Documental Anthology

INTRODUCTION
REPORTS ON CHINA IN IBERIAN LITERATURE (SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES)

Rui Manuel Loureiro

Iberian medieval culture almost completely ignored Asia as it was a far off world about which only patchy knowledge, mainly based on reports from travellers or adventurers and influenced by the fantasies of consequent editors, was known. Marco Polo's book contributed to making a surge of information public with reference to Cathay, · the vast and powerful empire governed by the Khan· Mongols, who was somewhere in the region of the Far East.

The Iberian vision of these exotic regions was nevertheless vague and nebulous, void of any accurate outline since the lack of any direct contact contributed to the diffusion of an imaginary geography. The discovery of a maritime route to India (1498) would radically change this situation, for suddenly, thanks to the journeys and explorations carried out by the Portuguese, the Eastern world gained a new dimension for Europeans, establishing itself as a powerful pole of attraction, for both material and intellectual reasons. Direct contact with the oceans, lands and peoples of Asia would extend the geographical horizons of the Portuguese, and later of other Europeans. This would not only provoke important changes in ways of life, but also in how the world was perceived, already taking into account that news collected first hand by Portuguese travellers improved traditional knowledge and would revolutionise the image of Asian.

Among many other actual reports, the Portuguese collected the first information about the enigmatic land of the Chinese, which was situated in the most remote confines of the Orient. With time, the sequence of successive explorative trips and regular investigations carried out in a number of Asian ports made an accumulation of available information giving rise to enormous expectations. In fact China began to take the form of a vast, powerful kingdom producing extremely valuable merchandise, something which stirred the curiosity and also the greed of travellers setting out from Europe.

The first contacts between the Chinese and Portuguese were established in Malacca [presently Melaka], in 1509, and confirmed all the anxieties of the Portuguese: the Chinese, as well as dealing in silks and porcelain, showed enormous similarities to their own people in the West, from the pale colour of their skin to their clothing and food, and passing on through to the elaborate rules of society. Therefore practically from the first encounter, the Chinese appeared to be privileged interlocutors as long as China imposed itself as the primary destination of Portuguese navigators.

Following the first contacts with the Island of Tunmen· (Port.: Tamão), established in 1513, Portuguese ships simply would not give up searching for the Chinese coast. They did this with commendable persistence, undoubtedly proportionate to the enormous material benefits which could be gained there, and attempted ways of reaching the Middle Kingdom over the next decades. At one stage the envoys of the Portuguese King, Dom Manuel I [°1469-r.1495-†1521], tried establishing a permanent trading centre in the Pearl River estuary, resorting to naval power tempered by diplomatic mediation. However this process, which had succeeded in other Asian regions further to the west, showed itself to be totally inadequate for local circumstances, leading to a brief period of confrontations. On the one hand the Portuguese made too many tactical errors, motivated by the total lack of knowledge of the main characteristics of Chinese civilisation. On the other hand, the Chinese demonstrated an exceptional capacity to resist Portuguese intrusion, thereby refusing any form of official contact with these 'barbaric' foreigners.

Faced with the failure of courtly politics, private merchants took the initiative, creating with time, a semi-legal trade and a vast network of collaborators among the people who lived on the rivers in the southern provinces of China. Where intimidation and the use of force failed, a flexible, compromising attitude with local authorities obtained surprising results. After minimal familiarity with the subtleties of Chinese external politics, the Portuguese adopted a conciliatory stance which allowed them to bypass Imperial prohibitions in a more discreet fashion and with more efficiency. In this way they managed to maintain a profitable exchange with certain coastal areas of Fujian· and Zhejiang· throughout the following decades. The discovery of Japan in 1542 or 1543, saw the introduction of a more dynamic Luso-Chinese trade which had developed slowly up until then, certainly in a camouflaged way but safely and uninterrupted. Constraints at various levels, especially climatic and geographic conditions, now required the setting up of a secure base at some point along the Chinese coast, from where Portuguese navigators could head for either Malacca or the Japanese ports.

