Fernão Mendes Pinto
Portuguese explorer and writer
1509 CE to 1583 CE
Fernão Mendes Pinto (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w̃ ˈmẽdɨʃ ˈpĩtu], Old Portuguese: Fernam Mendez Pinto) (Montemor-o-Velho, c. 1509 — Almada, Pragal, 8 July 1583) is a Portuguese explorer and writer.
His exploits are known through the posthumous publication of his memoir Pilgrimage (Portuguese: Peregrinação) in 1614, an autobiographical work whose validity is nearly impossible to assess.
In the course of his travels in the Middle and Far East, Pinto visits Ethiopia, the Arabian Sea, China (where he claimsto have been a forced laborer on the Great Wall), India and Japan.
He claims to have been among the first group of Europeans to visit Japan and initiate the Nanban trade period.
He also claims to have introduced the gun there in 1543.
It is known that he funded the first Christian church in Japan, after befriending a Catholic missionary and founding member of the Society of Jesus later known as St. Francis Xavier.
At one time Pinto himself is a Jesuit, though he later leaves the order.
Pilgrimage shows Pinto as sharply critical of Portuguese colonialism in the Far East, recording moral and religious objections to what he perceived to be a hypocritical and greedy enterprise disguised as a religious mission.
This view will later become common, but is unusual at the time.
The vivid tales of his wanderings over twenty years – he writes, for example, that he was "thirteen times made captive and seventeen times sold" – are so unusual that they are mostly not believed.
They give rise to the saying "Fernão, Mentes?
Minto!
", a Portuguese pun on his name meaning "Fernão, do you lie?
Yes, I lie!"
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The Far East
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Manuel's son and heir, Joao III, sends expeditions to the islands of Celebes, Borneo, Java, and Timor, all part of the Malay Archipelago.
Portugal will establish relations with Japan after the visits of Francis Xavier and Fernão Mendes Pinto in 1549.
Portuguese captains will found factories in China and take possession of Macau in 1557.
Salahuddin's father sultan Ali had been engaged in a mortal combat against the Portuguese in Melaka, but hostilities had paused temporarily after his death.
However, in September 1537, an Acehnese fleet appears before Melaka, carrying a standing regiment of circa three thousand men.
The Acehnese land successfully but cannot invest the fortress.
After some ferocious fighting, they have to withdraw with great losses after two days.
Since the expedition is not mentioned in the local chronicles we cannot be sure that Salahuddin was still the ruler at this time.
From the account of Fernão Mendes Pinto it appears that his brother "Alaradim" (Alauddin) was already on the throne by 1539.
The much later chronicle Bustanus Salatin will alleges in about 1640 that Salahuddin lived for nine years after his deposition until his death in 1548.
It is thus somewhat unclear whether he was deposed before or after the launch of an unsuccessful attack on Melaka.
Hoesein Djajadiningrat believed that the coup came first and the attack was led by Alauddin al-Kahar, while Denys Lombard places the coup two years after the attack, which he believes was led by Salahuddin himself.
The Rise of Sultan Alauddin Ri'ayat Syah al-Kahar
Following the death of Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah in 1530, his eldest son, Salahuddin, assumes the throne. However, his rule proves ineffectual, leading to instability within the sultanate.
The queen mother, Sitt Hur, wields considerable influence over state affairs, appointing Raja Bungsu as regent. His authority is symbolized by a green payung (parasol), and his residence is strategically located opposite the royal palace.
Meanwhile, Sultan Ali’s younger son, Alauddin, governs Samudra Pasai, which Aceh had conquered in 1524. Dissatisfied with conditions in the capital, he orchestrates a royal coup in 1537 or 1539, overthrowing the regent and killing Raja Bungsu. He then imprisons Salahuddin and the queen mother, both of whom die years later—Salahuddin in 1548 and Sitt Hur in 1554.
Now in full control, Alauddin ascends the throne under the regnal title Sultan Alauddin Ri'ayat Syah al-Kahar. In Acehnese tradition, he is remembered as a brilliant organizer of the Acehnese state. He is often credited with structuring society into administrative lineage groups (kaum or sukeë), though historical sources differ on whether this attribution is accurate.
Alauddin’s Military Campaigns
Sultan Alauddin’s expansionist ambitions begin in 1539, when he wages war against the Batak people to the south of Aceh.
Portuguese traveler Fernão Mendes Pinto recounts that the sultan demanded the Batak king convert to Islam and, upon his refusal, launched a military campaign against him. Pinto’s account is detailed and vivid, but its reliability is questionable, as no comprehensive Batak kingdom is attested in other historical sources.
