Erik Lars Myrup - Power and Corruption in the Early Modern Portuguese World

POWER AND CORRUPTION
IN THE EARLY MODERN PORTUGUESE WORLD

Connections across the Portuguese Seaborne Empire.

IN THE
EARLY MODERN
PORTUGUESE
WORLD

ERIK LARS MYRUP

Louisiana State University Press Baton Rouge

Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright 2015 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing

DESIGNER: Michelle A. Neustrom
TYPEFACE: Cassia
PRINTER AND BINDER: Maple Press

Frontispiece map by Mary Lee Eggart.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Myrup, Erik.
Power and corruption in the early modern Portuguese world / Erik Lars Myrup.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8071-5980-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8071-5981-1 (pdf) ISBN 978-0-8071-5982-8 (epub) ISBN 978-0-8071-5983-5 (mobi) 1. PortugalColoniesHistory17th century. 2. PortugalColoniesHistory18th century. 3. PortugalColoniesAmericaAdministration. 4. PortugalColoniesAsiaAdministration. 5. Social networksPortugalHistory. I. Title.
JV4215.M96 2015
909'.0971246908dc23

2014035925

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

FRONTISPIECE Connections across the Portuguese Seaborne Empire

When he first met the writer Emily Hahn in Shanghai in the late 1930s, Charles Boxer is said to have explained that he too was a writerin his own way. I write big historical books, very dull, Hahn later recalled her future husband saying. By the end of a wonderfully colorful career, Boxer had published more than a dozen monographs and hundreds of articles on the Portuguese seaborne empirenot one of which could ever be considered dull. Boxer had the uncanny ability to find the perfect anecdote or quotation, effectively summing up large historical questions with a few lines of a pen. Although I would never claim to replicate his talents, I have very much attempted to follow his lead, crafting a narrative that is accessible, interesting, and applicable to more than just those who specialize in Portuguese or Brazilian history. In doing so, I have accumulated a long list of debts.

To begin, I would like to thank those who inspired me during my undergraduate days at Yale and subsequently guided me through graduate school. In the first instance, I would like to especially thank my advisor and mentor, Stuart B. Schwartz, who welcomed me into his seminar on Brazilian history during my second semester of graduate school. Additionally, numerous others have helped and inspired me along the way, including Gilbert Joseph, Gaddis Smith, K. David Jackson, Carlos Eire, John Demos, and Joanne Freeman. Beyond Yale, many others have taken a special interest in this project over the years, providing valuable feedback at various stages of the endeavor, including Dauril Alden, Timothy Coates, Diogo Curto, Frank Dutra, Antnio Hespanha, Joaquim Romero Magalhes, Kenneth Maxwell, Rogrio Miguel Puga, the late A.J.R. Russell-Wood, Tatiana Seijas, George Bryan Souza, and Lorraine White. As the project has evolved, I have also benefited from the encouragement and advice of colleagues at the University of Kentucky, including James Albisetti, Francie Chassen-Lpez, Dan Gargola, Denise Ho, Bruce Holle, Joanne Melish, David Olster, Jeremy Popkin, Mark Summers, Scott Taylor, and especially Karen Petrone and Gretchen Starr-LeBeau, who helped me to reconceptualize the project at an especially important juncture. Having undertaken a project that ultimately would involve non-Western languages, I have benefitted immensely from the assistance of Kam Ping Victor Fong, whose knowledge of classical Chinese was invaluable to this project, as well as Yongmei Wu and Cheryl Myrup, who assisted with modern Chinese articles and monographs. Additionally, I am grateful to Mary Lee Eggart for producing the map, to Derik Shelor for his incredibly thorough copy editing, and to Alisa Plant of LSU Press, who embraced the project so wholeheartedly from the moment it first arrived on her desk.

Beyond this, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the vital contribution of various fellowships and grants to this project. As a graduate student at Yale, I benefited from funding administered by the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Program in International Security Studies, the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, the Howard R. Lamar Center for Borderland Studies, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Other vital sources of graduate funding included a series of fellowships from Portugals National Library and National Archive (the Biblioteca Nacional and Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo, respectively), which were funded by the Foundation for Luso-American Development, as well as a Fulbright Grant from the U.S. Department of State. More recently, at the University of Kentucky I have benefited from summer funding opportunities that have enabled me to conduct overseas research in Macau.

Finally, I would like to thank those whose contributions might not be so readily apparent. The sources of inspiration for a study like this are diverse. In addition to standard academic works, I have been influenced by a variety of other authors, genres, and people. A little more than a decade ago as a young father with two little toddlers in tow, I embarked upon my initial attempts to reconceptualize Portugals colonial bureaucracy. It was in this context that I first read Charlottes Web to my children. A wonderfully moving tale, it is a story about a spider who saves a pig from certain death by weaving a series of words into her web. Not unlike the storys protagonist, I have been awed by the influence, reach, and strength of a webs entangling fibers. Indeed, what better way to conceptualize the connections that bind the world together than through the concept of a weba thing that spiders, not unlike people, instinctively weave over the course of their lives. A special thank you then goes out to the imaginative writers who have inspired me over the course of my life, and especially to each of my five children who have not only allowed me to read to them over the years, but have also patiently listened as their crazy father jumped atop the furniture sharing stories from Portugals colonial past. To them, to my dear wife, Cheryl, and to my parents, Ed and Diane, I dedicate this book.

POWER AND CORRUPTION
IN THE EARLY MODERN PORTUGUESE WORLD

Two related visions speak to the making and meaning of the Portuguese seaborne empire. In the first, itinerant mariners and merchants bravely sail from Europe to distant shores. There they encounter a multitude of peoples and learn local languages, integrating themselves into local societies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. (Indeed, many go so far as to enter into mixed marriages or to cohabitate with non-European women so that a new mestio generation soon arises.) Staunchly Catholic, they continue to spread their language and faith wherever their commercial networks take them. We came in search of Christians and spices, Vasco da Gama declared upon arriving in Calicut in 1498. Christians and spicesa vision of the Portuguese world that a celebrated explorer and his contemporaries would have recognized; it is also one of the chief ways in which the Portuguese empire is remembered today.