Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 2

1652.

The favour which Vieyra enjoyed at court created the jealousy even of his own order, and it was once feared that they were about to expel him. In anticipation of this, he was offered by the King a bishopric, which offer, however, was declined. The jealousy of Vieyra’s superiors was at length, happily, removed, and he was employed during several years in the most important diplomatic service, including a mission to the Hague at a critical period. About the year 1652, after the Brazil Company had been established owing to his representations, the fleet of which Company was the means used by Fernandes to complete the reduction of Recife, the thoughts of the Jesuit Father began to be powerfully attracted towards the land of his early education. From the possession of his special gifts, more particularly his knowledge of the Indian and Angola languages, he probably felt that there was work to be done which he was likely to perform better than any living man. But there was a strong obstacle in the way. This was the favour with which he was regarded both by King Joam and by his son, Prince Theodosio, from both of whom he felt it would be useless to solicit permission to depart on his proposed voyage.

This being the case, as it was a matter of conscience, Vieyra determined to set out clandestinely, that is to say, without the royal permission. A strong succession of circumstances now occurred. Vieyra had made up his mind to set out for Maranham, and there was but one vessel in the Brazil fleet which was bound for that State. It was arranged that Vieyra and his companion, Ribeiro, should accompany the last Jesuits on board, as if to take leave of them. As they were on the way, they learned that the ship was detained for a royal officer. Vieyra therefore returned to the King, and obtained permission for the vessel to depart without this person. But now the captain was compelled to wait for the morning tide, and Vieyra and his companion returned on shore for the night. Their purpose being now suspected, the captain of the ship received notice that he would be hanged were he to convey Vieyra away; and notice was likewise given to the masters of all the other ships in the river forbidding them to give the two Jesuits a passage, Vieyra being at the same time summoned to the palace.

Upon this Vieyra went to the Prince, and told him that he must go to Maranham; but he was answered that nothing would induce the King to consent to his going. The Jesuit then endeavoured to escape in a vessel bound to Madeira, from which place he hoped eventually to be able to proceed to Brazil; but this vessel, too, lost the tide, and as Vieyra had been seen to go on board, he was again commanded to return. He was cordially received by the King and Prince, with whom, however, he argued as to the superior authority under which he was prompted to proceed to South America. The Prince was in ill-health, and it was probably owing to this circumstance that the royal consent to Vieyra’s departure was now obtained. The King having once yielded, now entrusted Vieyra, as Superior of the Mission, to found such churches and missions in the interior as he might think fit, and enjoining all persons in authority to render him every assistance for this purpose.

It was arranged that Vieyra and a brother missionary should proceed in a caravel to their destination; but whilst they were waiting the King and the Prince, with whom Vieyra was now living in daily intercourse, repented of the permission which they had given. Vieyra, too, felt more than ever reluctant to quit his royal master, to whom he was bound not alone by ties of the deepest loyalty, but likewise by those of the utmost personal affection. The services, too, which he might render to his country in Europe at that critical time were suggested to him; and the result was that his missionary projects were abandoned. So much publicity had, however, been given to them, that both the King and Vieyra were somewhat afraid of ridicule on the announcement of their relinquishment. It was therefore determined for the present that nothing should be given out on the subject, and that when the time should come for his departure he should be summoned back from on board ship as if on a sudden impulse from the King. When the time came, however, for the Jesuit’s departure, and he had gone through the form of going on board ship, owing to some accident the royal mandate for his return never reached him; and thus it happened that after all he unintentionally sailed, and touched at the Cape de Verde Islands, where his vessel remained for four days.

Vieyra must have been a very Chrysostom; for we read that he preached twice at Porto Praya with such effect that the people first petitioned him and his companions to remain with them, and then offered a large bribe to the master of the vessel to sail without them. At Maranham Vieyra was welcomed by his brother, when he lost no time in setting about the duties of his mission. It is almost needless to say that he was greatly shocked at the low moral and religious condition in which he found the community. It was in fact Christian in name alone, and was destitute even of the elements by which Christian instruction might be imparted. The zealous missionary lost no time in communicating his impressions to the King and to the Prince, whom he implored to send out suitable assistance. The harvest he said was great, but the labourers were few.

