Biography

Miguel de Castanhoso was a soldier and writer. He is known as the author of the official Portuguese account of the military expedition to Christian Ethiopia in 1541-43, Dos feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia.

Castanhoso was probably of noble Spanish origin (Dos feitos, ed. Esteves Pereira, p. xxxviii). In early 1541, he went on the armada under Estevão da Gama, governor of Portuguese India, to the Red Sea…