O DEGREDO das Galés nos DESCOBRIMENTOS

Galleys were the vessels with which the Portuguese Discoveries began around 1400. They were very versatile, slim vessels, around 50 meters long, with two castles, one at the bow and one at the stern, powered by oars. Used since the times of the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans, this was the most widespread vessel throughout the Mediterranean in the early 1400s. They generally had 30 to 60 oars on each side, with each oar weighing 150 kg each and being delivered to 4 oarsmen. , who maneuvered it at a rate of 20 to 25 strokes per minute. There were around 240 men, although one of the Portuguese royal galleys had 450 oarsmen. They lived in a space measuring 4 meters by 4, which served alternately as a bedroom, table and chapel. These were mostly slaves and convicts, with slaves usually being prisoners of war, especially Moors, the convicts were those who had committed the most horrible crimes. Less than 10% of the sentences were galley sentences, or galley exile as it was called, this being the most severe penalty, much more rigorous than exile, or exile, in which convicts were expelled from national territory to Africa and later to Brazil. It was just not considered worse than death at the stake. Text, narration and editing by Paulo Elias Martins, based on the works of: BRAGA, Paulo Drummond. “Os Forçados das Galés: journeys of a marginalized group”. In: Carlos Alberto Ferreira de Almeida In Memoriam, vol. I. Porto: University of Porto, Faculty of Arts, 1999. FONSECA, Paloma Siqueira. “The presiganga, a galley in the tropics”. Archai Magazine, nº 1. Brasília: June 2008. PIERONI, Geraldo. Excluded from the Kingdom: The Portuguese Inquisition and the Exile to Colonial Brazil. Brasília: Editora da Universidade de Brasília, 2000.