Around ten years after the first documented voyage to the Japanese Island of Tanegashima, Lusitanian vessels obtained authority from Guandongnese mandarins to anchor off the Island of Shangchoan Dao• (Port.: Sanchoão). And in 1557, less than three years after the first agreement between the Chinese and Portuguese, the trading base was transferred to the Macao peninsula where it still remains today. The time for compromise between the Chinese and Portuguese had arrived. Maintaining a Lusitanian base in territory belonging to the Middle Kingdom should undoubtedly be understood as a conquest on the part of Portuguese merchants and adventurers who managed to achieve a credible partnership status decree before the authorities of the neighbouring metropolis of Guangzhou. However Macao was also an unusual concession by the Guangdongnese mandarins, which, in an attitude previously unpublished but explicable for solid reasons of political and economical practicality, they consented to the establishment of a settlement of foreigners within the Imperial borders.

Contact with the land of the Chinese, helped by obtaining information of a geographical and ethnographic nature, would inevitably give way to a proliferation of written reports which intended publishing the realities previously ignored. Consequently merchants and adventurers, soldiers and regional civil servants, as well as missionaries from various denominations, all contributed within their respective capacities to the greater awareness of the Chinese world. The process was identical to the one which evolved in other Asiatic regions. Portuguese observers began to give attention to facts of a more useful nature, linked to political and military conditions, as well as the more immediate world of navigation and trade. Both Suma Oriental [...] (The Suma Oriental [...]) by Tomé Pires (1515) and Livro das coisas do Oriente [...] (An Account on the Countries Bordering the Indian Ocean [...]) by Duarte Barbosa (1516), the first global geographies of the Orient written by Portuguese, already noted important and detailed information concerning the main material aspects of Chinese civilisation. Following the fulfilling of various urgent reports, travellers increased their series of questions, looking to obtain more detailed information each time about customs and habits, and also about beliefs and religious practices, in such a way as to form a more detailed global image of the Middle Kingdom. An anonymous report from around 1548, written under the auspices of Fr. Francis Xavier, attempted revealing lesser known aspects of cultural life in the Middle Kingdom which had gone unnoticed by previous observers. This appears to be the first Spanish intrusion, though completely peaceful, of Chinese affairs.

The information sent in letters and manuscript reports had a wide circulation and were regularly used by chronologists and intellectuals which in turn gave consistency to the image that was taking taking shape. China, discovered by Portuguese navigators in the first years of the sixteenth century, established itself as one of the most powerful Asiatic kingdoms in the eyes of Iberian writers, worth the greatest admiration and the most profound interest, not only for its enormous area and its incredible riches, but also for the efficient way it managed to solve the main material problems which affected any closely regulated society. Galiote Pereira's description in Algumas coisas sabidas da China [...] (Certain Reports of China [...]) (ca 1553), written down after a period in captivity in Chinese prisons, well described the atmosphere of expectation which was to be created around that far away Asiatic power. The collection of reports on the Orient around the middle of the sixteenth century -- not only in Galiote Pereira's Reports[...] but also in letters and accounts from other travellers like Gaspar Lopes, Leonel de Sousa, Fernão Mendes Pinto, Fr. Melchior Nunes Barreto and Amaro Pereira -- were generally characterised by a rather praiseworthy tone. Chinese reality was viewed in an extremely admiring way, which found no parallel in other Asian kingdoms visited by Europeans at the time. China appeared as a true model society in Portuguese eyes, due to the impeccable way government and administration functioned, the rigorous impartiality of justice, the abundance of all types of merchandise, the elaborate organisation of productive activities, the bustling order in the cities and even the enormous severity of punishments given to transgressors. Curiously, in spite of several Portuguese observers having drawn attention to the less positive traits of Chinese reality, like the corruption which slowly penetrated among some mandarins in the lower classes, the brutality of punishments given to criminals or the excessive authority which magistrates enjoyed, the praises were practically for everything in general.

