Duarte Fernandes (16th century) was a
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
diplomat, explorer, and was the first
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
an to establish diplomatic relations with
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
, when in 1511 he led a diplomatic mission to
Ayutthaya Kingdom (Kingdom of Siam), after the Portuguese
conquest of Malacca.
History
Duarte Fernandes was a Portuguese tailor. Born in the late 15th century, Fernandes was a
New Christian
New Christian ( es, Cristiano Nuevo; pt, Cristão-Novo; ca, Cristià Nou; lad, Christiano Muevo) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century ...
, a classification used to describe people of Moorish or Jewish heritage.
[HALIKOWSKI-SMITH, STEFAN. "'The Friendship of Kings Was in the Ambassadors': Portuguese Diplomatic Embassies in Asia and Africa during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries." ''Portuguese Studies'' 22, no. 1 (2006): 101-34. Accessed December 20, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41105256.] In the early 1500s, Fernandes traveled to
Malacca as part of the first expedition of
Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in September 1509.
[Asian review, Volume 13 by Čhulālongkō̜nmahāwitthayālai. Sathāban ʻĒchīasưksā, p.39] When sailors grew anxious that the expedition was delaying a return to Portugal, a number of sailors attempted to force de Sequeira to order the ships home. In the sequence of a failed plot to destroy the expedition, Fernandes was among nineteen Portuguese that stood arrested in Malacca. His amicable nature spared him the fate of the other conspirators. Together with Rui de Araújo, Fernandes gathered knowledge about the culture of the region and became a de facto envoy of
Afonso de Albuquerque. During this time he also learned to speak some Malay.
In 1511 the Portuguese conquered Malacca, an action which disrupted the traditional balance of power in Southeast Asia. Knowing that the Kingdom of Siam had claimed lands in Malacca, Albuquerque sent Fernandes in a diplomatic mission to the court of the King of Siam,
Ramathibodi II, to explain why Portugal had sized Malacca, to show the power of the Portuguese empire, and to open trade relations between Portugal and Ayutthaya.
[Chakrabongse, C., 1960, Lords of Life, London: Alvin Redman Limited] Fernandes was dispatched along with two Chinese captains and became the first European to arrive in Siam, where he was successful in establishing amicable relations between the
Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Siam, returning with a Siamese envoy bearing gifts and letters to Albuquerque and the king of Portugal.
[Donald Frederick Lach, Edwin J. Van Kley, "Asia in the making of Europe", pp. 520-521, University of Chicago Press, 1994, ] Five years after that initial contact, Ayutthaya and Portugal concluded a treaty granting the Portuguese permission to trade in the kingdom.
Fernandes became one of the first Europeans to take an interest in Chinese shipbuilding, as he traveled in a Chinese
junk on his return journey to Malacca and, being a former tailor, was fascinated by the
junk's sails.
References
Bibliography
* Donald Frederick Lach, Edwin J. Van Kley, "Asia in the making of Europe", p. 520-521, University of Chicago Press, 1994,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandes, Duart
Portuguese diplomats
Ambassadors of Portugal to Thailand
Portuguese explorers
Explorers of Asia
16th-century explorers
16th-century Portuguese people
Year of death missing
Year of birth missing
Expatriates in the Ayutthaya Kingdom