Vicente Sodré
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Vicente Sodré (c. 1465 – 30 April 1503) was a 16th-century
Background
Vicente Sodré was the son of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende) and Isabel Serrão. The Sodrés were a well-connected family of English origin, said to have been descended from Frederick Sudley from Gloucestershire, who accompanied the Earl of Cambridge to Portugal in 1381, and subsequently settled down there.[1] Sometime in the 1470s, Vicente Sodré entered the service of D.
After Manuel, Duke of Beja succeeded to the throne as King
Vicente Sodré's siblings include his brother
Expedition to India (1502)
In 1501, the 2nd Armada of Pedro Álvares Cabral finally returned from India, and preparations immediately began for the assembly of a new India armada (the 4th), to be sent out in 1502, again under Cabral. Vicente Sodré was appointed by King Manuel I of Portugal as the first Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea'), i.e. commander of the first Portuguese naval patrol in the Indian Ocean. Sodré was given a royal regimento, instructing him to patrol and prey on Arab shipping at the mouth of the Red Sea.
Vicente Sodré's patrol was designated to go to India as a distinct squadron of the 4th Armada of 1502, and to remain behind on patrol. However, Sodré insisted that his regimento be independent - that is, that the 4th armada's admiral, Pedro Álvares Cabral, have absolutely no authority over his (Sodré's) squadron for the duration of the voyage. King Manuel I of Portugal, who had strong doubts about Cabral's competence, agreed. Cabral found this condition humiliating and withdrew his name in a huff. Vicente Sodré helped secure the appointment of his nephew, Vasco da Gama, to replace Cabral as admiral of the 4th Armada. In the new regimento, Vasco da Gama would remain in command of Sodré's squadron only until India, after which the new separate regimento would apply.
The
Vicente Sodré was responsible for a notorious incident (reported by chronicler Gaspar Correia (p. 307)) with a wealthy and well-connected Egyptian merchant in
Indian Ocean Patrol (1503)
In February 1503, Vasco da Gama returned with the 4th Armada to Lisbon, leaving Vicente Sodré behind in the command of the Indian Ocean patrol (five or six ships, one of which was under the command of his own brother,
However, as soon as Gama left, Vicente Sodré invoked his regimento and ordered the patrol to leave India and follow him to the Red Sea. The Portuguese factors in Cochin and Cannanore protested, citing evidence of imminent preparations for an attack by the Zamorin. It said that two of the patrol captains refused to go along, and resigned the commands of their ships. Vicente Sodré dismissed the rumors and took the patrol with him.[4]
As expected, in March 1503, the Zamorin of Calicut arrived before
During the siege of Cochin, Vicente Sodré's patrol was nowhere to be seen. It had gone first north to Gujarat, where it captured a great merchant ship off Chaul. The patrol then sailed west into the Gulf of Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, to catch more prizes.
Vicente Sodré's patrol captured around five Arab merchant ships at the mouth of the Red Sea. But the partition of the spoils left a lot to be desired - the Sodré brothers set about claiming the lion's share of the plunder for themselves, and leaving little for the others or even the crown(Brás Sodré, in particular, was accused of embezzling the royal fifth due to the crown).[5] Already unhappy at abandoning their brethren in India, the patrol captains quarreled with the Sodrés and nearly mutinied.
Around 20 April 1503, the patrol anchored in at
Ataíde would later (in February 1504) compose a letter to the king, with an account of the travails of the Indian Ocean patrol.[6] He carefully excused Vicente Sodré's actions, laying most of the blame on the bad counsel and decisions of Brás Sodré (who really comes out as the villain of the story). Although it is significant that Ataíde, in that same letter, asked the king to grant him Vicente Sodré's old position of alcalde-mor of Tomar (Ataide, alas, died shortly after in Mozambique).
Ataíde wrote that Vicente Sodré sunk and died immediately in the tempest at Kuria Muria, but that Brás Sodré actually survived the wreck. However, once ashore, Brás Sodré decided to blame his Muslim pilots and executed them on the spot. Ataíde refrains from saying exactly what happened to Brás Sodré after that, only that 'many things transpired' before his death.[7]
Shipwrecks
The wreck site of Vicente and Bras Sodré's ships was first discovered just off the north-eastern coast of Al Hallaniyah island, Oman, in May 1998 by a two-person team from
Reputation
Despite Ataíde's efforts at gentle treatment, Portuguese 16th-century chroniclers have usually presented Vicente Sodré in a negative light - principally because of his abandonment of
Chronicler Gaspar Correia perhaps goes furthest in vilification, portraying Vicente Sodré as a brutish, greedy and petty tyrant. "A man of strong condition and lustful for money, with no other intention but to enrich himself"[12] Correia cites Vicente Sodré's mistreatment of a well-connected Cairo merchant in Cannanore as the spark which set off the assembly of an Egyptian-led fleet to dislodge the Portuguese from the Indian Ocean in 1507.
