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Sample of text (eight entries from the total of 2,327 articles)
L139 LOBO, Pêro
1531 Brazil
Portuguese soldier who accompanied the Brazilian colonizing expedition of MARTIM AFONSO DE SOUSA (q.v.) in 1530. While at the island of Cananeia, to the south of Santos (August 1531), Sousa encountered the mysterious white man, FRANCISCO DE CHAVES, known as the ‘Bacharel of Cananeia’, who had apparently lived there for over thirty years and had helped supply other expeditions to the Río de la Plata. This if it were true would make Chaves the earliest permanent resident in Brazil, and his name has been sometimes been identified with that of DUARTE PERES, mentioned by Ruy Diaz de Guzmán in his work La Argentina (c.1610). It has been suggested that he was left there by a secret voyage of BARTOLOMEU DIAS (q.v.), which touched on the coast of Brazil in 1498.
On the advice of the Bacharel, and inspired by reports from the 1524 expedition of ALEJO GARCIA (q.v.), Sousa sent Pêro Lobo and Chaves inland from Cananeia with forty arquebusiers and forty crossbowmen, leaving in September 1531. Chaves, who claimed to have crossed South America and visited Peru, promised to return in ten months with 400 slaves loaded with silver and gold. When invited to cross a river (possibly the Río Paraná) in local Carijo Indian canoes, the entire company sank, having failed to see the holes made by the Indians in their canoes and weighted down by armour. Those who did gain the opposite bank were promptly killed off by the natives.
Sousa, Pero Lopes de, Diario de navegação de Pero Lopes de Sousa (ed. by Paulo Prado, Rio de Janeiro 1927, 2 vols).
Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Núñez (q.v.), Naufragios (ed. by J. Garcia Morales, Madrid 1945).
Guzman, Ruy Diaz de, Historia Argentina del descubrimiento, poblacion y conquista de las provincias del Rio de la Plata [1612] (Buenos Aires 1835, 1974; printed in Pedro Angelio, Coleccion de obras y documentos… [Buenos Aires 1900]; ed. by Paul Groussac, Anales de la Biblioteca de Buenos Aires, 9, 1911).
Quevedo, Roberto, Ruy Diaz de Guzman anales del descubrimiento, poblacion y conquista del Rio de la Plata (Asuncion 1980).
L140 LODEWYCX, Jan
1605-1606 New Guinea, Australia
(= Lodewycksz / Lodewijcksz, later known as Jan van Roossengin, Jan Lodewijs van Rosingyn) An official of the Dutch East India Company who with WILLEM JANSZ (q.v.) in 1606 was a co-discoverer of Australia. He came to the East Indies in 1598 at the same time as Jansz with the fleet of JAKOB VAN NECK (q.v.), and remained as an agent in the Banda group, apparently taking the name Roossengin from one of the islands. In 1605 he joined Jansz in Bantam (on Java) and sailed with him in the yacht Duyfken to New Guinea and the northwest coast of Queensland. (See the article for Jansz for details.)
Heeres, J.E., Het Aandeel der Nederlanders in de Ontdekking van Australie, 1606-1765; The part borne by the Dutch in the discovery of Australia (Leyden 1899 [bilingual text]).
Sharp, Andrew, The discovery of Australia (Oxford 1963).
L141 LODEWYCX, Pieter
1614-1615 Amazon, Brazil
17th-century Dutch sea-captain. A native of Flushing, in 1614, with his son JAN PIETERSE, he ascended the Amazon for about 300 miles. Lodewycx and his son had apparently some time previously established a settlement of two houses at the mouth of the River Wiapoco, from where the reconnaissance of the Amazon was undertaken. After their return to Flushing in 1615 with a profitable cargo of dyes, tobacco and spices, a company was established in conjunction with Jan de Moor, Angelo Lemnes and Everard van Lodesteyn to maintain a trading post on the Amazon and survey the river more thoroughly.
‘Avisos tocantes a la India Occidental en 3 de Abril 1615’ (MS, British Library Add. MS. 36, 320, ff.202-04).
Boxer, C.L.R., The Dutch in Brazil (Oxford 1957).
Edmundson, G., ‘The Dutch on the Amazon and Negro in the seventeenth century’, English History Review, XVIII, 1903.
Lorimer, Joyce (ed.), English and Irish settlement on the River Amazon, 1550-1646 (Hakluyt Society, London 1989).
