Home Culture First circumnavigation from Brazil to China published in inedited book

First circumnavigation from Brazil to China published in inedited book

Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro

The mission, surrounded by controversy, took place between 1879 and 1883, passed through Macau and celebrated Camões in Hong Kong

The first circumnavigation from Brazil to China is now told in a book by academics Marli Cristina Scomazzon and Jeff Franco, and with the slogan of Dois Por Quatro. The work “First Brazilian Circumnavigation and First Mission from Brazil to China (1879)”, with 360 pages and that addresses a previously unpublished theme, reveals the behind the scenes of the first Brazilian diplomatic mission to China, facts that occurred between 1879 and 1883.

“They visited and visited Macau”, he began by revealing Jeff Franco, one of the authors of the book, to PLATFORM, adding an interesting fact. “And they participated in Hong Kong in the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Camões.”

The voyage began in 1867 with 197 men of the Brazilian Navy – 22 officers, 126 imperial sailors, 15 figuistas and 21 naval soldiers -, commanded by the frigate captain Júlio César de Noronha. Many of the sailors ended up dying of various diseases, where beriberi is detected – a nutritional disease caused by the lack of vitamin B1 in the body. Others deserted and still others, being hospitalized in several places, were unable to return to Brazil with the garrison. The adventure lasted 430 days, having been 268 and trip and 162 contributed.

The ship also had as its purpose the first Brazilian diplomatic mission that for three years sought an agreement to bring Chinese labor to Brazil. The diplomat Eduardo Callado and Rear Admiral Arthur Silveira da Motta, the future baron of Jaceguai, followed on board as extraordinary envoys.

The authors Marli Cristina Scomazzon and Jeff Franco, in recent years, have been working together on several works. “On the way to gold – North Americans on the island of Santa Catarina” (2015) and “Natural history of the island of Santa Catarina: the Noronha codex” (2017) were the motto for this new book, since due to research that they were doing, collected several documents, photographs and illustrations.

“Our proposal was to recover an adventure led heroically by hundreds of anonymous sailors, some of whom even lost their lives. The trip is an episode of Brazilian history that was hidden in several repositories ”, explained the authors in a press release.

“We wrote this book with great enthusiasm because it recovers a previously unheard of theme, an interesting part of national memory and also because it is a story full of curiosities”, it can also be read in the note.

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