Brazil holds unimaginable stories, absurd conflicts between peoples from distant lands, fighting for worthless dreams. Today, those clashes are barely remembered, although traces remain in the country's shores, in its submerged galleons and in the ruins of its demolished mountains.
These buried tales are one of Brazil's greatest mysteries: what other land can claim to hide Phoenician sphinxes, to harbor ancient African empires, to be the second cradle of the Christ? A continent of extreme ambition, it is a place where all kingdoms attempted to found their utopias.
Turned into anecdotes and poems, told in fragments in all corners of the country, these Brazilian myths are hardly told in their entirety. Throughout my trip, I have discovered and understood them, reconciling contradictions, unraveling coincidences, recognizing old names.
This "mythical birth of Rio" was the story that I reconstructed in most detail. It does not pretend to surpass other Brazilian tales: it is but a retelling of a story that deserves to be remembered.
***
March 1560, Guanabara Bay.
In the narrow cove of Guanabara (“the sea’s tear”, in the language of the Tamoios), a silhouette emerges from the Atlantic Ocean. Passing by the Trinity island, long white sails flow in the sky, slowly rising, penetrating the waters of the interior. In this prodigious landscape of stone, sea and jungle, the monuments of wood and cloth advance like a silent menace.
From his small island, Légendre de Boissy witnesses what he had been waiting for since his arrival. His face does not show fear or anxiety. His harsh features contrast with those of the Huguenot refugees and Protestant pastors who settled in the island of Sergipe, in the middle of the bay. With them, he and his uncle Villegagnon hoped to found a new France, far from the European wars. But the Portuguese ships had arrived early. Villegagnon was still in the metropolis: de Boissy would have to test the mettle of his people.
From the shores, Cunhambebe watches the galleons with patient hatred. The old Tamoio chief is accustomed to unexpected visitors. He remembers the time of his grandparents, when the arrival of those wooden mountains were a cause for celebration. At the time, those strange and sickly visitors bore gifts to his people. Almost none of them stayed, and their ships left, never to return.
And yet, the chief knows: far away in the South, a war had begun against the Pirós, wanderers from distant lands that tirelessly enslaved their enemies. De Boissy, the mad foreigner that settled on a diminutive island, seemed to know these savages well, and hated them to death. He had offered weapons to Cunhambebe's men, in order to help them retake their southern lands. However, seeing the wooden monuments enter Guanabara Bay, the chief understood it: the Pirós were coming to invade his home.
The Fleet has almost completely entered the Bay, slowly sailing along its shores, anchoring nowhere. In a sombre and arrogant procession, they pass by the sinuous coasts, like lords in their lands. Among the dwellers of this land, Boissy may be the only one who understands the brief and terrible message that waves above the galleons.
They are enemies. And they will not leave the bay without seeing them dead.
From the prow of his ship, Mem de Sá watches the endless shores of the bay. Far in the horizon, deep in the Janeiro River, he could glimpse a column of strange peaks, sanding like beastly fangs. Closer to him, on the coast, he saw a lonely mountain, proudly ascending to the sky. This certainly was a strange, beautiful land. A Land without Evil.
He had consulted the Jesuit archive of Salvador. Little was known of the lands beyond the Bay of All Saints, save for the battered settlements of São Vicente, far to the south. As for the territory in which he entered, it was a kingdom of contradictions: River and Bay, Portuguese and French, Roman and Lutheran. Its coasts had undoubtedly inspired the imagination of navigators, as its island and mountains sported colourful names: Trinity, Helm, Temptation...
And yet, as he searched for a place to anchor before the assault, de Sá could not stop thinking of his only certainty. He was entering a land of cannibals.
With his fleet, he hoped to strike the decisive blow in his long war against the ferocious Tamoios, who furiously ravaged Portuguese settlements. It was time to put an end to their insolence, as well as their alliance with the the French.
He could not understand the barbarous accord that stood between Villegagnon's heretics and these eaters of men, but he was sure of one thing: in case of defeat, he and his men would be devoured.
As he continued his slow path along the shores, Mem de Sá turned to the islands of the Trinity. He didn't doubt any longer. They would settle there. Surely the holy name of those mountains would provide them victory.
De Boissy took one last walk through the meager walls of his fort. Underneath them, fires are extinguished, and Tamoio canoes return to the coast, ready for tomorrow's confrontation. Against all odds, it looked like he had succeeded. French and Savages would fight together against the Portuguese fleet.
