Portuguese explorer
This article is about the Portuguese explorer. For the island named after him, see
Tristan da Cunha
.
Tristao da Cunha
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Born
| c. 1460
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Died
| c. 1540 (aged 79–80)
Kingdom of Portugal
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Nationality
| Portuguese
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Occupation(s)
| Naval commander, explorer and ambassador
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Children
| Nuno da Cunha
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Tristao da Cunha
(sometimes misspelled
Tristao d'Acunha
;
Portuguese pronunciation:
[t?i??t??w
d?
?ku??]
; c. 1460 ? c. 1540) was a
Portuguese explorer and naval commander
. In 1499, he served as ambassador from King
Manuel I of Portugal
to
Pope Leo X
, leading a luxurious embassy presenting in Rome the new conquests of
Portugal
. He later became a member of the Portuguese
privy council
.
Italian Wars
[
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]
Da Cunha was born in
Portugal
, c. 1460. He served in the
Third Italian War
under Castilian general
Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba
, participating in the
Battle of Cerignola
and being entasked with hosting the funeral of the fallen French general,
Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours
. He was also in command of
Roca Guillerma
, between
Gaeta
and
Salerno
, where he was briefly captured by the French army in a betrayal of the local nobility. Da Cunha was later freed.
[1]
[2]
After returning to Portugal, he was nominated as first
viceroy
of
Portuguese India
in 1504, but could not take up this post owing to a temporary blindness.
1506 voyage
[
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]
In 1506 he was appointed commander of a fleet of 15 ships sent to the east coast of Africa and off India. His cousin,
Afonso de Albuquerque
, was in charge of a squadron of five vessels in this fleet that subsequently detached. Their mission was to conquer
Socotra
Island and build a fortress there, hoping to close the trade in the Red Sea. They sailed together until they reached Mozambique.
[3]
In the
Mozambique Channel
they found his friend Captain
Joao da Nova
stranded while returning from India. They rescued him and the ship
Frol de la mar
, both joining the fleet.
[4]
After a series of successful attacks on Arab cities on the east coast of Africa, they headed to Socotra.
Discovery of Tristan da Cunha Archipelago
[
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]
On this voyage Tristao da Cunha discovered a group of remote islands in the south Atlantic Ocean, 2,816 km (1,750 mi) from South Africa. Although rough seas prevented a landing then, he named the main island after himself, Ilha de Tristao da Cunha, which was later anglicized to
Tristan da Cunha
.
Battle of Barawa
[
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]
He then set his eyes on
Ajuran Empire
territory, where the
Battle of Barawa
was fought. The Portuguese soldiers burned the city and looted it. The inhabitants who had fled to the interior would eventually return and rebuild the city. Tristao da Cunha was wounded in this battle. After that battle, he captured
Socotra
.
Capture of Socotra
[
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]
In 1507, a
Portuguese
fleet commanded by Tristao da Cunha with
Afonso de Albuquerque
landed at the then capital of Suq and captured the port after a stiff battle. Their objective was to set a base in a strategic place on the route to India and to liberate the presumed friendly Christians from Islamic rule. The architect Tomas Fernandes started to build a fortress at Suq, the
Forte de Sao Miguel de Socotora
. The lack of a proper harbour for wintering led to the loss of many moored Portuguese ships, the most important of which was the
Santo Antonio
galleon
under the command of captain Manuel Pais da Veiga.
[5]
The infertility of the land led to famine and sickness in the garrison, and the Portuguese abandoned the island in 1511.
[6]
Actions in India
[
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]
After a while, he distinguished himself in India in various actions, such as the
Siege of Cannanore
: the Portuguese garrison was on the verge of being overwhelmed, when on 27 August the fleet of 11 ships under Tristao da Cunha coming from
Socotra
appeared and relieved them with 300 men.
[7]
Embassy to Pope Leo X
[
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]
After returning to Europe, Tristao da Cunha was sent as ambassador from King Manuel I to
Pope Leo X
in 1514 to present the new conquests of the
Portuguese Empire
, having
Garcia de Resende
as his secretary.
[8]
The huge, luxurious embassy of one hundred and forty persons made its way through Alicante and Majorca, arriving on the outskirts of Rome in February. They walked the streets of Rome on 12 March 1514 in an extravagant procession of exotic wildlife and wealth of the Indies, with many dressed in "Indian style". The procession featured an elephant named
Hanno
, as a gift to the pope, and forty-two other beasts, including two leopards, a panther, some parrots, turkeys and rare Indian horses. Hanno carried a platform of silver on its back, shaped as a castle containing a safe with royal gifts, including vests embroidered with pearls and gems, and coins of gold minted for the occasion.
The pope received the procession in the
Castel Sant'Angelo
. The elephant knelt down thrice in reverence and then, following a wave of his Indian
mahout
(keeper), used its trunk to suck water from a bucket and sprayed it over the crowd and the Cardinals.
By 29 April 1515, the Portuguese had depleted their funds, but they sought a
bull
signed by the pope, who sent back rich gifts to King Manuel. The king responded with a ship full of spices and, later, an
Indian rhinoceros
sent to him from the sultan Muzaffar Shah II of Gujarat. The boat that transported it was wrecked off Genoa on early February 1516, and the rhinoceros was portrayed by
Albrecht Durer
in his very famous
Rhinoceros
woodcuts in June of 1516 after sketches of it traveled to Nuremberg.
Although Tristao da Cunha had never assumed the post of Viceroy of India, his son
Nuno da Cunha
was the 9th Governor of
Portuguese India
in 1529. The tomb of Tristao da Cunha is located at the convent of Nossa Senhora da Encarnacao in
Olhalvo
(in the municipality of
Alenquer
).
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Hernan Perez del Pulgar
,
Cronica del Gran Capitan Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba
,
- ^
Jeronimo Zurita
,
Historia del rey Don Fernando el Catolico. De las empresas y ligas de Italia
. Capitulos XXVII,
- ^
Diogo do Couto, "Decadas da Asia", decada X, livro I
- ^
Albuquerque, Braz de (1774). Commentarios do grande Afonso Dalboquerque. Lisbon: Na Regia Officina Typografica. Available in English as The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India. Laurier Books Ltd. /AES 2000.
ISBN
978-81-206-1514-4
- ^
Monteiro, Alexandre (June 2012). "Uma pagina dos Descobrimentos: a ilha de Socotora no seculo XVI".
National Geographic Portugal
(in Portuguese): 42?45.
- ^
Diffie, Bailey Wallys; Winius, George Davison (1977).
Foundations of the Portuguese empire, 1415?1580
. University of Minnesota Press. p. 233.
ISBN
978-0-8166-0782-2
.
- ^
Foundations of the Portuguese empire, 1415-1580
by Bailey Wallys Diffie, p.233
- ^
Sanjay Subrahmanyam,
"The Career and Legend of Vasco Da Gama"
, p. 269, Cambridge University Press, 1998
ISBN
0-521-64629-4
External links
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