Fernão Mendes Pinto

Fernão Mendes Pinto
Born	1509 Montemor-o-Velho
Died	July 8, 1583(1583-07-08) Almada, Pragal
Nationality	Portuguese
Occupation	explorer and writer
Known for	Pilgrimage

Fernão Mendes Pinto (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w̃ ˈmẽdɨʃ ˈpĩtu], Old Portuguese: Fernam Mendez Pinto) (Montemor-o-Velho, c. 1509 — Almada, Pragal, 8 July 1583) was 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 truthfulness is nearly impossible to assess. In the course of his travels in the Middle and Far East, Pinto visited Ethiopia, the Arabian Sea, China (where he claimed to have been a forced laborer on the Great Wall), India and Japan. He claimed to have been among the first group of Europeans to visit Japan and initiate the Nanban trade period. He also claimed 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 was a Jesuit, though he later left 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 later became common, but was unusual at the time.^[1] The vivid tales of his wanderings over twenty years – he wrote, for example, that he was "thirteen times made captive and seventeen times sold" – were so unusual that they were mostly not believed. They gave rise to the saying "Fernão, Mentes? Minto!", a Portuguese pun on his name meaning "Fernão, do you lie? Yes, I lie!".^[2]

Early life

Fernão Mendes Pinto was born in Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal, circa 1509, to a poor rural family. He had at least two brothers and at least two sisters. His brother Álvaro was present at Malacca in 1551 and other letters reveal that a brother suffered martyrdom in Malacca. It is also known that Pinto had a wealthy cousin, Francisco García de Vargas who was present at Cochin in 1557. Pinto departed for Lisbon in 1521, where he served George, Duke of Coimbra (the illegitimate son of King John II of Portugal). Two years later Pinto set out for Setúbal, a short distance down the coast from Lisbon, to work for nobleman Francisco de Faria, but his ship was attacked by French pirates who abandoned the crew and passengers on a beach in Alentejo.

Voyages

Pinto's travels can be divided into three phases: a) his initial voyages from Portugal to India, in which he attempted to join Portuguese outposts on the Western coast of India, and was diverted several times; b) travelling through many nations around the Red Sea, from the coast of Africa to the Persian Gulf; c) after reaching India, he voyaged to the eastern coast of India and to Portuguese possessions around Malacca, bringing him to Sumatra, Siam, China, and Japan. Finally, Pinto returned to Europe.

First voyage to India

Map of India showing Diu.

Fernão's first voyage to India began on 11 March 1537, when he set sail from Lisbon. Little happened on the voyage besides a brief stop in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. On 5 September 1537 Pinto arrived in Diu, a fortified island and town northwest of Bombay, which had become a Portuguese possession in 1535. According to his account the fortress was under siege by Muslims led by Suleiman the Magnificent, who was determined to overthrow the Portuguese rule in India and to maintain the Muslim monopoly on eastern trade.

Enticed by the tales of riches that could be obtained by attacking Muslim shipping, Pinto joined a reconnaissance mission to the Red Sea, with a brief stop in Ethiopia to deliver a message to the Portuguese soldiers who were guarding Eleni of Ethiopia, the mother of "Prester John" (Emperor Dawit II of Ethiopia) in a mountain fortress. After leaving the Ethiopian port of Massawa, the Portuguese ships engaged three Turkish galleys, but were defeated. Crews of the ships were taken as prisoners to Mocha, a port in southwest Arabia, and put on an auction block. Pinto was sold to a Greek Muslim who he claims was a cruel master. Pinto threatened to commit suicide which convinced his master to sell him to a Jewish merchant for about thirty ducats' worth of dates.

Mocha is in modern Yemen; Hormuz in modern-day Iran.

Pinto's new master took him on the caravan route to Hormuz, then the leading market town in the Persian Gulf, where Pinto was offered to the Captain of the Fortress of Hormuz and the King's special magistrate for Indian affairs, who had recently been sent by the Governor of Portuguese India on a mission for the crown. Pinto was freed at a cost of three hundred ducats paid by the crown.