The Acehnese army at the time reportedly included Turkish contingents, as well as warriors from Cambay and Malabar, reflecting Aceh’s growing connections with the broader Islamic and Indian Ocean worlds.
...the newly installed monarch leads an expedition to the north to subjugate Prome, but the initial assaults against the city walls fail.
Prome requests aid from Shan Ava and Arakan.
Thai forces arrive first, but Bayinnaung meets them in advance before they can arrive at the city and defeats them.
The siege drags on and when the rainy season arrives, Tabinshwehti orders his troops to plant rice and gather labor and provisions from Lower Burma.
Bayinnaung ambushes the overland contingent of forces sent by Arakan, causing caused both the Arakanese land and river forces to return home.
After five months of siege, starvation leads to defections and enable the Burmese to easily overcome the weakened defenses.
(The Portuguese writer Fernão Mendes, purportedly an eyewitness, describes in detail the sack of Prome and the punishments that were supposedly meted out to the inhabitants.)
Tabinshwehti now controls Lower Burma; most of the Mon princes become his vassals.
Tabinshwehti takes the Mon town of Moulmein in 1541, and ...
...the coastal areas south to Tavoy.
Martaban, a thriving Mon port town, will be difficult for Tabinshwehti to subdue, supported as it is by Portuguese soldiers and arms and defended on the land side by strong fortifications backed with earthwork and on the water side by seven Portuguese ships under Paulo Seixas.
Martaban tries to negotiate surrender when supplies run out, but Tabinshwehti will accept only a complete surrender.
Martaban tries without success to lure away Tabinshwehti’s Portuguese mercenary commander Joano Cayeyro.
Finally, Tabinshwehti uses fire rafts to burn and drive away the ships guarding the water side of the fortifications, then maneuvers a high fortress raft armed with guns and cannons to a position in front of the river side fortifications.
The attackers clear the walls of defenders and launch a final assault on the town.
(Pinto records in detail the pillaging and executions that supposedly took place in the wake of the defeat after seven months of siege.)
The so-called "Epoch of the Warring Country" referring to the decades of warfare in Japan that follow the Onin War of 1466-67 and the resultant collapse of Ashikaga power, has wrought substantive changes in the nation’s political, economical, and social structures.
New feudal lords, the “daimyo,” have arisen in the provinces, independent of imperial or shogunal authority.
Drawing their power from military strength, the daimyo define their domains as the area that can be defended from military rivals.
In an essentially feudal system, ties are fixed by vassalage, and land holdings are guaranteed in return for military service.
The daimyo concentrate their vassals in castle towns, leaving the villagers to administer themselves and pay taxes.
The castle towns develop intro market and handicraft industrial centers, and a new style of urban life begins to flourish.
This is the state of the country in 1543, when a Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China, lands in Japan; its sailors are the first Europeans to reach Japan.
The Portuguese sailors led by Fernão Mendes Pinto become the first Europeans to reach Japan when their ship is wrecked on Tanegashima, a small island to the south of Kyushu.
They gain the favor of a feudal lord, to whom they claim to have given the first firearm to enter Japan, the Portuguese arquebus. (The weapon will be rapidly reproduced and have a major impact on the ongoing Japanese civil wars; until modern times firearms will be colloquially known in Japan as "Tanega-shima," due to the belief that they were introduced by Pinto. Pinto was probably not in fact present at the first Portuguese contact with the Japanese, although he did visit Tanegashima soon after, and legend says he did marry a local woman and had a son.)
Nanban (“Southern Barbarian”), a Japanese word that originally designated people from South Asia and Southeast Asia, follows a Chinese usage in which surrounding “barbarian” people in the four directions have each their own designation.
The word will take on a new meaning in Japan when it comes to designate Europeans, first from Portugal, then Spain, and later the Netherlands and England. (The Dutch, however, will be known more commonly as Komo, meaning "Red Hair.”)
The word Nanban was thought naturally appropriate for the new visitors, since they came in by ship from the South, and their manners were considered quite unsophisticated by the Japanese.
These first Portuguese Nanban have arrived to trade, not only guns, but also soap, tobacco and other goods unknown in medieval Japan, for the excellent Japanese manufactures sold for a good price in Europe.
Pinto returns to the coast of China after being released at Ningbo, and makes contact with Portuguese merchants who are highly interested in a trade mission to Japan.