Defining Portuguese America: The First Depictions of Brazil Within the Context of Overseas Expansion

doi:10.1017/9781108976893.003

Chapter 2 - Defining Portuguese America: The First Depictions of Brazil Within the Context of Overseas Expansion

from Part I - Land, Space, Territory

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2022

Sarissa Carneiro

Edited by

Rocío Quispe-Agnoli and

Amber Brian

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Rocío Quispe-Agnoli: Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Amber Brian: Affiliation:
University of Iowa

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Summary

This chapter examines the Portuguese representations of space during its expansion in Atlantic South America. It focuses on the act of naming places and people and the political and missionary appropriation of the land and its native inhabitants. It analyzes three genres of early colonial historiography: (a) accounts of discovery like Vaz de Caminha’s Carta a dom Manuel I (1500), the anonymous pilot’s Relacão, and Mestre João’s Carta; (b) chronicles and histories such asMagalhães Gândavo’s Historia da provincia de Santa Cruz a que vulgarmente chamamos Brasil (1576); Cardim’s Tratados da terra e gente do Brasil (1583-1601), and Soares de Sousa’s Tratado descritivo do Brasil em 1587; and Jesuit missionary letterswritten by Nóbrega (1517-1570), Azpilcueta Navarro (1522-1557) and Anchieta (1534-1597).

While western ways of thinking the world activate the production of these texts, this essay contends that the identities given to places and people are not one-sided European given the movement, displacement, and transformation that the Portuguese explorers, colonizers and missionaries experienced in the Americas.

Keywords

Portuguese overseas expansion Vaz de Caminha Álvaro Velho Magalhães Gândavo Soares de Sousa Antonio Vieira; Amerigo Vespucci early colonial Brazil Indians in Brazil Jesuit missionary letters

Type: Chapter
Information: Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800 , pp. 34 - 47

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976893.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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References

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