Pinto's second voyage to India occurred soon after he was freed, when he signed on a Portuguese cargo ship bound for Goa, the Portuguese colony and naval base established to seize complete control of the spice trade from other European powers after traditional land routes to India had been closed by the Ottoman Turks. Against his will Pinto was transferred while en route to a naval fleet bound for the Sindhi port city of Debal near Thatta {the Mughal administrative capitol of Sindh province, the Portuguese attempted to capture or destroy the Ottoman Turkish vessels anchored there. After a number of engagements in the Arabian Sea, with varying success, Pinto ultimately reached Goa.

Malacca and the Far East

The Malay Peninsula highlighted. The straits of Malacca separate it from the island of Sumatra; India is to the west and Borneo to the east.

From 1539 on it appears Pinto was based in Malacca under the newly appointed Captain of Malacca, Pero de Faria, who sent Pinto to establish diplomatic contacts with unknown states in the region.

Fernão Mendes Pinto was the first Portuguese to note the Ottoman fleet led by Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis, which arrived in Aceh, a steadfast force of sailors which consisted of 300 Ottomans, some Swahilis and Afars from Djibouti (known as Abyssinian), Sindhis from Debal and Thatta, Gujaratis from Surat, and some 200 Malabar sailors of Janjira to aid the Malay Archipelago in 1569.

Most of his early time in Malacca included missions to the petty kingdoms of Sumatra, which was allied with the Portuguese against the Muslims of Aceh (known as Achin in Portuguese) in northern Sumatra. During these voyages he made private trades, hoping to make profits himself, but remained loyal to the King's interests, in contrast to many of his colleagues, who would engage in private trade to the extent that it would be a detriment to the interests of the crown.

Patani voyage

Following Pinto's mission to Sumatra, he was sent to Patani, on the eastern shore of the Malay peninsula. In a joint venture with Patani-based countrymen, Pinto travelled with a shipload of merchandise to the coast of Siam (modern-day Thailand), but they were attacked by a pirate, who stole their goods. Sailing in search of the pirate, they essentially become pirates themselves, under command of António de Faria. Faria's exploits led him to become a popular figure in Portuguese literature.

Pinto continued in this role for months, operating in the South China Sea, especially in the Gulf of Tonkin (between Indochina and Hainan).

The South China Sea, showing surrounding countries and neighbouring seas and oceans

Prisoner in China

Ranging northward along the coast of China into the East China Sea Pinto entered the Yellow Sea (between the peninsulas of Shandong and Korea). Here his party raided the tomb of the Emperor of China - but a shipwreck left them in the hands of the Chinese. The survivors of this ordeal were sentenced to one year of hard labor on the Great Wall of China.

Pinto was surprised to come upon a mixed Portuguese-native household, and was encouraged by the experience. He did not complete his sentence, but was taken prisoner by a new power - the invading Tatars. Pinto and his comrades bought their freedom by teaching the Tatars how to storm a fortress, and in the company of a Tatar ambassador, they traveled toward Cochinchina, the southernmost part of modern-day Cambodia and Vietnam.

While on the journey, they encountered a major religious figure whom Pinto describes as "pope-like" --possibly the Dalai Lama-- who had never heard of Europe. Frustrated with the slow pace of travel, and still in the vicinity of the deserted islands off the coast of Canton, Pinto and two companions boarded a Chinese pirate junk, which was cast by a storm onto the Japanese island of Tanegashima, just south of Kyūshū; this is the source of Pinto's claim to be the first westerner to enter Japan.

Voyages to Japan

A few years later (1542), Pinto made his first voyage to Japan, accompanied by other Portuguese, supposedly introducing the arquebus, a kind of firearm, to that country.

Map of Japan

They landed in Japan in 1542 or 1543 and gained the favor of a feudal lord, to whom they claim to have given the first firearm to have entered Japan, the Portuguese arquebus. The weapon was rapidly reproduced and had a major impact on the ongoing Japanese civil wars. Pinto returned to the coast of China after being released at Ningpo, and made contact with Portuguese merchants who were highly interested in a trade mission to Japan. Their expedition was shipwrecked on the coast of the Ryukyu Islands, however, where they were arrested for piracy but were released because of the compassion of the island's women.

