History of Principe Perfeito
Contents
King John II of Portugal
John II (Portuguese: João II) was born in Lisbon in May 1455. He was the son of Afonso V of Portugal and a descendent of Henry the Navigator. At the age of sixteen he joined a Portuguese military expedition to Morocco, where, so say the royal chronicles, he was made knight by his father after the city of Arzila was conquered. More than a matter of assuring the financial sustainability of Ceuta (taken by the Portuguese in 1415), war in northern Africa was seen by king Afonso V as a prestige awarding crusade. He was, in several ways, a sovereign behind his own time, more in tune with a medieval mentality which favoured the country's noblemen at the expense of the Crown and royal treasury. He gave little if any attention to the sea voyages after his uncle Henry the Navigator died in 1460, and once satisfied with several victories in Morocco the king turned his attention to a new war, this time in neighbouring Castile where a sucession crisis broke out. Afonso attemped a claim to the Castilian throne and married one of the female successors, but he was defeated in 1476 at the battle of Toro. His son John fought by his side, comanding his own batallion, but he proved wiser than his father who led a reckless attack on his enemy's troops. A sign of the difference of views and priorities of the two men.
In 1474, after a fourteen years standtill on overseas exploration, Afonso V decided that John should be fully in charge of the marine voyages. The young Prince gave new life to Henry's work and quickly established two main goals: to assure Portuguese dominion of the African coast and to reach India by sea. Shortly after, he ordered all of Portugal's ships to be armed with light cannons as part of an agressive policy that led to the arrest of a Castillian fleet near modern day Ivory Coast in 1478. In 1479 he achieved the Treaty of Alcaçovas in which Portugal renounced to any claim over the Canary Islands but Castile lost any right to sail south of that archipelago. Acting also as a regent everytime his father lingered in war, Prince John had to defend the kingdom from Castilian offensives and restore balance to the country's treasury. The nobility, however, strenghtened by the priviliges received from Afonso V, made that task particulary difficult, while at the same time the Prince remained imunne to the noblemen's influence. The two sides were increasingly on a colision course made ever more evident when John, already largely in charge of the government by virtue of his father's frequent absence, was given full responsability over State affairs in 1477 after Afonso V decided to retire to a religious life. He died in a monatery in August 1481.
With the throne assured and his power unquestionable, John II could finally focus all of the country's energies in his project of reaching India by sea and establish Portugal as a world power. He gathered around him valiant esquires of the royal House such as Diogo Cão, Bartolomeu Dias, Afonso de Albuquerque and Vasco da Gama. Already in 1482 the king had ordered the construction of a fortified trading post in Mina, modern day Gana, to ensure a lenghty profit from the African gold routes, while Diogo Cão discovered the mouth of the river Congo and sailed further south until modern day Angola. In 1484 he comanded a second expedition that went as far south as Namibia, but failled to reach the Indian Ocean. At the same time, John II organized an extensive network of spies that kept him updated on what was being told and done both inside and outside the country, includind in the Holy See. Letters arriving to Lisbon from Rome would normally have a prepared written reply because the king's informers told him the content of the correspondence before he actually received it. He also sent spies like Pêro da Covilhã to the Middle East, Eastern Africa and India to collect information on local populations, weather conditions and sea currents in view of future sea expeditions to the region. John II, as Henry the Navigator before him, also granted exile in Portugal to runaway Jews, allowing them to invest their knowledge and financial expertise in the country's marine enterprise. In 1488 the king received long awaited news: Bartolomeu Dias had sailed past the southernmost tip of Africa and entered the Indian Ocean. He called one of the capes Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms), but John II, sure that the route to India was finally open, decided that it should be named Cabo da Boa Esperança (Cape of Good Hope).
In 1490, the king's only son and heir, prince Afonso, married the daughter of the Spanish monarchs, thus consolidating peace with the neighbouring country and assuring that if a union of the two kingdoms was to occur it would be under Portuguese rule. The plan, however, ended with the prince's death a year after, supposedly in a horse riding accident. With no direct heir to the throne, John II tried to legitimize a bastard son of his named George, but was met with renewed opposition from the nobility and resistance from the queen herself, who supported the claim of her nephew Manuel, brother of the very same Duke of Viseu the king had stabbed. In the end, he was made heir and became king Manuel I of Portugal four years later.
