Ferṇo Lopes РA Soldier
Of Misfortune
Every now and then you come across a tidbit of information
which when researched unearths a fascinating story. This was one such and
relates to a person who sailed to the Indies during the period when the early
Portuguese were striving to make their presence felt on the West Coast of
India. The tale that follows narrates the travails of a person of nobility who
left the shores of Lisbon, leaving behind his wife and child there, to seek his
fortunes in Malabar and Goa. His hair raising adventures ending in a horrible
story of suffering, forced him to flee those very shores, back to Lisbon. Did
he reach home and unite with his family? His travails in Goa, Bijapur and the island
of St Helana form a real life story never to be repeated again.
This story as you will imagine, is set in Portugal’s Golden
Age, when Manuel I embarked on an ambitious period of expansion and pushed it
into the fore of Europe. If you recall, the first of those navy captains leading
an armada to the eastern seas was Vasco Da Gama who came and went in 1498, and
repeated it once again, but made a nuisance of himself for the inhabitants of
Malabar. In between his two voyages, a hot tempered Cabral came, but he too
failed to establish a foothold in Malabar, though managing to do so in Cochin. Almeida
was the next to attempt the conquest of Malabar. The Portuguese attempts to subdue the Zamorin
continued and the next admiral to arrive was the notorious Alfonso Albuquerque,
who in an initial foray, nearly lost his life in Calicut and was injured.
Alfonso who had previously served in North Africa, gaining
military experience in fierce campaigns against Muslim powers and Ottoman Turks,
had by now developed extreme hatred for the Muslims and continued to hold them
in contempt arriving in Malabar in 1503, and later in 1506 as the Goan Viceroy.
His early days were spent dealing with
the intrigues of Almeida who did not hand over the position and there was a
good reason for it. Almeida was trying
to exact revenge for the death of his son who had been killed in a sea
encounter. In order to avoid any forceful meddling with authority, Almeida had
Albuquerque jailed. Eventually,
Almeida defeated a combined Muslim force off Diu in February 1509, and in the
following November, with the arrival of a fleet from Portugal, he finally
turned his office over to Albuquerque.
The years, until Alfonso had sorted out succession issues
with Almeida, were as you saw, a little turbulent, but in 1509, he took over
the Governor’s position and after giving up on his dreams to subdue the Zamorin,
succeeded in establishing a stronghold in Goa around May 1510. He planned to
use Goa as a naval base to control the Muslim domination of the Arabian Sea, divert
the spice trade to Goa, and use the base to monopolize the trade in Persian
horses. He entrenched his base further by allowing the marriage of his soldiers
to local women, in order to provide Goa its own loyal population. That done, he
moved off to capture and plunder Malacca, which became an immensely profitable port
for the Portuguese. It was in this intermission period that our story reared
its head and the protagonist came to the fore.
 |
| Goa 1920 |
As you can see, a lot had happened in these 13 years following
the arrival of Gama and I had recounted those tales over a number of articles,
introducing terrible, jolly, interesting and pitiable characters along the way.
Some of those were heartwarming characters, like the the Senhora Da Panjim
(recently narrated at the tail end of the Hindi movie ‘Dear Zindagi’).
This is not Albuquerque’s story, so let me hasten and
introduce our hero to you. His name was Fernao Lopes, and he was some sort of a
fidalgo (Portuguese Nobleman) who set out in the 8th Armada of 1506
led by Tristão da Cunha, to maim and plunder
Malabar. Born around 1480, it is not clear if Lopes was actually a fidalgo or
an escudeiro, a squire. Perhaps he belonged to a rich family of Jewish origin
who contributed generously to the king’s voyages to the Indies. What is
important to note is that Fernao though not a fidalgo in the strict sense was a
converted Jew (Rowlands) and a ‘New Christian’ who left Lisbon for India, during
a period when both Jews and New Christians were being persecuted. However he
was in the kings employ and was relatively safe. All this will become relevant
later.
Afonso Albuquerque, the one to be called the Caesar of the
East, also Da Cunha’s cousin, accompanied them, sailing under da Cunha’s
command, but carrying secret orders to relive Almeida in Cochin, as the Viceroy.