The positive view of China constructed by Lusitanian travellers with Asian experience would be consequently resumed and broadened in all the great works of Portuguese literature on the Expansion printed in the second half of the 1500's: Historia do Descobrimento e conquista da India pelos portugueses [...] (The Historie of the Discoverie and Conquest of the East Indias, enterprised by the Portingales [...]) by Fernão Lopes de Castanheda (Coimbra, 1551-1561), the first three Décadas da Asia (Decades of Asia) by João de Barros (Lisbon, 1552-1564), the Tratado dos Descobrimentos (Treatise on the Discoveries) by António Galvão (Lisbon, 1563), the Colóquios dos simples e drogas e cousas medicinais da India [...] (Colloquies on the pures, and drugs and medicinal substances of India [...]) (Goa, 1563), and the Crónica do felicíssimo rei Dom Manuel by Damião de Góis (Lisbon, 1566-1567) to the Comentários de Afonso de Albuquerque [...] (The commentaries of the great A. Dalboquerque [...]) by Alfonso Brás de Albuquerque (Lisbon, 1557) and especially the second enlarged edition (Lisbon, 1576), Chinese affairs were the reason for a virtual chorus of praises, which at the same time as making the Middle Kingdom known to the Portuguese and European public, they established it as the only Asian kingdom capable of seriously rivalling Europe with regard to expansiveness. This positive view reached its climax in the Algumas Coisas sabidas da China [...] (Certain Reports on China [...]) by Friar Gaspar de Cruz (Evora, 1569-1570) which spoke very extensively on Chinese affairs and included a vast monograph where the systemisation of all the different reports circulating in Portugal were gathered together. Following a short stay on the Chinese coast, the Dominican Mission decided, for reasons which remained somewhat unclear, to encapsulate and give final form to the current of positive opinion which could be seen evolving in Portuguese literature practically since the period of the first contacts with the Middle Kingdom.

Some Spanish literary works from the 'expansionist' publishers in the second half of the sixteenth century reflected this attitude of admiration faced with the great Chinese Empire in the same way. The Spanish had permanently established themselves in the Philippines in 1565 and in the following year Friar Andrés de Urdañeta finally discovered the route of the return journey from America. From Manila, founded in 1572, they began to launch usurious glances to other regions in the far east, like China and Japan, which up until then had been exclusively in contact with Portuguese maritime commerce. This interest seemed to be reflected in Discvrso de la navegacion que los portugue∫es hazen à los Reinos y Prouincias del Oriente [...] (A Di∫course on the Navigation which the Portugueze do make to the Realms and Provinces of the East Parts of the World [...]by Bernardino de Escalante (Seville, 1577), which was largely inspired by the monograph produced not long before by Friar Gaspar da Cruz who wrote an extensive treatise almost exclusively dedicated to the Middle Kingdom, and also in the Historia De Las Cosas Mas Notables, Ritos Y Costumbres Del gran re Yno de la China [...] (The Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdom of China [...]) by Friar Juan Gonzàlez de Mendoza (Rome, 1585) and which in the following fifteen years would be published in more than forty editions in the the most diverse languages and cities of Europe.

This positive vision would begin to suffer some realignment in the last years of the sixteenth century, thanks to the efforts of a small group of missionaries who had managed to enter Chinese territory. Macao, as well as being a firmly established trading centre, would also become a strategic base for the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, which was responsible for missionising vast areas of the Far East. The lgnacians, since Fr. Francis Xavier's death on the Island of Shangchuan Dao in 1552, had shown an unusual interest in Chinese affairs and they emerged even as instigators of their own project, differing in their methods and objectives from the approach of traders and those of the state. The Jesuit Fathers, in their evangelical efforts, had even sponsored several Portuguese ambassadorial missions in Guangdong, all of which sadly failed. Nevertheless after initial failures, the Company of Jesus had to also learn their lessons, soon opting for a more moderate way of approaching the Chinese which took into account the circumstances enforced by their civilisation. Therefore Fr. Alessandro Valignano (°1539-+|1606), a Jesuit Visitor in the Orient, defined a more appropriate strategy for the local situation and in 1580 suggested that his brothers learn the Chinese language and become acquainted with their customs. This new attitude achieved positive results in the short term, for by 1583 the Jesuit Fathers in Macao were granted authorisation to establish themselves in Zhaoqing, · an important city in Guangdong. Through a slow and complicated process of aculturisation, which went through adopting Chinese social practices and learning to write their script, the Jesuits, headed by Fr. Matteo Ricci (°1552-†1610), were able to obtain better information about all aspects of Chinese culture. This was a decisive contribution to broadening and deepening the European and Iberian image of the Middle Kingdom.

