a true Boxer heroif ever there was one words written not long before that formidable com-manders death: So long as there is water I shall drink, and then let whatmay happen, happen 55.

Like any serious graduate student today, Boxer realised from the start ofhis writing career that to succeed as a historian he had to make a personaljourney of cultural and linguistic exploration. It was a journey he embarkedupon in the 1920s with great determination. On the way, he gained compe-tence in several foreign languages namely, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish andJapanese. But the path he chose was an unusual one, especially when com-pared with those commonly followed by scholars-in-training today. He neverstudied at a university but instead trained at Sandhurst for a military career.On his own request posted as a language officer to Japan in 1930, he sailedto the Far East aboard a Japanese ship. It is perhaps not too much of an exag-geration to suggest that he saw himself on this voyage as a kind of latter-dayPeter Mundy 56. On arriving in Singapore, instead of fraternising with the resident British community as most in his position would probably have done he went off exploring with a Chinese and two Spaniards 57.In Japan he declined to claim European expatriate privileges but had himselfattached to the Thirty-Eighth Nara Infantry Regiment with which he under-went rigorous training. Then he did the same at the N.C.O.s school atNagoya. He carefully cultivated Japanese customs and etiquette, became aproficient speaker of the language and learned kendo.

Boxer was greatly stimulated by Japan where he made lasting friend-ships, acquiring high respect for the Japanese people and their culture. He leased a cook-concubine and became a self-confessed disciple of theJapanese scholar Okamoto Yoshitomo; he himself was much respected by hisfellow officers in the Thirty-Eighth Nara Regiment, who presented him witha seventeenth century daimyos sword. Later, as a prisoner-of-war in HongKong, he reputedly became friendly with a couple of Chinese pirates muchto the surprise of his European companions 58. Boxer was badly wounded in the battle for Hong Kong, and subsequently in captivity (1941-45) he narrowly escaped execution for his association with a clandestine camp

ANTHONY DISNEY26

55 C. R. Boxer to Anthony Disney, 9 July 1979.56 Alden remarks on Boxers love of adventurous travellers accounts of their exploits.

D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 489.57 Ibid., p. 59.58 Ibid., pp. 66, 252, 262.

radio. Yet he bore no grudges against the enemy and once told a fellow-prisoner after their release: the wars over and its time you forgot about it.He also dismissed his ill-treatment over the radio incident, simply declaringhe had had it coming to him because, that was something you had to payfor if you got caught 59. Boxers involvement in the Japanese world in factwent well beyond that of an observer; it was that of an active participant.After the war he quickly renewed his friendships with Japanese scholars. In Japan itself his work was deeply appreciated, and publication of The Christian Century earned him the nickname Father of Nagasakiology 60.

Such attitudes help explain why Boxer was so successful at his particu-lar kind of biographical writing. He had an extraordinary determination toget to know what Post-Modernists call the Other, though he himself wouldnever have used so ugly an expression. He encountered in his own life, andprobably to a certain extent sought out, various experiences that came closeto mirroring what happened to some of the historical characters that soappealed to him and about whom he researched and wrote with such commitment. At the same time he remained detached, and never postured orpretended to be anything other than what he was an inquiring and highlyintelligent Englishman. Perhaps his deep interest in Japan and its relation-ship with the West was linked to his respect for Stoicism and his fascinationwith heroic deaths. It was personalities like Andr Pessoa, one of those menwho when they can no longer conquer, show that they at least know how todie, who especially attracted him 61. Nevertheless, these interests appear tohave become more subdued as Boxer grew older and after The ChristianCentury he wrote little more about Japan, focusing instead on the Portugueseworld, especially in the Atlantic.

Needless to say, Boxer was never an adherent of either the Marxist tra-dition or that of the Annales School: in fact, he showed no interest in writingafter the fashion of any of the great historical schools of his day. He wasessentially an empirical historian, but in the best sense and it was partlythis that gave him the open-mindedness, flexibility and impartiality thatmade him such an effective biographer. Boxers style of history was inmarked contrast to that of Fernand Braudel, that other great twentieth century historian who has had so profound an influence on Portuguese historiography 62. Where Braudel and his disciples began with sweepingunderlying realities, using such concepts as structure, conjuncture,mentalits, collective destinies and so on, and consigning the actions ofindividuals to the merely incidental, Boxer worked in the opposite direction.

59 Ibid., p. 264; also see p. 291.60 See J. S. Cumminss obituary of Boxer in The Hakluyt Society. Annual Report and State-

ment of Account for 2000, London, the Hakluyt Society, 2000, p. 21.61 D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, p. 217.62 Cf. comments by Diogo CURTO in his introduction to C. R. BOXER, Opera Minora, vol. 1,

p. xxiii.

