Os Descobrimentos Portugueses em The Principal Navigations de Richard Hakluyt

Abstract

From the middle of the sixteenth century onwards, English sea-dogs follow the Portuguese ships and routes in search of commercial profit; a time when England was beginning its expansion, against the interests of Phillip II. Richard Hakluyt (1552?-1616) collects, translates and compiles a vast number of European travel narratives in The Principall Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation (first edition: 1589; enlarged edition: 1598-1600). In this anthology of documents the Portuguese Discoveries are a recurrent and proeminent presence, and in this article we analise this same presence as well as the initial English strategies concerning the commercial expansion towards the East and West Indies, confronting the interests and dominions of the Portuguese.