Gaspar Da Cruz
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Gaspar da Cruz ( 1520 – 5 February 1570; sometimes also known under an Hispanized version of his name, Gaspar de la Cruz) was a Portuguese Dominican friar born in
Évora Évora ( , ), officially the Very Noble and Ever Loyal City of Évora (), is a city and a municipalities of Portugal, municipality in Portugal. It has 53,591 inhabitants (2021), in an area of . It is the historic capital of the Alentejo reg ...
, who traveled to Asia and wrote one of the first detailed European accounts about
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
.


Biography

Gaspar da Cruz was admitted to the Order of Preachers (Dominican order) convent of Azeitão. In 1548, along with 10 other
friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...
s. Gaspar da Cruz embarked for
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 ...
under the orders of Friar Diogo Bermudes, with the purpose of founding a Dominican mission in the East. For six years, Cruz remained in
Hindustan ''Hindūstān'' ( English: /ˈhɪndustæn/ or /ˈhɪndustɑn/, ; ) was a historical region, polity, and a name for India, historically used simultaneously for northern Indian subcontinent and the entire subcontinent, used in the modern day ...
, probably in Goa, Chaul and
Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...
, as his Order had established a settlement there. During this time he also visited
Portuguese Ceylon Portuguese Ceylon (; ; ) is the name given to the territory on Ceylon, modern-day Sri Lanka, controlled by the Portuguese Empire between 1597 and 1658. Portuguese presence in the island lasted from 1505 to 1658. Their arrival was largely accide ...
. In 1554, Cruz was in
Malacca Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...
, where he founded a house under his Order, living there until September 1555. He was then shipped to
Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
. Given the failure of the Cambodian mission, in late 1556 Cruz went to Lampacao, a small island in the
Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
bay, six leagues north of Shangchuan Island (Sanchão). At that time, Lamapacao island was a port for trade with the Chinese. At Lampacao, he was able to obtain a permission to go to Guangzhou, and spent a month preaching there. In 1557, Cruz returned to Malacca. In 1560, Cruz headed to Hormuz where he gave support to soldiers of the Portuguese fort. He probably returned to India about 3 years later, although there are no definite records for this period. It is likely that Cruz returned to Portugal in 1565, returning to Lisbon in 1569, where he was documented helping victims of the plague. He later returned to his convent in
Setúbal Setúbal ( , , ; ), officially the City of Setúbal (), is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the entire municipality in 2014 was 118,166, occupying an area of . The city itself had 89,303 inhabitants in 2001. It lies withi ...
where he died of the plague on 5 February 1570.


''A Treatise of China''

Cruz's book, ''Tratado das cousas da China'' (Treatise on things Chinese) was published by André de Burgos, of
Évora Évora ( , ), officially the Very Noble and Ever Loyal City of Évora (), is a city and a municipalities of Portugal, municipality in Portugal. It has 53,591 inhabitants (2021), in an area of . It is the historic capital of the Alentejo reg ...
, in 1569. The full title, in the original orthography, was ''Tractado em que se cõtam muito por estẽso as cousas da China''. It is often described as the first European book whose main topic was China;"The first European book devoted exclusively to China", in at any rate, it is one of the first undisputed books on China published in Europe since that of
Marco Polo Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...
. The book also contains accounts of Cambodia and Hormuz.


Influence

In Donald F. Lach's assessment, Cruz' book itself did not become widely distributed in Europe either because it was published in Portuguese (rather than some more widely spoken language), or because it appeared in the year of the plague. Nonetheless, Cruz' book, at least indirectly, played a key role in forming the European view of China in the sixteenth century, alongside the earlier and shorter account by Galeote Pereira (1565). Cruz' ''Treatise'' (along with
João de Barros João de Barros (; 1496 – 20 October 1570), nicknamed the "Portuguese Livy", is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his (''Decades of Asia''), a history of the Portuguese in India, Asia, and southeast Africa. Early y ...
' earlier coverage of China in his ''Decadas'') was the main source of information for Bernardino de Escalante's ''Discourso ... de las grandezas del Reino de la China'' (1577), and one of the main sources for the much more famous and widely translated '' History of the great and mighty kingdom of China'' compiled by
Juan González de Mendoza Juan González de Mendoza, O.S.A. (1545 – 14 February 1618) was a Spanish bishop, explorer, sinologist, and writer. He was the author of one of the earliest Western histories of China. Published by him in 1585, ''Historia de las cosas más ...
in 1585. While Escalante's and Mendoza's works were translated into many European languages within a few years after the appearance of the Spanish original (the English versions were published in 1579 and 1588, respectively), Cruz' text only appeared in English in 1625, in
Samuel Purchas Samuel Purchas ( – 1626) was an England, English Anglican cleric who published several volumes of reports by travellers to foreign countries. Career Purchas was born at Thaxted, Essex, England, Essex, son of a yeoman. He graduated from St J ...
' ''Purchas his Pilgrimes'', and even then only in an abridged form, as ''A Treatise of China and the adjoining regions, written by Gaspar da Cruz a Dominican Friar, and dedicated to Sebastian, King of Portugal: here abbreviated''. By this time his report had been superseded not only by Mendoza's celebrated treatise, but also by the much more informed work of
Matteo Ricci Matteo Ricci (; ; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610) was an Italian Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He created the , a 1602 map of the world written in Chinese characters. In 2022, the Apostolic See decl ...
and
Nicolas Trigault Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628) was a Jesuit, and a missionary in China. He was also known by his latinised name Nicolaus Trigautius or Trigaultius, and his Chinese name Jin Nige (). Life and work Born in Douai (then part of the County of Flanders ...
, ''
De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas ''De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu ... '' (Latin for "On the Christian Mission among the Chinese by the Society of Jesus...") is a book based on an Italian manuscript written by the most important founding figure ...
'' (Latin 1616; English abridgment, in the same Purchas' collection of 1625).


