Duarte Pacheco Pereira (; c. 1460 – 1533), called the Portuguese

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus () was a hero of the Trojan War who was known as being the greatest of all the Greek warriors. The central character in Homer's ''Iliad'', he was the son of the Nereids, Nereid Thetis and Peleus, ...

(''Aquiles Lusitano'') by the poet Camões, was a Portuguese sea captain, soldier, explorer and

cartographer Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...

. He travelled particularly in the central

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

west of the

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

islands, along the coast of West

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and to

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. His accomplishments in strategic warfare, exploration, mathematics and astronomy were of an exceptional level.

Background

Pacheco Pereira was the son of João Pacheco and Isabel Pereira. In his youth he served as the King of Portugal's personal squire. In the year of 1475, having graduated with honors, he was awarded a study fellowship from the monarch himself. Later on, in 1488 he explored the west coast of Africa. His expedition fell ill with fever and lost their ship. Pacheco Pereira was rescued from the island of

Príncipe Príncipe (; ) is the smaller, northern major island of the country of São Tomé and Príncipe lying off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea. It has an area of (including offshore islets) and a population of 7,324 at the 2012 Cens ...

in the

Gulf of Guinea The Gulf of Guinea (French language, French: ''Golfe de Guinée''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Golfo de Guinea''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Golfo da Guiné'') is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez i ...

by Bartolomeu Dias when Dias was returning from rounding the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

for the first time. The knowledge he collected from Dias expedition as well as his own explorations granted him the post of official geographer of the Portuguese monarch. In 1494 he signed the Pope-sanctioned

Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian (geography) ...

, which shared the non-Christian world between Portugal and Spain.

Pacheco in India

In 1503 Duarte Pacheco Pereira departed for India as captain of ''Espírito Santo'', one of the three ships in the fleet headed by Afonso de Albuquerque. In 1504, he was placed in charge of the defence of

Cochin Kochi ( , ), formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. The city is also commonly referred to as Ernaku ...

, a Portuguese protectorate in India, from a series of attacks between March and July 1504 by the ruling Zamorin of Calicut. (see Battle of Cochin (1504)). Having only 150 Portuguese and a small number of Malabarese auxiliaries at his disposal, Cochin was vastly outnumbered by the Zamorin's army of 60,000. Nonetheless, by clever positioning, individual heroics and a lot of luck, Duarte Pacheco successfully resisted attacks for five months, until the humiliated Zamorin finally called off his forces. His son Lisuarte (or Jusarte) took a leading part in the fight. For his exploits in the defense of Cochin, Duarte Pacheco was given a grant of arms by the Trimumpara Raja of Cochin, and greeted with honors by King

Manuel I of Portugal Manuel I (; 31 May 146913 December 1521), known as the Fortunate (), was King of Portugal from 1495 to 1521. A member of the House of Aviz, Manuel was Duke of Beja and Viseu prior to succeeding his cousin, John II of Portugal, as monarch. Manu ...

and public festivities upon his return to Lisbon in 1505.

After India

His diary (1506), preserved in the Portuguese National Archive (Torre do Tombo), is probably the first European document to acknowledge that

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...

s built their own rudimentary tools. Portuguese India 16-17th centuries v05

Between 1505 and 1508 Duarte Pacheco Pereira composed a book, '' Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis'', inspired on Pomponius Mela's ''De situ Orbis'', which has been described as one of the first major scientific works "reporting on what was observed and experimented in the newly 'discovered' environment." Never completed, it was not published until 1892, possibly to avoid giving others information about Portugal's valuable Guinea trade. (The meaning of the 'esmeraldo' in the title has been much speculated. Among the proposals, it is a reference to the emerald green of the sea; that it is an anagram combining the names 'Emmanuel' (for King

) and 'Eduardus' (of Duarte Pacheco), that ''Esmeralda'' might have been the name (or nickname) of the ship Duarte Pacheco sailed to India, that it is a corruption of the Spanish word ''esmerado'' (meaning "guide"), that in

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

, an

emerald Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium.Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Jr., and Kammerling, Robert C. (1991). ''Gemology'', John Wiley & Sons, New York ...

gemstone is known as ''pache'' or ''pachec'', and thus ''Esmeraldo'' is a pun on his own name (thus, "Pacheco's De Situ Orbis"). Duarte Pacheco Pereira was probably one of the first early modern Europeans to scientifically study the relationship between the

tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ...

s and the phases of the

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

, which played a critical importance in the course of the Battle of Cochin, and carefully took notes on the timing of the tides. Pacheco is said to have been the first to notice their connection to the moon and to establish rules for predicting the progress of tides by reference to lunar observations. He also sifted through his data to correct and improve astronomical observations (notably correcting the average daily deviation of the moon from the sun) and constructing nautical measurements to be used by future Portuguese navigators. In 1508, Duarte Pacheco was commissioned by the Portuguese king to give chase to Mondragon French

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

which operated between the

Azores The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...

and the Portuguese coast, where they attacked the ships coming from

Portuguese India The State of India, also known as the Portuguese State of India or Portuguese India, was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded seven years after the discovery of the sea route to the Indian subcontinent by Vasco da Gama, a subject of the ...

