Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

New Christian Discourse and Early Modern Portuguese Oceanic Expansion: The Cases of Garcia da Orta, Fernao Mendes Pinto, Ambrosio Fernandes Brandao and Pedro de Leon Portocarrero

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
Despite the vast participation of New Christians (converts from Judaism or of Jewish ancestry) in the process of early modern Iberian imperial expansion overseas, the research on this topic has been limited to a few studies, which are usually based on Inquisitorial records, follow mainly historical approaches, and tend to depict stereotypical and sometimes romantic and essentialist images of New Christian travelers. With the goal of filling this gap, this dissertation studies literary texts written by Iberian New Christians in the context of the early modern Portuguese and Spanish oceanic expansion. The dissertation analyses Portuguese and Spanish texts written during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in (or about) different areas of the Iberian colonies like Portuguese Asia, Northeastern Brazil and the Spanish Viceregal Peru. Besides minimizing (or problematizing) the Catholic dimension of Spanish and Portuguese imperial activity overseas, the works studied in the dissertation are unique because they show signs of a subjectivity that was uncommon in the landscape of the textual representations of the early modern Iberian empire expansion, such as the use of humor and possible allusions to Jewish and New Christian culture.Chapter one focuses on the Coloquios dos simples e drogas da India (Goa, 1563), by the Portuguese New Christian physician Garcia d’Orta (c.1501-1568). This chapter shows how the late discovery of inquisitorial records related to Garcia d’Orta’s family impacted the ways we currently read the once-marginalized but now-canonized Coloquios. Chapter two deals with one of the most enigmatic and complex texts of the Portuguese early modern expansion literature: Peregrinacão (Lisbon, 1614) by Fernão Mendes Pinto (c.1510-1583). Since Mendes Pinto’s Jewish roots have yet to be proven, the chapter examines how the scholarship around Mendes Pinto’s text and persona has fostered or rejected the hypothesis of his New Christian status, and shows how the themes of justice, honor, and lineage in Peregrinacão suggest a New Christian discourse. Chapter three moves from the Indic to the Atlantic Ocean and studies the Dialogos das grandezas do Brasil (Paraiba?, c.1618), an anonymous text attributed to the Portuguese New Christian sugar mill owner Ambrosio Fernandes Brandão (c. 1555-c.1618). The chapter highlights some passages from the Dialogos that bear witness to the religious instability that characterized part of Portugal’s New Christian population, and suggests that Brandão sought to present Brazil in a positive light to New Christians by appealing to their fluid religious identity. Chapter four shifts to Viceregal Peru and investigates another anonymous work: the Descripcion del Virreinato del Peru (? - c.1620) attributed to Pedro de Leon Portocarrero (c.1576-c.1620), a Spanish New Christian merchant of probable Portuguese origin. The chapter shows how Portocarrero opposes Spanish colonial rule not just by providing secret commercial and military information to Dutch authorities, but also by criticizing Spain's commercial, political and religious monopoly on subtle symbolic levels. I argue that all of these texts were written by authors whose probable lack of political and religious commitment to the official approaches and discourses of Iberian overseas expansion allowed them to represent the colonization process in an alternative, non-triumphalist fashion.
Lucia Costigan (Advisor)
Lisa Voigt (Committee Member)
Matt Goldish (Committee Member)
183 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Mordoch, G. (2017). New Christian Discourse and Early Modern Portuguese Oceanic Expansion: The Cases of Garcia da Orta, Fernao Mendes Pinto, Ambrosio Fernandes Brandao and Pedro de Leon Portocarrero [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu150231925234443

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Mordoch, Gabriel . New Christian Discourse and Early Modern Portuguese Oceanic Expansion: The Cases of Garcia da Orta, Fernao Mendes Pinto, Ambrosio Fernandes Brandao and Pedro de Leon Portocarrero. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu150231925234443.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Mordoch, Gabriel . "New Christian Discourse and Early Modern Portuguese Oceanic Expansion: The Cases of Garcia da Orta, Fernao Mendes Pinto, Ambrosio Fernandes Brandao and Pedro de Leon Portocarrero." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu150231925234443

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)