The professor presents several documents and states that Cabrilho was born in Portugal and later became a Spanish citizen to work for the Spanish crown. “That’s the most likely hypothesis, in my opinion,” says Paulo Afonso, based in Sacramento, California.
Cabrilho, a historical reference of the San Diego community, was considered Portuguese until new research by researcher Wendy Kramer concluded in 2015 that he was Hispanic, as there are documents describing him as being born in Palma del Río, Andalusia.
“There is no document that says Cabrilho was born in Spain,” Paulo Afonso told Lusa agency, as he had already written in an op-ed in DN. “Nowhere has it been proven that Cabrilho was born in Palma del Río.”
The professor has been investigating the case for more than two years and has collected dozens of primary and related documents that contradict the theory. The confusion, he argues, is due to the difference between “natural” and “born”.
“I understand, in a simplistic and primary analysis, that the person naturally reads and thinks that he was born, and this is often the case. But in the specific case of Cabrilho, there are other data,” Afonso indicated.
“At that time, in the 15th and 16th centuries, it was known that natural and born were things with different legal meanings,” he explained. Someone can be born in one country and born in another country, in the sense of subsequent naturalization.
The professor points out that Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, a 16th/17th century Spanish chronicler and historian, wrote that Cabrilho was Portuguese.
This fact was considered an error in the research that attributed the Hispanic ancestry to Cabrilho. “That is, to adapt the simplistic model, they ignore fundamental data,” Paulo Afonso criticized.
In the argumentation, the professor includes examples of people who describe themselves as natural on the one hand and natural on the other.
“Tamara Herzog, a Harvard lawyer, has published two books, one of which has been translated into Spanish, called ‘How to become Hispanic’ and illustrates hundreds of cases of people who have become naturalized,” said the professor.
A paradigmatic case, he said, is that of the Florence (now Italy) born navigator and geographer Americo Vespucci. “He has a naturalization letter from the Queen stating ‘from now on you shall be regarded as a resident of my realm as if you were born here’.
Afonso said it was reasonable to expect many pilots and captains of the Spanish fleets to be foreigners – as was the case with Cabrilho’s fleet – because “the Spaniards had too many conquistadors and too few specialized people”. This scarcity is reflected in Hernán Cortés’s letter to the Council of the Indies in 1538 asking for help, having had nine ships stopped for lack of pilots.
“In the case of Castile, it was mandatory to naturalize to go to Spanish America, otherwise they wouldn’t go,” he said. “How come they insist that Cabrilho can only be Spanish, since this is known?”
The professor found references to a “Portuguese Juan Rodríguez” and a “Portuguese Alvar Nuñez” in documents from viceroyalties of New Spain, such as Nicaragua.
There are several versions of the names in the documents, and the context and cross-references lead Paulo Afonso to consider that it is possible to be related to the navigators João Rodrigues Cabrilho and Alvar Nunes. One of the references is from Cabrilho’s son, who wrote that his father was one of Nicaragua’s first settlers.
The professor’s work was submitted for scientific review to an American academic publication, edited by professionals specializing in Portuguese and Spanish historical studies. Paulo Afonso expects it to be reviewed and published in 2023, underlining its importance.
“History is made of primary documents, it is not made of simplistic interpretations as it is happening now”.
There is one additional element to support the argument. These are the results of a carbon-14 measurement on the shavings of a crucifix, which has been owned by a Portuguese family in Lapela de Cabril for several generations.
Lapela is the village where João Rodrigues Cabrilho was born in 1499 and the story passed down from generation to generation is that the crucifix was given to the family by the navigator. Professor Paulo Afonso went to the family home and sent the chips to be tested in an Irish laboratory.
The results suggest that the wood dates back to 1530, with Cabrilho returning to Spain in 1531. The theory is that at that time he went to Portugal to visit his family, before returning to America.
“If it’s a coincidence, it’s extraordinary,” said Paulo Afonso.
Source: DN