It had been a while since people had talked of unity in his island: just recently, a group Calvinist settlers had abandoned the fort and entered the continent. Nobody ever knew if they had returned to the Alps, if they had been devoured, or if they founded their own utopia in some distant mountain.
The Frenchman knew that his future would be decided at dawn. He hoped with all his faith that the cannons of his fort and the boats of the Tamoios would manage to defeat the Portuguese.
Deep down, he knew the “Antarctic France” was a chimera that his uncle and some pastors had blindly believed: a land of peace for the Protestants, founded in cannibal lands. Ironically, living with the savages had been far simpler than sharing time with other believers. Old Villegagnon, disillusioned, had long since left for Europe, and Légendre de Boissy was starting to doubt if he would ever return.
Before sleeping, Boissy took a broth of meat and mandioca.
Very well. If defeat came, it would be to die in the fortress, or to survive some more time in the jungle. He thought fearfully of what would remain of his humanity if he had to live among savages.
***
The galleons spat fire on the fort, painting the blue sky with flames and blood. The stone fortress trembled as French cannons responded to the Portuguese attack. The bay was filled with Tamoio boats, drowning the waters with a torrent of wood and screaming men. The warriors climbed the invading ships, trying to submerge the enemy under their numbers.
De Boissy and Cunhambebe knew it, the fate of the battle was to be played in that pathetic stone fort, which barely resisted the first volleys. If it fell, the war would be long, far too long.
De Sá's men furiously repelled the hordes of savages, fearful as they were of the endless stream of cannibal soldiers. The Portuguese fleet was already too damaged: if they won, they wouldn't have the resources to found a city. No, they would have to demolish that sad little fortress, and force the heretics into a long agony.
With their sails torn apart and their floor covered with blood, the Portuguese galleons concentrated fire on what was left of the French fortress. Mem de Sá saw the walls fall down, and its settler flee to the mainland. He felt vaguely sorry for this pathetic mishmash of pastors and mercenaries, looking for safety in the jungle.
Légendre de Boissy cursed God, his uncle, and the wooden canoe that took him to the shores of Guanabara Bay. At night, seeing the galleons abandon the Bay, leaving his fortress in ruins, he could not contain his screams. The Portuguese hadn't deigned to end his life. He would die among beasts and demons.
***
1st of March 1565
As he entered Guanabara Bay for the first time, Estácio didn't see the waters overflowing with dead that his uncle once described.
5 years after Mem de Sá's expedition, a new Portuguese fleet had arrived to finish the job. The orders from Salvador de Bahia were clear: to found a permanent citadel in these lands, and to finish off the remaining savages and heretics.
As soon as the young captain ended his mass in the Trinity Islands, he saw the dreaded rafts coming from the mainland. It was a pathetic and terrifying spectacle: the invaders did not have the vociferous anger described by his uncle, only mute hatred. Among them, he thought he saw blond, crazed faces that whispered in a garbled language.
For months, Estácio de Sá could hardly venture on the coasts of the continent, harassed by those savage fleets, who seemed to no longer fear death. What he foresaw as an easy victory would take him more than two years. He grew sick and bitter, stuck between the island of Trinity and those accursed shores.
When Jesuits came to meet him, the young commander barely had the will to put an end to his enemies. Exhausted, he led his army to the coast once more. And while his troops managed to decimate the Tamoios and hang Cunhambebe in his village, Estácio de Sá was killed by a spear on the sad beaches of Uruçu-Mirim.
***
San Sebastián de Rio de Janeiro was born from the slow and inglorious clash of tired heroes, defeated by heat and sadness. Neither Cunhambebe, nor Légendre, nor Estácio had grand deaths, and none of their legacies managed to enter legend. Like most things in Brazil, the blood they spilled slowly mixed after countless absurd massacres.
Estácio's body was buried on a hilltop, at the very heart of the future city of Rio: Castelo hill. In the decades that followed, the Tamoios were completely massacred, but their words still haunt Brazil's history. French survivors shared their experiences with the thinker Michel de Montaigne, who was stunned by the tragic tale of Cunhambebe and Légendre.
Today, the Castelo hill no longer exists, and Estácio's remains are buried in a suburban church. The Tamoio people are no more, but their language and food are a staple of carioca culture. Sergipe Island, where Légendre fought his last stand, has been connected to the mainland, and is now part of the beautiful Santos Dumont airport.
The cruel bay that saw Rio's birth has changed, and its shores have taken unrecognizable shapes. This strange encounter was but the first act of the absurd history that this Land without Evil would have to live.