In 1549 Pinto left the port of Kagoshima but he took with him a Japanese fugitive, Anjiro, and introduced him to Saint Francis Xavier. Xavier joined Pinto's voyage to Japan, and famously went on to spread Catholicism to that country. In 1551 Pinto met Xavier again, and worked for him during the evangelization period of the region.

In 1554 Pinto decided to return to Portugal with the fortune gained during his voyages, but prior to returning home he underwent conversion to the Society of Jesus and donated a large sum of his wealth to the Society itself, becoming a brother of the Society. Pinto then departed with Xavier as a shipmate when Xavier left his work in Japan to a successor.

Final voyage to Japan

Memorial to St. Francis Xavier, Hirado, Nagasaki, Japan

A letter from Otomo Yoshishige supports the history of these events: when the daimyo of Bungo requested that Pinto return to Japan, and offering his conversion. The letter arrived at the same time that Xavier's body was being displayed in Goa. Pinto was to accompany the mission, which to a small degree was a successful diplomatic mission, establishing an embassy, but he failed to convert Otomo because of an ongoing civil war — Otomo could not afford to alienate his supporters by converting to a foreign religion during the conflict. Twenty-two years later, however, Otomo eventually did convert to Christianity, at the same time as Pinto was completing his autobiography.

During Pinto's final voyage to Japan (1554–1556) with Xavier's successor, he served as the Viceroy of Portuguese India's ambassador to the daimyo of Bungo on the island of Kyūshū.

At the end of the voyage, Pinto lent money to Xavier to create the first church in Japan. For an unknown reason, Pinto abandoned the Jesuits in 1557 on his return trip.

Martaban

Pinto returned to Malacca and reported to the captain who sent him on a mission to Martaban which is today part of Lower Myanmar. He arrived in the midst of a siege and took refuge in the Portuguese camp of mercenaries who had betrayed the Viceroy of Martaban. At the end of the siege, Pinto was likewise betrayed by a mercenary. He was made a captive of the Burmese and placed under the charge of the king's treasurer who took him to the kingdom of Calaminham, now called Luang Prabang. Pinto fled to Goa on his return trip while the Burmese besieged Sandoway.

Java

Once Pinto returned to Goa, he again met Pero de Faria, now the former Captain of Malacca. Pero sent him on a voyage to Java to buy pepper, which could then be sold in China, and while buying goods in the Javan port of Bantam, Pinto was joined by forty Portuguese merchants who were alarmed by violence that erupted in the area after the Emperor was slain by his page boy over a point of honor.

Ruins of Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam

The Japanese wakō shipwreck them in the Gulf of Siam where they end up tossed onto the coast of Java.

There they resorted to cannibalism in order to survive, and those that did survive (including Pinto) sold themselves as slaves in return for passage out of the swamp. They were then sold to a Celebes merchant and resold to the King of Kalapa, (modern-day Jakarta). After hearing their stories, he generously sent them on a ship — to Sunda from which they had previously departed.

Siam

Using borrowed money, Pinto bought passage to Siam, now known as Thailand. Pinto then describes how not long after his arrival the King of Siam requested Portuguese residents to enlist to quell a revolt in the Northern boundaries. The King was subsequently poisoned by the Queen, who also murdered the young heir to the throne, and placed her lover in the boy's place. The new King was then murdered, and unrest ensued provoking the King of Burma to lay siege to Ayuthia the capital of Siam.

The description of these events in Burmese and Thai history, whether they were actually witnessed firsthand by Pinto, represents the most detailed account of these events that can be found in all of recorded Western history.

Return voyage

Pinto returned to Portugal on 22 September 1558 after an uneventful voyage. He was already famous in Western Europe as the author of a letter that had been published by the Society of Jesus in 1555. From 1562-1566 he spent four and a half years in court hoping to receive a reward or compensation for his years of service to the Crown.

The book

Peregrinação, Fernão Mendes Pinto's famous book

In 1558 Pinto returned to Portugal where he married Maria Correia Barreto with whom he had at least two daughters; exact details of his family are unknown. He bought a farm in the region of Pragal (near Almada) in 1562 and in 1569 he started to write the account of his voyages in the Orient.

