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ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to understand the workings of Portugal’s overseas domains between 1580 and 1640, the time when kingdom and empire found themselves under the umbrella of the Hispanic Monarchy and were ultimately ruled from Madrid in lieu of Lisbon. The authors aim to identify what was new or different during this period with regard to the nature of political information on the Portuguese Empire, and the means of its collection, assessment and transmission. The article begins by perusing the institutional arrangements that made possible this model of imperial management, while simultaneously examining the types of written and visual materials that helped the three Spanish kings of Portugal to learn about and handle their ‘other’ empire. Next, it delves into one of the most important modalities of information during this period: the arbitrio and its rich interplay of evidence and advice. Lastly, the article investigates the deliberate dissemination of imperial news for propaganda purposes and the role played by war stories recounted through the so-called relaciones de sucesos. They argue that the informational fabric of the Portuguese Empire changed significantly during these 60 years and discuss the main transformations introduced.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Eduardo Fernández Guerrero and Pedro Pinto for their valuable help in locating source material, and Šima Krtalić for her excellent English-language editing work. Fernando Bouza gave the article a close reading, and we are very grateful for his thoughtful comments.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. Bouza, Cartas para duas infantas meninas, 104, 111, 132, 152, 157–8, 162, 164, 173.
2. The death of the young and heirless King Sebastian in the battle of Alcácer Quibir (Ksar el-Kebir, northern Morocco), in August 1578, led to the short reign of his great uncle, Henry I (r. 1578–80), who likewise passed away without leaving any direct heir. Consequently, several pretenders fought for the throne of Portugal, one of them being Philip II of Spain. Invoking his connection to the Portuguese royal family (his mother was Isabel, Princess of Portugal), and making use of his political and military might, Philip succeeded in imposing his will and was eventually sworn in as King Philip I of Portugal in May 1581. The literature on the incorporation of Portugal into the Hispanic Monarchy and the 60-year-long union of the crowns (1580–1640) is quite abundant. See, in particular, Bouza, Portugal en la monarquía hispánica; and Cardim, Portugal y la monarquía hispánica.
3. Parker, The World is Not Enough, 9.
4. Padrón, The Indies of the Setting Sun.
5. Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies”; and Subrahmanyam, “Holding the World in Balance.”
6. On the challenges faced by ‘oversized’ early modern empires, see Marcocci, “Too Much to Rule.”
7. We always refer to the Habsburg monarchs of Portugal by their Spanish names.
8. Olival, “Los virreyes y gobernadores de Lisboa.” On what follows, see Olival, D. Filipe II. Olival’s book deals with Philip II of Portugal, or Philip III of Spain.
9. On the Conselho de Portugal, see Luxán Meléndez, La revolución de 1640 en Portugal.
10. Luxán Meléndez, “El control de la hacienda portuguesa.”
11. Olival, D. Filipe II, 180.
12. Brendecke, Imperio e información, esp. chs. 1–2; and Dover, “Philip II, Information Overload.” Also see Bouza, “Entre archivos, despachos y noticias.”
13. A section of his diary, the one which chronicles events between February 1634 and January 1635, was published as Diário do 3° conde de Linhares.
14. Schwartz, Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil; and Cosentino, Governadores gerais do Estado do Brasil.
15. Rodríguez de Diego, Instrucción para el gobierno.
16. Santos Peréz, “Visita, residência, venalidade.” In early modern Iberian context, visita, or visitação (‘visitation’), meant to dispatch a crown official with full powers to investigate corruption cases in a given territory. Residência, or tomar residência (‘to take residence’), corresponded to the regular assessment of one’s actions in office by one’s successor.
17. See, respectively, Instrumento de testemunhas e rezidencia; and Fontes para a história de Angola, 383–6.
18. Fontes para a história de Angola, 217–362.
19. Flores, Unwanted Neighbours, 93–4.
20. For an overview of these materials, see Paranavitana, “The Portuguese Tombos.”
21. Marques, “O Estado do Brasil na União Ibérica.”
22. Falcão, Livro em que se contem toda a fazenda. On the accuracy of Falcão’s information, see Gomes, Collecção de Leis, 104.