Thus crossed the paths of these two, Lopes and Albuquerque –for the first time.
There is some suspicion that they did not quite hit it off and that Lopes
developed a deep distaste for Albuquerque. The next time their paths crossed
would prove to be fateful for Lopes, as you will soon see.
 |
| Banastarim fort - Goa |
Albuquerque became the Viceroy, captured Goa and reigned
supreme for a while and sailed on to take care of matters in Cochin and
Malacca. Lopes was part of the Portuguese forces left to protect the reinforced
fort of Benastarim (one of the key entry points into Goa) previously held by the
Bijapur king. The Fort of São Tiago of Banastarim, also known as Fort St. James
Banastarim or Benastarim Castle, was situated on the right bank of Cumbarjua
Cana in old Goa. In 1511, knowing that Albuquerque was out of Goa, the Sultan
of Bijapur, sent an army against Goa, under the command of Fulad Khan whom the
Portuguese called Pulatecao. Fulad Khan managed to take Banastarim but made
little progress in Goa's recapture. Rasul Khan, a general in Adil Shah’s employ,
was then sent to reconquer Goa in 1512. When he and his forces reached Goa, Fulad
Khan who was already there, refused to acknowledge his supremacy. With the help
of the Portuguese, Rasul Khan managed to drive Fulad Khan out of Banastarim
and, once he had taken possession of the fort, demanded the surrender of Goa
being held by the Portuguese. He then besieged Goa and cut off all its food
supplies.
It was around this period of time that Fernao Lopes and some
70 of his fellow soldiers, perhaps out of hunger, sheer misery, lack of
supplies and any money (they had not been paid for months) as well as the utter
disgust on the conduct his employers, turned coat and joined the Bijapur king’s
army. Interestingly it is also to be noted that by this time, Adil Khan had another
high level Portuguese renegade by name Joao Machado in his ranks, who was playing
a double spy’s role. An enterprising character, he had earlier been deported
from Lisbon for stealing a horse and fornicating with an abbots niece. This
fella accompanied Cabral in the 1500 voyage to Malabar and was already an old
hand in scheming intrigues.
Historians mention that Lopes and his fellow renegade soldiers
had converted to Islam, perhaps due to necessity, or maybe due to marriage. As
we saw earlier, Albequerque encouraged marriage with the women left in Goa, and
many of these women had once been followers of Islam. One author implies that
Lopes was perhaps influenced by his once Muslim wife to convert to Islam.
Anyway these folks were now prepared to fight the Portuguese. News of this
desertion reached Albuquerque, but he had to wait until late in 1512 till the
monsoons had abated, before he could launch a counter attack to take
Benastarim. The arrival of a new fleet from Portugal carrying a large number of
soldiers, boosted Albuquerque’s resolve.
In the fierce attack, Rasul Khan held firm to a stalemate,
and in negotiations which followed was forced to handover the Portuguese
renegades. Machado who once fought for Khan had in the meantime swapped sides
yet again and had gone over to Albuquerque, and owing to this was pardoned by
the Viceroy and appointed as the port officer or shahbandar of Goa. In the meantime
Rasul khan fled the fort. Other renegades who renounced Islam and went back accompanying
Machado were pardoned too and were paid off their arrears. Fernao Lopes and his
friend Pero Annes who refused to go back or renounce Islam, found no mercy from
Albuquerque.
After a merciless and barbaric torture stretching over three
days, Lopes’s ears were cut off, his nose was sliced away, his right foot was amputated,
so also his left thumb. His beard and hair were plucked out or were scraped off
with clam shells and mud and excreta applied over their bodies. After this horrible
maiming, they were finally let go and left to die in the streets of Goa. Lopes miraculously
survived the ordeal after suffering for a year but had no other go than to become
a beggar, roaming the streets of Goa for the next two years begging for food (It
is not clear if his wife helped him out).
In December 1515, Albuquerque died a miserable death for all
his sins, of acute dysentery at sea, just off Goa and was succeeded by a man he
hated intensely, Lope Soarez. His own remark explained Albuquerque’s polarized
life, ‘bad relations with his men for the king and bad relations with the king
for his men’, a situation which got him in the end.
