Touring the Portuguese world from the museums of its founding city.
In the pastel glow of dawn, ships lean into whitecaps near bright fortress walls and palm-crowned hills, red-roofed cottages clustering between rivers and arcing stone bridges in the hinterland. A tropical wilderness beckons at the margins, apparently void of any troublesome natives.
But that’s wishful thinking. This is not Portugal, though it was; it is the former Portuguese India colony of Goa, in a painting at Lisbon’s National Museum of Ancient Art, and it is one of many reminders in Lisbon of the world Portugal once controlled.
On the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, Lisbon lies in Europe’s southwest corner. The largest city in Portugal, it is just nearer Madrid than Tangier, at about an hour and a half by air to both. At its peak as a colonial power, Portugal held a line of coastal settlements from the West to the East Indies — from Brazil to Africa, India to Japan — and their wealth in spices, goods and slaves flowed to Lisbon. Proof lies today in the city’s ornate museums and monuments, most close to the waterfront that built it all.
Pretty and sunny by the sea, downtown Lisbon is run through with cobblestone streets and narrow track, its clacking yellow-and-white streetcars trundling up to brilliant hillside plazas or down to the shining water. When I came to Lisbon last summer, I found this luxuriously baking place cheerful and laid-back; sitting in leafy shade at a plaza over the city, a perspiring 70-eurocent “Super Bock” lager in hand, it was easy to forget it had once headed an empire.
A city of the Roman Empire and later the Islamic Al-Andalus, Lisbon sailed onto the world stage in the 15th century, when Portuguese advancements in navigation opened direct trade with East Asia. Aided by Catholic missionaries, the national language and culture spread anywhere Portugal went; this was the birth of the Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) world. By the end of the next century, Lisbon was linked to Nagasaki, Japan via Portuguese outposts on the coasts of Africa, India, China and Indonesia, as Brazil’s first settlements grew across the Atlantic. Today, over 267 million people speak Portuguese.
Reminders are all over Lisbon. In the National Ethnology Museum, beyond the Golden Gate-like 25 de Abril Bridge, artifacts from Portugal’s former African territories abound; crazily-proportioned Angolan fertility idols peer from walls above the intricate geometric lines of Mozambiquan shields, and colorful ceremonial pieces decorate display cases from Guinea and elsewhere. Spread around the continent, Portuguese African outposts once numbered greater than 25; Lusophone Africa comprises six countries today, with more than 53 million speakers of the language.
On a hot, seabreezy day I walked from downtown Lisbon to the National Museum of Ancient Art, which occupies a 17th-century palace over the waterfront. Upstairs, in a separate room off the large central stairway, stand some of the first Japanese works of art ever to feature Europeans: Nanban Screens. Named for their subject matter — nanban jin (“southern barbarians”) being the unfortunate Japanese term for the Portuguese — they are six-foot-high silk room dividers, each an ukiyo-e-style screen painting of visiting Portuguese traders. The Portuguese are shown unloading their ships and mingling with the Japanese, along with their Jesuit missionaries and African slaves. Their fashion and features making them obvious standouts among the minimalist Japanese, the Nanban are shown, almost laughably, with impossibly long noses and emphatically puffy pants.
The Portuguese impact on Japan can be overstated — indeed, some Portuguese will tell you the Japanese arigato (“thank you”) is a corruption of obrigado, its Portuguese equivalent — but Portugal was nonetheless an important actor in Japanese development. The Portuguese Naval Museum, inside an intensely Gothic former Jesuit monastery in Lisbon’s neighboring Belém, has examples of primitive matchlock firearms gifted to the Japanese before the country entered its “closed” Tokugawa shogunate period in the mid-1600s (itself brought on by the perceived threat of Iberian missionaries). Handsome, sleek, and quickly reproduced on a massive scale, these weapons were in use in Japan until the 19th century.
Near the end of my stay in Lisbon, I biked to the Museum of the East, a gleamingly renovated warehouse on converted portland a few miles from downtown. It is a trove of artifacts and trade goods from the former eastern Portuguese empire: India, China, East Timor, Bali, and Macau. Old Crown maps of India at the Museum show its outline stippled with settlements; though the British eventually conquered most, parts of India’s west coast survived as Portuguese territory until after World War II. Goa, for example, was annexed by India in 1961, after 451 years of Portuguese rule. Though rare and in decline, Portuguese is still spoken there, among the final Estado da Índia holdouts in the region. (Sri Lanka, the island nation off India’s southern tip, is another.)