CHARLES BOXER AS BIOGRAPHER: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION 27

To him it was individual people who made history and one best under-stands history by studying the individuals who lived through it.

Approaching history from this standpoint the paramount importance ofbiography is obvious. However, Boxer was not interested in biographymerely for its own sake but as a means towards understanding broaderissues. To him individual lives, and the inter-relationships between them,constituted building blocks on which more general historical analyses couldbe constructed. This is perhaps one reason why Boxer devoted so much of histime and effort to producing short biographies and biographical sketchesrather than writing major biographies for it was often the volume and vari-ety of the individual life studies he undertook that enabled him to discernpatterns and suggest generalizations. Research and writing about little-known or poorly understood characters, however fragmentary the sources,was almost certainly what he preferred and it was what gave his biogra-phical writings much of their originality and their lasting value.

In Tokyo in 1946 Boxer was asked by an old Japanese friend if, like otherWesterners, he carried pictures of his loved ones with him during the war. He replied in the affirmative, pulled out his wallet and showed his friendtwo seventeenth century manuscript fragments bearing the signatures ofTadaoki and Diogo do Couto 63. This is a revealing story, for it underlines thegreat affinity, indeed love, Boxer felt for many of the historical characterswhom he studied. Yet he did not allow such feelings to prejudice his judge-ment and that is what made him such a very special biographer-historian.

ANTHONY DISNEY28

63 D. ALDEN, Charles R. Boxer, pp. 291-2. See also p. 435.

Observers in America, like observers of anyt-hing culturally unfamiliar for which thereexist few readily available antecedents, had tobe able to classify before they could properlysee; and in order to classify in any meaningfulsense they had no alternative but to appeal to a system which was already in use. It wasindeed that system, not the innate structure ofthe world, that determined both what theyactually believed to be the objective realitybefore them and the areas of it they selected for description. 2

No panorama da literatura histrica e etnogrfica portuguesa do s-culo XVI, as Dcadas da sia de Joo de Barros ocupam uma posio central

ANAIS DE HISTRIA DE ALM-MAR, Vol. IV, 2003, pp. 29-61

NOS PRIMRDIOS DA ANTROPOLOGIA MODERNA:A SIA DE JOO DE BARROS 1

por

ZOLTN BIEDERMANN *

1 O presente texto desenvolve as principais ideias surgidas de uma leitura das Dcadas deBarros no mbito de um seminrio dirigido por Lus Filipe Thomaz na Universidade Nova deLisboa, no ano lectivo de 1999-2000. Um primeiro conjunto de interrogaes sobre a obra foiapresentado ao X Seminrio Internacional de Histria Indo-Portuguesa (Salvador da Bahia,Dezembro de 2000), cujas actas esperam ainda por publicao, com o ttulo Grave o perigo noaceptar da disciplina. Algumas reflexes em torno da obra de Joo de Barros e Pero deMagalhes Gndavo. Juntamente com o ensaio De regresso ao Quarto Imprio: a China deJoo de Barros e o imaginrio imperial joanino, a ser impresso nas actas do Congresso Inter-nacional D. Joo III e o Imprio (Lisboa, Junho de 2002, publicao prevista para incios de2004), o presente estudo constitui um convite ao debate, mais do que um corpus definitivo dedados e concluses.

* Investigador do Centro de Histria de Alm-Mar da Universidade Nova de Lisboa;bolseiro da Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia.

2 Anthony PAGDEN, The Fall of Natural Man. The American Indian and the origins of comparative ethnology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge etc., 1982, p. 2.

tanto pela quantidade das fontes utilizadas como pelo impacto que tiveramsobre textos posteriores 3. Vastas, complexas e recheadas de informaeshabilmente embrulhadas num discurso de cariz pico portador de uma men-sagem de ambies universais, as Dcadas tm tambm exercido um fascnioconsidervel sobre os historiadores da expanso. Estes, como no podiadeixar de ser, tm-na interpretado com frequncia em funo das suasprprias posies face empresa imperial. Amar ou odiar Barros asseme-lha-se assim, ainda hoje, para alguns, a uma espcie de credo ideolgicofundamental 4.

