João de Barros (historian)

João de Barros in a later depiction from 1777

João de Barros ( IPA ʒu.'ɐ̃w̃ dɨ 'ba.ʁuʃ) (* 1496 ; † October 20, 1570 ) is one of the first great Portuguese historians , best known for his Décadas da Ásia (Decades of Asia) in which he recorded the history of the Portuguese in India and Asia . He is also called the Portuguese Livy .

Early years

João de Barros was raised in the palace of King Manuel I of Portugal . At the age of 20 he wrote the chivalric novel Chronicle of Emperor Clarimundo . It is said that he was supported by Prince Johann (later King Johann III ). After Prince John ascended the throne, he made de Barros captain of the São Jorge da Mina fortress in Elmina , where he arrived in 1522. From 1525 to 1528 he was treasurer of the India House .

During the plague epidemic of 1530 he left Lisbon and lived in his country house near Pombal . Here he completed the moral dialogue Rho pica Pneuma , which aroused the enthusiasm of Juan Luís Vives . On his return to Lisbon in 1532, the king appointed him chairman of the House of India and the House of Mines ( Casa da Guiné e da Mina ). These were positions of great responsibility and importance at the time when Lisbon was the European center of Eastern trade. De Barros was an able steward who showed a great deal of hard work and unselfishness, which was rare at the time. The result was that he made little money in a position where his predecessors had amassed a fortune.

At that time, King John III wanted. Lure settlers to Brazil . The country was divided into administrative units and he made de Barros captain of Maranhão . He and two partners prepared an armada of 10 ships, each of which carried 900 men and which sailed in 1539. Because of the pilot's inattentiveness, the entire fleet was shipwrecked, which resulted in great financial damage. As a token of goodwill, de Barros paid the debts of those who died in the expedition.

During these years he continued his studies in his spare time. Shortly after the Brazilian disaster, he offered to write down the history of the Portuguese in India ( i.e. the Décadas da Ásia ), which the king accepted. He started work immediately. But before the first work was printed, he published a book on Portuguese grammar and some other moral dialogues in 1540.

Decades of asia

The first volume of the Décadas da Ásia (“Decades of Asia”) appeared in 1552 and was so popular that the king asked him to write the chronicle of King Manuel I. Because of his many occupations, he did not find the time. The book was eventually written by Damião de Góis . The second volume of the decades appeared in 1553, the third in 1563, but the fourth and last was not published until 1615, long after the author's death.

The decades include the early history of the Portuguese in India and Asia, and indicate that he studied both Eastern historians and geographers and the records of his own country thoroughly. They are characterized by the clarity of the presentation and systematic structure. They contain very vivid representations. For example, it describes how the King of Viantana killed the ambassadors from Portugal in Malacca in boiling water and threw their bodies to the dogs to eat.

Diogo de Couto continued the decades and wrote nine more volumes. A modern edition in 14 volumes appeared in Lisbon from 1778 to 1788 as Da Asia de João de Barros, dos feitos que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente . A book with the life of de Barros, written by the historian Manoel Severim de Faria, and a comprehensive index of all decades were published with this edition .

João de Barros claims in the decades to have relied on translations by local agents when evaluating non-European literature. De Barros writes of a "Moorish prince named Xá Nosaradim " who launched a military campaign in the south of India in 1300. In Europe's India, the Indian historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam examines the sources that Europeans used to describe India in the Age of Discovery. He comes to the conclusion that three Persian sources can be considered for de Barros' report on the campaign of "Xá Nosaradim". However, all three sources mention other rulers and dates other than 1300. Sanjay Subrahmanjam concludes from this that de Barros and his Portuguese confidants could not have had any written knowledge of non-European written languages ​​such as Persian and that the local agents whom de Barros mentions as translators, either were unreliable or did not have sufficient knowledge of Persian.

Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau is the author of a history of the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese in the Orient, from the year 1415 to 1539 according to the guidance of the Asia of João de Barros .

Late years

In January 1568 he withdrew from his lucrative position in the India House and received the rank of Fidalgo as well as a pension and other financial allowances from King Sebastian . He died on October 20, 1570.

See also

• List of governors of Ghana

Individual evidence

1. ^ João de Barros: Décadas da Ásia . tape 2 , no. 4 , chap. 4 , p. 408 .
2. ↑ Sanjay Subrahmanjam: Europe's India: Words, People, Empires, 1500-1800 . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA / London 2017, ISBN 978-0-674-97226-1 , pp. 76-77 (English).
3. ↑ Friedrich Vieweg, Braunschweig 1821, 4 parts ( digitized: 1, 2 , 3, 4 )