Now that his chief nemesis and persecutor was gone, Fernao
Lopes finally decided to forget Goa and sail back home. Lopes boarded a ship
returning to Lisbon in 1516.
 |
| St Helena |
Let us take a little interlude now and talk about an island.
Out in the blue yonder, somewhere between the American continent and Africa is
a speck of an island, just 42 square miles in size. It is so remote that nobody
had ever heard of it until 1502. Most historical accounts mention that the
island was discovered on 21st (or 3rd) May 1502 by João
da Nova sailing in the relatively small 3rd armada, and that he
named it "Santa Helena" after Helena of Constantinople (Other
historians have concluded that it was actually Estevao Da Gama, the cousin of
Vasco, who discovered it around July 30th 1503). The Portuguese
found the island uninhabited, but possessed with an abundance of trees and
fresh water. Since its founding in 1502, most armadas stopped at the island to
collect water, but kept its location secret and off the maps.
The ship returning to Brazil in 1516 and carrying our man
Fernao Lopes, stopped at St Helena. Portugal was not far away, a few more months
of sailing. But for some reason or the other, Lopes lost heart. Perhaps it was
his severe disfigurement, perhaps it was shame of being a convicted traitor,
perhaps it was a feeling that he would never be accepted by his wife and son, and
it appears that Lopes slunk away from the ship and into the forest in Helena.
The ship’s captain, quite fond of the poor soul, had a search carried out, but
of no avail. Leaving behind a good amount of food, the ship sailed away to
leave Lopes marooned on the island. The captain nailed a note to a tree that
the island now had a Portuguese inhabitant and that he should not be harmed.
There Lopes remained in complete solitude, for close to 14
years, living in a cave he dug out painfully, all by himself. His existence on
the island was known to other Portuguese ships that passed by and many left
behind some supplies for the hapless man, but nobody was able to sight him in
the years that followed. Once a rooster was found by Lopes swimming ashore and
it is said that the two became fast friends, his only living companion for a
number of years. Other accounts state that when Lopes disembarked off the ship
on his own accord he was accompanied by one or more slaves, Javanese or Indian,
though serious studies discount these men Fridays and talk only about Lopes’s
solitary life in self-exile.
Quoting Clifford - And
in place of the fellowship of his kind, which he thus renounced, of the
comradeship of men who had used him cruelly, he sought solace in silent
converse with Nature, the great mother. The inviolate forest towered above him;
the untrodden beaches lay at his feet; no voices spoke to him save the cries of
seafowl, the songs of birds hidden in the foliage, the busy notes of countless
jungle-insects, and the sob of the sea breaking the sob of the sea breaking
monotonously upon the deserted shores. …... A sorry wreck of humanity this, an
object for the commiseration of any who had seen him, but happy at last because
he had won freedom and a kind of sovereignty… The beasts, more kindly than men,
would do him no dishonor; more docile than his fellows, they would accept him
for their king.
How he lived and survived provided fodder for many fiction pieces
and novels which became popular, one potential among them the 1719 work ‘Robinson
Crusoe’ by Daniel Defoe (Defoe never confirmed this, though Lopes’s story was
known in those days).
So much about the Hermit of Helena, though his story is not
over, as yet.
Somewhere around 1530, as the story of Lopes was gaining
popularity in Lisbon, another castaway appeared on the island, a Negro boy who
as you can imagine, eventually came into contact with Lopes. They did not quite
hit it off and when the next ship docked at Helena for water, this boy ran up
and told the ship’s captain about the disfigured hermit. There are many
inconsistencies to the tale actually since a few mention that the slave was
always with Lopes, while others say that he had fled a ship which docked much
later and come across Lopes the hermit, but not hitting it off with the old
bloke. Anyway Lopes was captured by the Portuguese and some books mentions a
meeting between the chief Justice Teixeira who was on the ship and Lopes following
which it appears a promise was made that Lopes would be left alone. More food,
livestock and seeds were left behind for the hermit of Helena. With that event
started the formal seeding and colonization of the fertile lands of Helena by
this lone colonizer. Lopes planted fig, mulberry, apple and mango trees, so
also palm, pomegranate, orange and lemons, and peach on the Island’s soil, very
soon making it a veritable isle of Eden. Many goats were also reared by him.
