Portuguese History, Portuguese Empire and Historical Figures

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Interessantíssimo. O rei português que mais gosto ou pelo menos o que eu mais estudei foi o Dom João VI, um exímio estrategista, para mim sem dúvida nenhuma ele foi o ''Pai do Brasil'' ele além de ter arquitetado a independência do Brasil e ter impedido que américa portuguesa se tornasse um monte de repúblicas de bananas, foi um rei que transformou o Brasil, implementou várias melhorias nos serviços e na infraestrutura, construiu hospitais, novas residências, palacetes etc.. Uma pena que algumas pessoas retratam ele apenas como ''um gordo corno comedor de frango''.


Outro bastante conhecido por aqui é o Dom Sebastião, assim como em Portugal aqui também existia a crença de que ''o Dom Sebastião iria retornar'' existia até um mito na região do Maranhão de que o Dom Sebastião viveu em uma ilha na região, durante o período colonial o Dom Sebastião virou uma espécie de lenda por aqui.. Algo mais recente foi a figura de Antonio Conselheiro no nordeste do Brasil, Antonio Conselheiro foi um monarquista conhecido pela guerra de canudos, segundo ele ''Dom Sebastião iria retornar dos mortos para restaurar a monarquia no Brasil'' Antonio Conselheiro foi morto em 1897 pelo governo republicano brasileiro. Enfim, Dom Sebastião era bastante cultuado no nordeste do Brasil nessa época, principalmente pelos seguidores de Antonio Conselheiro.

A história de Portugal também é a história de grande parte, senão mesmo a maioria dos brasileiros que com maior ou menor grau possuem ancestralidade portuguesa. Por isso, esta série de vídeos é muito interessante com imensas coisas por descobrir para alguém que desconheça. Se mesmo eu aprendi muita coisa que não sabia, imagino que alguém que não tenha a mínima ideia seja muito mais.

Sobre o D. Sebastião é muito interessante que um mito do português europeu também tenha sido tão aceite na cultura do português americano tal como se o americano se sentissem parte integrais e de pleno direito e coração do reino e da nacionalidade portuguesa.

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Monument to the Portuguese Pathfinder Pedro Teixeira (1587-1641) in the city of Belém, capital of Pará State, Brazil. In 1637, he was the first European to go up and down the entire length of the Amazon River.

Pedro Teixeira was one of the key men in the conquest of the current Brazilian Amazon, he participated, with Jerônimo de Albuquerque, in the campaign to expel the French from São Luís do Maranhão, on the northeast coast of Brazil.
After their expulsion, at the end of 1615, the Portuguese Crown ordered an expedition to be sent to the mouth of the Amazon River, with a view to consolidating its possession over the region. An expedition of three vessels, under the command of Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco, was sent, followed by then ensign Pedro Teixeira. On January 12, 1616, the vessels anchored in the bay of Guajará where, on a point of land, the Forte do Presépio was founded, the nucleus of the current city of Belém, capital of the state of Pará.
In 1625 he fought against the Dutch who were in a fort on the Xingu River and the English along the left bank of the Amazon River.
In 1637, Teixeira became the first European to ascend the Amazon River, reaching Quito via the Napo River. The Portuguese expedition was large, consisting of 47 canoes powered by 1,200 native Amazonians and African slaves to transport 70 fully armed Portuguese soldiers and their cargo of food, weapons, ammunition and trade goods. Feeding so many over a journey of several months was a formidable task, demanding the most of the explorers' hunting, fishing, and food-gathering skills, and often requiring bartering with local tribes.
Little is known about Pedro Teixeira other than the expedition to the Amazon. When the expedition was concluded, he went to São Luís do Maranhão to make his report to the governor. He was duly promoted to Captain Major. He accepted the position of governor of Pará on February 28, 1640, but resigned after three months due to ill health. He died on July 4, 1641.

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Portugal and Japan: the extremes converge

«In Nagasaki, the "Kasutera", a kind of cake created based on the Portuguese sponge cake recipe, became famous and became popular with the Japanese people. We also add that the word "bōro", which is used to describe the famous confectionery "maru-bōro" in the neighboring prefecture of Saga, also comes from the Portuguese word "bolo". In addition to the above, several other novelties were also introduced in Japan, brought from Portugal at that time, such as "pan" (pão-bread), "kompeitō" (confeito-confectionery), "koppu" (copo-cup), "botan" (botão-button), 'shabon' (sabão-soap), 'karuta' (carta-letter) and 'bīdoro' (vidro-a type of glass toy) are still used in the Japanese language'.

