“This is what I remember in all truth, without missing a point of everything I say here”: The fall of Salvador to the Dutch from a Relação de Sucesso

Abstract

In Modern Age, ‘Relações de Sucesso’ [relations of events], played a role in the dissemination of news and the spread of public opinion, especially in the Iberian kingdoms, which used it on a large scale. This article intends to comprehend the fall of the city of Salvador, which occurred in 1624, through a Relação de Sucesso written in that period, analyzing the function that it may have performed in the dissemination of news and in the formation of public opinion regarding the Hispanic monarchy and the resistance leaders in the colony, the Governor General Dom Diogo de Mendonça Furtado and the Bishop Dom Marcos Teixeira, also observing the role of Salvador as a crucial part of the Portuguese empire under the command of the Habsburg monarchy.