Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

In 1593, an anonymous survivor of the Santo Alberto shipwreck redacted a daily guide-book about the maritime disaster, the landing salvage and the interaction with the local African Peoples. We aspire to analyze and compare the text of an anonymous witness with Lavanha's official printed version.

Paper long abstract:

In 1593, the ship Santo Alberto faced a tragic end on the shore of Southeastern Africa.

An anonymous traveler wrote a vivid memory of the loss and the journey of the survivors through the land, then called by the Portuguese "Cafraria". The author devotes most of his discourse to the description of the inland and the many Southern Bantu communities with whom the castaways interacted along a forced peregrination.

The text which has made the Santo Alberto shipwreck famous was written by the Royal Cosmographer, João Baptista Lavanha, and it was printed in 1597. This version came to integrate The Tragic History of the Sea, assembled by Gomes de Brito in the XVIII century, and, across the several editions of this compilation, became the historical source for the study of this shipwreck.

It is our purpose to present and analyze the anonymous account entitled "Perdição da nao Santo Alberto, e das cousas da Cafraria, costumes dos que a abitão ate o Cabo das Correntes" (BnP, Cod. 639), emphasizing its historical and literary value, establishing points of comparison and proposing its precedence to Lavanha's printed book. As a text that was known and read at that time, in the context of a manuscript circulation culture it was, most probably, one of the sources of Lavanha's account.

With this paper, our hope is to contribute an essential reading to the field of maritime voyages studies, as well as the encounter with different Geographies, Peoples and Cultures and its written discourses and representations.