Fernão Mendes Pinto died on 8 July 1583 on his Pragal farm. His book would be published in 1614, 31 years after his death, by friar Belchior Faria. The full title of the book was

"Pilgrimage of Fernam Mendez Pinto in which is told the many and very strange things he saw and heard in the kingdom of China, in the one of Tartary, in the one of Sornau, usually called Siam, in the one of Calaminhan, in the one of Pegù, in the one of Martauão, and in many other kingdoms and lordships of the Oriental parts, and that in our Occident there are few or no accounts. And also the account of many particular affairs that occurred both to him and many other people. And in the end of it briefly regards some things, & the death of the Holy Priest Francis Xavier, sole light and brightness of those parts of the Orient, & universal ruler of the Society of Jesus in those parts."

(in Old Portuguese: "Peregrinaçam de Fernam Mendez Pinto em que da conta de muytas e muyto estranhas cousas que vio & ouvio no reyno da China, no da Tartaria, no de Sornau, que vulgarmente se chama de Sião, no de Calaminhan, no do Pegù, no de Martauão, & em outros muytos reynos & senhorios das partes Orientais, de que nestas nossas do Occidente ha muyto pouca ou nenhua noticia. E tambem da conta de muytos casos particulares que acontecerão assi a elle como a outras muytas pessoas. E no fim della trata brevemente de alguas cousas, & da morte do Santo Padre Francisco Xavier, unica luz & resplandor daquellas partes do Oriente, & reitor nellas universal da Companhia de Iesus.")

It is thought that the printed version of the book does not correspond exactly to the author’s manuscripts — some sentences appear to have been erased and others were "corrected". The disappearance of references to the Society of Jesus, one of the most active religious orders in the Orient, is notable, as there are clear indications of Fernão Mendes Pinto's relations with the society.

Notable views held in the book

Although Fernão Mendes Pinto did not have an education similar to his contemporary authors and did not reveal knowledge of either classical culture or of the aesthetics of the Renaissance, his experiential knowledge and intelligence enabled him to create a fascinating and lasting work.

The absence of a formal education, his physical distance from the dominant culture, and his humble roots were his advantages. His work has no signs of prejudice regarding the "new" cultures discovered by the Portuguese and thus it is a living testimony of their habits, attitudes and ways of life.

Historicity

The tale of his adventures was written after the fact, according to Pinto's memories of the events, and for that reason it may be open to doubt as a completely accurate historical source. However, it well documents the impact of the Asian civilizations on the Europeans and constitutes a perfectly realistic analysis of Portuguese action in the Orient, far more realistic than the one made by Luís de Camões in The Lusiads.

The most controversial of his claims is that of having been the first European to land in Japan and the introduction of the arquebus. Despite the impossibility of proving these specific assertions, there is little doubt that Pinto was among the first Europeans in Japan, and therefore his account may be considered more reliable than other books describing this period that were written long afterwards.

Another controversial claim, that he fought in Java against the Muslims, has been analyzed by various historians. The Dutch historian P. A. Tiele, who wrote in 1880, did not believe Pinto was present during the campaign, but rather that he wrote his information from secondhand sources. Even so, Tiele admits Pinto's account cannot be disregarded because of the lack of alternative information about Javanese history during the time period; despite the doubts over Pinto's accuracy, his viewpoint may represent the only authoritative source in existence. Maurice Collis, a modern expert on Asian affairs who lived in the area for twenty years, holds the opinion that Fernão's accounts, while not entirely true, remain essentially true with respect to the basic events. Because of this Collis considers Pinto's work the most complete European account of 16th century Asian history.