Before dying, John II managed to conclude the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the new world between Portugal and Spain along a vertical line 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. It gave central and most of South America to the Spanish, while keeping the way to India in Portuguese hands and granting them a foothold in modern day Brasil. John II died in October 1495 and his body was laid to rest in the royal pantheon in the Monastery of Batalha, next to his father's and great-grandfather's tombs. When queen Isabella of Spain was told about the king's death she said the Man has died, expressing the extent of John II perfection as a ruler in that the nickname "Man" was enough to refer to him. He was seen as having all of the political virtues and qualities held high at the time and later presented by Machiavelli in his Prince, so while the nobility called him The Tyran, History came to remember John II as O Príncipe Perfeito or The Perfect Prince.
The birth of the Order of the Pelican
After the death of prince Afonso and the apointment of Manuel as heir to the throne, several of John II's esquires and spies gathered at a secret meeting in Lisbon. The shift of power inside the royal palace made them fear a new rise of the nobility and a threat to the king's Indian project, so those men decided to make sure things went according to plan. No full list of them is known, but it is certain that Bartolomeu Dias, Afonso de Albuquerque and Vasco da Gama were at the meeting and, together with several others, founded a secret organization called The Order of the Pelican. It took its name from the seal of John II: a pelican with the motto Pola Ley e Pola Grey (For the Law and For the People). It's goal was to protect the king's project and ensure its realization, making use of the network of spies John had organized and moving influences inside the palace. The bastard son of John II was initially thought of as a natural leader but fear arose that he could then use the Order to make his way to the throne, plunging the country in an internal conflict that would only delay or destroy the Indian project. Therefore, he was never even told of the existence of the Order and Bartolomeu Dias was elected its first Grand Master.
The First Reform
In the first years of its existence, the Order concentrated most of its efforts on organizing and making use of its spy network in preparation for Vasco da Gama's journey to India. As the departure was near, the spies who went Eastwards were told to remain along the way in theIndian ocean and collect any information that might prove useful when the Portuguese fleet passed by. In 1496, however, a first problem arose when king Manuel I decided that all non-converted Jews should be expelled from Portugal. The Order, being aware of the scientific and financial importance of the Jewish comunity in the marine enterprise since the days of Prince Henry the Navigator, attempted to protect as many Jews as possible. It was during this time that the organization began establishing a network of safe houses for protection of runaways, even though king Manuel quickly came up with a way of preventing a massive migration from the country.
In July 1497 Vasco da Gama left Lisbon to India aware that other members of the Order were already ahead of him. In 1500, two years after da Gama reached India, another fleet was sent by King Manuel I, this time under the leadership of Pedro Álvares Cabral. With him went Bartolomeu Dias who tragically (and ironically) died at sea during a storm over the Cape of Good Hope. With the death of the first Grand Master, the Order elected the energic Afonso de Albuquerque. He recruited trained diplomats and expanded the Order's spy network to make use of its full capabilities in his military campaigns in India, the Middle East and Malasia. As the Eastern Portuguese Empire grew, so did the resources and connections of the Order, leading to the formation of regional mother-houses with their own Masters in order to improve the governance of the organization.
In 1521 Manuel I died and was succeded by his son John III, a man of deep (if not extreme) religious convictions. As Europe saw the rise of the Protestant Reformation and the catholic Church fought back, the Inquisition was established in Portugal 1536 at the request of the king himself. This meant further and outright persecution of the Jewish comunity, which spelled problems for the Order in case it decided to once again help the Jews. The extintion of the organization was seriously considered, with one faction defending that it had already achieved its goal, while another called for the preservation of John II's memory and legacy in a changing context. The fourth Grand Master eventually summoned a Great Council of the Order, made out of all the regional Masters and major espionage and diplomacy operatives, which called for a long and careful process, as some of the members of the organization were on high places in power structures and couldn't just be absent for an undetermined amount of time. Codified letters were exchanged, messengers and representatives sent, smaller meetings held at safe houses and slowly the debate took place. In 1540 the Order was taken by surprise when three of its members were arrested in Lisbon under the suspission of being Jews (which they were not). Immediately the Grand Master took emergency measures by changing passwords and relocating some of the safe houses in the city. This event, coupled with a growing sense of loss of resources and minds in the country, made much to convince many in Order of the necessity of its existence, even if to protect its own members. In 1541 the reform was decided and two letters with instructions were sent to each regional houses, one to be read once it reached its destination, the other to be opened only in January of 1542. When the time came, the Order went further underground: overnight passawords everywhere were changed, codenames switched, headquarters, regional organization reshaped and safe houses relocated. To prevent the revealing of vital information in case any member of the Order was caught and tortured, the Great Council determined that all regional houses should be subdivided into smaller local groups with no knowledge of each others passwords, network and members. Coordination would be made by the region's Master, whose identity became unknown to all except fellow Masters and the Grand Master. New members were recruted among those who saw in the Inquisition the end of a cosmopolitan and open urban life in the 16th century Lisbon.
