Lisa VoigtLetter of Pero Vaz de Caminha (1500)

The Letter of Pero Vaz de Caminha describes in some 27 manuscript pages the landing and

brief stay of Pedro lvares Cabrals fleet on the coast of what is now Brazil in April of 1500.

Cabrals voyagelike Columbusswas not one of discovery, but rather was destined for

India in order to establish a feitoria or trading station and thus consolidate Portugals monopoly

over this trade route (one that had already established by Bartolomeu Dias, who rounded the cape

of Good Hope in 1488, and Vasco da Gama, who made it all the way to India and returned to

Portugal in 1499). There has been some discussion about whether Cabral had prior knowledge

of Brazils existence and whether this is the reason why he steered so far westward as to land on

the coast of South America rather than following the African shoreline south, but there is

apparently no documentary evidence to support this view.

Caminha doesnt use either of the words Discovery or Invention to characterize

Cabrals landingthe word he uses is achamento or findingbut his text has long animated

discussions about the nature of the discovery, whether accidental or intentional, as well as

about its participation in the invention or creation of a Brazilian nation. This is surely the

sense used in a recent Brazilian TV miniseries entitled A Inveno do Brasil (The Invention of

Brazil), which portrays a friendly and highly sexualized encounter between a Portuguese

explorer and Brazilian native women. This is a foundational fiction whose fictiveness is rarely

questioned, so prevalent is the mythology about the peaceful nature of Portuguese colonization

and the origins of Brazil in the happy union of different races. Although the miniseries focuses

on a different episode found in early chronicles of Brazil, its representation of the encounter is

quite similar to the canonical readings of Caminhas letter, according to which the document is

not only Brazils birth certificate, but one that attests to a painless delivery.

While it is easy to criticize such retrospective idealizations of national origins, Caminhas

text does offer an account of a relatively peaceful encounter as well as some statements of

admiration for the Brazilian natives whose appearance he quite elaborately describes. Caminha

focuses on people, rather than nature, although when he does depict the natural setting it is with

the imprecise, aggrandized, and instrumentalized vocabulary we are familiar with in Columbus:

very beautiful shores, very extensive forests, endless waters, such that if one cares to profit by

it, everything will grow in it (33).[1] More numerous and interesting are his descriptions of the

natives and of the encounter itself. There are several scenes of intermingling between the

Portuguese sailors and Brazilian natives, usually involving music, dancing, and other (unnamed)

forms of diversion (21). These scenes, alongside Caminhas affirmations that the natives

bodies are so clean and so fat and so beautiful that they could not be more so (23), have been

read as evidence of Caminhas genuine respect for Amerindians. Taken together with his claim

that I shall not set down here anything more than I saw and thought, either to beautify or to

make it less attractive (5), most readings of Caminha praiseor at least take for grantedhis

objectivity and impartiality. Comparative readings of Caminhas and Columbuss letters, of

which there are several, tend to offer Caminhas objectivity, and admiration for or

comprehension of Amerindians, as the most salient points of contrast between the two.[2]

Now, my goal is not to dismiss these contrastive readings but to show some of the traps

that such a comparative approach could lead to (whether in the classroom or in academic

research). It seems to me that these readings suffer from two levels of naivet: first, by taking

Caminhas claims to objectivity at face value. The authors minor role on the expedition, a

scribe rather than the leader and thus with much less investment than Columbus in the accounts

effect on its audience, is perhaps sufficient to explain the lack of conspicuous authorial presence

and intervention that we find in Columbus. But it is also worth pointing out that Caminhas

letter ends with a personal petition to the Crown, similar to that of Columbuss letter to the

sovereigns (as Margarita Zamora has revealed, this the prior, unpublished version of the Carta a

Santngel): to pardon his son-in-law and release him from exile.

Second, if the canonical and comparative readings have underplayed Caminhas selective

interpretation of events or the possibly interested nature of his representations, they have also

offered their own rather selective interpretations of Caminhas text. To return to the example I

just gave of Caminhas difference with respect to Columbus: the description of the scenes of

peaceful intermingling and the context of the expressions of admiration for the Brazilian

natives are rather revealing. With regard to the former, Caminha is careful to present the

movements and interactions in the scenes of contact as orchestrated by the Portuguese: we told

them to draw back and lay down there bows (usually pointing out that some did, but others

didnt) (9, 18, they put them down, and did not draw back much. It is enough to say that they

put down their bows, 14); we showed them sheep, hens, food, wine (which they generally

ignored or disliked) (12); we made signs for them to leave, and they did so (15). One of the

most interesting scenes of interminglingand the one that precipitates the passage I quoted

with regard to the natives health and beautyis when Diogo Dias, an agreeable and pleasure-

loving man, crosses the river to amuse them with his bagpipe-playing and dancing: they

laughed and enjoyed themselves greatly, we read, And although he reassured and flattered

them a great deal with this, they soon became sullen like wild men and went away upstream (22,

my emphasis). The natives departurea moment in which their movements cease to coincide

with Portuguese desiresis suddenly explained in terms of native barbarism. A few sentences

later, Caminha reasserts this association in phrasing reminiscent of Columbus: It suffices to say

that up to this time, although they were somewhat tamed, a moment afterwards they became

frightened like sparrows at a feeding place (22).