“[The Japanese] were particularly interested in the mecha-clasp shotgun, which could hit a target from a distance with a roar. Tanegashima Tokitaka, the then lord of Tanegashima Island, acquired two shotguns, ordered his vassals to learn the composition of gunpowder, so that his swordsmith made dozens of copies, having been very successful. The Portuguese must have been surprised at how quickly they were able to produce copies of their weapons. In fact, fifty years after the introduction of the shotgun, Japan has become the world's largest producer of this weapon.”

«Apart from weapons, the most "relevant" aspect in the initial phase of the history of exchanges between the two countries was perhaps the great "boom" of Portuguese culture in Japan at that time, known as the "Namban" culture. The impact of this first encounter with the West was immense, and the influence of the "Namban" style on art, artefacts and furniture was undeniable. Through works of art, such as, for example, the screens depicting the arrival of Portuguese ships and the disembarkation of sailors in Japan, on display in the Museu do Oriente and the Museu de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, and in the collection of Soares dos Reis in Porto , we can, even today, relive a part of the experiences shared by the Portuguese and Japanese at the time of the meeting. Portuguese ships began to enter the port of Hirado, where Luís de Almeida, the first to introduce western medicine to Japan, left his footprints, and later in the port of Yokoseura, where Luís Fróis, the author of "História do Japão ", disembarked, before finally passing to the port of Nagasaki.»

Ushio Shigeru, Ambassador of Japan in Lisbon, in DN 11 February 2022.

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513 years since the Battle of Diu, glorious Portuguese naval victory

The growing Portuguese power in the Indian Ocean, where the Portuguese increasingly sought to control trade and channel spices to Europe via the Cape Route, was on a collision course with the Muslim mercantile networks installed in the region.
In 1508, an Ottoman armada prepared in Cairo with the support of the Republic of Venice was sent by the Sultan to fight the Portuguese. This fleet would inflict a heavy defeat on Portuguese forces at the Battle of Chaul, from which, among the approximately 200 casualties on the Portuguese side, D. Lourenço de Almeida, son of the Viceroy of India D. Francisco de Almeida, would stand out.

In response to this affront, on the 25th of November from Cananor, a Portuguese squadron left, made up of five larger ships and four smaller ships, round and Latin caravels, galleys and a brigantine, counting between 1000 and 1500 men, supported by about 400 malabars of Cochin and captained by D. Francisco de Almeida with the intention of attacking the enemy ships, docked in Diu, where it arrived on February 2, 1509.

On the morning of February 3, the Portuguese forces would be divided into four, one group to board the Mamluk ships after a preliminary bombardment, another to attack the Mamluk galleys from the flank, a bombing group that would support the rest of the fleet and the flagship itself, the mythical Flor do Mar, which would position itself in a convenient position to direct the battle and support the rest of the fleet with its firepower.
The brigantine Santo António, responsible for communications, then traveled around the fleet delivering the Viceroy's speech, motivating the Portuguese forces.

At around 11 am, the royal flag was hoisted atop Flor do Mar and a single shot was fired, signaling the start of battle. The Portuguese then began their approach, with the galley São Miguel at the head of the formation, sounding the channel. A general bombardment between the two forces preceded the fighting, and within the calm waters of the port of Diu, the Portuguese employed an innovative artillery tactic, firing directly into the water so that cannonballs ricocheted off enemy ships.

When the ships made contact, the flagship of Mir-Hocém, commander of the enemy forces, was boarded by the ship Santo Espírito, with a group of men led by Rui Pereira jumping onto the enemy ship. Rui Pereira would be killed in the fighting, but the nau Rei Grande, captained by Francisco de Távora, boarded the free side of the Nau Capitânia de Mir-Hocém, adding to the confrontation much-needed reinforcements that tipped the balance in favor of the Portuguese, who would eventually take the Flagship, and Mir-Hocém died in the fighting. In the course of the battle, the Portuguese conquered most of the ships, concluding at dusk a sublime victory.