O prprio Joo de Barros ter sido um homem dividido entre as princi-pais correntes com que um intelectual se poderia identificar no segundoquartel do sculo XVI: por um lado, o esprito erasmiano que o marcou nosanos em que escreveu a Ropicapnefma (1532), parte da primeira Dcada da sia 5, e ainda o Dilogo entre os artigos da f contra o Talmude (1543); por

ZOLTN BIEDERMANN30

3 Sobre a vida e a obra de Barros, vejam-se: Manuel Severim de FARIA, Vida de Joo deBarros [vora, 1624], reproduzido em Da Asia de Joo de Barros, vol. 9, Livraria So Carlos,Lisboa, 1973; Aubrey F. G. BELL, Portuguese Literature [Oxford, 1922], reimpresso com novabibliografia, Oxford University Press, Londres, 1970, pp. 192-195; Introduo sia de Joode Barros. Dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terrasdo Oriente, 4. edio, conforme edio princeps, iniciada por Antnio BAIO e continuada porLus F. Lindley CINTRA [Coimbra, 1932], reimpresso fac-similada, Imprensa Nacional-Casa daMoeda, Lisboa, 1988, vol. 1, pp. v-lxxxii. Cf. ainda o importante estudo de Charles R. BOXER,Joo de Barros. Portuguese Humanist and Historian of Asia (Xavier Centre of Historical Research Series, 1), Concept Publishing, Nova Deli, 1981, e o excelente volume dedicado a Joo deBarros e o Cosmopolitismo do Renascimento, da revista Oceanos, n. 27 (Julho/Setembro de1996), com numerosas pistas bibliogrficas. Salta vista a paucidade de estudos sobre aspectosparticulares da escrita barrosiana (ver algumas citaes nas notas do texto), comparada com aabundncia dos ensaios bio-bibliogrficos dedicados ao autor, entre os quais: Antnio AlbertoBanha de ANDRADE, Joo de Barros. Historiador do Pensamento Humanista Portugus de Quin-hentos, Academia Portuguesa da Histria, Lisboa, 1980, e Antnio Borges COELHO, Tudo merca-doria. Sobre o percurso e a obra de Joo de Barros, Caminho, Lisboa, 1992; id., Joo de Barros.Vida e Obra, GTME/CDP, Lisboa, 1997.

4 Cf., a ttulo apenas exemplar, Madalena da Cmara FIALHO, Joo de Barros Histo-riador do Imprio, in Congresso do Mundo Portugus, vol. V, Lisboa, 1940, pp. 383-396;Joaquim Verssimo SERRO, Joo de Barros: entre Erasmo e o Imprio, in O humanismoportugus 1500-1600. Primeiro Simpsio Nacional, 21-25 de Outubro de 1985, Lisboa, Academiadas Cincias, 1988, pp. 31-53, e Antnio Manuel HESPANHA, editorial, Oceanos, 27 (Julho//Setembro de 1996).

5 Joo de Barros teria sido incumbido de escrever sobre os feitos dos portugueses noOriente ainda por D. Manuel, aps a publicao da Crnica do Imperador Clarimundo (1520),mas s se teria dedicado seriamente redaco da sia aps o fracasso da sua experinciaenquanto capito-donatrio do Maranho, em 1536. A primeira Dcada inclui, no terceiro livro,um testemunho colhido de um embaixador do rei de Benim em 1540 (Dcada I, livro iii, cap-tulo 4, p. 84 na edio de 1988 [cf. nota 2]). J no livro nono se l sobre um debuxo [que] o anno passado de mil e quinhentos e quorenta e oito me mandaram em tres papes (I, ix, 1,p. 344). E, um pouco mais adiante, sabe-se que os portugueses navegavam ora per derradeiroas [ilhas] dos Japes e a grande prouincia Meac (I, ix, 1, p. 347). Perto do fim da terceiraDcada (editada em 1563) l-se que o descobrimento, conquista, e comercio deste oriente de

outro lado, um certo conformismo face s novas propostas scio-culturais dasegunda era joanina, mais fechada e intolerante, nomeadamente a partir do Panegrico da Infanta D. Maria (1546) 6. Tambm a sia, definitivamenteencerrada apenas em 1563, queda como que suspensa entre uma apologiaincondicional do imprio e algumas crticas, por vezes veementes, da reali-dade imperial. No campo antropolgico, nomeadamente, Barros aparentamover-se entre uma avassaladora vontade de conhecer e mesmo aceitar ooutro (por exemplo a China, segundo uma interpretao de Antnio JosSaraiva a rever) 7 e uma rejeio quase tridentina de muitos traos dasculturas alheias (nomeadamente nos campos da religio e dos costumes, faceao Islo, ao hindusmo etc.).

