DOM MARTIN 1606-1643. The first Burman to visii Europe. BY M. S. COLLIS IN COLLABORATION WITH SAN SHWE BU, It is the object of this paper to explain who Dom Martin was, why as an Arakanese he had a Portuguese name and how it happened that he paid a visit to Portugal. The story is extraordinary and romantic, but were I to plunge into it without some sort of a preliminary summary of the political situation in the Bay of Bengal at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the result would be unintelligible, a flux of kings, priests, noblemen and pirates, the Arakanese fortuitously appearing here, the Moghul there, the Portuguese everywhere, the whole having the com- plexion of a cinema drama. In consequence I must trespass upon your patience and preface as briefly as possible his adventures with an histori- cal survey. For the purpose of this view, 1 select the year 1610 A.D. Readers of my previous studies in Arakanese history will be aware that in that year the Arakanese empire was at the height of its destiny. Razagri was king and his territory stretched from the eastern mouths of the Ganges delta to the delta of the Irrawaddy. In his employ or under his protec- tion were certain groups of Portuguese. Of these, one consisted of the Portuguese mercenaries in his home army and navy, chiefly gunners and engineers ; another of traders who had been allowed to build a settlement at Dianga, near the city of Chittagong, on condition that they helped to defend the Chittagong frontier against the Moghul. The Moghuls had by 1610 taken over the administration of Bengal and in consequence their territory marched with Chittagong. They were Razagri's most serious pre-occupation. Portuguese also lived under their protection and at Hugli, on the river of that name, maintained a trading settlement. Besides these groups of Portuguese, the mercenaries in Arakan, the traders at Dianga and at Hugli, there was in the Bay a fur- ther group of Portuguese who lived at Sandwip Island within some thirty miles of the Chittagong river. As this group plays an important part in this history, it must be described in some detail. King of this island was the famous pirate, Gonsalves Tibau, This men had come out to the East in 1605 as a soldicr. In 1607 he had accu- mulated sufficient money to enable him to purchase a small ship, which he laded with salt and in which he sailed to Dianga to trade. By a piece of bad luck he happened to put in there on the very day that Razagri was punishing the Portuguese for some treachery or other. As a result, his ship was confiscated and his two years savings were lost. Completely Copyright© 1998 - Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd, Bangkok, Thailand.12 J. BR. S., xvt T, ruined, he gathered round him others who like himself had been reduced to poverty, turned pirate and preyed on the Arakan coast with such success that by 1609 he had a well equipped sea force of 4o sail and 400 men. With this he attacked the island of Sandwip, then occupied by one of the Moghul’s men, and took it, proclaiming himself King. It was atich island inhabited by Hindus. Moreover being situated on the mouth of the Megna, it enabled him to erect custom houses and collect dues from trading ships. Piratical excursions were also undertaken into the Delta tivers of the vicinity. By these means he soon acquired funds and is stated in 1610, the date of this survey, to have had a force of a thousand Portuguese and eighty ships with cannon. It must be insisted that Tibau’s sovereignty was real. The Viceroy of Goa had no control nor aspired to any control over him. By 1610 he had become so prominent and important a figure in the Bay that Razagri, whg was contemplating a brush with the Moghul in the matter of a frontier dispute, invited Tibau to co-operate with him on the naval side. . It 1s sufficient for the purpose of tiis paper to say that Tibau, to whom the control of the Arakanese fleet had been given, turned round at the last moment, allowed Razagri’s land force to be taken at a disadvantage and routed by the Moghul, him- self seized the Arakanese flect, murdered its officers, enslaved its crews and in the general confusion that followed harried the Arakan coast. Raragri returned to Mrauk-U and we can sympathise with him if he cook the view that Gonsalves Tibau was the most underhand black villain that any gentleman could be fool enough to trust. Such is a summary of the political situation in the Bay in 1610 and with so much clear in the mind's eye it is possible to advance upon the story of the subject of this paper. In 1610 Razagri had appointed his younger son, Min Mangri, Viceroy of Chittagong. A son or a brother of the Arakanese kings was usually posted to that charge and there was nothing unusual in Razagri’s choice except that Min Mangri was not on good terms with the ineir to the throne, Min Khamaung his elder brother.’ This latter was a wild young man. As L have noted elsewhere, in association with the poet Ugga Byan he altempted three times to assassinate his father. Min Mangri urgued, probably with much truth, that an individual upon whom family ties lay so lightly, would make short work of him, his detested brother, when he came to the throne. At the very least Min Mangri saw himself deprived of his Viceroyalty, He therefore cast about for an ally, some one who would lend him support when the inevitable blow fell, some one who would perhaps be strong enough not only to save hin from his brother but to put him in his broth place. The obvious person to fulfil these requirements was the pirate-king Gonsalves Tibau. Min Mangri therefore sent an embassy to him, suggesting‘a treaty of alliance. The proposal as admirably suited to the immediate necds of the Prince of Sandwip. That worthy, after his seizure of the Arakanese fleet and his harrying of the coast-of Arakan, was in the worst odour at Mrauk-U. Min Mangri’s proposal was in effect to provide him with a strong friend in the Copyright© 1998 - Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd, Bangkok, Thailand.DOM MARTIN 1606-1643. 43 enemy’s camp, one to protect him frum the vengeance he feared and who with good luck might facilitate further lucrative raids. In short he accepted the offer, It was decided to seaj it by the marriage of Min Mangri’s daughter with Tibau’s son. Min Mangri had three children, two daughters and ason, In this year of 1610 his son was four years old. It was this son who afterwards became known as Dom Martin and went to Europe. But] must not anticipate. We are now engaged in describing the nuptials of his elder sister. It was agreed that on her marriage she should take the Catholic faith, for Tibau, though a ruffian, was very careful to observe the fortis of Nis religion. Manrique, whom we follow here, states (hat in this affair the swashbuckler derived his greatest satisfaction from the feeling that he was the divine instrument in saving a soul from damnation. This point need not be pressed. Suffice it to say that he selected as emissary to Chittagong Father Rafael of Santa Monica. This friar was to convert the princess to Catholicism and after- wards conduct her toSandwip, Father Rafael spoke Arakanese fiuently, He was also much loved by the country people, to whom he appeared a saint. When he came toa village, he used to paint a red cross on the foreheads of the children who pressed up to kiss his hand. The parents recognising this as some holy symbol allowed it to remain until obliterat- ed by the weather. Such is the amiable picture of the ecclesiastic sent by the pirate-king of Sandwip to further his political machinations. That Father Rafael was a genuine holy man is borne out by the fact that Gorisalves fourid it very difficult to make him fall in with his ideas of how a Portuguese envoy on so important a mission should conduct himself. The Religious would have much preferred to stroll into the city of Chit- tagong incognito or recognised only by the poor and the children, This did not suit Tibau's conception of the entry of a matrimonial embassy, But when Father Rafael was asked to sail up the Chittagong river in a galley with flags flying and bands playing, he flatly refused. The pirate then resorted to a stratagem, Father Rafael started from Sandwip in a com- mon sort of boat accompanied by one catechist. After he had lcft, ton of the best galleys, with embroidered awnings, musicians and well dressed gentlemen on the quarter deck, proceeded by another route and reached the Chittagong river before his arrival. ‘There they waited, anchoring a little below the jetty. When his small boat came up, the captain of the galleys boarded it and delivered to the Father a letter from Gonsalves, begging him to enter Chittagong in state. Father Rafael was about to refuse, when he noticed that the jetty was crowded with the local nobility and gentry, that the bands had struck up, that the artillery had commenced the salute and that an immense mob behind was clamouring to know what the delay was anout and why the Portuguese ships did not approach. Under the circumstances the Father perceived that his original intention of landing from his little boat had become ridiculous and yielding with the hest grace possible, he went aboard the captain's galley. This was the signal for weighing anchor. The galleys advanced towards the jetty, the crew rowing with a calculated rhythm, the soldiers standing at the salute while the band piayed the martial airs of Portugal. Father Copyright© 1998 - Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd, Bangkok, Thailand.