The Exile's Bazaar
  • Home
  • About
  • Destinations
  • Book
  • Publications
  • Contact

Notes from a fascinating world.

The world is like a bazaar, full of interesting odds and ends, and I've been exiled into it. This is my all-over-the-map (literally and metaphorically) attempt at capturing some of the world's many wonders.

How an Italian Jesuit in China Relates to a Portuguese King in Morocco Relates to the Spanish Empire Relates to Brazil Relates to the Dutch East India Company Relates to Indonesia

4/24/2017

 
In 1582, a 30-year-old Italian friar arrived in Macau. Matteo Ricci had dedicated his life to spreading the Gospel as a member of the Society of Jesus. And now he was on a mission to enter mainland China from this Portuguese outpost. Chinese authorities at the time frowned upon the presence of foreign missionaries. But in time Ricci would become one of the most important missionaries ever to work in Asia. In fact today a bronze statue of him stands in the heart of Macau, and he remains a household name in China.
​
Well, his name in Chinese, Li Madou. He chose it for himself as a rendering of his Italian name. But the middle character, 瑪 (“ma”), had a story behind it. It consists of two parts, 王, meaning “king,” and 馬, meaning “horse.” Ricci chose it in commemoration of his patron, Sebastian the Desired, King of Portugal.
Picture
Senado Square, Macau, with its old Portuguese buildings.
PictureDom Sebastian of Portugal in 1575. Public domain.
​In 1578, Sebastian went to war against the Moors in Morocco. In August of that year, when European knights in their metal armors must have baked under the North African sun, Sebastian and much of the Portuguese nobility met the Moors in the Battle of Alcazar. And almost all of them also met their deaths. The last time anyone even saw Sebastian, he was riding bravely on his magnificent steed into the Moorish ranks.

Sebastian was the last of his dynasty, and his death led to a succession crisis in Portugal. After some political turmoil, Philip II of Spain marched into Lisbon and joined the Portuguese crown to the Spanish one. Thus began the Iberian Union, a political arrangement that would last until 1640, under which all of the Iberian Peninsula was now one country.

But it was far more than the Iberian Peninsula. Both Spain and Portugal had possessed vast colonial empires by the late 16th century. The Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, which supposedly (and with extreme arrogance) divided the non-European world between Spain and Portugal, became meaningless for the time being.

And until the Union, Portugal had been allied with Spain’s enemies, England and the Netherlands. Now Portugal fully reversed its foreign policy to fall in line with Spain. So it was that when Queen Elizabeth defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, among her new enemies were some of her old friends, the Portuguese. The Dutch had in turn rebelled against Spain, which once ruled them. And now they found themselves opposed to the Portuguese as well. In the Americas, this meant war between the Dutch colonies and the Portuguese ones. In 1630, the Dutch won a large chunk of Brazil from Portugal, although they would eventually sell it back for the sake of commerce.

The Iberian Union also spurred the Dutch into action in Asia in order to compete against their rivals, leading to the formation of the Dutch East India Company. The Company went on to found the colony of Batavia, today’s Jakarta, Indonesia. It also set up a colony in my birthplace, Taiwan, building a fort they called “Zeelandia,” much like the country where I grew up, New Zealand, both named after a province of the Netherlands. Until some six decades after Matteo Ricci’s arrival in Macau, when a Chinese general evicted the Dutch from Taiwan once and for all.

I guess the point is, everything comes around to everything else.


Comments are closed.

    Author

    Writer, traveler, lawyer, dilettante. Failed student of physics. Not altogether distinguished graduate of two Ivy League institutions. Immigrant twice over. "The grand tour is just the inspired man's way of getting home."
    Follow me on Twitter (@W_T_Han) and Instagram (@wthtravel).

    同是天涯淪落人,
    ​相逢何必曾相識?

    Updates Mondays.

     
    Want to be notified of new posts?
    Get newsletter
    Powered By Constant Contact
     

    Archives

    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016

    Categories

    All
    Afghanistan
    Africa
    Amazon
    America
    Antarctica
    Anthropology
    Archaeology
    Architecture
    Argentina
    Armenia
    Art
    Astronomy
    Books
    Brazil
    Buddhism
    Caribbean
    Caribbeans
    Caucasus
    Central America
    Central Asia
    Chile
    China
    Christianity
    Cinema
    Colombia
    Costa Rica
    Criticism
    Cuba
    Culture
    Easter Island
    Economics
    Ecuador
    England
    Essay
    Ethiopia
    Etymology
    Europe
    Family
    Film
    France
    Goths
    Halloween
    Hinduism
    History
    Huns
    Iceland
    Immigration
    Inca
    Indonesia
    Iran
    Iraq
    Islam
    Japan
    Kenya
    Korea
    Law
    Linguistics
    Literature
    Maldives
    Martial-arts
    Mathematics
    Medicine
    Mexico
    Middle East
    Mongolia
    Mythology
    Nepal
    New-zealand
    Pacific-islands
    Panama
    Persia
    Peru
    Philosophy
    Politics
    Portraits & Encounters
    Portugal
    Psychology
    Race
    Refugees
    Religion
    Rome
    Russia
    Science
    Sherlock Holmes
    Singapore
    South America
    Spain
    Sri Lanka
    Superman
    Syria
    Taiwan
    Television
    Travel
    Travel Advice
    Ukraine
    United States
    USA
    Uzbekistan
    Vaccination
    Voltaire
    Women
    Writing
    Zoroastrianism

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • About
  • Destinations
  • Book
  • Publications
  • Contact
✕