Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  “And so, too, the thieves on São Thomé?” The ambassador had no answer.

  The clique of officials and traders at São Thomé Island, to the northwest of the kingdom, were virtually in control of the slave and other trade that flowed from Mpinda. Even Lourenço Velloso had to pay a bribe in slaves to them. Their operators were active in the kingdom itself, encouraging the kidnapping of Bakongo.

  Affonso I had become obsessed with the idea of having a ship of his own so that his students and his emissaries might travel to Lisbon and Rome without interference from the Portuguese on São Thomé.

  “I thank you for your gift,” the ManiKongo said abruptly, and turned and stepped up to the platform before his throne. “You, Captain,” he said to Cavalcanti over his shoulder, “tell Lisbon how sad they make their brother Affonso.”

  Clearly the audience was over.

  Three days later, Cavalcanti and Velloso led their party from the capital, their journey to the port slowed by sixty slaves they were taking with them to the coast, part of the shipment Velloso planned to send to Lisbon with São Gabriel. The night before they reached Mpinda, they camped outside a village at which they’d stopped on their way up to Mbanza. Six burly warriors Velloso had hired in the capital guarded the slaves — men he had to watch as closely as the captives to prevent them from damaging his property. At the slightest provocation, they would beat a slave with brutal ferocity.

  “What will you do when you get back to Lisbon?” the trader asked Cavalcanti, as they lay near the camp fire. Velloso had made his final check of the slaves, who were settled on the ground a hundred paces away.

  “Make my report,” Cavalcanti said. “Then I’ll seek a way to return.”

  “To Brazil?”

  “Yes, to Brazil, my friend — to chase the Norman dogs who destroyed the squadron.”

  “Why concern yourself with such a place?” Velloso asked, stifling a yawn.

  “Brazil is a vast and fertile land — so vast you can’t imagine. The scum from Dieppe must not be allowed a foothold there.”

  “Lisbon does not respond kindly to news of defeat,” Velloso reminded him. “Even Cabral — knight, admiral, discoverer of Brazil — found it so.”

  True enough, Cavalcanti thought, with a shudder. Cabral, even before he’d reached Porto Seguro, had lost one ship, her crew disappeared off Cape Verde. Then, after Brazil, four of his vessels had been destroyed in a hurricane off the Cape of Good Hope. Of his thirteen ships, seven returned to Lisbon. There was praise for the admiral’s New World discovery, but never again was Cabral given an important command.

  At Mpinda, they found that work on São Gabriel had progressed slowly. Cavalcanti and Fernandes took charge of the refitting, but a further two weeks passed before the last of her new planks had been hewn and fixed into place.

  While master and pilot guided these labors, Padre Miguel busied himself with the cargo of slaves, including five who were Cavalcanti’s. Two days before they were to be taken aboard, Superintendent Sancho de Sousa sent his customs officials to brand the captives, marking their breasts with a red-hot iron. When this was done, Padre Miguel had the slaves assembled and, through an interpreter, informed them that they were to be baptized.

  “You will taste the salt of our faith,” he told them. “Your souls, servants, will be

  The slaves stared at him blankly, but when it was time to make them Christians, they rushed forward eagerly, hoping that this black robe’s ceremony would liberate more than their pagan hearts. They were disappointed.

  On the morning São Gabriel was to sail, young Brito Correia sought permission to speak with Cavalcanti: “Please, Master, there’s no one at Santarém. Dom Velloso, he’s a good man.”

  The slaver was aboard, come to see his property safely stowed in the forecastle, a dark, uncomplaining group, silent but for the noise of the shackles that bound them together. Velloso had taken an instant liking to the orphan, and on their journey to the ManiKongo’s capital, Brito had rarely been out of his sight. After their return from Mbanza, Velloso had gone to a southern province to set up a new source of slaves; Cavalcanti had let the boy accompany him, and it struck him how alike were the bastard of the Berber woman and the young mulatto from Santarém, almost like father and son.

  Velloso and the boy left soon afterward. Cavalcanti gave the order for São Gabriel’s anchors to be taken in. He stood alone on the quarterdeck as the crew maneuvered the ship into midstream with her long sweeps, so that she was set to run down to the mouth of the Zaire.