The Museum of the East put me in mind of Indian food, and I wondered what centuries of Portuguese influence had done for Goan cuisine. I visited Cantinho da Paz (a recommended Goan restaurant) the next day, via a jostling tram ride up to the Bairro Alto neighborhood. Goan food is different, but not drastically, from mainstream Indian; one lingering colonial mark is simply the use of vinegar with stewed meat. I had xacuti (“sha-koo-tee”), a complex, cardamom-coconut fish curry with steamed rice, and more of the local lager, whose lightness paired very well with the depth and heat of the meal.
Full of Goan fish, rice and beer, I emerged into the warm, deepening dusk of the street, opting to forgo the streetcar and walk back to my hostel instead. I had forgotten, once again, about empire.
Fort Ross lies in the green morning shadow of the North Coast Ranges, halfway up the coast to Fort Bragg from San Francisco. At a glance it looks like any other colonial American fort, but even casual observers will notice the odd slant-bottomed crosses jutting from the top of its rough-hewn frontier chapel. They’re Eastern Orthodox, and hint at a forgotten period in American history: The Russian colonization of California.
The Russian presence in America begins around 1742, in the sweeping volcanic tail of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Alaskan waters were home to vast populations of sea otters, and traders from the Russian Far East had discovered an unlikely — and highly profitable — market for their fur among Chinese elites. Sea otter fur is the warmest in the world, and Chinese merchants paid more for it than almost any other animal. The Russians called it “soft gold”.
As loosely-associated French beaver trappers had led the scattershot exploration of upper North America in the east, so too did Russian otter hunters in the west. By 1799, a series of colonial outposts dotted the Alaskan coast as far south as Sitka, opposite modern British Columbia.
The depletion of local sea otter populations, and Russian territorial ambition, encouraged further southward expansion. Settlement was seriously considered of the Oregon Country, with plans to establish a shipyard at the mouth of the Columbia River. But after an 1808 shipwreck on the Olympic Peninsula resulted in marooned crewmen selling themselves into temporary Indian slavery to survive, the idea was abandoned.
In 1812, seeking untapped fur territory and hoping to establish a farm colony to supply Alaska with food, a Russian expedition of 105 men landed on the coast of what is now Sonoma County, California. Of the men, 80 were Alaskan Aleut, whose expertise in otter hunting had been the economic engine of Russian America since its inception. In the early days, traders had taken the families of male Aleuts hostage to force them to provide pelts, and though Russo-Alaskan relations had stabilized in the intervening half-century, division of labor remained unchanged. Russia would have its fur.
They were trespassing. This was Alta California, ostensible property of the Spanish Crown. Unable to negotiate with Spain for land, the colonists sought legitimacy with the Indians. As plows tilled virgin soil and rude redwood houses sprung up around the fort, Russian officials met with chiefs of the Kashaya Nation, and in 1817 the first written contract between Europeans and Native Californians was drafted. The Kashaya called this place Med-eny-ny. It had belonged to the chief Chu-gu-an, and for his contribution he was presented with a silver medal bearing the Imperial Russian seal and inscribed with the words “allies of Russia”.
To recap: On land sold by California Indians, Russians had brought Alaskans to capture furs for markets in China. The roots of globalization go deep.
It couldn’t last. Sea otters became so scarce by the early 1820s that the colony was forced to diversify, redoubling its efforts at food production for Alaska and trade with the adjacent Californios.
Settlement Ross became a frontier workshop. Away from the jumble of humanity radiating from the fort, down at the water, Russian and Aleutian craftsmen labored to produce the objects of everyday life: boots, saddles, barrels, cookware, nails. There was a tannery, a blacksmith’s forge, and even a locksmith. What couldn’t be made was repaired. Built in the style of Russia’s Vologda province, California’s first windmills ground wheat and barley, and for a time the only shipyard between Alaska and southern Mexico launched tall-masted square-riggers with names like Volga, Kyakhta, and Bulgakov.
Fears of Russian encroachment drove the Spanish settlement of Alta California, and trade between the two colonies was banned. But Spanish (and after independence in 1821, Mexican) settlers literally couldn’t help themselves; Alta California’s first settlement was only in 1769 at San Diego, and links to the rest of Spanish America remained tenuous. With communication and resupply requiring either long-distance sailing or dangerous desert treks, surviving without running afoul of the law was easier said than done in this far-flung province. Alternatively, Fort Ross could provide.