L142 LOFLING, Pehr
1754-1756 Venezuela
(= Peter Loefling / Löfling) Swedish botanist (died 1756); a disciple of Linnaeus who in 1754-56 visited Venezuela to collect plant specimens. Löfling had previously sailed to Lisbon in 1751-52 and proceeded to Madrid where he had been resident for two years. Spanish royal interest in botany had began with Felipe V, who had installed a teacher of botany at the Royal Medical College in Sevilla and issued a cédula requesting overseas state officials to look out for unusual specimens of plants, animals and minerals and send them to Spain. In 1754, José de Carvajal, Secretary of State to Fernando VI, appointed Löfling to join an expedition to South America, headed by JOSE DE ITURRIAGA (q.v.), which was being sent to carry out scientific research and settle the boundary dispute between Venezuela and Colombia. Löfling was instructed during the expedition to collect botanical specimens for the royal houses of Spain, France and Sweden.
After calling at the Canary Islands, the expedition landed at Cumaná (in Venezuela) from where Löfling ventured inland. He collected some 600 specimens, 250 of which were completely unknown to Linnaeus. However, after suffering bouts of fever, Löfling died on 22.2.56 at the mission of Merecural (to the south of Cumaná).
In Spain in 1755 a botanical garden was established at Migas Calientes, attracting much scholarly interest. However, it was not until the reign of Carlos III that Spanish interest in botany blossomed. The Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid was founded in 1774, and in 1776 a museum of natural history was founded to house the collection of the Ecuadorean, PEDRO FRANCISCO DAVILA, who became its director. With the intention of enlarging his collections, Carlos III sent out expeditions under JOSE CELESTINO MUTIS (q.v.) and HIPOLITO RUIZ (q.v.) to South America, while VICENTE CERVANTES, MARTIN DE SESSE Y LACASTA (q.v.), JOSE MARIANO MOCINO (q.v.), JUAN DIEGO DEL CASTILLO, JOSE MALDONADO and JOSE LONGINOS MARTINEZ conducted a major botanical survey of Mexico. This last expedition started in 1787 and did not really reach its conclusion until 1820, by which time it had embraced a vast expanse of territory extending from Central America to the northwest coast of North America. However, its report, the Flora Mexicana, was not published until the 1890s.
Loefling, Peter, Iter Hispanicum, eller resa til spanska länderna uti Europa och America, forratad Ar 1751 til Ar 1756… (Stockholm 1758).
Bossu, Nicolas, Nouveaux voyages aux Indes Occidentales… (Paris 1768; English trans. as Travels through that part of America formerly called Louisiana… together with an abstract of the most useful and necessary articles contained in Peter Loefling’s travels through Spain and Cumana in South America (London 1771).
Divito, Juan Carlos Arias, Las expediciones científicas Españolas durante el siglo XVIII: expedición botánica de Nueva España (Madrid 1968).
Langman, Ida Kaplan, A selected guide to the literature on the flowering plants of Mexico (Philadelphia 1964).
Lozoya, Xavier, Plantas y luces en México: la Real Expedición Científica a Nueva España [1781-1803] (Barcelona 1984).
Nicolás, León, Biblioteca Botánico-Mexicana (Mexico City 1895).
Olsen, Sven-Erik Sandermann, Bibliographia Discipuli Linnaei: bibliographies of the 331 pupils of Linnaeus (Copenhagen 1997).
Pelayo López, F. (ed.), Pehr Löfling y la expedición al Orinoco, 1754-1761 (Madrid 1990).
Rydén, S., Peter Löfling, En linnélärjunge i Spanien och Venezuela 1751-1756 (Stockholm 1965).
Sanchez, Belen, et al. (eds) La Real Expedición Botánica a Nueva España, 1787-1803 (Madrid 1987).
Sessé, Martín & Mociño, José Mariano, Flora Mexicana (Mexico City 1891-96, 6 vols; first pub. in 10 parts as appendices to La Naturaleza, the journal of the Sociedad Mexicana de Historia Natural, 2nd edn, Mexico [City] 1894).
Steele, Arthur R., Flowers for the king: the expedition of Ruiz and Pavon and the flora of Peru (Durham, N.C. 1964; Spanish trans., Barcelona 1982).
L143 LOK, John
1554-1555 Liberia, Ghana
(= Locke / Lock) English merchant and navigator (1533?-1615?). Lok first travelled abroad when sent at the age of thirteen by his father William Lok, a London merchant and alderman, to Flanders and France. While in Lisbon in 1552 Lok became aware of the opportunities furnished by the Spanish trade with the West Indies. He was a trader for twenty-four years, at one time captained a 1000-ton ship to the Levant, and in 1592 returned to the Levant as the company’s consul.
