Fernão Cardim: jesuit letters and the construction of the other

Abstract

The Epistolary Narrative of a Voyage and a Jesuitical Mission of Fernão Cardim is a source for reflection on the writing of letters as a Jesuit strategy for the consolidation of the "ways of proceeding"of the Company of Jesus - a strategy with both devotional and doctrinal dimensions. Here we argue that such a strategy articulates the construction of the native Other, defining a relation between Jesuit letters and the colonizing process.

Jesuits; Letters; Other