The Portuguese fleet did not lose any ships and sank four enemy ships, captured another six and two galleys, having sunk a large number of fustas and paraus. Three dozen Portuguese died, around 300 were injured, while on the Egyptian side there were more than 3000 dead and many more injured.
The Naval Battle of Diu would be decisive to establish Portuguese power in the Indian Ocean, consolidating a hegemony that would continue for the following century and a half.

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In the lands of Portugal, Christian Europe was born

One hundred years after Constantine, and one hundred years before the Frankish Clovis, a monarch little known today, with a court in Braga and ruling over Galicia and northern Portugal, was the first barbarian king in European history to convert to Catholicism. Before him, only, perhaps, the Vandal Genseric, the Germanic chief who transferred his tribe from Spain to North Africa, took Carthage, sacked Rome and managed to transform the Vandals, former masters of horses, into masters of the Mediterranean. But if he ever converted to the Catholic faith, Genseric did not remain in it for long: he apostatized as soon as he could and, converted to the Arian heresy, became a vehement opponent of Catholicism in his domain. Requiarius, quite differently, received the water of baptism and never shook it. Braga owes him the immense honor of having been the second Catholic capital of Europe.

In Requiario's veins ran the blood of great men. His grandfather was Hermeric, who in the year 409 of our era had crossed the Rhine at the head of a large host of Suevi and other Germans, had invaded Gaul and, shattering the Romans again and again, had come to find in Galicia and Portugal a new homeland to their people. The Empire of Rome knew in these decades the final agony, with weak men for emperors and foreign generals, like the vandal Stilicho, as rulers. It was this dead and exhausted Rome that Requila, son of Hermeric and father of Rechiarius, expelled from half Spain and almost threw it into the Mediterranean.

Unlike Hermeric, who had been a Germanic pagan, and Requila, who had either converted to the Arius heresy or died a gentile, Rechiarius was the first of the Suevi kings - and of all the Germanic monarchs in Europe - to embrace the Catholic faith. According to Isidore of Seville, whose Historia Suevorum is one of the most important surviving sources on the Suebian monarchy, Rechiarius would have converted to Catholic Christianity even before his coronation. He had his capital in Braga, with a court that was simultaneously composed of German Suebi and Roman-Galicians and native Roman-Portuguese. He was not, however, a Romanizer. Unlike other barbarian kings, so many of whom were mesmerized by the glow of Latin civilization, Rechiarius despised the law and institutions of Rome. After the death of Flavius ​​Aetius, the great Roman general and statesman who defeated Attila in the Catalan Fields, Rechiarius invaded the rest of Spain with the aim of extending the Suevian rule to the entire peninsula. He was defeated by Theodoric, Visigothic king who intervened against the Suebi offensive at the behest of Rome, and forced to flee to "Portugale". It was in "Portugale", today the city of Porto, that he was captured and killed. There followed the sack of the great Catholic city of Braga by the Arian Visigoths, the looting of the churches and the destruction of the Suebian monarchy, which fell into a long and painful anarchy. Thus, dead in Portugal, the first barbarian monarch to convert to Catholicism fell. And with the adoption of the faith of Rome by that German king, the Middle Ages was born.

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Luís Fróis, the Portuguese who helped to understand Japan

Born in Lisbon in 1532, Luís Frós would join the Society of Jesus in 1548. In 1565, he joined a Jesuit mission to evangelize the Japanese territory, twenty years after the establishment of relations between Portugal and Japan.

He would arrive in 1566 in the city of Kyoto, where he would be received by Ashikaga Yoshiteru, then shogun, commanding general of the Japanese army. Fróis would eventually settle permanently in the residence of Oda Nobunaga, daimyo who would become known as the great warrior who would start the reunification of the Empire of the Rising Sun, in the city of Gifu.

Luís Fróis developed an in-depth work of understanding and describing the Japanese traditions and culture of the 16th century, writing letters in which he described them to Macau, the Holy See and the Crown.

Having been guided by the Portuguese missionary Gaspar Vilela, Fróis recounted in his letters the civil war that was unfolding around the capital of the Japanese Empire, which were translated into several languages ​​and gained great fame in Europe.

