He was also a historian, author of a biography of Mem de Sá. Composed of hexameters, "De Gestis Meni de Saa" is the first epic about the Americas. It presents de Sá as "a Christian Ulysses determined to oust Satan" who "presides ... over hordes of demonic Amerindians, creatures devoted to dismembering bodies". With the arrival of the Jesuits, "the Cross expels demons" and "shamans lose preternatural power as they move from the wilderness into the civilized missions". That work of history was one of his two major poems. The other was "De Beata Virgine Dei Matre", a poem to the Virgin Mary. Tradition holds that Anchieta composed it while in captivity at Iperoig in 1563 by writing verses in the wet sand of the beach and memorizing each day's lines so that upon his release he could write its 4,900 verses on paper in their entirety.