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IRAN
AND THE WORLD IN THE SAFAVID AGE
Abstracts
Gil, Prof. Luis,
Universidad Complutense, Facultad de FilologÌa, Madrid, The Embassy of Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa to Shah
Abbas (16
14-1624)
Don Garcia de Silva y
Figueroa was sent by King Philip III of Spain (II of Portugal) as
his ambassador to Shah Abbas I with the double aim, both political
and commercial, of checking Abbas I's expansionism in the Persian
Gulf and countering his dealings with the English, in order to
maintain the trade monopoly of the Portuguese 'alfandega' at
Hormuz. For this
purpose, first and foremost a magnificent present was necessary to
mollify the anger felt by the Shah at the very modest one brought
by Luis Pereira de Lacerda, the previous ambassador; it was also
necessary to encourage him to continue fighting against the Turk,
assuring him of the firm support of the King of Spain in the
Mediterranean, as if the piratical raids of his galleys in the
eastern coasts were important military actions. The alliance and friendship of the Spanish monarch was to be
repaid by the return to the King of Hormuz, his vassal, of the
island of Bahrein and the Kingdom of Lar, which had been seized
from him.
Silva
weighed anchor from Lisbon on the 8th April 1614 and put into the
port of Goa on the 6th November.
A few days later, a letter arrived from the captain of
Hormuz with the news of the blockade and capture by the Persians
of the Portuguese fort at Comoran (Hormozgan) and of the Island of
Qishm, an unsatisfactory situation for a friendly embassy.
Kept in detention in Goa, firstly for this reason and
afterwards owing to the obstacles presented to his mission by the
Viceroy of India and the Archbishop of Goa, who resented the
arrival of a Castillian ambassador, Silva could not come to the
Bandel (Bandar) until October1617.
The hostility of the Portuguese authorities was made
especially clear at the end of 1616, when, ignoring Silva's
warnings, they warmly welcomed Robert Sherley and Fray Redento de
la Cruz, sent by Abbas I to the Spanish court as his ambassadors.
This diplomatic action by the Iranian monarch invalidated
the embassy from the King of Spain.
Silva made his formal
entry into Qazvin on the 15th June 1618.
Among the 'francos' (Europeans) that came to welcome him
was Pietro della Valle. His
diplomatic task was further hindered by Abbas I's habit of
receiving all the foreign ambassadors together at the same
audience. Silva could
only handle his business in two out of five meetings.
Abbas I stated very clearly that he did not intend to
return the occupied territories to the King of Hormuz.
On the 25th August 1619, the Spanish ambassador left
Isfahan where the Shah had ordered him to wait for permission to
depart. On his return
journey he received a courier from Spain with instructions from
the King, a letter from him and another from Robert Sherley
addressed to Abbas I. The
King of Spain accepted the conditions concerning the silk trade
proposed by the Englishman and Fray Redento and, to block the Red
Sea, he sent a fleet of five galleons commanded by Ruy Freire de
Andrade with which the Carmelite friar was coming back.
Too discouraged to retrace his steps, the ambassador
forwarded the postbag coming from Spain with the same messenger to
Fray Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo, the Carmelite prior at Isfahan.
He added a personal letter addressed to the Iranian monarch
according to the instructions he had received and another to the
Prior requesting him to deliver the messages to the Shah.
On
his return to Goa on the 25th April 1620, Silva tried to come back
to Spain in an old caravel which, having reached Mozambique, was
forced to return (February 1621) owing to the violent contrary
winds. On the 28th
January 1624 he sailed again for Europe, to die of scurvy near the
Azores on the 22th of July 1624.
His embassy was a sound record in duration (10 years!) and
a complete failure. To
the bitterness of frustration, the contemplation of the disasters
assailing the 'State of India' were added: plague, the explosion
of Goa's powder magazine, Ruy Freire's defeat and capture at Qishm
and the conquest of Hormuz by the Persians in 1622.
Nevertheless, among so many disasters, an achievement of
this ill-fated embassy remains: de
Silva's detailed Comentarios (written
in third person after the fashion of Julius Caesar).
Day after day he recorded in them everything he observed,
with the accuracy of a geographer, a naturalist, an ethnologist, a
historian and an antiquarian, which makes his work a significant
historical source for Safavid Iran.
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