Analysis Of Caminha's Letter To D Manuel

The following letter written by Pero Vaz de Caminha to D. Manuel, the king of Portugal at the time, illustrated a detailed account of the discovery of Brazil. This document is of great significance, as it demonstrates some of the intentions of the Portuguese, to what they thought about this new land and what would come from the land in later years. Specifically, it demonstrates the meeting between the two worlds and emits the theme of otherness; the fact of being different, where superiority and inferiority are constructed. In Caminha’s letter, his description after the first encounter with the natives on the beach changed his perspective from the description of the land to its people. The first description of these natives is as follows: “They were brown, all naked, with nothing to cover their shame. In their hands they carried bows with their arrows. They all came sternly on the boat, and

But they did not signal courtesy. (...) But one of them put an eye on the captain 's necklace, and began waving his hand to the earth and then to the necklace as if to tell us that there was gold there. He also looked at the silver candlestick, and so he waved to the earth and back to the candlestick as if there were silver there too. (...) We would take it that way if we wished. (CAMINHA, 2002, p.94 and 95). This meeting demonstrates, otherness through the reaction of the Portuguese to the inquisition of necklace and candlestick from the natives. The intentions of Portuguese is then directed in the desired to find gold and silver, while the Inquisition was most likely out of curiosity how those objects were manufactured. Another, description that emphasizes how the Portuguese observed the natives as naïve, using this to their advantage, therefore establishing another example of