Page 184 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

184 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

30% when considered the national sample .
26
Having identified the victims and using on the same data, let us now turn to the methods
of attack and their consequences, based on the study developed by Ana Maria Ferreira. In
the case of ships, attacks generally involve plundering and diverting them to French ports or
sinking them which, inevitably, leads to the drowning of their crew and passengers. Ships
seem to be captured when they are new and therefore can profitably be used or sold, and
especially when it would be hard to transfer the cargo. This is the case with salt, iron and, as
far as we know, Brazilwood. Nevertheless, the plundering and sinking ships were noted by
Ana Maria Ferreira in about 20% of the attacks recorded. In terms of individual victims and
corporal punishment, there seem to be many cases of beatings, an inevitable consequence
of the violence involved in any act of pillaging and seizing of ships, as well as, though to a
much lesser degree, sexual violence, serious injury and death . To these acts of aggression
27
we should also add the capturing of individuals and their imprisonment for variable lengths
of time. Injuries and deaths have also been recorded. We will cite the case of Francisco
Gomes, master of a ship from Vila do Conde who, in 1528, was killed following an attack
by Breton privateers off the coast of Galicia, between Baiona and Finisterre. His ship, which
was loaded with sugar, was also taken .
28
In 1538 the same fate befell the crew of a ship that was taken and destroyed, as recounted
in a letter from Fernão Rodrigues Pereira to the King, referring to various ships that had ar-
rived at the port of La Rochelle with no crew onboard, since the crew had been thrown into
the sea. Among them was a ship from the town we are analysing .
29
Lastly, let us cite the saga of João Afonso da Cortesa, master and proprietor of the ship Stº
Espírito which, having been attacked off the Portuguese coast next to Cape St Vincent, as it
carried sugar from Madeira to Flanders, was not only plundered but also captured. As the ship’s
master himself declared, in a statement recorded on 12 July 1538, though referring to an event
th
that had happened 10 years before “…apart from the looting when his ship was taken from him,
Joam Afonso, he was also subject to many offences and injuries and received many wounds and
they took him and held him captive in Crasuyque for six months in some house…” .
30
Although the seriousness of the reports and the level of damage involved should not be
dismissed, we did not find, for the period under analysis, objective indicators suggesting that such
losses had a decisive impact on the naval role of the town and of its seafaring community up to a
point able to compromised its capacity to react to the dynamics of overseas expeditions.
However, other privateers and pirates had been haunting Portuguese overseas expeditions
since the 70s and 80s, involving not only, or even predominantly, the French, but also the

26 Information relating to the kingdom as a whole have been collated from Idem - ibidem, pp. 298-303.
27 Ferreira, Ana Maria - op. cit., pp. 291-293.
28 Let’s look at a description of this event by João da Silva, a merchant from Guimarães: “And in this attack the
French killed Francisco Gomez, master of the said ship, and injured two sailors and did not torture anyone
else because as soon as they took control of the ship, they put everyone in a small boat in which they travel-
led to shore and the French took the said ship with the sugars and goods it was loaded with...”]Cit. Pimenta,
Alfredo - Livro dos Roubos que os franceses e vasalos del Rei de frança fezeram aos Moradores besta vila
de Guimarães e seu termo, Guimarães, Arquivo Municipal, 1940, p. 8.
29 IAN/TT - C.C., I Parte, mç. 60, doc. 145.
30 Idem, mç. 62, doc. 30.