Maranham was in truth in a far worse condition than that of the older captaincies, the inhabitants of which had by this time acquired the customs of civilized life. In them had long been established the forms of municipal government. They were likewise communities which subsisted by regularly-established commerce; whilst they enjoyed regular intercourse with the mother country, and were presided over by men of position and character. But Maranham and Pará were, so to speak, back-settlements. It was exile for a governor of position to go to them, and they were consequently ruled either by men who went thither for a short time on promotion or who accepted the post of governor in order to make money in the only way by which it could be made—that is to say, by slave-dealing. It is to be remembered, too, that at this period Maranham and Pará were separated from the Portuguese settlements in Southern Brazil by the presence of the Dutch in the intervening provinces adjoining Pernambuco.

In the older presidencies the supply of Indians available for slaves was by this time so exhausted that the slave market had to be stocked from Angola; but at Maranham the native population, being newly brought into contact with the Portuguese, afforded an ample field for the energy of the slave-hunter and those who were interested in his operations, in which latter category were included officials of every rank. In fact, Vieyra found Maranham a huge Augean-stable, the proportions of which would have made a man of less energy stand aghast in despair.

The Portuguese race has unquestionably filled a most distinguished part in the world. At the period of which we write it had gloriously recovered its national independence, and was renowned alike for its splendid literature, its famous geographical discoveries,—more especially those of Bartholomew Diaz, Vasco de Gama, Cabral, and Magalhaens,—and its magnificent colonial possessions in the east as well as in the west; and that the race has not lost all its energy is proved by such exploits of the present day as those of Serpa Pinto and others. But in two respects, as well to-day as two centuries ago, the same race is less honourably remarkable, namely, in addiction to the more superstitious adjuncts of Catholicism, such as worship of images, belief in everyday miracles, etc., and in addiction to every form of the slave-trade. The former may be considered an indication of puerile ignorance; the latter is a national disgrace.

There seems indeed something peculiarly ingrained in the Portuguese race which makes them take to slave-dealing and slave-hunting as naturally as greyhounds take to chasing hares; and this observation applies not to one section of the race alone, but to Portuguese wherever they are to be found beyond the reach of European law. No modern race can be cited as slave-hunters within measurable distance of the Portuguese. Their exploits in this respect are written in the annals not only of the whole coast of Brazil from Pará to Uruguay and along the Misiones of Paraguay, not only on the coast of Angola, but throughout the interior of Africa. We may take up the journals of one traveller after another, of Burton, of Livingstone, of Stanley, or of Cameron, and, in whatever respect their accounts and opinions may differ, on one point they are one and all entirely agreed, namely, as to the pestilent and remorseless activity of the ubiquitous Portuguese slave-catcher.

Nor does the eminence of the Portuguese race as purveyors to the slave-market end at the dark continent. In India, it is true, their activity in this respect is restrained by the presence of a paramount power; but further east their national character has found ample scope for its development. In the nineteenth century a Christian country of Europe has shown an example to such nations as China and Japan by maintaining at Macao an emporium of coolies destined for Peru and elsewhere, and sent out under conditions differing from those of slavery in name alone, and the records of which traffic are a pendant to those of “the middle passage.” Finally, a branch of the Portuguese race has at this moment the unenviable distinction of possessing the only civilized country in which slavery is acknowledged by law.

To return to Brazil: the kings of Portugal had, it is true, been individually ever desirous of mitigating the conditions of slavery to which their Indian subjects in South America were subjected; but circumstances were ever too strong for them. The wealth of Brazil was only to be obtained by agricultural labour; and so long as Indians were to be captured or reared for the purpose, the cupidity of the colonists devoted their Indian fellow-subjects to this end. The native races, however, were not used to such hard labour as was imposed upon them, and they gradually sank and died away beneath it. They were then replaced by Africans, whose descendants are now the means of producing the sugar-wealth, coffee-wealth, and tobacco-wealth of Brazil. Various enactments were from time to time passed by the Government at Lisbon to restrain their colonial subjects in their dealings with the natives; but all were of no avail. In the first instance the colonists were permitted to enslave them without control; but a law was passed by King Sebastian, declaring that no Indians should be considered slaves, excepting such as should be taken in war made by command of the King or Governor, or such as were aggressive cannibals; but this regulation was invariably made to suit every individual occasion.

