Tom Pires

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Tom Pires
Born c. 1465
Lisbon, Portugal
Died 1524 or 1540
China
Nationality Portuguese
Occupation Apothecary, diplomat
Tom Pires (14651524 or 1540)[1] was a Portuguese apothecary from Lisbon who spent
1512 to 1515 in Malacca immediately after the Portuguese conquest, at a time when
Europeans were only first arriving in South East Asia. After his arduous
experiences in India and the East Indies, he headed the first official embassy from
a European nation in China (Portugal, to the Chinese Zhengde Emperor, during the
Ming dynasty), where he died.

Pires was apothecary to the ill-fated Afonso, Prince of Portugal, son of King John
II of Portugal. He went to India in 1511, invested as factor of drugs,[2] the
Eastern commodities that were an important element of what is generally called the
spice trade. In Malacca and Cochin he avidly collected and documented information
on the Malay-Indonesia area, and personally visited Java, Sumatra (the two dominant
islands of modern-day Indonesia) and Maluku.

Contents [hide]
1 The Suma Oriental
2 1516 embassy to China
3 See also
4 References
4.1 Citations
4.2 Bibliography
5 Further reading
The Suma Oriental[edit]
From his Malay-Indonesia travels, he wrote a landmark book on Asian trade, the Suma
Oriental que trata do Mar Roxo at aos Chins (Summa of the East, from the Red Sea
up to the Chinese). He wrote the book in Malacca and India between 1512 and 1515,
completing it before the death of Afonso de Albuquerque (December 1515).[3]

It is the first European description of Malaysia and the oldest and most extensive
description of the Portuguese East. It is a compilation of a wide variety of
information historical, geographical, ethnographic, botanical, economic,
commercial, etc., including coins, weights and measures. Pires was careful to
investigate the accuracy of the information collected from merchants, sailors and
others with whom he had contact. It shows him to be a discriminating observer, in
spite of his tangled prose,[4] but superior to other Portuguese writers of the
time. The book, couched as a report to Manuel of Portugal, and perhaps fulfilling a
commission undertaken before he left Lisbon,[5] is regarded as one of the most
conscientious first-hand resources for the study of the geography and trade of the
Indies at that time, including one of the most important resources for the study of
the contemporaneous Islam in Indonesia. Although it cannot be regarded as
completely free of inaccuracies in its detail, it is remarkably consistent with
evidence of the time and makes no fundamentally erroneous statements about the
area. Its contemporary rival as a source is only the better-known[6] book of Duarte
Barbosa and, later Garcia de Orta.

The Suma Oriental, unpublished[7] and presumed lost in an archive until 1944, also
includes the first written account of the 'Spice Islands' of Banda in Maluku,[8]
the islands that first drew Europeans to Indonesia. In its detail it was not
surpassed, in many respects, for more than a century or two, its modern editor,
Armando Corteso, has asserted.[9] Suma Oriental is represented by a long-lost
manuscript in Paris. Four letters written by Pires survive, and there are a
scattering of references to him by contemporaries, including a letter of
Albuquerque to the King, 30 November 1513.

Pires mentioned several Tamil cities of Ceylon he visited on his travels in the
manuscript, including Kali, Nigumbo, Celabo and Tenavarque, home to the renowned
temple complex of Tenavarai.

1516 embassy to China[edit]

In 1516, Tom Pires went to Canton (Guangzhou) in the fleet of Ferno Pires de
Andrade leading an embassy sent by king Manuel I to Zhengde Emperor of China.[10]
However, he was never received by the emperor, due to several setbacks, including
the suspicion of the Chinese, and the plot moved by deposed sultan Mahmud Shah
after the Portuguese conquest of Malacca in 1511. The embassy fell in disgrace,
with some of its members killed starting a period of three decades of Portuguese
persecution in China. Tom Pires is said to have died of disease in 1524 in China,
although some state he lived up to 1540 in Jiangsu, but without permission to leave
China.

This was the first official embassy from a European nation to China after Giovanni
de' Marignolli was sent as legate by the Papacy (in Beijing from 1342 to 1345).

See also[edit]
Ferno Pires de Andrade
Jorge lvares
History of Indonesia
References[edit]
Citations[edit]
Jump up ^ Madureira, 150151.
Jump up ^ (Pires 1990xi)
Jump up ^ This is inferred from the tenor of his references to Albuquerque (Pires
1990lxiii).
Jump up ^ His style is far from clear, his modern editor has noted (Pires
1990lxxiii) and no doubt it often becomes more confused, owing to the transcriber's
mistakes.
Jump up ^ Armando Corteso, introduction to Pires 1990lxxiii
Jump up ^ Barbosa's work was translated into Spanish and Italian and published
several times in the sixteenth century.
Jump up ^ An excerpt was published anonymously by Giovanni Battista Ramusio
Jump up ^ Muller, Karl (1997). Pickell, David, ed. Maluku Indonesian Spice Islands.
Singapore Periplus Editions. p. 86. ISBN 962-593-176-7.
Jump up ^ Armando Corteso, introduction to Pires 1990xix.
Jump up ^ Detailed information on this embassy in Tom Pires, Armando Corteso,
Francisco Rodrigues, The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires The Suma oriental of Tome
Pires, books 1-5, Introduction p.27 - 32, Armando Corteso, Publisher Asian
Educational Services, 1990, ISBN 81-206-0535-7
Bibliography[edit]
Luis Madureira. Tropical Sex Fantasies and the Ambassador's Other Death The
Difference in Portuguese Colonialism, Cultural Critique (Number 28; Fall of 1994)
149173.
Muller, Karl, and David Pickell (eds) (1997). Maluku Indonesian Spice Islands.
(Singapore Periplus Editions), p. 86.
(Pires 1990) Armando Corteso, The 'Suma Oriental' of Tom Pires An Account of the
East, from the Red Sea to China, 2 vols., (1944) 1990. (A 2005 reprint of this book
on Google Books)
Ricklefs, M.C. (1991). A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1300 (2nd ed.).
London MacMillan. ISBN 0-333-57689-6.
Albuquerque, L. Tom Pires, in Dictionary of Scienti?c Biography. 1974. Vol. 10,
p. 616.
Corteso, A. A propsito do ilustre boticrio quinhentista Tom Pires., Revista
Portuguesa de Farmcia, 13,3 (1963), p. 298-307.
Further reading[edit]
Corteso, A. A Suma Oriental de Tom Pires e o Livro de Francisco Rodrigues.
Coimbra, 1978.
Corteso, A. Primeira embaixada europeia China. o boticrio e embaixador Tom
Pires. Lisboa, 1945.
Dias, J. Lopes. Medicinas da 'Suma Oriental' de Tom Pires. Porto, 1947. Sep.
``Jornal do Mdico, vol. 9, n. 208, pp. 76-83.
Dias, J. P. Sousa. A Farmcia em Portugal. Uma introduo sua histria. 1338-
1938. Lisboa ANF, 1994.
Loureiro, Rui M. O manuscrito de Lisboa da Suma Oriental de Tom Pires
(Contribuio para uma edio crtica). Macau Instituto Portugus do Oriente, 1996.
Donald Ferguson, ed. (1902). Title Letters from Portuguese captives in Canton,
written in 1534 & 1536 with an introduction on Portuguese intercourse with China in
the first half of the sixteenth century. Educ. Steam Press, Byculla. - letters from
the survivors of the Pires' embassy, imprisoned in Canton. According to Corteso's
later research, the letters were actually written in 1524.