The new American cyclopaedia: a popular dictionary of general knowledge, Volume 11

“	MENDEZ-PINTO, Fernão, a Portuguese adventurer, born at Old Montemayor, near Coimbra, about 1510, died at Almada, near Lisbon, about 1580. He was the child of poor parents, and in 1521 was placed in the service of a noble lady of Lisbon. At the end of a year and a half an adventure, the particulars of which are not known, put his life in peril, and caused him to embark precipitately on a ship just going to sea. The vessel was soon taken by pirates, who after much ill treatment put him ashore on the coast of Portugal. Afterward he passed into the service successively of two noblemen, and at length, in search of fortune, sailed for the East Indies, and in 1537 arrived at Diu on the W. coast of Hindostan, which city the Portuguese had seized and fortified two years before. Here he embarked as a volunteer in a vessel sent to cruise against the Turks in the Indian ocean and Red sea. After various adventures and a visit to Abyssinia, Pinto was captured by the Turks near Babelmandeb, carried to Mocha, and sold as a slave, first to a Greek renegade, and next to a Jew, from whom he was ransomed by the Portuguese governor of Ormus, who furnished him with the means of returning to India. At Goa he met Dom Pedro de Faria, captain-general of Malacca, who, perceiving his ability, took him into his service and sent him on numerous missions to the native princes. On one of these expeditions he was shipwrecked, made a slave, and sold to a Mohammedan merchant who carried him to Malacca for ransom. He was soon sent on another mission to the gulf of Siam; but his vessel, while lying in the river near Lugor, was boarded and captured by pirates. He escaped, though wounded, by swimming to the shore, and having reached Patana, a Portuguese port south of Lugor, he engaged with some friends in fitting out a small oruiser and went in search of the pirates, several of whose vessels richly laden the Portuguese captured, though they soon lost by shipwreck all the treasures thus acquired. Pinto and his companions then procured still another vessel, met and captured the pirate who had robbed them at Lugor, suffered another shipwreck, and some of them having been detained as prisoners at a town on the coast of China, the others rescued them and plundered the place, and then put into Liampo, or Ningpo as it is now called. Here Pinto and some other Portuguese, in May, 1542, were persuaded by a Chinese pirate to undertake an expedition to the island of Calempui, not far from Peking, where, as they were led to believe, were the tombs of 17 Chinese kings, containing vast treasures. Their attempt to plunder these tombs was only partially successful, and they fled terrified at the alarm raised by the guardians of the treasures. Shortly afterward they were again shipwrecked on the Chinese coast; and after witnessing the drowning of most of his comrades, Pinto with a few others got on shore, where they lived awhile by begging, but were apprehended and taken to Nanking, and on a charge of being thieves were condemned to lose their thumbs; but by appealing, they got this punishment commuted into imprisonment in the town of Quansi on the northern frontier, where they were set to work in repairing the great wall. They were delivered in a few months by an inroad of Tartars, who carried them to assist in the siege of Peking, and then took them back to Turtary. After a short residence in that country Pinto went in the train of an ambassador to Cochin China, and from there made his way to Macao, which was not yet occupied by the Portuguese. Here, in default of any other resource, he enlisted with two other Portuguese in the service of a Chinese pirate, whose vessel, after a desperate engagement with a superior force of other pirates, escaped under cover of the night and was driven by a gale to the coast of Japan, which had not then been visited by Europeans. Pinto was well received by the Japanese, and after a considerable stay in their country he sailed back to Liampo with the Chinese pirate. His report of the discovery of Japan and its great wealth and magnificence created such an excitement among the Portuguese at Linmpo, that in 15 days 9 hastily equipped ships were despatched for the new Eldorado. Eight of them foundered on the voyage, and the one in which Pinto sailed was driven to the Loo Choo islands, then first seen by Europeans, and wrecked there. Pinto with difficulty got ashore, and after many fresh adventures and dangers found his way back in a Chinese junk to Liampo, whence after still more vicissitudes he proceeded to Malacca. He next visited Pegu, Siam, Java, and some of the neighboring countries, in which he met with a singular variety of fortune; and in 1547 he embarked at Malacca on a second voyage to Japan. Soon after his arrival there a civil war broke out, in which Pinto took part for a while; but having at length profitably disposed of the merchandise he carried thither, he returned to Malacca, where he met St. Francis Xavier, " the apostle of the Indies," with whom in the course of a few months he made a third visit to Japan, arriving there in Aug. 1548. By these voyages to Japan Pinto acquired great wealth, and in 1553 he was at Goa, preporing to return to Portugal, when the arrival there of the body of Xavier, and his conferences with Father Nugnes Barreto, the vice-provincial of the Jesuits, so excited his religious enthusiasm, that he devoted his whole fortune, except 2,000 crowns which he sent to his poor relations in Portugal, to the foundation of a seminary for propagating the faith in Japan. He was then appointed ambassador from the Portuguese viceroy of India to the king of Bungo in Japan, and sailed for that country in company with the Jesuit Nugnes. Before setting out he took the vows as a member of the order of Jesuits; but on his arrival in Japan his zeal evaporated, and he was released from his vows. He returned with Nugnes to Goa, and sailed thence for Lisbon, where he arrived Sept. 22, 1558, bearing to tho queen regent a letter from the viceroy at Goa, recommending him warmly to the favor of the government as a man of the highest experience in East Indian affairs. He spent a few years in attendance on the court, which brought him nothing but promises, and which he says were more tedious and harassing than his 21 years of service in the East, though during that time he had been 13 times taken by the enemy and 17 times sold as a slave. The first extant account of his travels and adventures is given in a collection of Jesuits' letters published in Italian at Venice in 1565. He wrote a full narrative of his life, which was published long after his death by Francisco de Andrada under the title of Peregrinacao de Fernam Mendez-Pinto (4to., Lisbon, 1614). Few books have been more popular. In Portugal editions were printed in 1678, 1711, 1725, and 1762. A Spanish translation by Francisco de Herrera, in which great liberties were taken with the original, appeared in 1620; a French translation was made by Bernard Fignier, of which 8 editions have been printed (Paris, 1628, 1645, and 1830), and an English translation by H. Cogan, of which there have been two editions (London, 1663 and 1692). Pinto's reputation in English literature has suffered greatly by an oft quoted lino in Congreve's " Love for Love:" " Ferdinand MendezPinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude! " But it is now admitted by critics and scholars that his general veracity cannot be disputed. The countries in which his adventures happened are still many of them little known, but the more they have been explored the more has the correctness of his statements become apparent. Remusat, the eminent Chinese scholar, cites him as good authority for facts, and Malte-Brun remarks that in writing about eastern Asia he had carefully examined Pinto's work, and was strongly confirmed in his opinion of the reality of his adventures and the general correctness of his memory.[3]	”