The comparison of the natives to animals, specifically birds, continues in the passage that

follows, which contains one of the affirmations supposedly evincing Caminhas admiration for

the Brazilian natives:

The other two [natives] whom the captain had on the ships, and to whom he gave what

has already been mentioned, did not appear again, from which I infer that they are bestial

people and of very little knowledge; and for this reason they are so timid. Yet withal they

are well cared for and very clean, and in this it seems to me that they are rather like birds

or wild animals, to which the air gives better feathers and better hair than to tame ones.

And their bodies are so clean and so fat and so beautiful that they could not be more so;

and this causes me to presume that they have no houses or dwellings in which to gather,

and the air in which they are brought up in makes them so. (23)

This presumption is contradicted on the next page, when the convicts who are continually being

sent among the natives, and who just as insistently are sent away, return with reports of the

housing in the village. In any case, the passage serves as a good example of just what Caminhas

admiration of the natives proximity to nature implies.

I want to conclude, though, with one example of a difference from Columbus that I think is

worth interrogating: that is, Caminhas recognition of a language barrier, and in particular his

recognition of the interested nature of Portuguese interpretations of native speech. This occurs

two days after arrival, when the two natives were brought on board ship. After describing how

they react to the objects shown to them, as well as those which they notice on their own (the

captains collar and rosary beads), Caminha writes: He made a sign towards the land and then to

the beads and to the collar of the captain, as if to say that they would give gold for that. We

interpreted this so because we wished to, but if he meant that he would take the beads and also

the collar, we did not wish to understand because we did not intend to give it to him (13). Such

passages put Columbuss manipulations of native speech in a new light. I usually teach Caminha

before Columbus in order to avoid students assumptions that with Caminha theyre suddenly

getting the truth about the encounter, as well as to make them more attuned to Columbuss

manipulations. I would like to conclude with two questions raised by this brief consideration of

Caminhas Letter: First, how can we read colonial texts about the encounteror passages within

those textsin which authorial intervention and manipulation dont seem to be present, as in the

case I just cited? (i.e., do we have to read all representations of the encounter as only telling us

about the prejudices, preconceptions and preoccupations of the European explorer and writer?)

Second, how can we recognize the differences and local specificities of colonial textsthe

differences that exist between Caminhas and Columbuss representations, for examplewithout

essentializing these differences or using them to posit a broader contrast between cultural and

national histories (such as Brazils peaceful conquest versus that of Mexico or Peru, or the

Portuguese as nicer colonizers than the Spanish or the English)?

Selected Bibliography Manuscript: Lisbon, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, gaveta VIII, mao 2, n8. Editions in PortugueseCasal, Manuel Aires de. Corografia braslica, ou relao histrico-geogrfica do reino do

Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Rgia, 1817. This text contains the first published edition of Caminhas letter. Facsimile of this edition: Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1945.

Corteso, Jaime. A Carta de Pero Vaz de Caminha. Rio de Janeiro: Livros de Portugal, 1943.

Includes introductory study, facsimile of the manuscript, transcription, modernized adaptation, appendices of related documents, and bibliography.

Arroyo, Leonardo. A Carta de Pro Vaz de Caminha. So Paulo: Ed. Melhoramentos, 1971. 2nd

ed. Includes introductory study, facsimile of the manuscript, transcription, modernized adaptation, glossary, appendices of related documents, and bibliography.

Pereira, Paulo Roberto. Os trs nicos testemunhos de descobrimento do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro:

Ed. Nova Aguilar, 1999. Includes reproductions of earliest maps of Brazil, and two other brief accounts of Cabral's voyage with references to Brazil (Carta de Mestre Joo Faras and Relao do Piloto Annimo). Also offers a bibliography of editions and translations of Caminhas letter.

Editions in EnglishSouthey, Robert. History of Brazil. Vol. I. 2nd ed. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and

Brown, 1822. Greenlee, William Brooks. The Voyages of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India from

Contemporary Documents and Narratives. London: Hakluyt Society, 1938. 3-33. Includes rather extensive footnotes and illustrations.

Ley, C. D. Portuguese Voyages 1498-1663: Tales from the Great Age of Discovery. London:

Phoenix Press, 2000. 41-59. (First published in London by J. M. Dent & Sons, 1947.)

[1] All citations of Caminhas Letter are from William Brooks Greenlee, The Voyages of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India from Contemporary Documents and Narratives (London: Hakluyt Society, 1938): 3-33. [2] See, for example, Jerry M. Williams, Early Images of America in Two Letters of Discovery, Brasil/Brazil 5.4 (1991): 5-22 and Claude Hulet, The Columbus Letter of February 15, 1493, and the Pero Vaz de Caminha Letter of May 1, 1500: A Comparison, Mester 14.1 (1995): 107-124.