Through Macao being a centre of trade -- a privileged vantage point which in 1583 had more than two thousand inhabitants and had obtained the status of relative autonomy before the Guangdongnese government -- the Fathers of the Society of Jesus took on the role of official informers, channelling an inexhaustible source of factual information about Chinese life into Portugal. These reports were regularly made good use of in Portuguese and Spanish literature. Curiously, in spite of being corrected often over the next decades for failings in observing events, the general tone of admiration was kept up by the Jesuit Fathers, who now discovered new reasons for admiring Chinese civilisation, from the unmeasurable extent of the Empire to the remarkable political and administrative organisation, from the advanced techniques in certain areas of productivity to the correctness of ancient customs and for the admirable and widespread organisation of the education system.

The extensive treatise De Missione Legatorum laponen Sium, for which Fr. Duarte Sande was responsible (Macao, 1590), included a large chapter on China. It seems to have been the first work printed which included some accounts recently collected by Fr. Matteo Ricci and where a new way of seeing the Middle Kingdom was presented for the first time with a more documented, detailed tone but still equally positive. Other publications soon contributed to the spreading of this kind of image around Portugal and Spain, many of them from Jesuits working as missionaries with the Company of Jesus, given on the one hand that they also surely took advantage of the exclusivity of their contacts with China to deepen their knowledge, whereas on the other hand, they did not omit to regularly send news to their European brothers through an elaborate and efficient system of yearly letters.