23. Livro das cidades e fortalezas.
24. Silva, “Memorial do que se deve prover.” On Cristóbal de Moura’s influence at the royal court, see Martínez Hernández, “Ya no hay rey sin privado.”
25. Mello, Olinda restaurada, 46; and Marques, “L’invention du Brésil entre deux mondes,” 138–40.
26. Sousa, Tratado descritivo do Brasil; and Curto, “Cultura escrita e práticas de identidade,” 489.
27. Brito, Um inquérito à vida administrativa e económica; and Dantas, “Los arbitristas,” 156.
28. Moreno, Relação das praças fortes; and Moreno, Livro que dá razão.
29. Bocarro, Livro das plantas.
30. Flores, Os olhos do rei.
31. Flores, The Mughal Padshah, 33–4.
32. The theme is central with respect to the historiography of early modern Spain and its empire, and increasingly so, too, for the Portuguese side of this phenomenon. See, for instance, Curto, A cultura política em Portugal, 347–400.
33. Bouza, “Access to Printing in the Political Communication,” 44–5.
34. Yun Casalilla, “Arbitristas, Projectors, Eccentrics and Political Thinkers,” 111; and Dubet, “Donneurs d’avis and Arbitristas in France and Spain.”
35. Bouza, “Access to Printing in the Political Communication.”
36. Volume II of Documentação ultramarina portuguesa consists, in fact, of the publication of two of these manuscript volumes, one kept in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 3015, and the other in London, British Library, Egerton MS 1131.
37. See Cunha, “Porque eu também quero vender o meu saber.” There is a second, lengthier Soldado prático also by Couto and dated around 1610.
38. Loureiro, “Entre arbítrios et tribunaux.”
39. Matos, “Advertências e queixumes”; and Cunha, “Porque eu também quero vender o meu saber,” 266.
40. Windler, “Arbitrismo, Reform and the Government,” 36.
41. Yun Casalilla, “Arbitristas, Projectors, Eccentrics and Political Thinkers,” 121.
42. Amadori, Negociando la obediencia.
43. Schaub, “Dinámicas políticas en el Portugal de Felipe III.”
44. Schaub, Le Portugal au temps du comte-duc d’Olivares, 89–126.
45. Madrid, June 16, 1622, in Documentação ultramarina portuguesa, vol. II, 300–4 (quotation 301).
46. On Gomes de Solis and his proposals, see Coelho, Clérigos, mercadores, 151–223; and Valladares, Castilla y Portugal en Asia, 47.
47. Castel’Branco, To Defend Your Empire and Faith.
48. Marques, A parenética portuguesa e a dominação filipina.
49. See Documentação ultramarina portuguesa, vol. II, 44–8 (Spinola), 161–4 (Azevedo).
50. Gaio, O Roteiro das cousas do Achém.
51. See Dantas, “Los arbitristas,” 160, 163.
52. Parada, Discurso político.
53. Silveira, Reformação da milícia.
54. See Coutre, The Memoirs and Memorials, for the English translation of Coutre’s arbitrios. On Sherley in all his complexity, including his ‘incarnation’ as subject of the Spanish Habsburgs and Iberian arbitrista, see Subrahmanyam, Three Ways to be Alien, ch. 3.
55. On Martinho Alemão, see Guedes, “D. Martim, an Arakanese Prince.” For an English translation of the arbitrio penned by the ‘King of the Islands’ (i.e. the Maldives) in 1645, see Silva, Portuguese Encounters, 217–21.
56. Souza, “Missionários, índios e sociedade colonial,” 342.
57. Dantas, “Los arbitristas,” 164.
58. Herzog, “El arbitrismo y América.”
59. Dantas, “Los arbitristas,” 161. On colonial Brazil under Habsburg rule, see Marques, “L’invention du Brésil entre deux mondes.”
60. Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea, 128.
61. Gil Pujol, “Visión europea de la monarquía española,” 88–9.
62. Borges, “Um imperio integrado?”
63. Arredondo, “José Pellicer, cronista marginado?”
64. Cardoso, Amazônia na monarquia hispânica, 232.
65. Lohmann Villena, “Enrique Garcés descubridor del mercurio en el Perú.”
66. Vilardaga, São Paulo no império dos Felipes.
67. The African projects and their source material have been discussed by Martínez Torres, “Politics and Colonial Discourse”; and Curto, Cultura imperial y proyectos coloniales, 273–302. For the Asian ones, see Boxer, “Portuguese and Spanish Projects”; Ollé, La invención de China; Subrahmanyam, Improvising Empire, 137–60; and Flores, Unwanted Neighbours, 231–5.
68. The Spanish relaciones de sucesos and their broader frameworks have been the object of overwhelming interest. For an English overview by one of the scholars who has best contributed to their study, see Ettinghausen, “The News in Spain.”
69. For the Portuguese context, see Lisboa, “La ciudad, la corte y la información manuscrita.” The number of Portuguese relações de sucessos grew considerably from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, but that was increasingly the time of the gazette.
70. On Severim de Faria, see especially Brockey, “An Imperial Republic”; and Megiani, “Das palavras e das coisas curiosas.”
71. De Vivo, “Microhistories of Long-Distance Information.”
72. For an exhaustive survey of the materials printed in the Iberian world during the first half of the seventeenth century, see Iberian Books, vols. II and III.
73. Weststeijn, “Empire in Fragments.”
74. Cartas que o Padre Nicolau Pimenta.
75. Schwartz, “The Voyage of the Vassals”; Santos Peréz, “La conquista y colonización de Maranhão-Grão Pará”; and Moreno, Jornada do Maranhão.
76. The recapture of Bahia attracted a remarkable amount of attention among diverse people and countries in its epoch. The event is today at the centre of many historians’ work and the extant bibliography is therefore massive. See, for example, Camenietzki and Grassia Pastore, “1625, o fogo e a tinta.”
77. The idea of a ‘public Atlantic,’ moulded by heated debates in Holland about Dutch Brazil, was explored by Van Grosen, Amsterdam’s Atlantic. Weststeijn, “Empire in Fragments,” offers a more decentred, Iberian perspective.
78. For an overview, see Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 153–81.
79. Relacion de la vitoria que alcanço la ciudad de Macao; and Sampaio, Relação dos successos vitoriosos.
80. Traslado de una carta enbiada a esta corte; Relaçam da grande vitória que os Portugueses alcansaram contra el Rey do Achem.
81. Bobadilla, Relacion de las gloriosas victorias.
82. On the new condition of Lisbon after 1580 and this suggestive phrase, see Bouza, “Lisboa sozinha, quase viúva.”
83. On composite empires, see Subrahmanyam, “Holding the World in Balance”; and Yun Casalilla, Iberian World Empires. On the remaining proposals, see, respectively, Cardim et al., eds., Polycentric Monarchies; and Fragoso and Monteiro, eds., Um reino e suas repúblicas no Atlântico.
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Notes on contributors
Jorge Flores
Jorge Flores (Lisbon, 1964) is coordinator researcher at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUCHT), University of Lisbon. He is the author of several books and articles that explore the political, social and cultural history of the Portuguese Empire in Asia, especially in South Asia and the Central Indian Ocean. His most recent book is Unwanted Neighbours: the Mughals, the Portuguese, and Their Frontier Zones (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Pedro Cardim
Pedro Cardim (Lisbon, 1967) is associate professor of early modern history at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He is a specialist in the history of the Iberian world between c.1500 and 1800. He also works on Portuguese colonial rule, with a special focus on Brazil. Together with Nuno Gonçalo Monteiro, Cardim has recently edited Political Thought in Portugal and its Empire, c. 1500–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2021).