Para compreender estas diferenas de atitude, o recurso hiptese de uma simples evoluo do autor ao longo dos anos em que escreveu epublicou insatisfatrio. As aparentes contradies so estruturais, mais doque conjunturais 8. Ora, as bases conceptuais em que as variadas descriesgeogrficas e antropolgicas na sia assentam s muito raramente soobjecto de discusso 9. Uma leitura exaustiva do opus magnum de Barrospermite vislumbrar lgicas de percepo e de escrita constitutivas do quadroelementar da viso do mundo em meados de Quinhentos, e estas lgicasdevero no futuro merecer a maior das atenes porque no deixaram de terconsequncias profundas nos campos da aco poltica, administrativa ereligiosa a partir do reinado de D. Joo III.

que escreuemos a que chamamos Asia teria j sessenta anos, o que remete talvez para 1558 (III, viii, 1, fl. 207). Mas a datao do processo de escrita subjacente sia est largamente porfazer, e uma das razes pelas quais seria til uma edio crtica anotada de toda a obra.

6 Sobre a possvel passagem de Barros de uma postura aberta ao dilogo, nomeadamentecom compatriotas judeus e cristos-novos, para posies de acomodao a um clima poltico ecultural marcado pela intolerncia frente alteridade religiosa, cf. o artigo de Antnio BorgesCOELHO, Joo de Barros e a questo judaico-crist-nova, in Oceanos, 27 (1996), 75-82.

7 Cf. infra o captulo Alcances e limitaes da escrita comparativa.8 Boa parte das aparentes contradies esfuma-se alis com a simples acepo de que um

certo pacifismo e um certo cruzadismo no se excluam necessariamente no quadro de umaposio patritica no sculo XVI (cf. BOXER, Joo de Barros, p. 101).

9 No podemos deixar de referir aqui os estudos que Lus Filipe BARRETO efectuou sobrea cultura da escrita antropolgico-geogrfica portuguesa de Quinhentos, debruando-se prin-cipalmente sobre Duarte Barbosa e Tom Pires, mas aflorando tambm alguns dos mais importantes aspectos do discurso de Joo de Barros, nomeadamente em Descobrimentos e Re-nascimento. Formas de Ser e Pensar nos Sculos XV e XVI, IN-CM, Lisboa, 1983, esp. pp. 136-143e 153-168. Cf. tambm, do mesmo autor, As grandes obras portuguesa de carcter geogrfico,in Portugal no Mundo (dir. Lus de ALBUQUERQUE), Alfa, Lisboa, 1989, vol. VI, pp. 45-59, e As viagens martimas e a nova viso do mundo e da natureza, ibid., pp. 86-93.

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As descries antropolgico-geogrficas na sia: inteno e seleco

Para compreender por que Barros escrevia e de que maneira se prepa-rava para a redaco de cada captulo etnogrfico da sia, nunca ser demaisfrisar as intenes do autor enquanto escritor em geral. A antropologia noconstitua nesta poca um campo do conhecimento rigorosamente delimi-tado face a outras reas do conhecimento e da aco intelectual e moral.Pedagogo e gramtico, Barros acreditava numa historiografia edificante. As Dcadas da sia, mais do que para fazer o discurso das cousas passa-das 10, foram escritas como livros onde se perpetuaria a memria de feitosgloriosos para proveito e edificao das geraes vindouras. Foi nesta pers-pectiva que Barros abriu o prlogo primeira Dcada com reflexes emtorno do papel da linguagem, da memria e da escrita nas sociedades huma-nas 11. A redaco de uma obra que para sempre lembrasse os feitos dosportugueses no Oriente era vista pelo autor como uma obrigao moral nos perante aqueles cuja memria se guardava, como tambm, e principal-mente, perante todos os que, no futuro, viessem a assumir responsabilidadesna conquista e na administrao do reino e do Estado da ndia 12.

A vontade de escrever uma histria exemplar cujos factos (do passado)estivessem ao servio da aco poltica de novas geraes (do futuro) efectivamente um dos intuitos que mais marcaram a redaco das Dcadas.A histria, conforme afirmava Barros no clebre prlogo Dcadaterceira, hum agro e campo onde est semeada toda a doctrina, diuinal,moral, racional e jnstrumental: quem pastar o seu fructo, conuertello h emforas de jntendimento e memoria, pera vso de justa e perfecta vida, com que

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10 Dcada I, livro ix, captulo 5, p. 364.11 Sendo os actos humanos, ao contrrio dos naturais, baseados no entendimento e na

vontade, eles acontecem potencialmente para a eternidade. A prpria linguagem humana seria,para Barros, expresso (de inspirao divina) da vontade humana em perpetuar-se de umamaneira diferente dos outros seres, dando continuidade existncia prpria no s atravs daprocriao, mas tambm atravs da memria, artifcio que torna imortal o indivduo (I, Prlogo,p. 1). Barros realou, neste contexto, o papel da memria escrita: as letras sendo huns caracteres mortos e nam animados, contem em sy espirito de vida porque, ao contrrio dasnarraes faladas, os textos escritos no corrompem os seus contedos ao longo dos anos (I, Prlogo, p. 2).

