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- Convenor:
-
Kioko Koiso
(University of Lisbon & CHAM)
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- Location:
- Bloco 1, Sala 0.09
- Start time:
- 13 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The Tragic History of the Sea is a collectanea of 12 accounts on Portuguese shipwrecks occurred between 1552 and 1602, compiled by Bernardo Gomes de Brito in 1735-36. The goal of the panel is to gather the opinions, not only literary but of several areas to disclose the characteristics of this work.
Long Abstract:
On the XVI and XVII centuries, beyond the Portuguese deeds, maritime voyage adversities have taken place. To be precise, one in each five ships that left Lisbon on the way to India was shipwrecked. On the second half of the XVI century and the first of the XVII century, the rate of losses reached almost 25%. Furthermore, in almost 40% of the events, it is not known why the calamity happened, as all the crew, passengers and cargo sank. However direct and indirect, testimonies circulated widely as fascicles, captivating people that way. Twelve accounts, some of them were not published, were collected in 1735 and 1736 by Bernardo Gomes de Brito in two tomes, with the title Tragic History of the Sea. The collectanea, which has been acknowledged and appreciated as a literary work, is a fruitful source, which provides information either historical, nautical and geographical as well as zoological, botanical, psychological, anthropological, among other areas. In addition to predecessor researchers such as Charles Ralph Boxer, Giulia Lanciani and António Manuel Andrade Moniz, the subject still incites those who are interested to produce works and academic dissertations. Nevertheless, the approach has focused rather the literary interpretation, without relating the mentioned information to other areas. In those circumstances, the present panel intends to disclose the characteristics of the shipwreck accounts, including the ones not compiled in the Tragic History of the Sea and making the analysis under diversified points of view.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Aurelia Martín Casares (University of Granada) Ana Ruiz Gutiérrez (Granada University)
Paper short abstract:
We will study shipwrecks with slaves in their cargoin order to understand what happened to these people, how the loss of their lives was valued in official counts, if they could become free people when they escaped alive, and other issues related to the topic.
Paper long abstract:
Trade in the vast Spanish Empire of the Renaissance involved the constant voyage of ships between distant ports of America, Asia and Europe. The trips were generally dangerous, especially some routes, not only because of the storms and winds, but also due to the pirates. In this paper, we will study the wreck of ships that contained slaves in their cargo, to analyze what happened to these people and how the loss of their lives was valued in official counts, but also if they could become free people when they escaped alive. The historical sources come mainly from the Archivo de Indias (Seville), but also from other Spanish archives, such as the Archivo of the Crown of Aragon, or the National Historical Archive (Madrid). This paper corresponds to an incipient line of research on slave ships, within the framework of an I+D research project on slavery in the history of Spain. Among the documents studied, there are references, for example, to 8 black slaves that finally reached the mainland, coming from a slave ship, which was captured on the coast of Peru by the pirates (1694). I also found a shipwreck on the Spanish coast of Valencia in 1637, among whose cargo there were also slaves. We also know that frauds were made in the reporting of shipwrecks, as was the case in Mexico (1591), when Dr. Hernando de Saavedra was sent to inquire about the fraud with the slaves.
Maria Luísa Leal (Universidad de Extremadura)
Paper short abstract:
The shipwreck of the Nossa Senhora dos Milagres (1686), by the Jesuit priest Pierre Tachard, aloud an interesting gaze’s crossing and allows us to put into perspective the Eurocentric visions of the Other exhibited by the Portuguese shipwreck narratives.
Paper long abstract:
The epic masterpiece of the Portuguese literature, The Lusiads (1572), that describes a fundamental episode of maritime expansion, the discovery voyage of Vasco da Gama, includes a mise-en-abîme of the history of Portugal, and invites the reader to identify themselves with a collective hero, the Portuguese people. It is easy to recognize, in the author's strategy, an issue of exaltation and construction of an auto-image capable of overcoming the "sad, somber, and vile sadness" in which, according to Luís Vaz de Camões, the country had sunk. Nonetheless, even within this epic lies a tale of a shipwreck, the most famous of all the narratives generally known in Portugal as Shipwreck literature. Our view is that Shipwreck literature has had an enormous influence in the construction of a negative auto-image of the Portuguese nation, particularly at times of crisis such as the transition between the 19th and the 20th centuries, or towards the turn of the 21th. The corpus of this Shipwreck literature consists mainly of twelve accounts from The Tragic History of the Sea collection, all written by Portuguese authors. Thus, our aim is to amplify the perspective with the study of the narrative of the shipwreck of the Nossa Senhora dos Milagres (1686), written by the Jesuit priest Pierre Tachard. This shipwreck is experienced by a Siamese mandarin, whose perspective allows us to put into perspective the Eurocentric visions of the Other exhibited by the Portuguese shipwreck narratives.
Maria Paula (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa)
Paper short abstract:
In 1593, an anonymous survivor of the Santo Alberto shipwreck redacted a daily guide-book about the maritime disaster, the landing salvage and the interaction with the local African Peoples. We aspire to analyze and compare the text of an anonymous witness with Lavanha's official printed version.
Paper long abstract:
In 1593, the ship Santo Alberto faced a tragic end on the shore of Southeastern Africa.
An anonymous traveler wrote a vivid memory of the loss and the journey of the survivors through the land, then called by the Portuguese "Cafraria". The author devotes most of his discourse to the description of the inland and the many Southern Bantu communities with whom the castaways interacted along a forced peregrination.
The text which has made the Santo Alberto shipwreck famous was written by the Royal Cosmographer, João Baptista Lavanha, and it was printed in 1597. This version came to integrate The Tragic History of the Sea, assembled by Gomes de Brito in the XVIII century, and, across the several editions of this compilation, became the historical source for the study of this shipwreck.
It is our purpose to present and analyze the anonymous account entitled "Perdição da nao Santo Alberto, e das cousas da Cafraria, costumes dos que a abitão ate o Cabo das Correntes" (BnP, Cod. 639), emphasizing its historical and literary value, establishing points of comparison and proposing its precedence to Lavanha's printed book. As a text that was known and read at that time, in the context of a manuscript circulation culture it was, most probably, one of the sources of Lavanha's account.
With this paper, our hope is to contribute an essential reading to the field of maritime voyages studies, as well as the encounter with different Geographies, Peoples and Cultures and its written discourses and representations.
Kioko Koiso (University of Lisbon & CHAM)
Paper short abstract:
In every new edition, the original account of Sepulveda's shipwreck suffered changes from the manuscript to the version published in the Tragic History of the Sea. In this presentation I will show how some words and expressions changed until the most common account we know of.
Paper long abstract:
The first account of the Tragic History of the Sea on the shipwreck of the Galleon São João, sunk in 1552, and known as «Sepulveda's shipwreck», is the most famous of the twelve accounts of this compilation as it tells the impressive story of the death of Dona Leonor, wife of the captain Manuel de Sousa de Sepulveda. There is a manuscript that can be the original version of the account or maybe the closest version to the original one that includes a series of words and descriptions different from the version published in the Tragic History of the Sea. For instance, the description of the death of Dona Leonor who, instead of digging a hole in the sand and lying there to die as we read in the text of the compilation, she stayed in the sand, naked, without digging a hole, according to the manuscript, is one example. This change, adding a touch of drama to the account, was published in the first edition of the story as well as other details concerning the description of the events.
The account was very popular when it was published and many editions were printed, more than any other accounts, so it is natural that each edition had copying errors and misprints. When I compare each version with the next one, I notice accidental or intentional changes.
In this presentation, I will show the changes along the editions on the part of the walking by the coast.