Vicente Sodré was the subject of an 1894 historical romance by Manuel Pinheiro Chagas.
Vicente Sodré had two sons - João Sodré and a natural son, Fernão Sodré, born of the unmarried Isabel Fernandes, who was legitimized by special letter from the king and went on to have a career of note as governor of Hormuz.[13] Simão Sodré, later a captain in the Indies, was the only son of Brás Sodré.
It is sometimes thought that the Lisbon railway station of Cais do Sodré (Sodré's Wharf) was named after Vicente Sodré. In fact it was named after Duarte Sodré, his relative and predecessor in Tomar, who owned a couple of estates in the area.
See also
Notes
- ^ (Subrahmanyam 1997: p.61)
- ^ See Vicente Sodré, o 1º Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia (1465? - 1503)
- ^ See Vicente Sodré, o 1º Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia (1465? - 1503)
- ^ The 1503 letter of Diogo Fernandes Correia (p.211), the Portuguese factor of Cochin notes how Vasco da Gama promised the King of Cochin "that he would leave him Vicente Sodré to guard this port and coast; after his departure, the coast was abandoned by our armed ships, and the King of Calicut came here and did what you already know." ["que lhe leixaria aqui vicente Sodré para elle guardar este porto e costa; depois de sua yda, qua costa ficou despejada de nossas naos darmada, elRei de calecut veyo aqui e fez o que ja sabeis"]
- ^ According to Pêro de Ataíde's 1504 letter to King Manuel I (p.262-63), Brás Sodré took items from plunder despite "being told there and then by your clerk that such items had not yet been recorded in the your lordship's book" and, in his takings, "nobody dared grab his hand because his brother consented to everything he did". ["e dito loguo ally polo seu escrivam e mestre que taaes couzas naom eram asemtadas em livro de vosa senhoria afora outras muitas que elle tomava quando queria porque ninguem naom ousava de lhe ir a mão porque lhe seu irmao dava consentymento a tudo fazer"]
- ^ "Carta de Pero de Atayde a El-rei D. Manuel, Fevereiro 20, 1504", as published in Bulhão Pato, R.A. editor, 1898, Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, seguidas de documentos que as elucidam. Lisbon: Academia Real de Sciencias, vol. 2, p.262-68
- ^ Ataide, p.263; Subrahmanyam, 1997: p.231
- .
- ^ "Vasco da Gama shipwreck Esmeralda near Oman from Vasco da Gama fleet".
- .
- ^ Subrahmanyam, 1997: p.234
- ^ Correia (p.343) "homem forte de condição, e cobiçoso por dinheiro, e nom ficava com outra tenção senão de enriquecer, e como homem que bem queria arrecadar vendia e arrecadava dinheiro das cousas que tomava"
- ^ See Ligações familiares de Vasco da Gama pelo lado materno
Sources
- Diogo Fernandes Corrêa "Carta de Diogo Fernandes Corrêa a Afonso de Albuquerque, Dezembro 25, 1503", in Bulhão Pato, R.A. editor, 1898, Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, seguidas de documentos que as elucidam. Lisbon: Academia Real de Sciencias, vol. 2 p.211-213.
- Pêro de Ataíde "Carta de Pero de Atayde a El-rei D. Manuel, Fevereiro 20, 1504", as published in Bulhão Pato, R.A. editor, 1898, Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, seguidas de documentos que as elucidam. Lisbon: Academia Real de Sciencias, vol. 2 p.262-268.
- João de Barros (1552–59) Décadas da Ásia: Dos feitos, que os Portuguezes fizeram no descubrimento, e conquista, dos mares, e terras do Oriente..
- Manuel Pinheiro Chagas (1894) O naufragio de Vicente Sodré
- Gaspar Correia (c. 1550s) Lendas da Índia, pub. 1858-64, Lisbon: Academia Real de Sciencias
- Manuel de Faria e Sousa (1666) Asia Portuguesa, Vol. 1.
- Damião de Goes(1566–67) Crónica do Felicíssimo Rei D. Manuel
- Jerónimo Osório (1586) De rebus Emmanuelis [trans. 1752 by J. Gibbs as The History of the Portuguese during the Reign of Emmanuel London: Millar]
- Subrahmanyam, S. (1997) The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Whiteway, R. S. (1899) The Rise of Portuguese Power in India, 1497-1550. Westminster: Constable.