Everything about Jo O De Barros totally explained
João de Barros (
1496–
October 20,
1570), called the
Portuguese Livy, is one of the first great Portuguese
historians, most famous for his
Décadas da Ásia ("Decades of Asia"), a history of the Portuguese in
India and
Asia.
Early years
Educated in the palace of
Manuel I of Portugal, he composed, at the age of twenty, a romance of chivalry, the
Chronicle of the Emperor Clarimundo, in which he's said to have had the assistance of Prince John (afterwards
King John III). Upon ascending the throne, he awarded Barros the captaincy of the
fortress of St George of Elmina, to which he proceeded in
1522. In
1525, he obtained the post of treasurer of the
India House, which he held until
1528.
The pestilence of
1530 drove him from
Lisbon to his country house near
Pombal, and there he finished a moral dialogue,
Rho pica Pneuma, which met with the applause of the
Juan Luís Vives. On his return to Lisbon in
1532 the king appointed Barros factor of the
India and
Mina House—positions of great responsibility and importance at a time when Lisbon was the
European center for the trade of the East. Barros proved a good administrator, displaying great industry and a disinterestedness rare in that age, with the result that he made but little money where his predecessors had amassed fortunes. At this time, John III, wishing to attract settlers to
Brazil, divided it up into captaincies and gave that of
Maranhão to Barros, who, with two partners, prepared an armada of ten vessels, carrying nine hundred men each, which set sail in
1539. Owing to the ignorance of the pilots, the whole fleet was shipwrecked, which entailed serious financial loss to Barros. As a gesture of goodwill, Barros subsequently paid the debts of those who had perished in the expedition.
During these years he'd continued his studies in his leisure hours, and shortly after the Brazilian disaster he offered to write a history of the Portuguese in India, the
Décadas da Ásia, which the king accepted. He began work forthwith, but, before printing the first part, he published a Portuguese grammar (1539) and some further moral Dialogues.
Decades of Asia
The first of the
Décadas da Ásia ("Decades of Asia") appeared in
1552, and its reception was such that the king straightway charged Barros to write a chronicle of King Manuel. His many occupations, however, prevented him from undertaking this book, which was finally composed by
Damião de Góis. The second
Decade came out in
1553 and the third in
1563, but the fourth and final one wasn't published until
1615, long after the author’s death.
His
Decades contain the early history of the Portuguese in India and Asia and reveal careful study of Eastern historians and geographers, as well as of the records of his own country. They are distinguished by clearness of exposition and orderly arrangement. They are also lively accounts, for example describing the king of Viantana's killing of the Portuguese ambassadors to
Malacca with boiling water and then throwing their bodies to the dogs.
Diogo de Couto continued the
Décadas, adding nine more, and a modern edition of the whole appeared in
Lisbon in 14 vols. in
1778—
1788 as
Da Asia de João de Barros, dos feitos que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente. The edition is accompanied by a volume containing a life of Barros by the historian
Manoel Severim de Faria and a copious index of all the
Decades.
Later years
In January
1568 Barros retired from his remunerative appointment at the India House, receiving the rank of
Fidalgo together with a pension and other pecuniary emoluments from King Sebastian, and died on 20 October
1570.
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