12 Fica daqui a cada hum de ns natural e justa obrigaam, que assy deuemos ser dili-gentes e solicitos em guardar em futuro nossas obras pera com ella aproueitarmos em bomexemplo (I, Prlogo, p. 2). Pouco mais se aprendia sobre a concepo historiogrfica de Barrosnos prlogos das duas primeiras Dcadas, impressas em 1552 e 1553 respectivamente. Tudoindica porm que Barros recebeu duras crticas nos anos que se seguiram, levando-o a abrir a terceira Dcada (impressa em 1563) com um extraordinrio manifesto historiogrfico em que so explicitadas as concepes subjacentes escrita em questo. Para uma anlise apro-fundada dos prlogos da sia, veja-se Pedro CALAFATE, A Filosofia da Histria no RenascimentoPortugus: Joo de Barros, in Vieira de Almeida. Colquio do Centenrio, FLUL, Lisboa, 1991,pp. 137-150.

apraz a Deos e aos homeens. 13 Da que a primeira liam (depois da diuinaque sempre deue preceder a todas) em que se deuem criar aquelles que Deoselegeo pera o gouerno e administraam pubrica: em os annaes e chronicasde seu proprio regno e patria. Acrescia a esta necessidade de conhecer ahistria portuguesa a liam das Chrnicas dos reynos vezinhos, com quecommunicam e tem conferencia de negocios, e de sy a toda outra historiaproueitosa 14; e era daqui que advinha, devido situao geopoltica dePortugal e do seu imprio polimorfo, a premncia de um conhecimento sistemtico das realidades histricas, polticas e culturais de reinos e socie-dades situados nas mais diversas partes do mundo conhecido.

Enquanto Barros se dedicava a esta tarefa herclea, s muito raramenteperdia de vista os seus intentos moralizantes. Esta afirmao aplica-se tantos digresses histricas como s passagens em que se descreviam culturasalheias. Como no podia deixar de ser, a atitude moralista de Barros temvindo a suscitar as mais duras crticas no que respeita sua credibilidadehistrica 15. Ora, Barros moralizava, mas fazia-o aberta e intencionalmente,com sistema e seguindo risca preceitos que convm explicitar. As falhashabitualmente criticadas obedeciam desde o incio da primeira Dcada a umcritrio rigoroso de seleco, o qual se sobrepunha decididamente aos crit-rios da exaustividade e da objectividade (a primeira e mais principal parteda historia a verdade della, porm em algumas cousas nam ha de ser tanta[] 16). Segundo Barros, era imperioso encobrir partes da verdade parafazer sobressair outras melhores.

Esta selectividade era uma das principais virtudes da sia aos olhos doseu autor. semelhana daquelle pintor que tirando a el Rey Felipe pay deAlexandre per natural, tomoulhe a postura do rostro de maneira que lheencobrisse ho defecto que tinha, que era hum olho menos 17, Barros nohesitava em calar acontecimentos e fenmenos desagradveis, embelezandocom aberta intencionalidade os factos que conhecia. O seu receio maior era que uma escrita escandalosa mais no faria do que fomentar acesigualmente escandalosas 18. No se tratava aqui de uma fraqueza con-cepcional, como se tem afirmado, mas sim de um dos principais trunfos deBarros na batalha intelectual e editorial que travava com outros historia-

13 III, Prlogo, s.p.14 III, Prlogo, s.p.15 Para uma discusso de algumas passagens significativamente diferentes nas descries

de Barros, Castanheda e Gis, cf. Historiadores Quinhentistas. Seleco, prefcio e notas deRodrigues LAPA, 3. edio, Seara Nova, Lisboa, 1972.

16 III, Prlogo, s.p.17 III, Prlogo, s.p.18 Barros invocava a este respeito Plotino, realando que nam conuem oulhar sempre as

cousas presentes, mas a reuoluam que ellas tem do preterito pera a futuro. Porque o seu cursonatural, hum bem responder ao outro & hum mal a outro mal (III, Prlogo, s.p.).