Chinese language and writing

Reading Gaspar da Cruz' ''Treatise'', one has an impression that, as of 1555, communication between the Portuguese and the Chinese was accomplished primarily thanks to the existence of some Chinese people able to speak Portuguese, rather than the other way around. His book several times mentions Chinese interpreters working with Portuguese, but never a Portuguese person speaking or reading Chinese. (This was not any different from the situation that obtained in the accounts of da Cruz' Spanish colleague Martín de Rada's expedition to
Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...
in 1575). The Portuguese, of course, ''did'' know some Chinese words and common expressions: da Cruz' book contains, for example, titles of various officials, or the word ''cha'' ("
tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...
"). Da Cruz was, however, curious about the Chinese writing system, and gave a brief report of it, which
John DeFrancis John DeFrancis (August 31, 1911January 2, 2009) was an American linguist, sinologist, author of Chinese language textbooks, lexicographer of Chinese dictionaries, and professor emeritus of Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa ...
has described as "the first Western account of the fascinatingly different Chinese writing."


Slavery

One of the major irritants in the early Sino-Portuguese relations was the Portuguese' proclivity to enslave Chinese children and take them to various Portuguese colonies, or to Portugal itself. While this traffic was on a much smaller scale than the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
, supplying millions of African slaves for Portuguese Brazil, it was a contributing factor already to the failure of the
Tomé Pires Tomé Pires (c. 1468 — c. 1524/1540) was a Portuguese apothecary, colonial administrator, and diplomat. In 1510 he was commissioned by the Portuguese court to serve as a " factor of drugs" in India, arriving at Cannanore in 1511. In 1512 he was ...
' 1521 embassy, when, in a words of a later researcher, many residents of Canton discovered that "many of their children, whom they had given in pledge to their creditors, had been kidnapped by" Simão de Andrade "and carried away to become slaves". Gaspar da Cruz was aware of this trade, and, as his book (Chapter XV) implies, he had heard of the Portuguese slavers' attempts to justify their actions by claiming that they had been merely buying children that already were slaves while in China. Da Cruz described the situation with slavery in China as he saw it. According to him, the laws of China allowed impoverished widows to sell her children; however, the conditions under which boys or girls sold into servitude could be kept were regulated by law and custom, and upon reaching a certain age they had to be set free. Reselling of such slaves (or, rather, bond-servants) was regulated too, there being "great penalties" for selling any of them to the Portuguese. He concludes therefore (as C.R. Boxer summarizes his argument), that "the Portuguese had no legal or moral rights to purchase either '' mui-tsai'' or kidnapped children for use as slaves":


God's punishment for sins

In the first paragraph of the last chapter (XXIX) of his book Cruz severely criticized "a filthy abomination, which is that they are so given to the accursed sin of unnatural vice, which is in no way reproved among them." The rest of the chapter, entitled "Of some punishments from God which the Chinas received in the year of fifty-six", discusses the
1556 Shaanxi earthquake The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake ( Postal romanization: ''Shensi''), known in Chinese colloquially by its regnal year as the Jiajing Great Earthquake "" ('' Jiājìng Dàdìzhèn'') or officially by its epicenter as the Hua County Earthquake "" ('' ...
and certain flooding events of the same year, which da Cruz views as God's punishment for "this sin".


See also

*
Tomé Pires Tomé Pires (c. 1468 — c. 1524/1540) was a Portuguese apothecary, colonial administrator, and diplomat. In 1510 he was commissioned by the Portuguese court to serve as a " factor of drugs" in India, arriving at Cannanore in 1511. In 1512 he was ...
, an unsuccessful Portuguese envoy to the Ming Court ca. 1518-1521 * Martín de Rada, a Spanish Augustinian friar to visit China in 1575;
Juan González de Mendoza Juan González de Mendoza, O.S.A. (1545 – 14 February 1618) was a Spanish bishop, explorer, sinologist, and writer. He was the author of one of the earliest Western histories of China. Published by him in 1585, ''Historia de las cosas más ...
's book gives an account of de Rada's and other Spanish expeditions


References


Bibliography

* (The original 1569 edition of da Cruz' book, in black letter, digitized by Google) * (Modern reprint; snippet view only on Google Books) * (Includes an English translation of Gaspar da Cruz's entire book, with C.R. Boxer's comments)
''A Treatise of China and the adjoyning Regions, written by Gaspar da Cruz a Dominican Friar, and dedicated to Sebastian King of Portugal: here abbreviated'', in: Hakluytus posthumus, or, Purchas his Pilgrimes: contayning a history of the world in sea voyages and lande travells by Englishmen and others, v.11
: Purchas, Samuel, 1577?-1626]. (The same early translation of da Cruz' work, starting at page 474) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz, Gaspar da 1520s births 1570 deaths Portuguese Renaissance writers Portuguese travel writers Portuguese Dominicans 16th-century Portuguese people 16th-century deaths from plague (disease) Roman Catholic missionaries in China People from Évora Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries Portuguese expatriates in China Dominican missionaries