book chapter

Letter of Pedro Vaz de Caminha to King Manuel written from Porto Seguro of Vera Cruz the first of May 1500

voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India • (81) • Published In 1938 • Pages: 3-33 [incomplete]

By: Caminha, Pero Vaz de, 15th cent., Greenlee, William Brooks.

Abstract

The report of Pedro Vaz de Caminha is the basic eyewitness account of the discovery of Brazil. 'In this letter Caminha carefully wrote down each day what appeared to him to be new and curious, as well as almost every act of the members of the fleet in their dealings with the inhabitants. It is very important as the first account of the natives of that country. Later investigations have shown nothing to discredit the narrative from the standpoint of ethnology, and few subsequent writers have given us a better idea of the customs of the people inhabiting the coast of Brazil… The manuscript was found by the Spanish historian Juan Bautista Muñoz, in the Archivo da Torre do Tombo at Lisbon prior to 1790, and was first published in 1817 by Father Manuel Aires de Casal in COROGRAFIA BRASILEIRA from an inexact copy found to exist in the Real Arquivo da Marinha at Rio de Janeiro. …The best text is that given in ALGUNS DOCUMENTOS DO ARCHIVO NACIONAL (Lisbon, 1892, pp. 108-21), and it is from this that the translation has been made.' --Editor's introduction, pp. 3-5.

HRAF PubDate

2003

Region

South America

Sub Region

Eastern South America

Document Type

book chapter

Evaluation

Creator Type

Traveler

Document Rating

3: Good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent

Analyst

AW ; 1971

Field Date

1500

Coverage Date

1500

Coverage Place

Bahia, Brazil

Notes

Pedro Vaz de Caminha ; translated by William Brooks Greenlee

This document consists of excerpts

LCCN

39018871

LCSH

Tupinamba Indians