Apart from this sort of written work from the Jesuits, who followed a strategy of divulging missionaries' successes with the aim of gathering material and human support from Europe, another type of Iberian written account gave special attention to China. Four examples are sufficient to illustrate this. Firstly, the famous Peregrinaçam de Fernam Mendez Pinto [...] (The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendez Pinto, a Portugal [...]) (Lisbon, 1614) deserves special distinction. This enormous tale of adventures had many events set in the Middle Kingdoom in which the author allegedly took part. A careful analysis of this monumental literary work however reveals that the writings of Fernão Mendes Pinto, as far as regarding China was concerned, were entirely indebted to Portuguese sources prior to 1583, the date of the famous traveller's death, almost limiting itself to a compilation of passages written down by others interwoven by an elaborate guiding thread of an autobiographical nature. Secondly, an extensive [...] relación [...] de viaje, naufragio e captiverio, que con otras personas padeció en Chauceo, Reino de la Gran China [...] ([...] Narrative [...] about the Voyage, Shipwreck and Captivity which He Endured with More People in Chauceo, in the Great Kingdom of China [...]) prepared by Fr. Adriano de las Cortes, which remained in manuscript form up until the present day, reported an eventful journey carried out by him from 1625 to 1626 through the southern provinces of China. Thirdly, the inspector of customs at the Torre do Tombo in Goa, António Bocarro, while undertaking a systematic report of Portuguese possessions in the Orient in 1635, known as Livro das Plantas de todas as Fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental (Book of the Plans of all the Fortresses, Cities and Towns of the State of East India) did not forget to include a long section on the port of Macao in China. Lastly, the tireless Fr. Sebastião Manrique, who wandered slowly around Asia by land and sea, attributed due prominence to the main features of Portuguese presence in China in his Itinerario delas Missiones del India Oriental [...] ([...] the Itinerario de las Missiones Orientales [...]) (Rome, 1649). Throughout the seventeenth century Iberian writers continued compiling treatises, more or less drawn from Chinese material, in which they gathered together circumstantial information about Chinese civilisation and the initial progress of Catholicism. Three authors stand out among the immense illustrious group of reporters, all of them missionaries, some working in the field for many years in periods perceptibly coinciding, and perhaps others lamenting at not being able to. Fr. Álvaro Semedo, a Jesuit from the China mission, would see one of his accounts completed around 1639 and printed twice within the short period of two years, the first time in Madrid in 1642, at the insistence of the scholar Manuel Faria e Sousa --lmperio de la China & cultura evangelica en el por los religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus (The Chinese Empire and the Evangelical Culture There from the Religious Members of the Society of Jesus) -- and the second time in Rome in 1643, in a translation revised by him -- Relatione della Grande Monarchia della Cina [...] (The History of the Great and Renowned Monarchy of China [...]). The Spanish Fiar Domingo Fernández Navarrete, after having completed extensive journeys to the Far East, published some long-winded accounts in the Tratados Historicos, Politicos, Ethicos y Religiosos de la Monarchia de China [...] (The Travels and Controversies [...]) where, in spite of not showing great sympathy for the Portuguese nor for the Jesuits, presented an extraordinary panorama of Chinese reality in his time. With regards to Fr. Gabriel de Magalhães, also a Jesuit serving in the Middle Kingdom's Missions, had one of his works published in Paris in 1688, Nouvelle Relation de la Chine [...] (New Report on China [...]), which was originally prepared in Portuguese in 1668. The works of these missionaries and travellers transmitted a very full and detailed picture of Chinese society from the middle of the seventeenth century, a vision which was based, in the case of the Jesuits, on a deep knowledge of mandarin and on a lengthy period living with Chinese people of all sections of society and of extensive trips into the interior. The predominating tone resonated with praise, as it could not help but be so.

The positive characteristics of the image of China which emerged in fifteenth and sixteenth century lberian literature can be explained with four fundamental motives. Firstly, the point of departure of a traveller always conditioned the observations carried out, in such a way that Portuguese and Spanish writers, conscious of the defects of their own society, paid particular attention to aspects of Chinese society which could support a comparison with the European world. In this context the solutions found by the Chinese to solve certain problems in daily life could not help but raise admiration. Secondly, the otherness of Chinese civilisation -- like their extraordinary spatial areas, the giant proportions of their urban conglomerates, the density of their population -- were of the kind which produced a sensation of smallness for the European observer, especially in someone Portuguese, coming from a truly miniature country in Chinese terms. Thirdly, the great distance which separated the Iberian peninsula from China undoubtedly contributed to the enthusiastic way news from this Asian power was welcomed by the Portuguese. The physical distance removed any potential threat, allowing a more peaceful appreciation of the information received. Finally, the concrete limitations which affected the existence of Portuguese travellers introduced an element of distortion in the observations made. In fact before 1583, the Portuguese and Spanish almost exclusively contacted the maritime regions of China, outwardly quite prosperous, and always through an interpreter, as they did not know the language or the local dialects.

Consequently, as far as they could be confident, up to a certain point, in their own perceptions, they were forced to generalise from a relatively limited experience. Once the Fathers of the Society of Jesus had arrived in the Imperial territory of China, the previous barriers were surmounted. As soon as it was possible to have access to more rigorous knowledge -- considering they were linguistically informed and had experience living there, even though the Jesuit vision accentuated their own limitations -- clear intentions of missionary propaganda finally emerged through the praise of seventeenth century discourse on Chinese affairs.

By way of a global balance, one could conclude that China occupied a privileged position in Iberian literature throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This was especially true of Portuguese literature, equally for the quantative weight of the accounts collected as for the singular significance they gave them in a great part of the production of manuscripts and publications of a foreign nature.

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