Ships which passed by thereafter were able to replenish
their holds with fresh fruit and the fame of the one handed hermit Lopes,
spread further in Portugal. Many a
sailor tried to convince him to return home, but that was something he had no
plans of doing. Around 1521, a change of guard had occurred in Lisbon, when
Manuel died and a young Joao III took over the throne. Joao and Catherine his
wife expressed a desire to see Lopes and he was thus ordered to sail to Lisbon.
The disheartened Lopes had no choice, he sailed off in one of the returning
ships to meet his king and queen (There is also another theory that he went to
Lisbon to discuss and seek protection, due to a fear of a potential French
occupation of Helena). As the story goes, he did meet them in the middle of the
night, and interestingly, he next proceed to Rome via Naples to meet the pope
Clement VI
Now that was an oddity. Ordering a papal meeting for a
common man, a convicted soul? It was apparently needed for a complete
absolution of Lopes’s sins. Lopes' crimes were apostasy, having abandoned the
true faith, and having taken up arms against it. These crimes were categorized
as special, and absolution for them could only be granted by the pope himself
or a cardinal acting for him. Perhaps Lopes requested this absolution and Joao
arranged it. Anyway, the Pope and he met and the former heard his confession.
He also issued a letter asking for Lopes to be sent back to Helena and not be
troubled henceforth. Experts explain that such a letter was required because
Joao had forbidden New Christians from leaving Portugal.
Did Lopes meet his wife and son? We do not know, but he returned
to St Helena towards the end of 1531.We are now getting to the final part of his
story. His first, last and only letter surfaces in history books as he writes
to King Joao in 1538 asking for a slave, to help build shelters on the island.
He also requests that the slave’s payment be taken care of by the state. Lopes continued his life on the island for
eight more years, and we hear of his passing in 1546, aged 66. With that he had
lived in total solitude on the island of St Helena for all of 30 years. I do
not think anybody else has ever experienced so much of isolation nor has I
believe, such an event occurred in this earth, ever again.
We do not know what happened to his rooster, but both these
creatures figure in a stamp released by St Helena as you saw above. Whether he was buried there
or not is also not known, but Lopes passed into the obscurity thereafter and was
buried instead in the writings of Correa, Barros and a few others the works (listed under references) of whom
are perused only by curious history buffs.
Sadly with no controls and oversight, the goats which were
on the island multiplied and ravaged the cultivated trees and plants in the
intervening years. The glorious fruit trees of Helena perished and it was a
wild and uninhabited place once again, with no master in control.
Sir Francis Drake probably rediscovered the island on the
final leg of his circumnavigation of the world (1577–1580). Further visits by
other English explorers followed and, once Saint Helena’s location was more
widely known, English ships of war began to lie in wait in the area to attack
Portuguese India carracks on their way home. Thomas Cavendish visited the
island in 1588. In 1645, the Dutch colonized it, and by 1651 the EIC had moved
in and after further skirmishes with the Dutch in 1672-3 was repossessed by the
British. A few other dignitaries like James Lancaster and Johan Nieuhoff graced
its shores, and in 1677 Edmund Halley more famous for the Halley’s Comet
visited the island to observe the skies, but was unhappy with too many clouds
blocking his view. In the later 17th Century it was made a
requirement for all ships trading with Madagascar to deliver one slave to St.
Helena, and during the 18th century as the East India Company
expanded around the Indian Ocean more slaves began to be brought in from
Malaysia and India.
Many others passed the island by, for it was the only
watering hole for sailors scouring the oceans. A small homestead had sprung up in
Jamestown, but a narration of the comprehensive history of St Helena is not our
objective and so we will not get into all that. We will go over a little nugget
though. In 1805, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington sailing by, stayed at
the Briar’s pavilion, while returning from India. Perhaps he was struck by the
islands isolation. During that visit he nearly lost his life while boating back
to his ship, as the boat capsized and the drowning Wellesley who did not know
swimming was saved by a common sailor. Wellesley went on to become a great man,
defeating the French general Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo, 10 years
later. Napoleon was thence exiled to Helena.