Luís Fróis would finish in 1585 his “Treatise on the Differences between Europe and Japan”, a work in which he explained in detail, using more than 600 examples, that the two civilizations were opposites in their practices, but similar in the fact that they were equally civilized.

Fróis was able to establish the difficult balance between two civilizations that, from the start, seemed to be completely antagonistic, studying Japanese culture in depth without ever putting aside his Portuguese roots. Proof of his great understanding of Japanese traditions is the occasion when he wrote about the differences between suicide in Europe, a sin for the Catholic faith, and the practice of Seppuku, a Japanese suicide ritual that could be the greatest honor in a warrior's life.

Luís Fróis would die in 1597 in Nagasaki, at the age of 65, but the texts that the Portuguese wrote describing his vast experience of 34 years in Japan are still an unavoidable source for understanding the History and culture of the Empire of the Rising Sun.

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Portugal vs Dutch was the first Global War in history, fought in Asia, Africa, Europe and Americas and Portugal won it! The Dutch started defeating Portugal in Asia, when Portugal was ruled by Spain, by dynastic reasons from 1580 to 1640, but the war followed in Angola, where Portugal defeated the Dutch - while at war with Spain in the peninsula - and the most important wars of all, it was the war for mighty Brazil, where Portugal total defeated the Dutch! It is strange why for so many time the Dutch vs Portugal was told just with the battles in Asia, where the Dutch won...

Africans, Asians and Europeans in the defense of Macau, the greatest of Portuguese victories over the Netherlands on Asian soil

Integrated since 1580 in the Habsburg monarchy, Portugal inherited from them enemies that it had not had before and conflicts from which it had always tried to abstain. In 1592, the capture of the Portuguese galleon A Madre de Deus by English pirates awoke to the Protestant world, Lisbon's enemy, the awareness of Portugal's economic power and, in that power, the centrality of Portuguese Asia: alone, only one of the King of Portugal galleons had cost England half a million pounds sterling, which was equivalent to half the English treasury. That display of the fabulous wealth to be had in the east excited the English. The Dutch, allies of those in court with the Pope and in the opposition to the Catholic empire of Portuguese and Spaniards, were also enthusiastic. The Dutch East India Company, or VOC, was founded and settled in the Indian Ocean and Insulindia; in 1603, copying England, Holland captured the immense Portuguese galleon Santa Catarina near Singapore. So magnificent was the looting that the ship allowed the Company to increase its capital by 50%, an injection of money that the VOC would use to rapidly expand throughout the East.

Therefore, the enmity of the Protestant world received from Spain - until the Union, Portuguese policy had been pragmatic: in the kingdom and in the empire, repression of Protestantism; in Europe, good trade relations with Holland and England - Portugal found itself at the mercy of the greed of the English and, especially, the Dutch. The Luso-Dutch confrontation would last sixty long years and would constitute the first truly world war in the History of Man: it would be fought by the Portuguese and Flemish, the Cross of Christ against the VOC insignia, carrack and filiboat, in Brazil, in Africa, in India, China and Insulindia. Portugal would win it in the West, preserving Brazil and Angola, and would lose it in the East, with the great banks of Amsterdam taking Ceylon, Malacca and a large part of our Indian possessions.

In 1622, the Dutch also tried to take over Macau. The attack on Santa Catarina twenty years earlier had made the fortunes of the Company's shareholders and catapulted the company into its project of domination in Asia. What should be clarified is that the Santa Catarina did not transport spices, but porcelain from China. The VOC's first contact with the riches of Asia took place, therefore, through Macau, and Macau, the gateway to China at that time, remained solidly embedded in the minds of Dutch decision-makers. In May 1622, four strong enemy ships appeared in front of Macau. Two featured the VOC's blue, orange, and white pavilion; two others, English, the pavilion of that country. They tried a first onslaught, which Lopo Sarmento de Carvalho, captain of the Portuguese, stopped by building a sandbar on the beaches. Defeated that day, confident of the next, the Dutch preferred to wait on the ships and impose a complete maritime siege of the city.