Afterwards, the Order began helping runaways to escape from the Inquistion and reach exile elsewhere in Europe. This was the first time the Order went truly international since the spy and safe-houses network had to expand outside Portuguese dominated areas. In a few years time there were members in the Netherlands and the Otomman Empire and a new regional Master surfaced in Antwerp. One famous member of the Order that gave an important contribution to that development was the humanist Damião de Góis who, acoording to the surviving records, was never chosen as a Grand Master due to the fact that he had to face the Inquisition several times. Damião, however, did play an important role in another development of the Order after his death was staged in 1574.
Colonization
Besides helping Jews and others escaping the Inquisition by allowing them to reach exile, at one point, as the spreading of the Protestant Reformation increased religious tensions throughout Europe, the Order found itself in need of an alternative safe place to where runaways could be moved. Since the Old world wouldn't always do, the New one overseas would have to do. To that end the Grand Master and regional Masters exchanged correspondence seeking to find a acceptable location. At a Great Council held between 1564 and 1566, modern day Canada was suggested. The 15th century Portuguese navigator João Fernandes had already sighted Labrador and before him another sea explorer named João Vaz Corte-Real is believed to have landed on Newfoundland as early as 1474. The Order, therefore, knew of the existence of those territories and an expedition was sent westwards in 1569, reaching Labrador. After exploring modern day's Quebec and Newfoundland coastline it sailed north and reached what today is the Grand Duchy's island. It was bapized Ilha de São Vicente (St. Vincent's Island) after the captains' patron saint. Once they landed on it, the explorers came across a group of Innu indians with whom they attempeted to establish dialogue but with little success because of the language barrier. They did, however, exchange gifts.
The following decades saw the arrival of new settlers and the growth of the colony grew until a new settlement was founded on the western coast of the island. This happened not only due to an increasing population, but also because English explorers had reached the island of Newfoundland and Sir Humphrey Gilbert had claimed it and the surrounding region as England's colony in 1583. This called for the Order's first real move in international politics, as its own land possession was at stake. The settlers on St. Vincent's island first claimed to be a Portuguese colony, informed the Grand Master of what was happening and made use of their relationship with the Innu indians to reduce contact with the English to a minimum. Back in Lisbon, a new king was on the throne: Philip II of Spain. The two crowns were united in 1580 and the Order of the Pelican saw its raison d'être as a preserver of the memory and legacy of John II reinforced. The Grand Master decided to take advantadge of the new political situation to protect the settlement on St. Vincent's island. Since Philip's Spain was an enemy to Elizabeth's England and the settler's claimed to be a Portuguese colony, the Order portrayed St. Vincent as settlement that refused to accept Spanish authority and was governing itself with the support of Spain's oppositioners inside Portugal. A mostly true cover-up to which the Order lended consistency withou ever revealing itself and which gave the English something they wanted: a well informed and well structured ally inside their enemy's heartland. A treaty was signed with St. Vincent's government (which acted under the Grand Master's supervision), preserving the island in the hands of the settlers and the natives under England's protection in exchange for information on Spanish fleets and armies.
Portugal's Restoration War
In 1639, after 59 years of union with Spain, a Portuguese conspiracy to overthrow the Spanish government in Lisbon was on the move. The Order of the Pelican, having several of its members among the rebel noblemen, made extensive use of its spy network to pass on secret messages and for counter-espionage. On the morning of December 1st 1640, a few dozen Portuguese nobles rushed into the royal palace in Lisbon, killed the State secretary and arrested the Spanish governor. The 500 soldiers batallion in the city's castle surrendered later that day and on December 2nd local authorities throghout the country were already adering to the rebellion. The Duke of Braganza was crowned King John IV on December 15th and immediately started preparing the country's army for the upcoming conflict, taking advantage of the fact that Spain was too busy with a rebellion at Catalonia and the Thirty Years' War to turn it's full might against Portugal. So started the Portuguese Restoration War. The Order would invest many of its resources on the conflict, mobilizing some of it's brighest military minds to the frontline, collecting considerable sums of money and making a full usage of all its spies in the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere in Europe to sabotage the Spanish army as much as possible and convince France, England and several German countries to aid Portugal in the fight. An enigmatic record of the Order implies that a Grand Master was killed in 1665 in the battle of Montes Claros. It is not known who he was or even if he actually died fighting. The document only says that he fell and the year after a new Grand Master was elected.