  Cavalcanti thought gloomily of the humiliation of having to report a grievous loss to the men at Lisbon. He recalled, too, his own father’s disappointment when he’d returned empty-handed from the Indies. Now he was going home under an even darker cloud.

  VI

  October 1534 - April 1546

  In the domed Sala das Armas of Sintra palace on a day in October 1534, the fidalgo Dom Duarte Coelho Pereira sat listening to the Keeper of Records, Belchior da Silveira, read part of a petition taken from the royal archives. Dom Duarte’s features were strong and determined; his bright eyes, firm jaw, the deep lines marking his forehead — all were indicative of the drive of a man who, when made a fidalgo for services to his king, chose nothing less than the red, rampant lion to surmount his crest.

  Dom Duarte and the Keeper of Records, a small, rotund man, stern-faced and with wisps of gray hair, were the only occupants of the hall. Dom Belchior’s reputation went beyond his zeal for paperwork: He had a remarkable memory for people and events connected with the volumes he had guarded for the past two decades, so wide a knowledge that some of the very men whose escutcheons were displayed in this armorial chamber dreaded the diminutive record keeper’s recollections.

  The petition Dom Belchior was reading had been submitted to the Crown eight years ago by Master Nicolau Cavalcanti, who had reported on the illfated squadron of Captain General Gomes de Pina. Dom Belchior reached the concluding paragraphs of Cavalcanti’s observations, which were addressed to King João III himself:

  *

  “It seems to me, senhor, that much profit can be made by this land of Santa Cruz, but it will require permanent settlement, as in the realms of Your Highness in Africa and India. The Norman pirates freely harass your logwood factories and ships because they see little evidence of your possession of Santa Cruz. The factories with your license have few men and are miserably defended; along the length of this coast there is not one settlement worthy of the name.

  “At Porto Seguro, we saw that this is not a land of dyewood and parrots alone but is so vast, so fertile, so well watered that it could support many of your subjects in enterprises such as exist at Your Highness’ islands of Madeira and the Azores. I have seen the fields of the Tupiniquin, who cultivate this land in the most primitive manner but receive Nature’s bounty in abundance.

  “Senhor, men and their families should be sent to make this land their home. Let them respect the trees and products that are your property, but encourage them to plant the crops of the Azores and São Thomé, sugarcane especially, my lord, and there will surely be great profit for Your Highness.”

  *

  At the time Cavalcanti wrote this petition, it had been noted and forgotten. The court had been more concerned with the loss of the squadron and the fidalgo who led it to defeat.

  When Dom Belchior stopped reading, Dom Duarte asked, “What do you know about this Nicolau Cavalcanti?”

  “He is the son of the Lisbon merchant João Cavalcanti. Before he sailed with

  Gomes de Pina, he served with Dom Afonso de Albuquerque.”

  “I can’t recall a Nicolau Cavalcanti in India,” Dom Duarte said.

  “He was at Goa and Ormuz.”

  “The name means nothing to me.”

  Dom Belchior stroked the end of his nose. If Cavalcanti had achieved anything of special note in the East, Dom Duarte Coelho would surely have remembered him.

  Dom Belchior was aware that Coelho had gone f
rom one success to another in the Indies. Little known when he first sailed out as a junior officer in 1509, he had been with Afonso de Albuquerque at Malacca’s capture in 1511, and for the next eighteen years had continued to serve with honor. Twice ambassador to Siam, he had also voyaged to China, India, Java, and Indochina, and had captained ships of the king in victorious engagements against Chinese and Malay fleets.

  Greatest among his triumphs, he counted his marriage into one of Portugal’s most honored families; his wife, Dona Brites, was the niece of Jorge de Albuquerque, captain of Malacca during two periods Dom Duarte served in that city. And Jorge was a cousin of O Terrível himself.

  Allying himself to such a powerful group was a coup indeed for an illegitimate son of respectable but not high birth. There were fidalgos at court, however, who called Dom Duarte a soldier of fortune. This he greatly resented, and energetically sought every chance to improve his standing.

  A month ago, in September 1534, King João had given Coelho his most magnificent opportunity yet to rise above those who mocked his more common and obscure roots: He was among a group of nobles to whom the king had granted vast landholdings in Terra do Brasil.

