Portuguese in the cane: the racialization of labour in Hawaiian plantations

The identification of the Portuguese as intrepid sailors crossing oceans and bridging the world, as praised in Camões’ epic poem Os Lusiadas (The Lusiads), has been central to a historical narrative that merges sea travel, trade, conquest, knowledge, empire and nation. Yet sailing, I shall argue in this article, was also about a variety of endeavours other than opening the way to empire. Sailing could also be embarking as a stowaway, travelling immense distances on improbable fishing boats, joining the crews of passing whalers, being kidnapped ashore, enslaved, enduring the galleys or being sent off to faraway plantations as labour. More often than not, sailing overseas was a way to escape poverty, abuse, oppression, misery and distress. And that – sailing away from their homes, looking for a better life, running from destitution – was what many Portuguese men and women did over extended periods of time. Their routes hardly corresponded to an imperial strategy for Portugal. They often contradicted it.