By a second law, it was provided that the Indians who worked for the Portuguese should not be regarded as slaves, but as free labourers. King Phillip II. decreed that none should be considered slaves excepting those taken in hostilities for which he should have issued orders. Philip III. forbade that any Indians should be made slaves; but the evil had gone too far for his edict to be attended with any good result, and he was induced to revoke it, and to permit the enslavement of Indians taken in war. In short, so general was the interest amongst all classes of the Portuguese in Brazil in encouraging slavery, that every well-meant edict and regulation of the Portuguese Crown was evaded. The same law provided that in each village of the “reduced” Indians there was to be a captain, who should hold office for three years. The Indians were to be settled in villages of about three hundred houses. Lands were to be allotted for their use and a church built in each village. These Indians were to be considered free, and were paid for their labour.

Joam IV. renewed the law of Philip III., and Sousa Pereira, going out as governor of Maranham, took with him orders emancipating all Indians then enslaved. These orders produced an insurrection, which was only quelled by a promise of the Governor that the law should not be enforced, pending an appeal to the King. The same occurrence took place likewise at Pará when the law was announced at that place. Such was the state of things in Northern Brazil at the date of Vieyra’s coming.

Much as the Jesuit Father had been shocked on his arrival at Maranham by the low religious and moral condition of that dependency, his convictions on the subject were much intensified as his opportunities of observation increased. Many of the colonists troubled themselves neither with mass nor with church throughout the year, and it was a common thing amongst them to die without confession. In the whole captaincy there were but two churches with resident priests; the one on the island, the other on the mainland. The Portuguese of Maranham and Pará were pursuing the same course towards the Indians which had resulted in their extermination along the sea-coast of the other captaincies. The law permitted that Indians taken in war should be made slaves, and likewise that such prisoners as were rescued by the Portuguese from other tribes, and who were thus saved from being eaten, should be devoted to slavery. These two regulations were made to cover the most iniquitous transactions. Every captain of a fort could at any time provoke his Indian neighbours into war; whilst Indian captives were habitually threatened or tortured into the confession that they had been rescued or purchased by the Portuguese from other Indians.

In the general system of oppression the Indians who had voluntarily submitted to the Portuguese bore their full share. Indeed they were perhaps, if possible, in a worse position than their brethren. The captain for the time being, holding his office merely for three years, looked upon them in the light of so many animals out of whom he was to extract as much benefit for himself as he could during that period. They were chiefly employed in raising and preparing tobacco; whilst their families were left to starve. Some Indians thought it better to quit this “free” condition and voluntarily to become domestic slaves. Others preferred to die.

It is not surprising that such a state of things should have worked up Vieyra’s indignation to the boiling point. He had soon an opportunity of venting his most righteous wrath from the pulpit. It was the season of Lent, and as his reputation for eloquence had preceded him, the church was, for once at least, filled to overflowing. In a discourse which has been preserved, he acted on the command given to the Prophet Isaiah, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions.” In a passage which might perhaps be addressed from the pulpit to the Brazilians of to-day, he observes, “But you will say to me this State cannot be supported without Indians. Who is to plant our mandioc? Must our wives do it? Must our children do it? If necessity and conscience require it, I reply, ‘Yes;’ for better it is to be supported by the sweat of one’s own brow than by another’s blood.” He had no difficulty in touching by his impassioned eloquence the consciences, if not the hearts, even of the hardened congregation whom he addressed; and on the same afternoon a meeting was held, in which it was agreed to go into the history of each individual Indian who was detained in a state of slavery, and to leave each case to be decided by the Senate. A deed expressing the consent of the people to this arrangement was immediately drawn up and signed by all the chief persons of the place.