Legacy and following

Japanese arquebus of the Edo era (teppo)

Among Pinto's legacies is his claim to introducing the arquebus on the island of Tanegashima that would be known throughout Japan as the "Tanega-shima". Based on Portuguese models, Japanese swordsmiths managed to mass-produce arquebuses, initiating the tradition of the firearms of Japan. By 1553 there were more guns per capita in Japan than in any other country.^[4] In 1600 the Japanese guns were the best of the world.^[4] The "Tanega-shima" drastically changed Japanese warfare until the Tokugawa era when they were outlawed. Another legacy of his is funding the first Christian church in Japan which would mark the beginning of Christianity in Japan. His greatest legacy is not his voyages but his detailed description of Asian culture, and history of the 16th century. It is more descriptive than any other European reports, and from a much earlier date.

Mendes Pinto, a crater on Mercury, was named after him in 1978.^[5] A high school in Almada, Portugal built in 1965 was named in his honour.

See also

• Exploration of Asia

References

Books

• Breve História da Literatura Portuguesa, Texto Editora, Lisboa, 1999
• A. J. Barreiros, História da Literatura Portuguesa, Editora Pax, 11th ed.
• A. J. Saraiva, O. Lopes, História da Literatura Portuguesa, Porto Editora, 12tg ed.
• Verbo – Enciclopédia Luso-Brasileira de Cultura, 15th ed., Editorial Verbo, Lisboa
• Lexicoteca – Moderna Enciclopédia Universal, vol. 15, Círculo de Leitores, 1987
• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, Edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz, The University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226669513
• Collis, Maurice (1949). The Grand Peregrination. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0856358509. 
• Fernão Mendes Pinto and the Peregrinação - studies, restored Portuguese text, notes and indexes, directed by Jorge Santos Alves, Fundação Oriente, Lisbon, 2010, ISBN 9789727850969

Online

Rebecca Catz. "Hispania". Fernão Mendes Pinto and His Peregrinação. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/01475176655936417554480/p0000002.htm#I_7_. Retrieved 30 August 2005. 