Of Napoleon’s lonely stay in Helena, much has been written
and will not be recounted here, but for a recap. The French emperor was sent to
Helena and not America as he had hoped, the British did not want a repeat of
Elba from where he had escaped during a previous exile. 300 years after the
arrival of Lopes, Napoleon arrived at St Helena in 1815 and stayed initially at
the very same Briar building which had housed his nemesis Wellesley. He then moved
to another home, the Longwood house and died there 6 years later, suffering
from stomach cancer, was initially buried at the Sane Valley, until the French
were given permission to have his body moved to Les Invalides in Paris,
nineteen years after his death. But one thing is for sure, he was never as
lonely as Fernao Lopes.
In the early and mid-19th century, the British Royal Navy
patrolled the African coast to intercept slave ships bound for America. More
than 26,000 slaves on board slaver ships were taken to St. Helena from 1840 to
1872. Between 5,000 and 8,000 died after their ordeal on the seas and were
buried on the island. Several hundred liberated Africans eventually integrated
into St Helena's population while others were sent to Sierra Leone.
You may not realize it, St Helena is still a remote place,
accessible only through a long naval voyage. The first airplane landed there on
15 September 2015, and today is open only to private flights. Helena is more
than 1,950 kilometers (1,210 mi) west of the Cunene River, which marks the
border between Namibia and Angola and 4,000 kilometers (2,500 mi) east of Rio
de Janeiro. If you ever feel bored or immensely lonely, just think of Lopes,
Helena and 30 years. That one thought will chastise you.
It is still one of the remotest locations of our world, but
if and when you go there, and if you had read this little tale in its entirety, you
will over a dinner while sitting and admiring the oceans waves, be able to talk
at length about Fernao Lopes, the hermit who single-handedly colonized St Helena,
and regale your dinner companion.
References
Fernão Lopes - a South Atlantic 'Robinson Crusoe' - Beau W.
Rowlands
The earliest exile of St Helena – Hugh Clifford, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine - VOL.
CLXXIII. Jan-Jun 1903, pp 621-633
The Other Exile - AR Azzam
Castaway - Yvette Christiansë
Notes
A soldier of fortune is a mercenary, a person who works as a
soldier for any country or group that will pay them. Thesaurus also defines him
to be a person who independently seeks pleasure, wealth, etc., through
adventurous exploits. I cast Lopes as a soldier of misfortune, for the
following reason. King Manuel had formally notified Albuquerque that deserters
were to be pardoned and paid off, but in the case of Lopes, Albuquerque did not
follow his king’s order. He wanted to set a severe example by mutilating the
young man and destroying his life, but perhaps there was some underlying
personal animosity between them since Lopes had not helped Albuquerque in Africa
during the 1506 incoming voyage and had instead sailed off directly to Cochin. Funnily,
the unfortunate Lopes succeeded not only in meeting and getting recognized by
the Portuguese royals by dint of his own efforts, but also in getting a papal
audience, all of which would, if Albuquerque were alive, have given him a cerebral
palsy.
Fernao Lopes is the archaic Portuguese spelling of this
bloke’s name. His name is also recorded as Fernando Lopez, but this person is
not the same as Fernao Lopes de Castaneda, who was a writer.
Several decades ago, during the early 90’s or the Microsoft
DOS age, unknown to many today, we had a fascinating screensaver about a marooned
man. The screensaver depicts a man, Johnny Castaway, stranded on a very small
island with a single palm tree. The screensaver follows a story which is slowly
revealed through time. Johnny fishes, builds sand castles, and jogs on a
regular basis, other events take place, such as a mermaid or Lilliputian
pirates coming to the island, or a seagull swooping down to steal his shorts
while he is bathing. Johnny repeatedly comes close to being rescued, but
ultimately remains on the island as a result of various unfortunate accidents.
I doubt if Fernao Lopes spent his days in that fashion, but the screen saver
(today available as a video on youtube) will give you some perspective, on a castaway’s
life.
Pics – Benastarim fort. Cunha armada, Goa map – Wikimedia, Helena painting - Mary Evans Picture
Library/Alamy
No comments:
Post a Comment