Fernand Lopis ( port. Fernão Lopes ; d. 1545 , St. Helena ) - the first known permanent resident of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean , later glorified as the place of exile and death of Napoleon .
He was a Portuguese soldier in India . He was tortured and mutilated as a punishment for participating in the Rasul Khan rebellion against Portuguese rule in Goa . On the way home to Portugal, Lopis chose voluntary exile on the island of St. Helena, where he lived in almost complete seclusion for about thirty years.
Portuguese Service
In 1503, Lopis, a petty nobleman and soldier, accompanied the Portuguese naval general Afonso di Albuquerque during his first trip to Goa on the west coast of India. Soon after arrival, Albuquerque went back to Portugal for reinforcements, leaving Lopis at the head of the garrison with the order to maintain peace and rule the local population. When Albuquerque returned two years later, he discovered that the garrison no longer served Portugal. Some men married local women, and some, including Lopis himself, converted to Islam [1] . Lopish’s forces also sided with the Muslim resistance of the Portuguese occupation .
The people of Albuquerque regained possession of the territory, while Lopis and other Portuguese renegades surrendered to Portugal, provided that they were saved. However, they were tortured so brutally that within three days half of them died. Lopis, as a leader, received the most severe punishment. He was tied with ropes to two wooden poles, and the people of Albuquerque cut off his nose, ears, right hand and thumb of his left hand (according to other sources, also the index and middle fingers). The hair on his head and beard was scraped off by the shells of marine mollusks.
The survivors of the torture were released, and they fled to the jungle, where they could hide their ugliness.
Lopish remained in India until the death of Albuquerque in 1515. Then Lopis decided to go to Portugal, allegedly sneaking aboard a ship bound for Lisbon. The ship stopped on St. Helena to replenish food and water. The island of St. Helena was discovered by the Portuguese Juan da Nova in 1502 [2] and due to the abundance of fresh water and food it became a permanent entry point for Portuguese ships en route from Europe to the East Indies and back through the Cape of Good Hope . According to one source, Lopish went to the island secretly and lived there all alone; according to another, he was forcibly disembarked from the ship with several slaves. Both sources agree that Lopish was stocked with some ship supplies.
Exile on St. Helena
Almost a year passed before the next ship arrived. Lopish settled down in his new place of residence - a volcanic island with an area of 122 km² almost 2,000 km west of the southern Atlantic coast of Africa. The climate was tropical and temperate, moderated by the trade winds . At that time, the island’s native ecosystem was almost unharmed, and goats introduced by the Portuguese took root well in untouched nature (before the arrival of Europeans, there were no mammals or reptiles on the island). The island was covered with a dense primeval forest of gum tree and other endemic species that appeared here about 10 million years ago.
We have heard the story of a contemporary from the first ship that arrived on St. Helena after Lopis settled there (the story was published in the journal of the Richard Hacklit Society :
The crew was amazed to see the grotto and the bed of straw on which he slept ... and when they saw his clothes, they came to the conclusion that he was a Portuguese. Then they replenished their water supplies and left nothing, left biscuits, cheese, something else from food, and also a letter saying that he should not hide when the ship arrives next time, because no one would offend him. When the ship sailed and raised its sails, a cockerel fell overboard, and the waves brought him to the shore, and Lopish caught him and fed him the rice that they left him.
The cockerel , saved by Lopis, became his only friend on the island. At night, he perched over his head, and during the day he followed Lopis and spoke when Lopis called to him. Over time, Lopis became less and less afraid of people. When the ship anchored in what would later be known as Jamestown Harbor, Lopech greeted the sailors and talked to them as they went ashore. Due to his ugliness and the fact that he never wanted to leave the island, Lopis began to be considered as something like a saint . Many considered him the embodiment of human suffering and seclusion and felt sorry for him. Travelers provided many with Lopish, including livestock and seeds. As a result, Lopish became a gardener and herder, began to cultivate the soil and planted fruit trees, grass and many other plants.
Visits to Portugal and Rome
After 10 years on the island of Lopes, he decided to return to Portugal to see his family, visited King Juan III , and then went to Rome , where Pope Clement VII freed him from the sin of apostasy . The absolution was public and happened on Easter 1530 (in those days only the pope could forgive the sin of apostasy, and he always did it publicly, on Easter). Dad was very impressed with Lopis and decided to fulfill any of his wishes. Lopish had one desire: to return to the island of St. Helena. Clement VII sent Lopis back to Portugal with a letter to Juan III asking him to return him back. Lopish returned to the island and died there in 1545, having spent there another 20 years of almost complete solitude.
Notes
- ↑ Yvette Christianse, Castaway , < https://books.google.ca/books?id=1sCcbWXsWiQC&pg=PA13 >
- ↑ New studies, the results of which were published in 2015, cast doubt on the traditional opening date - May 21, considering May 3 the most probable date of a historical event. See: Ian Bruce, 'St Helena Day', Wirebird The Journal of the Friends of St Helena, no. 44 (2015): 32-46 . (eng.)
Sources
- Beau W Rowlands, “Fernão Lopes - A South Atlantic 'Robinson Crusoe'”