Manuel Godinho De Erédia
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Manuel Godinho de Erédia, or Emanuel Godinho de Erédia (16 July 1563 – 1623), was a Bugis-Portuguese writer and cartographer. He wrote a number of books, including an early account of the
Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula is located in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains Peninsular Malaysia, Southern Tha ...
that is a source of information on the region of that period. In the early 17th century, he became interested in exploring a "southern land", which is thought to be
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
.


Life

Godinho de Erédia was the youngest of four children of João de Erédia Aquaviva, a Portuguese of Aragonese and Italian descent. His mother was Dona Elena Vessiva from
Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...
, a
Bugis The Bugis people, also known as Buginese, are an Austronesian ethnic groupthe most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi (the others being Makassarese and Torajan), in the south-western province of Sula ...
princess, the daughter of La Putebulu the recently baptized King of Suppa. His father was part of a Portuguese missionary expedition to Sulawesi when he met the 15-year-old girl, who fell in love and eloped with the Portuguese captain, and they married in 1545. Manuel Godinho de Erédia was born on 16 July 1563 in
Malacca Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...
where he also spent his childhood. He was educated at a Jesuit school there. His mother died in 1575, and soon after when he was 13, Erédia was sent to a Jesuit college in
Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...
where he was trained in astronomy, cartography and mathematics. He was received into Company of Jesus in 1579, but left to work for the Portuguese government in Goa in 1580 as his Superiors felt it would better suit his interest in exploration. Erédia married Vilante de Sampaio in
Cochin Kochi ( , ), formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. The city is also commonly referred to as Ernaku ...
in around 1586. They had two children: a daughter born in 1587 and a son in 1588.


Career

Erédia worked as a cosmographer, wrote books, and taught mathematics. He also served as a soldier and military engineer. He prepared new maps of Asian countries for the King of Spain. The King was said to have named Eredia as the discoverer of Meridional India (a supposed southern land) on 14 February 1594, and he was also said to have given the title of Governor General () and made a member of the Order of Christ. There is however no proof of these claims. Erédia became interested in finding the legendary "land of gold", and returned to South East Asia in 1600 on a mission to explore further the Indonesian Archipelago. However, he had to stay in Malacca for four years, commanding a fleet of 70 ships guarding the southern approach to the Malacca. He founded a fort in Muar in 1604, and captured Kota Batu, the capital of
Johore Johor, also spelled Johore,'' is a state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. It borders with Pahang, Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the north. Johor has maritime borders with Singapore to the south and Indonesia to the east and ...
, with General Andre Furtado de Mendoça. Erédia heard of a land to the south or '' Luca Antara''which may have been Australiain 1601 and was interested in exploring it but fell ill in 1605 and had to return to Goa. He sent a servant to accompany Javanese seamen to ''Luca Antara'' in 1610, although unbeknownst to him the Dutch had already discovered the existence of the northern shore of Australia by 1606. Erédia described the exploration in his book .


Works

Apart from his maps, Erédia left a diverse range of written work and drawings. His most significant book is ''Description of Malaca, Meridional India, and Cathay'' written in 1613, and it is a source of information on the early history of Malacca. None of his books were published in his lifetime. Among his works are: *1597–1600 — ''Report on the
Golden Chersonese The Golden Chersonese or Golden Khersonese (, ''Chrysḗ Chersónēsos''; ), meaning the Golden Peninsula, was the name used for the Malay Peninsula by Greek and Roman geographers in classical antiquity, most famously in Claudius Ptolemy's 2nd-c ...
, or Peninsula, and Auriferous, Carbuncular and Aromatic Islands'' (a broad account of the
Malay Archipelago The Malay Archipelago is the archipelago between Mainland Southeast Asia and Australia, and is also called Insulindia or the Indo-Australian Archipelago. The name was taken from the 19th-century European concept of a Malay race, later based ...
); ''Report on Meridional India'' * 1610 — ''Plantas de plaças das conquistas de Portugal'' * 1611 — ''Discourse on the Province of Indostan, termed Mogûl'' * 1612 — ''Summary of the Trees and Plants of India intra Ganges'' (''Suma de árvores e plantas da Índia Intra Ganges'') * 1613 — ''Description of Malaca, Meridional India, and Cathay'' (''Declaraçam de Malaca e da India Meridional com Cathay'') * 1615 — ''History of the Martyrdom of Luiz Monteiro Coutinho'' * 1616 — ''Treatise on
Ophir Ophir (; ) is a port or region mentioned in the Bible, famous for its wealth. Its existence is attested to by an inscribed pottery shard found at Tell Qasile (in modern-day Tel Aviv) in 1946, dating to the eighth century BC, which reads "''go ...
'' (''Tratado Ophirico''). An autobiography is included in this work. * c. 1620 — ''Lyvro de Plataforma das Fortalezas da India'' (an illustrated accounts of Portuguese territories in 1620 between East Asia and East Africa, including
Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...
, Bacaim,
Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...
, Ormuz and
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.)


See also

*
Theory of the Portuguese discovery of Australia The theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia claims that early Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to sight Australia between 1521 and 1524, well before the arrival of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606 on board the wh ...
* Javanese contact with Australia * Jave la Grande


References


Further reading

* Borschberg, Peter, "Singapura in Early Modern Cartography: A Sea of Challenges", in ''Visualising Space. Maps of Singapore and the Region. Collections from the National Library and National Archives of Singapore'' (Singapore: NLB, 2015): 6-33. https://www.academia.edu/8681191 * Borschberg, Peter, "Three Early 17th-Century Maps by Manuel Godinho de Eredia", ''Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,'' 92.2 (2019): 1-28. * Gibson-Hill, Carl-Alexander, "Singapore: Note on the History of the Old Straits, 1580–1850", ''Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,'' 27.1 (1954): 165-214. {{DEFAULTSORT:Erédia, Manuel Godinho de 1563 births 17th-century Portuguese cartographers 1623 deaths People from the Portuguese Empire