Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the imperial locations and geocultural identities performed for Philip III’s entry into Lisbon in João Sardinha Mimoso’s _Relación de la real tragicomedia_ (Lisbon, 1620), in order to explore the ways in which embodied geographies both support and challenge imperial ideologies.

Paper long abstract:

Upon Vasco da Gama's arrival in Lisbon following his successful voyage to the Orient, King Manuel I ordered public celebrations to commemorate the event, including a dance of costumed figures representing the Eastern provinces which would now render him tribute. At least, this is how the explorer's welcome was performed for King Philip III in Lisbon in 1619 by the students of the Jesuit college of Saint Anthony. The performance is described in João Sardinha Mimoso's _Relación de la real tragicomedia_ (Lisbon, 1620), one of several accounts of Philip III's entry into Lisbon. The curious celebration-within-a-celebration reorients the object of acclaim from the Spanish King to his Portuguese ancestor King Manuel I and Vasco da Gama, who are described as "drawing the eyes of everyone" (52r). The fruits of Portuguese imperial expansion were also put on display in the Jesuit performance. For example, a Brazilian king—dressed in the typical Tupinambá costume of feathered headdress and cape—was represented by a "naturally dark" student who performed songs in Africanized Spanish as well as Brasilica. In this paper I examine, on the one hand, how the embodied performance of Portuguese expansion displaces Madrid and positions Lisbon as the center of Philip III's empire. On the other hand, I explore the African, Amerindian, and Asian identities represented through clothing, language, music, dance, and skin color in the Jesuit performance—and the slippages between those identities—in order to study the ways in which that embodied geographies both support and challenge imperial ideologies.

Paper short abstract:

The paper will look at how the inhabitants of the African fortress of Mazagão re-constructed their environment and their life in New Mazagão built in the Amazon in the eighteenth century, focusing on the negotiation between the plans drawn by the Portuguese crown and the city created by the settlers.

Paper long abstract:

Since the beginning of the fifteenth century, Portuguese soldiers housed in the fortress city of Mazagão, now El Jadida (Morocco), waited for the moment to fight against the infidel Muslims. The city, together with the fortress of Azamor, located eight miles north, was part of the efforts of the Portuguese crown to strengthen its presence in Muslim ground, effects of the Reconquista. In 1562, 2,600 men resisted the moors in what became known as "The Siege of Mazagão." The political interests of the Portuguese empire shifted as a result of its maritime expansion, dramatically altered after the possession of South American land. The new colony needed settlers; moreover, the Portuguese crown lost interest in the African fortress, which demanded resources without offering an increase of the Portuguese presence in the region. After centuries of expectation for further heroic feats, the Marquês de Pombal decided that the lives of Mazagão's inhabitants would unfold in a radically different frontier: the Amazon. In 1769, the Portuguese families left the fortress to Lisbon, where they waited for the arrangements for their transference to the forest. There, in a completely alien environment, they built a city from scratch. This paper will look at how these unwilling settlers constructed both their physical environment and their new life. Fundamental to the discussion is the negotiation between desire and resistance, heroism and resilience, and how this can be identified in the disconnections between the plans drawn by the Portuguese crown and the city created by these new Amazonians.

Paper short abstract:

Besides understanding quilombos and maps as embodiments of cross-cultural, social, and political conflicts inherent in the Portuguese colonization of Brazil, the paper will examine the conflicts intrinsic to the objects represented, the modes of representation, and the relationships between them.

Paper long abstract:

Linking architecture and mapping, the aim of this paper is to analyze how the Portuguese maps made ​​with the intention of documenting the quilombos replenish the tensions inherent to European colonization, especially Portuguese, of Brazil from the sixteenth century, focusing particularly on conflicts intrinsic to the occupation and the representation of the territory by European, African and indigenous groups.

Tensions and conflicts emerge from the objects represented on these maps: the spaces of resistance to the colonial order (political, economic, social, cultural) configured from various constructive and spatial references - African, European and native -, characterizing a complex landscape, urban and architectural derived from the multiple populations of quilombos, composed of different marginalized groups in the colonial system: mainly ex-slaves (former African and african descent), but also by Indians and even Europeans.

Tensions and conflicts are also observable in this Portuguese carthographic culture, either from the goals of these drawings - to visualize in order to know, dominate and destroy - either from the more or less abstract modes of representing space and place, combining ancient and modern systems of visualization.

In this sense, despite the differences and even the opposition between these objects, their authors and audiences, both quilombos and maps can be understood as embodiments of cross-cultural, social, and political conflicts. Therefore, the conflicts between the represented objects and the modes of representation will be explored by the paper.