. Duarte Pacheco located and cornered Mondragon off Cape Finisterre in 1509, and defeated and captured him. Later in life, while away governing São Jorge da Mina, he was slandered by his enemies at court with accusations of theft and corruption. He was recalled to the capital and briefly imprisoned until he was exonerated by the Crown being proved innocent. But the damage was done as he had lost his governorship. Although he was acquitted his protector, King João II of Portugal had died and been replaced by a king who didn't acknowledge the value of Duarte Pacheco. Duarte Pacheco had served the previous king as a squire, and had served King Manuel merely as a high ranking servant. His distance from

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

and his success meant he had many enemies abroad, and few friends in the capital to defend him. He lived off a pension from the King until his death. According to one of its most important biographers, the Portuguese historian Joaquim Barradas de Carvalho, who lived in exile in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

in the 1960s, Duarte Pacheco was a genius comparable to

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

. With the anticipation of more than two centuries, the cosmographer was responsible for calculating the value of the degree of the

meridian arc In geodesy and navigation, a meridian arc is the curve (geometry), curve between two points near the Earth's surface having the same longitude. The term may refer either to a arc (geometry), segment of the meridian (geography), meridian, or to its ...

with a margin of error of only 4%, when the current error at the time varied between 7 and 15%.

Possible discovery of Brazil

It has also been suggested that Duarte Pacheco Pereira may have discovered the coasts of

Maranhão Maranhão () is a States of Brazil, state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of and it is divided into 217 municipalities. Clockwise from north, it ...

Pará Pará () is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian st ...

and

Marajó Marajó () is a large coastal island in the state of Pará, Brazil. It is the main and largest of the islands in the Marajó Archipelago. Marajó Island is separated from the mainland by Marajó Bay, Pará River, smaller rivers (especially M ...

island and the mouth of the Amazon River in 1498, preceding the possible landings of the expeditions of Amerigo Vespucci in 1499, of Vicente Yáñez Pinzon in January 1500, and of Diego de Lepe in February 1500; and the Cabral's expedition in April 1500, making him the first known European explorer of present-day

. This claim is based on interpretations of the cipher manuscript ''Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis'', written by Duarte Pacheco Pereira, which gives the following brief account:

Most fortunate Prince, we have known and seen how in the third year of your reign in the year of Our Lord 1498, in which your Highness ordered us to discover the Western region, a very large landmass with many large islands adjacent, extending 70° North of the Equator, and located beyond the greatness of the Ocean, has been discovered and navigated; this distant land is densely populated and extends 28° degrees on the other side of the Equator towards the Antarctic Pole. Such is its greatness and length that on either side its end has not been seen or known, so that it is certain that it goes round the whole globe.

Pereira drew a map of the world setting out this concept and referred to in chapter 5 of the ''Esmeraldo'', but it has since been lost. He said: “for the better understanding of our work, we have set here a painted map of the world, with the shape and description of these lands”. The 1519 world map by Lopo Homem set out this concept, showing the ''OCEANUS MERIDIONALIS'' and ''INDICUM MARE'' (Atlantic and Indian Oceans) enclosed by the continental Earth. The world map compiled in 1513 from Portuguese sources by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis is a map of this type, apparently derived from Pereira's. In their book ''Foundations of the Portuguese empire, 1415-1580'', historians Bailey Wallys, Boyd Shafer and George Winius, based in the Portuguese historian Duarte Leite and other authors, make the following comment:

"What really is important," Duarte Leite says, "is to know whether Pacheco arrived in Brazil before Alvares Cabral (April 22, 1500). In agreement with Luciano Pereira, such modern Portuguese historians as Faustino da Fonseca, Brito Rebelo, Lopes de Mendonça, and Jaime Cortesão say he did. . . as does Vignaud; and I believe he does not lack supporters in Brazil." "However," says Leite, "if Pacheco did discover areas east of the Line of Demarcation and did bring back news of this to
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Manuel f Portugal the reason which induced Don Manuel to keep secret. . . such an important discovery escapes me. As soon as Cabral returned in 1501, Manuel announced the discovery of Brazil to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Why would he not in 1499, after the return of
Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama ( , ; – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and nobleman who was the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India, first European to reach India by sea. Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link ...
, make a similar announcement if Pacheco had already discovered Brazil? No objection could come on the part of Spain, given the division made by the Treaty of Tordesillas, as indeed none came in 1501 when Cabral's discovery was announced. I am persuaded that Pacheco neither discovered Brazil in 1498 nor was present two years later at its discovery by Cabral."Diffie, Bailey Wallys; Boyd C. Shafer; George Davison Winius ''Foundations of the Portuguese empire, 1415-1580'' University of Minnesota Press, Nov 1977 p. 45

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Duarte Pacheco Pereira's ''Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis'' is the first European navigation script book to mention the coast of Brazil.

Marriage and descendants

He married Antónia de Albuquerque, daughter of Jorge Garcês and wife Isabel de Albuquerque Galvão, only daughter of Duarte Galvão by first wife Catarina de Sousa e Albuquerque, and had eight children: * João Fernandes Pacheco, who married Dona Maria da Silva, without issue and had a bastard daughter married with issue * Jerónimo Pacheco, who died unmarried and without issue in

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* Maria de Albuquerque, married to João da Silva, Alcaide-Mór of Soure, and had a daughter married and with issue * Isabel de Albuquerque * Garcia Pacheco * Gaspar Pacheco * Duarte Pacheco * Lisuarte Pacheco, a bastard son according to records.

References