In 1554, accompanied by MARTIN FROBISHER (q.v.), Lok undertook a voyage to Guinea, generally regarded as the first of the English slaving voyages. It is stated that: ‘John Lok was tempted to the African shores by the ivory and gold dust; and he (first of Englishmen), discovering that the negroes were a people of beastly living, without God, law, religion, or commonwealth, gave some of them opportunity of a life in creation, and carried them off as slaves.’ His three ships Trinity, Bartholomew and John Evangelist sailed from London on 11.10.54 and proceeded by way of Dover, Rye, Dartmouth (1.11.54), Madeira (17.11.54) and Palma (in the Canaries) (19.11.54), reaching the coast of West Africa 75 miles to the north of Cape Blank (= C. Blanc). Coasting to the south and east, the vessels called at Cape Mensurado (20.12.54), the Rio de Cestos (= Cess, Sestos in Liberia) (22-29.12.54), the Rio Dulce (3.1.55), Cape das Palmas, Cape Three Points (11.1.55), Shama (= Shamva), Cape Corea (16.1.55), El Mina (in Ghana) (18.1.55), and continued fifty miles east to Beraku, their furthest east. Lok’s ships started back on 13.2.55, with a cargo of gold, ivory, pepper and a few Africans, by a similar route but sailing to the west of the Cape Verde Islands and west of Flores in the Azores. About twenty-four of the crew died on the voyage, most of them during the return passage.
Lok was a governor of the Cathay Company and helped finance Frobisher’s voyage of 1576 to the Arctic. The venture ruined him financially and in 1579 he petitioned the Privy Council for relief, claiming that his voyages of exploration had cost him £7500. For his troubles he was granted £430. By 1581 he had been imprisoned by WILLIAM BOROUGH (q.v.) for a debt of £200 outstanding in respect of one of Frobisher’s ships, and he was still being sued for outstanding debts as late as 1614. John’s brother, MICHAEL LOK, who had travelled widely throughout Europe, became governor of the Cathay Company in 1577 and consul for the Levant Company at Aleppo (1592-94). He is best known for his translation of the work of Peter Martyr, published in 1612.
Hakluyt, Richard, The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation… (London 1598-1600).
Blake, John William (ed.), Europeans in West Africa, 1540-1560… (Hakluyt Society, London 1942, 2 vols).
Martire D’Anghiera, Pietro (= Peter Martyr, q.v.), De orbe novo Petri Martyris ab Angleria Mediolanensis Protonarii Cesaris Senatoris Decades (1511, 1530 [first complete edn of the eight decades]; trans. by Michael Lok & Richard Eden, London 1612).
L144 LONG, John
1768-1788 Canada
18th-century North American Indian trader. Long is first encountered in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1768 (when his narrative begins) and journeyed widely as a fur-trader and Indian interpreter until 1788. In 1791 he published a significant account of his travels, Voyages and travels of an Indian interpreter and trader, which is particularly valuable for its treatment of linguistic analogies between the Indian nations. In addition, the work conveys a faithful picture of the life and manners of the Indian and Canadian traders, while condemning the injustices perpetrated on the Indians by the British.
A contemporary of Long was EDWARD UMFREVILLE, who travelled in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1771 to 1782, after which he travelled and traded on his own in the northwest for four years. In his Present State of Hudson’s Bay he describes the operations of the Hudson’s Bay Company in considerable detail, and comments on the Indians and their customs and languages. In 1788 Umfreville travelled from Montreal to New York, and the text of his journal of that trip is included.
Long, John, Voyages and travels of an Indian interpreter and trader, describing the manners and customs of the North American Indians; together with an account of the posts situated on the river St Lawrence, Lake Ontario, &c. to which is added a vocabulary of the Chippeway language and a list of words in the Iroquois, Mohegan, Shawanee, and Esquimeaux tongues, and a table, shewing the analogy between the Algonkin and Chippeway languages (London 1791; German trans., Hamburg 1791; French trans., Paris 1794, 1802; reprinted Chicago 1922).
Umfreville, Edward, The present state of Hudson’s Bay: containing a full description of that settlement, and the adjacent country; and likewise of the fur trade… (London 1790).