Macau was precariously defended. Knowing the cycles of trade and the local situation, the Dutch had chosen an opportune time for the invasion. The commercial season had just opened, a large part of the city's Kingdom population - that is, of metropolitan origin - was in Canton; worse, the invasion of Ming China by the Manchus had dictated a request for assistance from Beijing to the Portuguese. Allied to the Emperor, Portugal had honored his request for help and had sent a powerful contingent of four hundred musketeers to the north. In Macau, therefore, there were few and poorly armed people: fifty soldiers and, between boys and adults, from the Kingdom of Portugal and Macanese, about a hundred men capable of taking up arms. So poor was the Portuguese force defending the city that the Dutch had initially hoped to take it with just the four ships that arrived in May. Sarmento de Carvalho's cares had forced to ask for reinforcements from Batavia, the VOC's bastion in Insulíndia. Some ships left from there. Others made their way to Macau via Manila, in the Philippines, where they surrounded the Spanish garrison.

The Dutch fleet, already reinforced, presented itself in front of Macau on June 22, 1622. It was a strong fleet of seventeen ships, two of which were English, and which transported a land contingent of fifteen hundred men. The fighting began when the Dutch naval force, commanded by Admiral Cornelis Reijersen, dispatched two ships against Fort São Francisco. The Flemings did poorly: the fort resisted, ending up being rendered useless - and later, sunk - by Portuguese artillery one of the enemy vessels. Reijersen then ordered a general attack. According to Montalto de Jesus in "Historic Macau", eight hundred Dutchmen descended on the city's beaches, together with a not insignificant number of Japanese and Malays who had joined the Flemish expedition for profit. The English, who had been denied participation in the looting, refused to take part in the landing.

With Macau's garrison far away and the Portuguese force greatly reduced, the salvation of the city was entrusted to the one hundred and fifty Portuguese metropolitans and Portuguese-Chinese, as well as the black slaves residing there. One and the other fought each other with undeniable bravery. Montalto and others narrate the impossible defense of the beaches by António Rodrigues Cavalinho, five other Europeans and a few dozen Africans. Shooting into the smoke in which the Dutch amphibious force was hiding, it is estimated that they shot down forty opponents. Then they retreated to the center pursued, and almost beaten, by the Dutch companies. But these could not be prevented from taking the coast, and they took possession of them at a heavy price. Then they marched into the heart of Macau. The dismayed civilian population allowed itself to be dominated by panic: the Chinese - then called "Chinas" - fled to the countryside; Christian, European and Luso-Chinese families retreated to the great Jesuit seminary in São Paulo. The Jesuits, very numerous there, installed themselves in the Fortaleza do Monte, from where they animated furious artillery fire against the invader.

Reijersen, leading the VOC infantry, penetrated the city to the center. And it seems to have been there that, in a remarkable turn of events, fortunes turned and the Dutch were put into retreat. From Fortaleza do Monte, Father Giacomo Rhó, in China at the service of the Society of Jesus and the Portuguese Crown, fired a cannon on the Flemish troops. Rhó was, already, a great mathematician; the priest would, after this episode, be invited by Emperor Chongzhen of China to Peking and there he would create, and lead, the Imperial Observatory. The priest would have applied the knowledge he had obtained in Goa, where he had studied, to make accurate shots reach the men of Holland. One of them, it seems, blew up the powder shipment that the enemy had brought ashore from the ships. The explosion was immense, killing soldiers and leaving the survivors with no resistance mode. Excited, the defenders - in a human mass in which blacks and Portuguese-Chinese would be the clear majority - launched themselves on them, leaving them with no reaction other than to flee. What followed was a chilling, miserable retreat: the Dutch troop ran, without honor and without glory, towards the sea; Lopo Sarmento de Carvalho and António Rodrigues Cavalinho inspired the Portuguese charge and resolved the day in favor of our weapons. At the end of the day, crowds of tall, blond corpses - this is the comment taken from several Portuguese sources - adorned the streets and beaches of Macau. Only the reports differ as to the extent of the losses from both sides. For the Portuguese, between 300 and 800 Dutch dead; in VOC documentation, 136 dead and 126 wounded. Charles Ralph Boxer, a great authority on the history of the eastern empire of Portugal, sees greater merit in the information provided by the Portuguese and puts the Dutch deaths above three hundred. It is certain that, of these, there are seven captains, four lieutenants and seven flags. For the Portuguese, only six Europeans and an undetermined but low number of Africans, as well as 20 wounded.