Mariano G. Vallejo was sent there for supplies in 1833 from the Presidio of San Francisco. His shopping list illustrates the state of Alta Californian affairs: 200 cavalry rifles and saddles, 150 sabers, 100 pairs of buckskin trousers, 30 uniform caps and some uniform boots, and half a ton of lead.
A rising Californio who would be imprisoned in the American-led 1846 Bear Flag Revolt, Vallejo reconnoitered the Russian enterprise. He observed in a report on the visit that the Russians had a habit of forcing nearby Indians into temporary unpaid work around the fort, but despite this added that “many hundreds” of them came from the surrounding hills to trade animal hides for “tobacco, kerchiefs and liquor.”
“I came to the conviction,” he writes, “that in case of hostilities, the subjects of the Czar could count upon several thousand native auxiliaries.” In response to this, Mexican authorities constructed the Presidio of Sonoma soon afterward.
But it was unnecessary. For all its potential, Fort Ross was losing money. In 1841 it was sold to a recent Swiss émigré named John Sutter — the same man who would own the mill where the California Gold Rush began in 1848. The last Russian ship from Fort Ross left for Alaska January 1, 1842, bearing about 100 former colonists. After three decades, the Russian experiment in California was over.
Through a succession of private hands, Fort Ross became a ranch, then a logging operation, then a ranch again. In 1962, a portion of the land once called Med-eny-ny was incorporated into a State Historic Park. This included the grounds on which the fort and chapel still sat. The complex was extensively restored after a series of destructive fires, and is now cared for in great part by the non-profit Fort Ross Conservancy. The Conservancy was invaluable in writing this article. They can be found online at www.fortross.org.
Today, the area remains largely as the Russians left it. The redwoods still stand, and the fog continues to come in on the blessedly cool NorCal mornings. The Kashaya still live nearby. In the hills behind the fort, the offspring of Russian-planted fruit trees grow. And sometimes, at the water’s edge, visitors may even spot an otter.
Even more scenes from Caribbean Mexico
I am dropped off at Muyil Pueblo in a storm of butterflies. They are black and float around me in such quantity that I mistake them for garbage kicked up by the departing bus. They are headed for the sea, and the road is pasted with the less fortunate. Mainstreet is the regional highway, cut through the jungle. It is lined with only eight or ten buildings.
To my right is a tiny shop with a thatched palm roof and peeling plastered walls. It is run in front of someone’s home. Further down is a shut restaurant, and even further are more rundown shops that sell non-perishable food. Stores on either side of the road advertise CERVEZA FRIA A LLEGAR (cold beer to go) on hand-painted signs and sandwich boards. Nothing is visible through the open doorways into their dark interiors.
I buy canned beans and water from one, and find the ruin site. I learn it will close at 5PM. It is early, and on the advice of its sole employee I decide to walk to the local lagoon. The water’s edge is half a mile down a dirt road.
The lagoon is bigger than expected; I see only treetops at the other side. A pontoon dock hemmed by wetland grass extends from the bank near a watchtower and stilt house. The butterflies are here too, and carpet a puddle, drinking. I send them up in a cloud when I get too close. A guide with gleaming wraparounds offers me a $300 tour that includes jumping into Mayan-built canals, but this seems comparable to sledding down their pyramids. I decline.
This is the Sian-Kiian biosphere reserve. The beach is surrounded by flooded jungle and a boardwalk pointing north leads me through it. From the platform of another watchtower in the forest I can see the entire lagoon. It is blue and brilliant and round, rimmed by miles of uninterrupted Yucatan jungle that shine glossy green in the sun. In the pale sky, cumulus clouds rise over the sea.
There are natural pools further on. Fish hang motionless inside, spooking at the vibration of my footfalls in the support posts. Leaves float on the surface and logs fuzzy with algae lie underneath, luminescent in the shafted sunlight. I am stopped by a man in sandals, jeans and a t-shirt, who informs me that entry to the reserve is 50 pesos. I pay him and find the boardwalk terminate nearby, at a hut with a hammock inside. This must be where the casualwear park ranger sits.
The watchtower is empty when I climb it again. Warm wind blows to the lagoon, rustling in the forest below, and a hawk glides distantly above the trees. It is still bright and hot, and I sit first, then sprawl out. I lay a while with my hands under my head, idly inspecting the ceiling thatching. The sky is enormous here, and in my vision at any angle. I could stay here all day, but there isn’t enough time. I have to get to Muyil.