Inline

1. ^ Fernão Mendes Pinto and His Peregrinação, Rebecca Catz, Hispania magazine, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
2. ^ The Travels of Mendes Pinto: Team Game, The Inside Scoop on Gaming, RPGnet
3. ^ George Ripley, Charles Anderson Dana, ed (1861). The new American cyclopaedia: a popular dictionary of general knowledge, Volume 11. D. Appleton and company. p. 379. http://books.google.com/books?id=9mJMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA379&dq=portuguese+slavery+ningpo&hl=en&ei=dpi5TqX_IZGutwe-nNHDBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBg. Retrieved 4th of November, 2011. "MENDEZ-PINTO, Febnam, a Portuguese adventurer, born at Old Montemayor, near Coimbra, about 1510, died at Almada, near Lisbon, about 1580. He was the child of poor parents, and in 1521 was placed in the service of a noble lady of Lisbon. At the end of a year and a half an adventure, the particulars of which are not known, put his life in peril, and caused him to embark precipitately on a ship just going to sea. The vessel was soon taken by pirates, who after much ill treatment put him ashore on the coast of Portugal. Afterward he passed into the service successively of two noblemen, and at length, in search of fortune, sailed for the East Indies, and in 1537 arrived at Diu on the W. coast of Hindostan, which city the Portuguese had seized and fortified two years before. Here he embarked as a volunteer in a vessel sent to cruise against the Turks in the Indian ocean and Red sea. After various adventures and a visit to Abyssinia, Pinto was captured by the Turks near Babelmandeb, carried to Mocha, and sold as a slave, first to a Greek renegade, and next to a Jew, from whom he was ransomed by the Portuguese governor of Ormus, who furnished him with the means of returning to India. At Goa he met Dom Pedro de Faria, captain-general of Malacca, who, perceiving his ability, took him into his service and sent him on numerous missions to the native princes. On one of these expeditions he was shipwrecked, made a slave, and sold to a Mohammedan merchant who carried him to Malacca for ransom. He was soon sent on another mission to the gulf of Siam; but his vessel, while lying in the river near Lugor, was boarded and captured by pirates. He escaped, though wounded, by swimming to the shore, and having reached Patana, a Portuguese port south of Lugor, he engaged with some friends in fitting out a small oruiser and went in search of the pirates, several of whose vessels richly laden the Portuguese captured, though they soon lost by shipwreck all the treasures thus acquired. Pinto and his companions then procured still another vessel, met and captured the pirate who had robbed them at Lugor, suffered another shipwreck, and some of them having been detained as prisoners at a town on the coast of China, the others rescued them and plundered the place, and then put into Liampo, or Ningpo as it is now called. Here Pinto and some other Portuguese, in May, 1542, were persuaded by a Chinese pirate to undertake an expedition to the island of Calempui, not far from Peking, where, as they were led to believe, were the tombs of 17 Chinese kings, containing vast treasures. Their attempt to plunder these tombs was only partially successful, and they fled terrified at the alarm raised by the guardians of the treasures. Shortly afterward they were again shipwrecked on the Chinese coast; and after witnessing the drowning of most of his comrades, Pinto with a few others got on shore, where they lived awhile by begging, but were apprehended and taken to Nanking, and on a charge of being thieves were condemned to lose their thumbs; but by appealing, they got this punishment commuted into imprisonment in the town of Quansi on the northern frontier, where they were set to work in repairing the great wall. They were delivered in a few months by an inroad of Tartars, who carried them to assist in the siege of Peking, and then took them back to Turtary. After a short residence in that country Pinto went in the train of an ambassador to Cochin China, and from there made his way to Macao, which was not yet occupied by the Portuguese. Here, in default of any other resource, he enlisted with two other Portuguese in the service of a Chinese pirate, whose vessel, after a desperate engagement with a superior force of other pirates, escaped under cover of the night and was driven by a gale to the coast of Japan, which had not then been visited by Europeans. Pinto was well received by the Japanese, and after a considerable stay in their country he