In 1668, after more than two decades of war, Spain finally accepted Portugal's independence and made peace. As a result of it's effort, the Order had by the end of the conflict a political influence like never before. Spies, diplomats and anonymous members were well inflitrated in Europe's main power centers, giving the organization enough influence to properly face its next challenge: to make St. Vincent's island an independent country!
The Republic of St. Vincent
With Portugal's independence assured and with the Order at the height of its political influence in Europe, a new challenge arose. If in the 16th century the settlers of St. Vincent were able to use the Iberian Union as a cover-up for their autonomous existence, with the breakaway from Spain the obvious consequence would be the island's "return" to Portuguese rule. Yet the Order had little interest in that, for one thing because it wouldn't take long for the government in Lisbon to realize that a colony had never been established in North America (thus risking an exposure of the Order) and secondly because the motive that led to the creation of a safe haven overseas - religious persecution - was still present. This meant that there were only two solutions: either to remain under English protection leading to a possible anexation of the island or move for independence. As the prospect of becoming a colony under London's authority didn't remove the danger to the settlers freedom (and treaty with the natives), the Order was left with the only left and hardest option: declare an independent State.
To that end, after gathering a Great Council and receiving the support of the regional Masters, the Grand Master decided to make use of his spies and influence inside the English and French governments to explore the two countries' rivalry in order to convince England of the advantages of a neutral country in North America. Both nations had alreay extensive dominions in the region, with France founding the province of New France in 1663, while the English had the Thirteen Colonies and sponsered the creation of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670, breaking the French monopoly on fur trade. In response, France expanded its territory west of the English colonies, exploring the Ohio and Mississipy valleys in 1682. The two sides were on a constant strugle in America, with small skirmishes throughout their territories and with the possibility of a major conflict, especially if a war was to break in continental Europe in which the two countries would be on opposite fields. Playing with this possibility, the Order made way for the settlers in St. Vincent to finally achieve a new treaty with the English in 1675: London accepted the island's independence under the condition that it should remain a neutral in any conflict involving England and never reject sanctuary to its men and ships.
On March the 10th of 1675, the Republic of St. Vincent was proclaimed. In the next few months, the government of the island as founded in the days of Damião de Góis was reformed to respond not only to a much bigger population, but also to the new political reality. All the settlements - now a total of five - were requested to establish an official assembly which would deal with local issues and elect three representatives to a national one in Vila Dias. There they would elect the island's leader who should organize a government of no more than seven ministers. To watch over his decisions, a senate was also established, presided by the regional Master of the Order and composed of other four members, all chosen by the Grand Master. They had veto power over any decision related foreign issues or international policy. The native Innu were also included in the process, with a review of the 1576 treaty to include the limitations on war, trade and aid to foreigners and reserving three seats for them in the national assembly. In practice, this was the Innu's first step towards citizenship.
The country also organized a national militia (in which the Innu were free to enlist, should they wish to do so) and a small merchant navy. As a matter of precaution, several wars ships were built at a remote bay, to be used only in case the neutrality of the island was in danger. For both on sea and land, the Republic of St. Vicent used a flag with a black raven on a white field with blue border. The choice of animal is related to the saint as worshiped in Lisbon, where his body was said to have arrived guarded by ravens (see Cape of St. Vincent and Lisbon's coat of arms).
Neutrality
From the 1689 to 1697 the King William's War was fought in America between France and England as an overseas ramification of the War of the Grand Alliance, giving strengh to the Order's game of playing with the country's fear that allowed for the Vila Dias's Treaty and which was starting to be questioned in London. The English began using St. Vincent as a base of operations from where they launched attacks on wikipedia:New France, though the governement in Vila Dias declared itseld neutral. In 1690, France, wishing to put that claim to the test, sent a fleet to the island to request shelter. When the French ships were welcomed and their men allowed to trade and buy supplies, the English protested, to which the Vincentine governement answered by presenting the Vila Dias Treatry and requesting the officers to point out the article that prevented the island from granting shelter to other country's armies. The English decided to arrest the French ships on their own, but the Order of the Pelican had its spies on the ground and St. Vincent's Senate and government were well informed on both sides' moves. St. Vincent's militia was summoned for late night drills in the harbour, waking the crew of every vessel there and thus foiling the English plan. Two nights latter it was again attemped to again be foilled when Vila Dias's coastal fortress fired its cannons into the open sea in the middle of the night. Convinced that there was a spy among them, the English fleet left the island , followed by the Frenche. Two weeks later the English were back to block every port on the island. Since the comanding officer was on a vessel blocking Vila Dias' harbour, St. Vincent's fleet appeared behind it and traped it. Caught between the city's coastal fortress and a fleet that he did not know it existed, the English comander met with the Vincentine leader who told him that the islanders didn't mind about a blockade so long as it was done suficciently away from their waters, where the French could be attacked without compromising the island's neutrality. A deal was strucked in which English ships were kept at bay, but could, if they managed to, prevent French ships from entering or leaving Vincentine waters once they were on the open sea.
