The stories about the New World that reached European audiences in the sixteenth century, published by the Belgian engraver and publisher Theodor de Bry (1528\u20131598), were hugely popular, in large part because they were presented in a way that resonated with Europeans\u2019 worldviews at the time. For example, the illustrations of the Brazilian landscape in some documents\u2014like the map on the cover of the book\u2014were directly based on representations of the Garden of Eden in printed editions of the Bible. \u201cNumerous pamphlets were circulated at the time and were immensely successful with the public. One of the reasons is that these texts touched on what were then very sensitive issues, such as religion,\u201d says Berbara. \u201cVillegagnon himself wrote a pamphlet. Letters from the colony were also widely circulated, such as those written by the Jesuits. Hans Staden\u2019s [1525\u20131576] account, which took place further south, was widely read.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antarctic France foreshadowed the events to come on the European continent<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The most significant sixteenth-century works describing Antarctic France are those of French Franciscan friar and cosmographer Andr\u00e9 Th\u00e9vet (1502\u20131590), and Calvinist traveler and pastor Jean de L\u00e9ry (1536\u20131613). In 1557, Th\u00e9vet published The newfound world, or Antarctike<\/em>, in which he recounted his brief experience as the chaplain of the Villegaignon fleet. Being a cosmographer, the friar documented the exotic landscapes he and his compatriots discovered. His book La Cosmographie universelle<\/em> (The universal cosmography), dated 1575, also contains important passages about Brazil. In 1578, in large part to refute what he referred to as \u201cuntruths\u201d told by the Catholic Th\u00e9vet, the Protestant L\u00e9ry published the book History of a voyage to the land of Brazil<\/em>. L\u00e9ry\u2019s account is rich in descriptions of the natives\u2019 way of life, including the Tupi language, their music\u2014the subject of one of the essays in the new book\u2014their customs, and their body paint.<\/p>\n
Sheila Hue, a professor at UERJ\u2019s Institute of Language and Literature and a co-organizer of the book alongside Berbara and Renato Menezes, says the authors were able to reconstruct the myriad facets of Antarctic France because the Europeans\u2019 accounts provide more than just a projection of their own ideas. \u201cIn describing the territories, they used a documentary and empirical approach co-mingled with classical and medieval references. A letter by Pero Vaz de Caminha [1450\u20131500], for example, contains a detailed description of indigenous body painting. Andr\u00e9 Th\u00e9vet transcribes Christian prayers in the Tupi language and provides a sort of conversation guide containing priceless information about the ways of life of those peoples,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/a> Shown left is Americae tertia pars<\/em>, a 1592 illustration by Th\u00e9odore de Bry, featured in Hans Staden\u2019s bookWikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n
The expedition<\/strong>
\nFelling and loading out dyewood logs was virtually the only significant economic activity in present-day Brazil in 1555, when a group of 600 Frenchmen landed on an island then called Serigipe, off the southern bank of Guanabara Bay, later renamed in honor of Villegagnon. There they built Fort Coligny, named after admiral Gaspard de Coligny (1519\u20131572), who funded the expedition. Another 300 Frenchmen would arrive at the colony in 1557, including a group of Calvinists, among them L\u00e9ry.<\/p>\nGuanabara Bay, although affording an excellent natural harbor and terrain ideally suited for the construction of military defenses, had little relevance to the Portuguese possessions in South America, then primarily consisting of three cities: Salvador, Olinda, and S\u00e3o Vicente. Despite this the Portuguese, under King Sebastian (1554\u20131578) and Governor-General Mem de S\u00e1 (1500\u20131572), launched a campaign in 1560 to take back the territory.<\/p>\n
As in other parts of the continent, the war in Guanabara was a two-layered conflict. At the same time that European nations were vying for control of the territory they had discovered a few decades earlier, indigenous peoples were fighting each other in the land of their ancestors.<\/p>\n
These overlapping interests led to, often long-lasting intercontinental alliances. Guanabara Bay was home to two branches of the Tupinamb\u00e1: the Tamoio and the Temimin\u00f3. The former had taken over part of the latter\u2019s territory a few years prior. In the following decade, under the leadership of Arariboia (?\u20131589), the Temimin\u00f3 returned and defeated their rivals, while the Portuguese defeated the French between 1560 and 1567. Arariboia is considered the founder of the present-day city of Niter\u00f3i.<\/p>\n
THEVET, A. Les singularitez de la France Antarctique, Autrement Nomm\u00e9e Amerique, & De Plusieurs Terres & Isles Decouuertes de Nostre Temps <\/span><\/a> On the right is a 1557 engraving credited to Bernard de Poisduluc, found in the book The new found world, or Antarctike<\/em>, by Andr\u00e9 ThevetTHEVET, A. Les singularitez de la France Antarctique, Autrement Nomm\u00e9e Amerique, & De Plusieurs Terres & Isles Decouuertes de Nostre Temps <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n
The French expedition was a violation of the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, pursuant to which those lands belonged to the Portuguese Crown. The shores of Guanabara Bay had for decades attracted merchants and pirates, drawn by the lucrative trade in dyewood. In 1550, in the royal entry for Henry II of France at Rouen, a theatrical performance depicted trade between the French and the Tupinamb\u00e1, with some performers having been brought on ships from Guanabara Bay.<\/p>\n
However, the breaking of the treaty was more than just about trade. \u201cWhy was France\u2019s violation of the Treaty of Tordesillas such a serious matter? Because it represented more than a dispute between nations. The treaty had been signed under the aegis of the Catholic Church and ratified by Pope Julius II in 1506,\u201d notes Berbara. \u201cThe treaty was broken amid the Protestant Reformation crisis and just before a terrible period of wars that would embroil Europe in bloodshed in the following decades, showing how political and economic disputes, such as the dyewood trade, can intermesh with religious ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cT<\/strong>his book shows how Antarctic France foreshadowed what was to come on the European continent,\u201d writes Ronaldo Vainfas, a retired professor of history at Fluminense Federal University (UFF), in his introduction to the book. Disputes over the dogma of transubstantiation\u2014according to which the bread and wine in the Eucharist became the actual body and blood of Christ\u2014sparked a violent conflict between Catholics and Protestants living on the island. To formalize their creed, four Calvinists living in Fort Coligny wrote a document in 1558 called the \u201cGuanabara Confession of Faith,\u201d the first Protestant writing in Brazil. Just before subsequently abandoning the colony he had founded, Villegagnon expelled several Huguenots (the French branch of Calvinism) from the fort. To escape Portuguese pursuit and attacks, groups of Calvinists began to live on the mainland with the natives.<\/p>\n
Villegagnon\u2019s relationship with religion is ambiguous. He was raised Catholic, and once enrolled as a knight of the Order of Malta. However, he was a friend of the Protestant John Calvin (1509\u20131564) and collaborated with the Huguenots on several occasions. \u201cVillegagnon is a controversial figure and accounts of him, even during his lifetime, were conflicting. Some refer to him as a Catholic, others as a Protestant; some say he converted from a Catholic to a Protestant, and others vice versa,\u201d says Hue.<\/p>\n
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