Chinese
Phantom on Corvo Island, Azores!
By Reverend Ferreira Moreno
Oakland California
Gavin Menzies, a retired Royal Navy officer, in his recently published book entitled "1421, The year China Discovered America", states that the Chinese also discovered the Azores several years before the Portuguese reached the islands.
Menzies, who apparently never went ashore on any of the Azores islands, rests his absurd claim on a piece of information he found while reading the 1638 Madrid edition of "Epitome de las Hist¢rias Portuguesas." Its author, whose correct name is Manuel de Faria e Sousa (1590-1649), wrote about a statue of a rider, carved on the summit of a mountain on Corvo island, but the inscriptions at the bottom "we could not understand."
That's all Menzies needed to brazenly declare that "the Corvo horseman was indeed a Chinese statue, perhaps even of the Emperor Horseback Shu Di." Surprisingly, as Menzies adds, "corroborative evidence that the Chinese may have inhabited the Azores comes from Christopher Columbus, who reported a local story of non-European bodies washed onto the beach at Flores, some twenty miles south of Corvo."
With all due respect to Gavin Menzies, I'm unequivocally convinced he went overboard in his far-fetched conclusions. Neither Columbus nor Sousa ever sailed the channel between Flores and Corvo. The reference to the legendary equestrian statue is an impudent plagiarism from a fictitious story written by Damiao de G¢is (1502-74), who never saw the Azores , even from a distance. Corvo is the smallest of the nine Azorean islands, with an area of less than seven square miles, and an estimated population of 400 people concentrated into one little village.
Caspar Frutuoso (1522-91) and Ant¢nio Cordeiro (1641-1722), both Azorean natives and the islands' earliest historians, classified the story of the statue as merely "antigualha mui not vel", (a very notable legend).
Diogo das Chagas (1575-1667), another native historian, whose brother did parish work in Corvo, made no reference whatsoever to the statue or to Chinese bodies washed ashore "onto the beach at Flores ."
A pair of distinguished English brothers, Joseph and Henry Bullar, wrote a meticulous book about their stay in the Azores (December 1838 to May 1839). In their description of Corvo, there is no mention of the existence of the legendary statue. Raul Brandao (1867-1930), the masterful writer of "As Ilhas Desconhecidas", devotes a whole chapter of his stay on Corvo, (June 17 to 30, 1924), without even a whisper about the statue.
The remotest possibility of a statue having been left on Corvo by ancient Phoenicians or Carthaginians (Centuries before the Chinese), was considered a fable by reputable Azorean historian Manuel Monteiro Velho Arruda.
Consequently, I encourage Gavin Menzies to read the "Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Discovery & Settlement of the Azores ", in which Velho Arruda wrote that as far back as 1317 (a century before the Chinese), "even though at the time there were no official plan to discoveries, the Portuguese may or may not have ventured to sail across the Atlantic ."
The truth
remains: Until the Portuguese reached the Azores , the islands were entirely
deserted, with no signs of previous human presence.
On this historic account, the late Dr. Jacinto Monteiro (1923-2003) also
provided valuable documentation. As other sources of information, I recommend
the 15 volumes of "Arquivo dos A‡ores" (Archives), particularly the
second (1880) and the Third (1881) volumes, where the phantom statue is debated.
Additional information to dispel Menzies' claim can be found in the 1967 and 1987 editions of "A Ilha do Corvo" by Carlos Alberto Medeiros, as well as in the third volume of "Hist¢ria das Quarto Ilhas" by Silveira Macedo and also in "Not¡cia do Arquip‚lago dos A‡ores" by Garcia Ramos, wherein it is stated that the statue on Corvo "is nothing more than an optical illusion and a caprice of volcanic rocks."
In his "Relat¢rio" about Corvo, Fr. Jos‚ Ant¢nio Camoes (1777-1827), a native of Flores , emphatically denies both the existence of the equestrian statue and the ability of anyone ever climbing to such an inaccessible spot. The renowned scientist Jos‚ Agostinho (1888-1978), after his 1945 archaeological research on Corvo Island, clearly pointed out that the alleged statue is simply a piece of rock which, from a distance, accidentally resembles a rider.
Furthermore and contrary to what Menzies attempts to convey in the appendix of his book, there are neither records nor traditions of underground ruins from old Chinese structures. Fr. Louren‡o Jorge (1882-1918), a native of Corvo who left a manuscript recently published in book form, makes no mention of Chinese ruins. In closing, Fr. Francisco Xavier, who was the pastor of Corvo island from September 2002 to September 2003 and is presently stationed at Five Wounds Church in San Jos‚, CA., assured me that he never heard of, much less sighted, the phantom statue.