L145 LOPES, Fernão
1515-1546 St Helena
(= Fernando Lopez) Portuguese soldier who was to become the first permanent resident of St Helena. The island had been discovered and named by JOAO DA NOVA (q.v.) in 1501 or 1502, and a chapel and a few houses had been maintained there for the benefit of sailors taken sick on the return voyage from India. Lopes, who had served in India and turned traitor, had been mutilated by order of AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE (q.v.). He then managed to stow away on a ship bound for Portugal, but rather than returning to Portugal in his maimed condition decided to be marooned on St Helena, where he was left in 1515. A year later the island was visited by a Portuguese ship which left him food and a message of reassurance. Ten years later the king of Portugal sent Lopes a letter promising his protection if he would return to the fatherland. About this time a Javanese slave jumped ship, but Lopes made him so unwelcome that the slave gave himself up to the next ship that landed, at the same time betraying Lopes. Returned to Portugal, Lopes was treated with kindness and even visited the pope at Rome to confess his sins. The pope granted him permission to return to St Helena, this time with seeds and livestock, and he died there in 1546.
For a summary of the history of St Helena see the article for João da Nova.
De La Mare, Walter, Desert islands and Robinson Crusoe (London 1930 [for a discussion of Lopes and other castaways]).
See also the bibliography for AFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE.
L146 LOPEZ, Duarte
1578-1589 Congo, Angola
(= Durate / Edoardo / Odoardo Lopez / Lopes) Portuguese trader to Congo and Angola who wrote one of the earliest descriptions of Central Africa. Lopez first left Portugal for the Congo in April 1578, sailing on his uncle’s trading vessel. After a stay of several years, and having accumulated some wealth through his enterprises, he was appointed as ambassador of Alvaro II, king of the Congo, to the pope and Philip II of Spain, at that time unified with Portugal. The mission had originally been entrusted to SEBASTIAN DA COSTA, who had been sent to the Congo in 1580 to announce the accession of Philip and to gain the consent of Alvaro to seek out certain supposed silver mines. Da Costa was returned to Portugal, carrying a letter from Alvaro, but died on the voyage, and Duarte Lopez was appointed in his stead. As ambassador to Philip, Lopez was to offer specimens of local minerals and to open the region for free trade with Portugal and Spain, while also informing the pope of the need for missionaries. However, during his return to Portugal, Lopez was shipwrecked on the coast of Venezuela and forced to spend a year there. Although his submissions to the pope and Philip were largely ignored, Lopez was able to relate everything he knew about the Congo to Filippo Pigafetta, who had been charged with the task of collecting information about the region. The result was published by Pigafetta in 1591, although much of what it contained bordered on the fabulous. Lopez returned to the Congo in 1589, after which nothing more is heard of him. Pigafetta’s work was translated into English by Abraham Hartwell at the request of Richard Hakluyt, into Latin by Augustin Cassiadore Reinius, and placed at the head of De Bry’s Petits Voyages. It has been suggested that the narrative was used by Daniel Defoe for his Captain Singleton.
Pigafetta, Filippo [after Duarte Lopez], Relatione del Reame di Congo e della circonvicine contrade tratta dalli Scritti e ragionamente di Odoardo Lopez Portoghese… (Rome 1591; German trans. by Augustine Cassio, pub. by De Bry, Frankfurt 1597, 1609; Latin trans., pub. by De Bry, Frankfurt 1598, 1624; Dutch trans. by Martin Everart Bruges, Amsterdam 1596, 1658; English trans. by Margarite Hutchinson, London 1881 [below]).
Pigafetta, Filippo [after Duarte Lopez], A report of the kingdom of Congo, a region of Africa. And of the countries that border rounde about the same… drawen out of the writings and discourses of Odoardo Lopez a Portingall, by Philippo Pigafetta (trans. by Abraham Hartwell, London 1597; in Samuel Purchas, Pilgrimes [London 1625]; in Thomas Osborne, A collection of voyages and travels, vol. 2 [London 1745, 2 vols]; abstract in Thomas Astley, A new general collection of voyages and travels, vol. 3 [London 1745-47, 4 vols]).
Hutchinson, Margarite (trans.), A report of the kingdom of Congo… drawn out of the writings and discourses of the Portuguese, Duarte Lopez, by Filippo Pigafetta, in Rome, 1591 (London 1881).
Santos, Maria Emília Madeira, Viagens de exploração terrestre dos Portugueses em África (Lisbon 1978).
Defoe, Daniel, The adventures of Captain Singleton (London 1720).
See PAULO DIAS for a general bibliography, and PIETER VAN DEN BROECKE for the Dutch in Angola. |