The enormous humiliation suffered by the Dutch at the hands of Portugal in Macau was a cause for general consternation in Batavia. The Dutch governor-general, Coen, attributed the Portuguese resistance to the courage of the Africans who served Portugal, many of them slaves. He is said to have said that "the slaves of the Portuguese served them with such fidelity that it was they who defeated us in Macau". The role of African contingents, regardless of the importance of Rhó's artillery, Cavalinho's bravery and Sarmento de Carvalho's command, seems to have been truly decisive for the city's defense. The Portuguese in Macau recognized it by freeing "large numbers of slaves" immediately after the victory. Boxer also mentions that the Chinese viceroy of Canton, admired, sent large quantities of food to Macau to be offered to the most distinguished of African fighters.

[Colonel Frank Grimes]

The enormous humiliation suffered by the Dutch at the hands of Portugal in Macau was a cause for general consternation in Batavia. The Dutch governor-general, Coen, attributed the Portuguese resistance to the courage of the Africans who served Portugal, many of them slaves. He is said to have said that "the slaves of the Portuguese served them with such fidelity that it was they who defeated us in Macau". The role of African contingents, regardless of the importance of Rhó's artillery, Cavalinho's bravery and Sarmento de Carvalho's command, seems to have been truly decisive for the city's defense. The Portuguese in Macau recognized it by freeing "large numbers of slaves" immediately after the victory. Boxer also mentions that the Chinese viceroy of Canton, admired, sent large quantities of food to Macau to be offered to the most distinguished of African fighters.

Those African slaves were based and red pilled.

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Canada's forgotten Portuguese origin - In Canada, the Portuguese are not immigrants (or how Canada is also a Portuguese country)

Nations generally choose, with greater or lesser accuracy and greater or lesser symbolism, the dates of their foundation. Portugal has some, and the Portuguese are confused about whether to consider 868, the year of the creation of the County that would later originate the Kingdom, 1139, 1143 or 1179 as the birth of their country. For Canada, the problem is probably more easily resolved. Or 1473, when, apparently, Canada was seen through the eyes of the Portuguese João Vaz Corte-Real, or the beginning of the 16th century, when the first Canadian town was born. This village was founded by Gaspar Corte-Real, son of João Vaz, in land that that navigator was quick to claim as belonging to its King, Dom Manuel of Portugal. It's called Portugal Cove - St Philip's.

Portugal's interest in what would become Canada was great and spanned many decades. When they arrived there, in the 70s of the 15th century, the Portuguese were amazed by the richness of the surrounding waters. They were fabulously generous on fish, particularly cod. The Corte-Reals, the main sponsors of those fishing trips to America, called the neighboring mainland "Terra Nova do Bacalhau" - the English would later keep the primitive Portuguese name "Newfoundland". In 1506, Dom Manuel already decreed the payment of new taxes to the growing national fishing industry - growing, in large measure, due to the discovery and intense exploration of these previously virgin seas. To facilitate maritime work, the Portuguese sowed a complex network of warehouses along the coast, which, as they expanded, became towns. This one of Portugal Cove - St Philip's is one of the few, if not the only, Canadian land that survives from this remote and insufficiently explored period of the country's construction. But its name says it all: Portugal used to be there.

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Discovery of America in 1492 or 1452?

In 1492, when touching the Caribbean, Columbus claimed to be approaching Cipango, and if he continued sailing west, he would land at Zaitun and Cathay, that is, he would reach the eastern end of Asia. Whatever the real motives for Columbus' four voyages to the New World, it appears as an exaggeration that history had consecrated him as the discoverer of that continent, as the Portuguese had already been there forty years earlier through Diogo de Teive (1452) - Terra Nova / Newfoundland - and Pêro de Barcelos and João Fernandes Lavrador - Labrador Peninsula. The voyages then undertaken by Teive, Lavrador and, later, Corte Real, show that the Portuguese were several steps ahead of their Castilian rivals, because when they rounded the Cape of Good Hope and arrived in India, they were in search of a passage by North that would allow them to arrive directly to India sailing to the West.

In addition to these and others, the Chronicles of João de Barros give an account of the presence of the navigator João Coelho in the Antilles, in 1476.