Continued scenes from Caribbean Mexico
A middle-aged Canadian woman with greasy blonde hair is standing in my hostel’s kitchen when I return. The naked ceiling bulb is out and she is eating yogurt and fruit in the light of the open refrigerator. This kitchen is a doorless shack, and the ambient temperature is stifling. She is cheerfully oblivious to any wrongdoing as I shut the door and fix the light. The circuit breaker is over an inexplicable pile of mattresses in a corner of the room. I take a beautifully cool shower and coat myself in mosquito repellent for bed. It is quiet outside, and I hear wind ruffling in the trees as I fall asleep.
I go back to Tulum the next morning. Off the ruined center, I meet two doughy Americans taking turns photographing themselves standing in a tree. One with a bandana on his head and no shirt comes over to talk to me later and scares away an iguana I’m trying to photograph with a My bad, dude. He is from Indiana, and boasts of splitting about forty dollars with his buddy for a padlocked hut on the beach last night. It had one hammock and a dirt floor. He thinks a lie got him a singles price, but these huts are available for a third of what he paid.
The high traffic area of the park is crawling with tourists when I return to it. The bluff temple is very popular, for good reason, and a tour passes me conducted in Russian. I leave around noon, to go swim at the site of my hammock failures from the night before. I lay my things on the sand, but before I get in the water a man walking up the beach tries to sell me a boat tour. I say I can’t afford it, but thanks; he politely says De nada, nods, and keeps walking. I hope he finds someone.
The beach is spectacular. The sand is saltine-white and fine, and it slopes so gradually that I’m still standing almost ten yards out. The water is completely clear and feels like a bath. I bob an hour or two, gliding in on breaking waves, but for the most part am content simply floating and experiencing shallow, tropical waters in early summer. I didn’t realize how nice this would be.
I leave the beach near sunset and take another cool shower to go to bed. The heat is inescapable and I am very uncomfortable; sleeping only in my underwear is still much too warm. In the morning I decide to try hammock-camping in the woods near another ruin site south of Tulum called Muyil. A night spent hanging in a jungle seems preferable to another night on that mattress. I make my goodbyes to the other hostel guests and take a collectivo minibus to Tulum Pueblo’s bus station.
The station is open-air, and fans whirl overhead. The buildings across the street are brilliant in the afternoon sun and the air is humid. A half-tattered Australian backpacker is in the waiting area, dreadlocked and sunburnt, and several Mexicans are sitting nearby. One wears an Acapulco shirt. The bus is a large cross-country coach, and is clean and cool. We leave around noon.
Kicking myself out of Portugal
The alarm goes off, and I lay under the covers for half an hour. It’s too cloudy outside. I’m out of clean clothes, and consider pairing thin slacks with a stretched old sweater, but the combination is jarring so I settle on a faded yoked button-down. My shaver is dead; the trimmer blade sluggishly slides back and forth and I know it will immediately lose power on my face and pull out hair and make me yelp when it does so I hastily shave with a borrowed razor instead. The taxi beeps while I’m in the bathroom and drives off before I can ask the driver for a minute. I can’t call a new one; my phone’s dead too. I walk to a nearby cafe and a tiny squinting old woman redials the taxi company three times, moving like she’s underwater, before finally getting the number right. But the call is a favor, and I appreciate it.
The cab arrives sooner than expected, and the Portuguese cabbie — here in Portugal — is listening to a Merle Haggard song. An electric, 80s-style, stare-into-your-beer sobber called Are The Good Times Really Over?. Boa música, I say, and he laughs. He gives me walking directions with hand gestures when he drops me off.
A pregnant African woman and her children are waiting in the plaza next to the immigration agency when I enter it. It’s an old building; the front marble steps sag in the middle. The receiver says Bom dia twice and repeats my name with a tongue-flapping Latin R when he asks about my appointment. The waiting room is mostly occupied by very dark Africans in brown sport coats; some are hunched over a bar filling out forms, but most are sitting. I see a Cape Verde passport on a counter. In the back of the room, a woman cares for an unhappy child, glancing up at me as I take a seat. A pair of posters on the wall bear some slogan about helping citizens “move freely” and I think, yeah, right. I wait for my number to be called and remember working for Arstotzkan border control. Papers, please.
I take my time talking to the visa agent; she gets squirrely around the ten minute mark, but I waited a month for this appointment so I hold on. I only leave when I think I’ve gotten everything I can from her. For a visa extension, I am obligated to show proof of funds for its duration: 40 euros per day, for 90 days. I don’t have nearly so much money. I don’t spend 40 euros in two weeks here.
I’m trying to hitchhike home an hour later when I receive an unexpected call from a Frenchman wanting help on a yacht to Brazil. Things start looking up anyway.
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