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dores da era joanina, nomeadamente Castanheda 19. A qualidade da histriae da etnografia oriental deveria residir na forma da sua narrao, ou seja, naarquitectura geral do edifcio literrio erguido, muito mais do que na min-cia concreta de cada dado apresentado 20.

Note-se como a seleco dos dados etnogrficos em funo do papel queeles poderiam desempenhar no texto era um acto primordial, fundamentalpara Barros. Era ele que permitia, conforme adiante se poder ver melhor,que as informaes no se derramassem, desprovidas de sentido para o leitorquinhentista, por pginas e pginas de um sia incompreensvel, aborrecidae porventura pouco salutar. No por acaso que, contrariamente ao seuseguidor, Diogo do Couto, para quem a escrita da histria era essencialmentereflexo da recolha de tradies orais (portuguesas e outras) 21, Barros viviaobcecado pela busca de fontes escritas portuguesas e orientais. verdadeque ele usou tambm numerosos relatos orais, mas a sua preferncia iaclaramente para a forma escrita. Embora procurasse ouvir relatos de nume-rosas testemunhas oculares que viajaram pelo Oriente, sentia-se visivelmenteincomodado pela sua imediatez e intensidade emocional, e esta atitudeganha ainda em significado se for vista sobre o pano de fundo de uma pocafortemente marcada pela oralidade.

Numa das raras passagens imbudas de uma ponta de ironia, Barrosescreve: porque ao tempo que enqueramos e buscuamos as achegasparelle [o nosso trabalho], se faluamos com mareantes tudo queriam quefosse da sua professam: contar da viagem e naufragios, o caualeiro que

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19 Os ataques mais evidentes dirigiam-se contra Nebrija, cujos excessos retricos Barroscriticou expressamente, recusando denegrir gratuitamente monarcas estrangeiros ou empregarhiprboles demasiado gritantes na descrio das glrias militares (III, Prlogo, s.p.) Outrascrticas, menos explcitas, mas igualmente claras, visavam evidentemente o maior rival nacional,Ferno Lopes de CASTANHEDA, cuja Histria do descobrimento e conquista da ndia pelos Portu-gueses comeara a sair do prelo em 1551. Note-se tambm o contraste com a tradio cronsticaquatrocentista; Ferno Lopes escrevera no prlogo Crnica de D. Joo I: Se outros perventuira em esta crnica buscam fermosura e novidade de pallavras e nom a ertido das estrias, desprazer-lhe- de nosso razoado [] Mas ns, nom curando de seu juzo, leixados oscompostos e afeitados razoamentos que muito deleitom aqueles que ouvem, ante poemos asmprez verdade que a afremosentada falssidade. (Cit. por Jeremy LAWRANCE, Memory andinvention in fifteenth-century iberian historiography, in A Histria: Entre Memria e Inveno,coord. de Pedro CARDIM, CNCDP/Europa-Amrica, Mem Martins, 1998, pp. 91-128.)

20 Barros reservou mais de uma pgina inteira (ou seja, uma sexta parte) do seu principalmanifesto historiogrfico, o prlogo da terceira Dcada, exaltao de Homero e do gnero dafbula: porque tem tanto poder a fora da eloquencia, que mais doce e accepta na orelha e noanimo, huma fabula composta com o decoro que lhe conuem: que huma verdade sem ordem esem ornato que a forma natural della (III, Prlogo, s.p.). A metfora arquitectnica doprprio Barros: conuem escolhermos pedras lauradas e pulidas dos mais jlustres feitos quepera efecto desta obra concorrer, e dos meudos por a gr multid delles e n fazer muytoentulho, n faremos mais conta que quto forem necessrios pera atar e liar a parede dahistria (II, Prlogo, p. 1).

21 Cf. Maria Augusta Lima CRUZ, As Vozes da ndia nas Dcadas da sia de Diogo doCouto, in Oceanos, 19/20 [1994], pp. 182-188.

escreuesse somente os auctos de seu officio, o geographo a situaam da terra,o mercador o preo e peso das cousas, o curioso a variedade de costumes dasgentes: finalmente cada hum namorado da sua jnclinaam, prometendo lhenos que faramos desta nossa Asia huma botica em que elle achasse mezinhade sua enfermidade, nam ficaua satisfecto porque quissera que fora a mayorparte chea daquella que lhe cura seu effecto 22. O documento escrito permi-tia a Barros um distanciamento bem mais propcio seleco e mani-pulao, ou seja, ao exerccio de uma verdadeira autoridade sobre o texto que se propunha construir 23.

