This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(August 2021) |
Décadas da Ásia (pronounced [ˈdɛkɐðɐʒðɐˈazjɐ] ; Decades of Asia) is a history of the Portuguese in Asia (particularly India) and southeast Africa collected and published by João de Barros between 1552 and 1563, while living abroad. His work was continued by Diogo do Couto and João Baptista Lavanha.
The first volume of Décadas da Ásia appeared in 1552, and its reception was such that the king straightway ordered Barros to write a chronicle of King Manuel. His many occupations, however, prevented him from undertaking this book, which was finally composed by Damião de Góis. The second Decade came out in 1553 and the third in 1563, but he died before publishing the fourth Decade. [1]
In 1602, Diogo de Couto continued the Décadas, adding nine more volumes to the collection.
The fourth volume of the Décadas was published posthumously in 1615 at Madrid by the Cosmographer and Chronicler-Royal João Baptista Lavanha, who edited and compiled Barros' scattered manuscript.
In 1778–1788, a modern edition of the whole appeared in Lisbon in 14 volumes as Da Ásia de João de Barros, dos feitos que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente ("About João de Barros' Asia, and what the Portuguese did to discover and conquer the seas and lands of the East"). The edition was accompanied by a volume containing a life of Barros by the historian Manoel Severim de Faria and a copious index of all the Decades. [1]
Décadas da Ásia contains the early history of the Portuguese in India and Asia and reveals careful study of Eastern historians and geographers, as well as of the records of his own country. It is distinguished by clearness of exposition and orderly arrangement, and by the liveliness of the accounts, for example when describing the king of Viantana's killing of the Portuguese ambassadors to Malacca with boiling water and their bodies being fed to the dogs. [1]
João de Barros, nicknamed the "Portuguese Livy", is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his Décadas da Ásia, a history of the Portuguese in India, Asia, and southeast Africa.
Gomes Eanes de Zurara, sometimes spelled Eannes or Azurara, was a Portuguese chronicler of the European Age of Discovery, the most notable after Fernão Lopes.
Nuno Tristão was a 15th-century Portuguese explorer and slave trader, active in the early 1440s, traditionally thought to be the first European to reach the region of Guinea. Legend has it that he sailed as far as Guinea-Bissau, however, more recent historians believe he did not go beyond the Gambia River).
João da Nova was a Galician-born explorer in the service of Portugal. He is credited as the discoverer of Ascension and Saint Helena islands.
António da Madalena was a Portuguese Capuchin friar who was the first Western visitor to Angkor in 1586.
Cristóvão de Mendonça was a Portuguese noble and explorer who was active in South East Asia in the 16th century.
Diogo Soares de Albergaria, also known as Diego Soares de Melo, Diego Suarez de Melo and the "Galego", was a 16th-century Portuguese navigator and explorer.
Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai was a higher-castled Portuguese carrack with 140 guns, launched down in 1520. Built in Kochi, India around 1512 it had two square rig masts and is depicted on a painting attributed to Joachim Patinir.
António de Saldanha was a Castilian-Portuguese 16th-century captain. He was the first European to set anchor in what is now called Table Bay, South Africa, and made the first recorded ascent of Table Mountain.
The Second Portuguese India Armada was assembled in 1500 on the order of King Manuel I of Portugal and placed under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral. Cabral's armada famously discovered Brazil for the Portuguese crown along the way. By and large, the Second Armada's diplomatic mission to India failed, and provoked the opening of hostilities between the Kingdom of Portugal and the feudal city-state of Calicut. Nonetheless, it managed to establish a factory in the nearby Kingdom of Cochin, the first Portuguese factory in Asia.
The Third Portuguese India Armada was assembled in 1501 upon the order of King Manuel I of Portugal and placed under the command of João da Nova. It was small compared to other armadas of the same type and was formed for commercial purposes. Nonetheless, it engaged in the first significant Portuguese naval battle in the Indian Ocean. The Third Armada discovered the uninhabited islands of Ascension and Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. Some speculate that it was the first Portuguese armada to reach Ceylon.
António Galvão, also known as Antonio Galvano, was a Portuguese soldier, chronicler and administrator in the Maluku islands, and a Renaissance historian who was the first person to present a comprehensive report of the leading voyages and explorers up to 1550 by Portuguese explorers and those of other nationalities. His works, especially the Treaty of Discovery that was published in Lisbon in 1563 and in English by Richard Hakluyt in 1601, are notably accurate.
Diogo do Couto was a Portuguese historian.
The História trágico-marítima is a famous 18th-century collection of narrative accounts of the travails and wrecks of several Portuguese ships, principally carracks (naus) on the India run between 1552 and 1602, and the oft-harrowing stories of their survivors.
The capture of Muscat occurred in 1552, when an Ottoman fleet under Piri Reis attacked Old Muscat, in modern Oman, and plundered the town from the Portuguese. These events followed the important Ottoman defeat in the third siege of Diu in 1546, which put a stop to their attempts in India, but also the successful capture of Aden in 1548, which allowed the Ottomans to resist the Portuguese in the northwestern part of the Indian Ocean.
The Portuguese presence in Asia was responsible for what would be the first of many contacts between European countries and the East, starting on May 20, 1498 with the trip led by Vasco da Gama to Calicut, India. Aside from being part of the European colonisation of Southeast Asia in the 16th century, Portugal's goal in the Indian Ocean was to ensure their monopoly in the spice trade, establishing several fortresses and commercial trading posts.
João Baptista Lavanha was a Portuguese cartographer, mathematician and geographer in the service of the Spanish kings Philip II and Philip III.
The Kilwa Chronicle is a text, believed to be based on oral tradition, which describes the origins of the Swahili city-state of Kilwa, on an Indian Ocean island near the East African coast. It recounts the genealogy of the rulers of the Kilwa Sultanate, following the foundation of the city by Persians from Shiraz and Hormuz in the tenth century until the arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Subsequent ancient DNA studies have confirmed much of the basis of these stories to be true.
Diogo Botelho Pereira was a 16th-century Portuguese nobleman, colonial official, navigator and cartographer. He famously undertook a daring voyage by sea from India back to Portugal aboard a fusta.
The Battle of Suakin of 1541 was an armed encounter that took place in 1541 in the city of Suakin, held by the Ottoman Empire, and which was attacked, sacked and razed by Portuguese forces under the command of the Portuguese governor of India, Dom Estêvão da Gama.