Joaquim Magalhães de Castro
The chroniclers Castanheda, Couto and João Baptista Lavanha would literally dissect the mission of the envoy Francisco de Castro.
The first one states that the supposed will of some Sulawesi princes to trade with the Portuguese had served as an effective persuasive magnet, promising that if the Europeans were willing to go there they would become Christians.
Upon hearing this, Galvão, hopeful of “extending the Faith of Christ in it, as for the Portuguese to make use of it,” would send “a knight [the aforementioned Francisco de Castro], the right man for that purpose, to whom he gave a regiment to establish friendship.”
In their respective versions, Couto and Lavanha include two priests in the retinue of Castro, “to exercise the holy office.” That is, they were in the company of newly converted gentlemen of the land; a better cover letter would have been impossible.
To guarantee the success of the campaign it was necessary to take along “many pieces and earrings,” predictable currency and gifts.
Castro left Ternate in the month of May and on the 26th of June he was already in Chedigan, in the Sulawesi islands, and the Gentile king of that land fulfilled the blood compact of local friendship that consisted of both “bleeding in the arms, and one drinking the blood of the other.”
Shortly thereafter, this king would become a Christian, “much against the wishes of his council,” and under the name of Dom Francisco, having held the baptism ceremony on the ship because “Francisco de Castro did not want to go ashore.”
His woman and a son, three brothers of his and one hundred and thirty gentlemen, would accompany him in the decision, “and still many of the people.” Castanheda affirms this. Couto and Lavanha are more precise, when mentioning the storm that took them to that north latitude, “some islands that were not yet known,” to the north of the Molucca islands more than a hundred leagues. It is called Setigano (Lavanha calls it “Satgano”) and it will certainly correspond to the small island of Sarangani, off Sulawesi, right in front of the province of the same name, in Mindanau, visited previously by the Magellan expedition.
After this point, Lavanha mentions the blood compact and Couto tells us that the local king had asked Francisco de Castro to visit him on land. The Portuguese navigator agreed to remain with the king for a few days, always accompanied by the two priests who were probing the monarch until, “finding him easy and domestic,” they converted him, along with “three of his brothers and their households, women and children.”
Couto concludes that given the confluence of people, that day most of the inhabitants of those islands were converted.
Now, this version contradicts Castanheda’s who guarantees us that Castro refused to leave the ship. This type of contradiction is frequent in chronicles, which makes it difficult to analyze the facts but opens up new and fascinating possibilities. They all agree, however, on the number of days of the historic and pioneer sojourn, twenty-eight days, according to Lavanha and Castanheda, adding three more days, which makes a month, says Diogo do Couto.
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