Para assegurar que a sua histria e etnografia fossem de leitura agra-dvel e proveitosa, Barros comeava por omitir o que lhe parecia nefasto boa educao dos leitores. Um dos trechos mais interessantes a este respeito a omisso pura e simples de dados que estavam disponveis noutras obrasanteriores ou noutros contextos narrativos acha-se certamente no captulodedicado cristandade malabar, onde quase nada se revela sobre os costu-mes religiosos dos habitantes locais, considerados demasiado assimilados aoseu contexto hindu e carentes de reeducao por parte dos missionrios dopadroado portugus. As seis pginas em questo vertem quase exclusiva-mente sobre a histria do apstolo So Tom e a busca do seu tmulo sob ogoverno de Nuno da Cunha. Mesmo assim, Barros calou totalmente umaimportante verso indiana da hagiografia tomense, onde o apstolo se trans-formava miraculosamente em pavo antes de morrer. O detalhe narrativo dametamorfose, que Barros muito provavelmente conhecia, dificilmente secoadunava com a dignidade que o assunto requeria numa crnica oficiosa 24.

22 II, Prlogo, p. 2.23 Pode realar-se aqui uma dvida lanada por Pedro Cardim, que legitimamente se ques-

tiona sobre o conceito de autor na poca de Barros (Livros, literatura e homens de letras notempo de Joo de Barros, in Oceanos, 27 [1996] pp. 27-47). evidente que a recolha sistem-tica de textos alheios impregnou a obra de uma certa hibridez e mesmo promiscuidade textual,onde por vezes o tom dos relatos originais se sobrepe politura da escrita de Barros, e, nestesentido, admitimos, embora sem concordar, que, seguindo uma leitura que negue ao autor dasia esse mesmo estatuto, nas pginas que ora seguem se possa pensar, sempre que escrevemosBarros, tambm em todos os testemunhos ouvidos e lidos por Barros. Porm, no caso dasia, seria difcil negar a existncia de traos muito pessoais em toda a obra traos no s estilsticos, mas tambm conceptuais, morais e emocionais, e um dos argumentos principais dopresente estudo precisamente que Barros manipulou os dados recolhidos de modo a construirum texto inteiramente seu. Para uma genealogia textual exemplar, embora restrita a algumaspginas apenas da sia, veja-se Jos da Silva HORTA, Uma leitura de Zurara por Joo deBarros, in Amar, Sentir e Viver a Histria Estudos de Homenagem a Joaquim Verssimo Serro,Colibri, Lisboa, 1995, pp. 673-702.

24 III, vii, 11, fls. 303v-306v. A verso omissa fora j anteriormente narrada por DuarteBarbosa, Ferno Lopes de Castanheda e Gaspar Correia (cf. Joo Paulo Oliveira e COSTA, OsPortugueses e a cristandade siro-malabar (1498-1530), Stvdia, 52 [1994] p. 143). Alis, o pr-prio Barros confessa, na primeira dcada (I, ix, 1, p. 344), estar na posse de um documento, doqual hoje conhecemos o contedo, e que narrava a histria do apstolo-pavo. Trata-se prova-velmente do texto que resumia as concluses da inquirio levada a cabo no Choromndel em

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Noutro contexto, alis, Barros chegou a defender explicitamente aprtica da omisso. Ao escrever sobre a conquista da tanadaria de Salsetepelos portugueses em 1521, at ento sob alada do Idalco, entendeu deverfornecer algumas informaes sobre o principal inimigo deste potentadomuulmano, o rei hindu de Bisnaga ou Vijayanagar. As expectativas assimcriadas junto do leitor eram porm rapidamente frustradas com a seguinteafirmao: dando ns noticia de como [o rei de Bisnaga] se serue e dosapparatos de sua casa, duamos huuma mostra em que se podia julgar suariqueza e poder: [Mas:] por serem cousas de principes deliciosos e soberbos,que querem com ouro, prata, e muyta policia fazer suas casas templos deadoraam: e no seruio de suas pessoas huma maneira de jdolatria []:leixaremos todas estas supersties [] 25.