sailed back to Liampo with the Chinese pirate. His report of the discovery of Japan and its great wealth and magnificence created such an excitement among the Portuguese at Linmpo, that in 15 days 9 hastily equipped ships were despatched for the new Eldorado. Eight of them foundered on the voyage, and the one in which Pinto sailed was driven to the Loo Choo islands, then first seen by Europeans, and wrecked there. Pinto with difficulty got ashore, and after many fresh adventures and dangers found his way back in a Chinese junk to Liampo, whence after still more vicissitudes he proceeded to Malacca. He next visited Pegu, Siam, Java, and some of the neighboring countries, in which he met with a singular variety of fortune; and in 1547 he embarked at Malacca on a second voyage to Japan. Soon after his arrival there a civil war broke out, in which Pinto took part for a while; but having at length profitably disposed of the merchandise he carried thither, he returned to Malacca, where he met St. Francis Xavier, " the apostle of the Indies," with whom in the course of a few months he made a third visit to Japan, arriving there in Aug. 1548. By these voyages to Japan Pinto acquired great wealth, and in 1553 he was at Goa, preporing to return to Portugal, when the arrival there of the body of Xavier, and his conferences with Father Nugnes Barreto, the vice-provincial of the Jesuits, so excited his religious enthusiasm, that he devoted his whole fortune, except 2,000 crowns which he sent to his poor relations in Portugal, to the foundation of a seminary for propagating the faith in Japan. He was then appointed ambassador from the Portuguese viceroy of India to the king of Bungo in Japan, and sailed for that country in company with the Jesuit Nugnes. Before setting out he took the vows as a member of the order of Jesuits; but on his arrival in Japan his zeal evaporated, and he was released from his vows. He returned with Nugnes to Goa, and sailed thence for Lisbon, where he arrived Sept. 22, 1558, bearing to tho queen regent a letter from the viceroy at Goa, recommending him warmly to the favor of the government as a man of the highest experience in East Indian affairs. He spent a few years in attendance on the court, which brought him nothing but promises, and which he says were more tedious and harassing than his 21 years of service in the East, though during that time he had been 13 times taken by the enemy and 17 times sold as a slave. The first extant account of his travels and adventures is given in a collection of Jesuits' letters published in Italian at Venice in 1565. He wrote a full narrative of his life, which was published long after his death by Francisco de Andrada under the title of Peregrinacao de Fernam Mendez-Pinto (4to., Lisbon, 1614). Few books have been more popular. In Portugal editions were printed in 1678, 1711, 1725, and 1762. A Spanish translation by Francisco de Herrera, in which great liberties were taken with the original, appeared in 1620; a French translation was made by Bernard Fignier, of which 8 editions have been printed (Paris, 1628, 1645, and 1830), and an English translation by H. Cogan, of which there have been two editions (London, 1663 and 1692). Pinto's reputation in English literature has suffered greatly by an oft quoted lino in Congreve's " Love for Love:" " Ferdinand MendezPinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude! " But it is now admitted by critics and scholars that his general veracity cannot be disputed. The countries in which his adventures happened are still many of them little known, but the more they have been explored the more has the correctness of his statements become apparent. Remusat, the eminent Chinese scholar, cites him as good authority for facts, and Malte-Brun remarks that in writing about eastern Asia he had carefully examined Pinto's work, and was strongly confirmed in his opinion of the reality of his adventures and the general correctness of his memory." (the University of Michigan)
4. ^ ^{a b} How to Get Rich: A Talk by Jared Diamond [6.7.99]
5. ^ Craters: Mendes Pinto on Mercury, Planetary Names: Crater

External links

• from the Catholic Encyclopedia
• Hispania - American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Inc.
• "The voyages and adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto.1692." English Translation by Henry Cogan, of Nichibunken database

Persondata
Name	Mendes Pinto, Fernao
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1509
Place of birth	Montemor-o-Velho
Date of death	8 July 1583
Place of death	Almada, Pragal