  A start at colonization had been made in 1531 on an island within a bay south of Porto Seguro and Cabo Frio, and the results at São Vicente had been promising — so much so that now, in 1534, João had announced a plan to divide his New World possession into captaincies, to be donated to nobles at his court, both the deserving and those he simply wished out of the way.

  A year ago a Portuguese flotilla had inflicted a defeat on the French corsairs: Twenty-one Normans, the notorious Tigre included, had been executed at the logwood factory of Pernambuco. Dom Duarte had been especially pleased by this news, for the lands he hoped to be granted — and in fact received — were at Pernambuco.

  “You may take sixty leagues, Dom Duarte,” the king had decreed, “from this river that encircles the island of Tamaraca — which river I want you to name Santa Cruz — to the river São Francisco, south of the Cabo de São Agostinho. At each point, you will set a marker with my coat of arms, and your land will extend to the west from those pillars as far as it can go.” Here João had been vague: Dom Duarte’s grant would run to the imaginary line between Portuguese and Spanish territory established by the Treaty of Tordesilhas, but just how much land existed out there was unknown.

  Ten of the sixty leagues were to be the personal property of Dom Duarte and his heirs: Over the rest, he was to exercise powers not unlike those of a feudal lord.

  João’s irrevocable grant and charter went into the smallest detail: There would be no royal levy on soapmaking in the colony, no tax on a grain of salt; one in twenty fish caught by the settlers — except those on a pole — were to be Dom Duarte’s.

  Dom Duarte was forbidden the exploitation of brazilwood, forever the king’s monopoly.

  João’s reward to Dom Duarte for all the services he had rendered in the East was given at a price, namely that Dom Duarte himself pay the cost of launching the colony. He had indeed amassed a fortune in the Indies, but there was enormous risk involved: Ruin could come easily — the wreck of a ship or two, even before they reached the new land, could be disastrous.

  Such gloomy thoughts quickly vanished as he reconsidered the report just read to him by Dom Belchior. “I don’t know this Cavalcanti,” Dom Duarte repeated, “but it’s obvious he’s not fooled by parrots and logs; he sees the one thing that will bring a profit from Brazil.”

  “Which is?”

  “Sugar! Sugar will be the treasure of our New World! I would very much like to meet Master Nicolau Cavalcanti. Is it known where he lives at present?”

  “You’ll most likely find him here, a few leagues beyond Sintra, at his father’s estate. He wanted to return to Terra do Brasil to fight the pirates, but his requests were rejected.”

  “He no longer goes to sea?”

  “I can’t say, but he’s often seen in Sintra.”

  “Good, good,” said Dom Duarte. “I’ll go to him.”

  Dom Duarte left soon afterward, with directions to the Cavalcanti lands from Dom Belchior.

  João Cavalcanti found it difficult to conceal his disappointment in his son, even though he realized the importance of Dom Duarte Coelho Pereira’s visit.

  Nicolau was working in the fields and had been summoned. His father and Dom Duarte were sitting at a long oak-beamed table in a low-roofed room that served as living and eating quarters. It was the oldest part of the farmhouse, with rough limed walls.

  “Does he speak much of Brazil?” Dom Duarte asked.

  “Which one, senhor?”

  Dom Duarte frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “The Brazil where he fought, again, for his king, or the one that belongs to the officials in Lisbon? You’ve read his report?” Dom Duarte nodded. “He brought the São Gabriel back, did he not? He fought off the Normans and faced death in the great storms of the Atlantic. Was he thanked? Far better had he listened to his father and followed my other sons into the countinghouse.”

  “Never, senhor!” a voice said strongly.

  Their backs to the doorway, they had not seen Nicolau standing there. João Cavalcanti introduced the two men and then politely excused himself, saying that he had work to do.

  “Let us walk, too,” Dom Duarte said, when the old man had left.

  They stepped into the courtyard. The Cavalcanti house had been added to over the years and formed a U-shape, with a chapel and the living quarters to the right, a storeroom between, and a long barn to the left. Casually, Dom Duarte remarked, “This is a home a man can be proud of.”