Conforme j sublinhmos noutro lugar, a aniquilao de dados quepreenchiam as pginas de relatos anteriores era um elemento estruturante de primeira importncia para a escrita barrosiana 26. Eliminar informaes

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1530, onde constavam vrias verses da lenda de S. Tom (cf. Jos Pereira da COSTA, GasparCorreia e a lenda do Apstolo S. Tom, Estudos de Histria e Cartografia Antiga, Memrias, 25,IICT, Lisboa, 1985). No que respeita cultura religiosa contempornea dos cristos siro-mala-bares, Barros pouco mais referiria do que a escassez de gua benta e de sacerdotes. Para umautor que muitas vezes conversara com um cristo oriundo dessa regio, isso francamentepouco. Parece-nos improvvel que o humanista tivesse resistido a inquirir junto deste cristosobre as prticas e doutrinas siro-malabares. O indivduo em questo poder ter sido um dosquatro cristos malabares cuja presena em Lisboa, no Convento dos Lios, esteve na origem daredaco da Cartinha gramatical de 1539 (cf. Ana Isabel BUESCU, Joo de Barros: Humanismo,mercancia e celebrao imperial, in Oceanos, 27 [1996], pp. 10-24). Numa poca em que j setrabalhava seriamente na reconduo dos herticos nestorianos do Malabar ao seio daigreja romana, no valeria a pena, na perspectiva de Barros, expor detalhes comprometedoressobre essa comunidade (cf. III, vii, 11, fl. 206v). Joo Paulo Oliveira e COSTA (op. cit.) defendeuque as atitudes dos portugueses frente alteridade religiosa dos cristos siro-malabares teriamsido, nos primeiros decnios do sculo XVI, marcadas por uma mentalidade mais aberta,permitindo que praticamente no se falasse, antes de meados de Quinhentos, de heresianestes contextos. portanto possvel que as omisses na terceira Dcada (1563) se devam j radicalizao das opinies sobre as cristandades orientais e ao consequente recrudescimentoda censura oficial. Mas, independentemente da conjuntura fanatizante, Barros possua umpudor que tambm noutras circunstncias o impedia de dar importncia a crenas milagrosasa seu ver pouco salutares, porque desprovidas de razo crtica. Uma histria em que o apstolode Cristo se transformava numa colorida ave oriental ultrapassava claramente os limites datolerncia intelectual do autor, independentemente do ambiente que em Lisboa se vivia.

25 III, iv, 4, fl. 97v. O intuito da descrio oferecida neste captulo era, evidentemente, o derealar o poderio militar do rei Crisnarao de Bisnaga. Um pouco mais adiante, Barrosdescreveu com mincia pelo menos uma parte das supersties que de incio calou, criticandoagora concretamente a desmesurada importncia dada pelo soberano hindu aos pressgios dosseus jdolos e aos sacrifcios de animais propostos pelos seus conselheiros religiosos. Mas estasinformaes referem-se concretamente s campanhas militares movidas contra o Idalco. O queBarros de facto omitiu so as supersties, que procedem do sobejo ter e repouso da vida,nomeadamente todo o aparato corteso dos tempos de paz.

26 De regresso ao Quarto Imprio: a China de Joo de Barros e o imaginrio imperialjoanino, Actas do Congresso Internacional D. Joo III e o Imprio, no prelo.

que ameaavam sobrecarregar o texto era um passo decisivo no processo dereordenamento do saber subjacente elaborao das descries orientais nasia. Presentemente, preferimos destacar os aspectos mais positivos ouconstrutivos. Barros tambm utilizava e sublinhava informaes oriundasde culturas distantes para tecer consideraes sobre a decadncia moral emPortugal, e, como veremos mais adiante, para as integrar em categoriasculturais conhecidas no Ocidente que ajudavam a organizar e compreenderas mais dspares realidades do Oriente, das quais assim se ia construindouma imagem coerente.

No que respeita ao uso abertamente moralizante de informaes sobre o Oriente, as Dcadas oferecem inmeros exemplos. Um dos mais polmicos certamente o remate descrio do cristianismo etipico (apresentado, nasenda do relato de Francisco lvares, como uma realidade fortemente mar-cada por reminiscncias judaizantes e hbitos brbaros): parece que maistem aproueitado a estes, nesta parte [da Etipia], a jgnorancia da luz da ley:que a ns a claridade della. 27 O que Barros insinuava com este enunciado,em forte contraste com o resto da descrio, extremamente pessimista noque toca religiosidade dos etopes, dizia evidentemente respeito ao estadodas coisas na metrpole, mais do que na frica Oriental: a saber, que a leiturada Bblia e uma vida feita de aparncias crists no eram, por si s, indica-dores de uma religiosidade profunda e verdadeira. Ser bom cristo seriafundamentalmente uma questo de atitude interior, de uma entrega total aDeus, quer na Etipia quer em Portugal 28.

No obstante as presses inquisitoriais e cortess (ou talvez, por vezes,graas a elas), a polmica a