The deal was kept during the Queen Anne's War from 1702 to 1713 and, more importantly, during the Seven Years War between 1754 and 1763. Once New France was taken by the British, there were no longer any French possessions in North America, which meant that St. Vincent was of little use as the region's neutral country. Britain could easily move for an anexation of the island and the Grand Master of the Order of the Pelican knew it. A new political move was needed.
The second Reform: the birth of the Grand Duchy of Principe Perfeito
The 18th witnessed Europe's Age of Enlightenment which had many fervent supporters amongst the members of the Order. Because it preserved the memory of the life and work of king John II, it went from an organization created to execute an imperial project to a protector of knowledge that upheld the virtues of determination, cunning and loyalty in a universal perspective. This was the Order's philosophy as first drafted in its first reform in 1541-42 and many of its member felt sympathy for the ideals of the [[Enlightenment because it reacted to the same religious intolerance that had propted the persecution of Jews and others from the 16th century onwards.
Decades after the end of the Seven Years War, another conflit broke out in the New World: the American Revolution. After the declaration of independence in 1776, both the Grand Master and the government on St. Vincent realized the oportunity at hand: with Britain occupied with a major rebellion in thirteen of its American colonies, the time was right for the Order to make a political move with a reduced risk of British intervention. The Grand Master presented a bold plan to all the regional Masters: to move the power center of the Order from Europe to America and to partly expose the organization by integrating it in the political system of St. Vincent. The ideia was to empower the island, to be no longer a country run by an uncountable underground group but a nation fully equaled with the influence and resources of the Order of the Pelican. Not an easy decision to take, having originated a heated debate concluded only in 1779: the Order was to move overseas.
The decision had two immediate consequences: the government on St. Vincent stepped down and the Senate assumed full power in cooperation with the island's assembly so both could conduct the necessary and major political reform; the Order instructed all of its regional houses to destroy all non-vital written records that couldn't be transported overseas, for fear that the exposure of the organization would also expose its members and hece reduce its influence. And the Order needed it to conduct this second reform.
Finally, a new capital city began being built on the southern cost of the island and it was named Nova Évora. At the heart of it a stone column was raised, crowned by an iron statue of King John II. It was next to this momument that on June 21st of 1782 the new country was proclaimed and the blue flag with the pelican was hoisted for the first time.
Modern day
The Grand Duchy of Príncipe Perfeito preserved its neutrality throughout the rest of the 18th century up until today. Its political system suffered aditional changes, including to give room to an increasing Indian participation in the country's institutions. In 1921 the Innu language gave its first step towards official status by being legally allowed in courts and in 1939 also in political assemblies as well as civil and basic services. Courses of the tongue were opened at several schools and in 1952 the 1576 treaty was revised a second time to allow for the preservation of most of the Innu's traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In 1968 they were granted full citizenship.
The 1960's saw many more changes on the island, political and social. There increasing visibility of the Innu gave way to an interest in their religious traditions and a consequent focus of some citizens on the revival of pre-Christian European beliefs. Women acquired the right to vote in 1915, equal wages in 1956 and the right to divorce in 1958. In 1975 abortion in the initial stage of pregnancy was legalized. Gay right movements achieved a series of important legal and political victories that dicriminalized homossexuality in 1970, made homophobia a public crime in 1981, instituted a "civil contract" in 1987 that granted most of the rights and duties of civil marriage - created in 1903 - and more recently, in 2001, marriage and adoption became available for every couple regardless of their sexual orientation.
After helping thousands of Jews to escape the nazis during World War Two, in 1961 the Order of the Pelican suffered its final reform, being fully exposed and becoming a State protected humanitarian, educational and environmental organization. Its former regional masters became representatives of the organization in the four corners of the world and their no longer have a seat at the Senate, but have become part of the Order's executive board which is still presided by the Grand Duke. It awards nine prizes in topics such as Biology, Literature, Marine Science, Environment and Human Rights and hundreds of scholarships every year to both national citizens and foreigners.
The Grand Duchy of Príncipe Perfeito, following its long tradition of neutrality, takes part in no military aliance and is presently a member of the United Nations.