  Cavalcanti only nodded glumly. Cavalcanti no longer sailed in the king’s nor anyone else’s ships but halfheartedly led his father’s laborers and slaves, a lonely dour man whose future seemed utterly hopeless.

  Dom Duarte saw a person of character and strength, but one gripped by a profound melancholy. The brooding green eyes, the furrowed forehead said as much as if he’d openly revealed his bitterness to his visitor. His hair, like his beard, was almost all gray. Dom Duarte told Cavalcanti how he’d come to read Nicolau’s report to João III.

  “That was written eight years ago, senhor,” Nicolau said.

  “What you wrote remains as true as it was then. Sugar, Cavalcanti, is the future of Brazil. And Pernambuco, where my colony is to be established, will have the finest fields along that coast.”

  “But tell me, senhor, how long before others carry to Brazil the corruption and rot with which they infected Estado do India?”

  “There have been changes at Goa and Malacca.”

  “For whom?” Cavalcanti said. “For the thieves who squandered Dom Afonso’s legacy? No, senhor, no one can deny how bad it was, and is. Didn’t they send Vasco da Gama himself to restore order? Three months, senhor, and he was dead — dead of a broken heart, I would say, at the sight of his great discoveries so misused.”

  “True,” Dom Duarte said. “But Brazil can’t be the same, senhor. If a man wants a profit, he’ll have to earn it with the sweat of his labor. There are no markets, no traders, no great sultans to lead as milch cows. It’s a place, Cavalcanti, for an honest man.”

  “Pray God it stays that way.”

  “You made several appeals to return, I understand.”

  “Then you must also know they were rejected by Lisbon.”

  “Your father tells me you have a wife and two strong sons. I need such families, Nicolau Cavalcanti, to build my colony.”

  “I’m satisfied, senhor, on my father’s lands. Even the sea is no longer a home to me. When the king’s men said no, I went to my brothers. ‘For the love of God,’ I begged them, ‘get me a ship before my soul dies on these rocks.’ They did, a command as captain. On my first voyage from Lisbon to Genoa, a storm broke that little barcha’s back on a shore of Corsica. Such a man, Dom Duarte, can be of no help to you.”

  Dom Duarte ignored this gloomy recitation. “I’m prepared to give
everything I have to this venture,” he said. “I’ve fought from Malacca to Cochin, Cavalcanti, and what is there to show for it? Wealth? Yes. Honor? ‘Dom Duarte,’ they call me, ‘lion of the East.’ But what comes after, when I’m gone? A small memory of me in some corner of the world? At Santa Cruz, Cavalcanti, it’s my wish that the name Duarte Coelho be remembered from one end of that land to the other!”

  Pedro, the younger of Cavalcanti’s sons, was at the open cow stall of the long barn to their left, paying more attention to the two men than to the animals.

  “How old is he?” Dom Duarte asked.

  “Fourteen, senhor.”

  “What a year for a young man! You and I, Cavalcanti, with our dreams of the East — what we were planning at his age! Today, Cavalcanti, there is a New World — for boys such as your sons.”

  “It’s a wild, beautiful place that will take real men to conquer,” Cavalcanti said, with mounting enthusiasm.

  Dom Duarte sensed that he had Cavalcanti on the verge of accepting, and now he went into detail about the king’s grant, and the opportunities for settlers who’d accompany him to Pernambuco: lands as far as the eye could see; riches from future harvests of sugar; honor in bringing Portuguese civilization and the faith to the tropics of Brazil.

  “Think, Cavalcanti, of what a move to Pernambuco can mean to your family,” Dom Duarte urged before he left. “What I’m offering is not a fort or a factory, where you must be confined for years, or a small field in Sintra. I’m offering paradise, Cavalcanti, waiting there for men who truly deserve it.”

  Days passed in which Nicolau said little to his father or his family about Dom Duarte’s visit. He wandered off alone through the woods, to the very edge of the land, where the blue-gray Atlantic rolled against the rocks.

  He walked with the image of a nymph before him, her coppery body full but lithe as she danced. But he saw, too, the horror of battle in that secure haven, and he also looked beyond the flames of the squadron and into the forest, and there, too, he sensed a darkness. But the troubling images did not linger.