The Portuguese Adventurers (History, Fiction, Reality)

• Autor(a) principal: Moser, Gerald M.
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Terra Roxa e Outras Terras: Revista de Estudos Literários
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/terraroxa/article/view/24916
• topic: Portuguese literature; Adventure; Overseas expansion; Literatura portuguesa; Aventura; Expansão no exterior

Peoples, nations, and universal humankind experience high moments in their history. For the Portuguese that “hour of glory” lasted a century, beginning in the early 1400s with the rediscovery and settlement of the island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. It ended in the mid-1500s with their landing in Japan, their discovery of the Moluccas or Spice Islands, in what is now Indonesia, and the first exploration of the northern coast of California, as far as Cape Mendocino. On their caravels, galleons and carracks, mere nutshells of ships, the Portuguese swarmed in all directions. Yet, Portugal was then what it still remains, one of the smallest and poorest nations of Europe, though also one of the oldest.