Vieyra now undertook the task of instructing the Indians each Sunday; and after a time he made plans for a missionary expedition amongst the tribes. In this project, however, he had to encounter the selfishness of the governor, who could not spare from his own plantations the Indians whom Vieyra required to accompany him. Disappointed in this quarter he turned to another, only to meet with a like repulse. The results of his efforts convinced him that it was impossible to proceed with the conversion and civilization of the Indians, so long as the civil authorities should have any power over them. He accordingly wrote to the King his opinion that the governors and chief-captains should possess no authority over the Indians excepting in time of war, when a certain number should be allotted for military service; that the Indians should have an advocate in each captaincy, annually elected, and independent of the governor; that the natives should be governed by religioners; that at the beginning of each year lists should be made of the Indians in each captaincy, and likewise of the settlers, and that the former should then be divided amongst the latter by their own advocate and by the superior of the religious order; that no Indian should work for a settler for more than four months in a year, in terms of two months, their wages being deposited in advance. He added other excellent suggestions; but so urgent was the case that it was thought better that he should himself proceed to Europe vividly in order to plead in person.

On his homeward voyage Vieyra encountered a tempest near the Azores, from which he owed his deliverance to the crew of a Dutch privateer, who took him from his ship after its masts had been cut away. He and his companions, after having been plundered of all they possessed, were landed on the island of Graciosa. Vieyra’s credit, however, was sufficient to procure for himself and his forty companions the means of subsistence during two months, and likewise a passage to Lisbon, which he thus vividly describes:—

“The ship belonged to heretic owners, and the pilot and the sailors were heretics; we passengers were some religioners of different orders, and a great quantity of those musical islanders who come here to compose a choir of four voices with their nightingales and goldfinches, canary-birds and blackbirds. The weather was worse than ordinary, and the effects which I observed in it were truly admirable. We religioners were all employed in prayers and litanies, making vows to Heaven and exorcisms to the waves, throwing relics into the sea, and above all in acts of contrition, confessing many times, as if at the point of death. The sailors, like the heretics, when the hatches were lying at the feet of the masts, ate and drank more merrily than ever, and mocked at what they called our ceremonies. The little birds at the same time, at the sound which the wind made in the rigging, as if those cords had been the string of some musical instrument, exerted their strength in singing. God, help me! if labour and fear had not taken off all attention, who would not in this situation have admired effects so various and so opposite, the cause being the same? What, … all in the same ship, all in the same storm, all in the same danger, and some singing, some mocking, some praying and lamenting?” It is interesting to see this great man, who in following his duty shrank neither from labour nor from any kind of danger, ingenuously confessing the effect which a storm at sea had upon him in common with other bad sailors.

It is needless to add that the Portuguese Government were now faithfully and fully informed of the condition of things in the northern provinces of Brazil; but although the King was most desirous to do what was right and just, his power in the matter was limited. Deputies from Maranham and Pará were in Lisbon, and neither gold nor falsehood was spared on behalf of the slaveholders.

The King ordered that a junta should be convened of theologians and lawyers under the guidance of the President of the Palace. After eight days’ discussion, Vieyra having pleaded his own cause, the junta gave their opinion in favour of his system being adopted. This step was followed by a direction from the heads of the other orders established in Maranham and Pará that the members of their respective communities should act in conformity with the decisions of the junta. Vieyra’s next object was to establish a missionary board, which should at all times supervise the interests of the missions. A decree was issued declaring that all the Indian settlements in the State of Maranham should be under the direction of the Jesuits; that Vieyra, as superior of the mission, should direct all expeditions into the interior, and settle the “reduced” Indians as he might think fit; that the chief of every ransoming party should be approved by the Jesuits, who should have a vote upon the examination of the ransomed Indians; and that these should not be slaves for longer than five years. The free Indians were not to work for the Portuguese for more than six months in the year.

1655.

Recife being now once more in the hands of the Portuguese, the services of Vidal were at the disposal of the King, and were suitably employed in the government of Maranham. His Majesty would have prevented Vieyra from returning; but, as he was unwilling to decide so important a point on his own judgment, he referred to the triennial meeting of the Jesuits of the province the question whether a man whose services were so important at home ought to be sent as a missionary among savages. Vieyra demanded to be heard before them. It may well be conceived that he had many reasons to urge why he should not abandon the mission he had chosen. He pointed out the scoffs that would be uttered were he who had incited others to go to Maranham to prefer for himself the rest of Europe. What would the Indians say as to his having left them to seek relief, and forgetting his promise of speedily returning? What an example would his turning aside from the path of difficulty present to the youth now growing up in the colonies? Some of the Fathers, being in despair that the Company should lose the advantage of Vieyra’s talents at headquarters, nobly kneeling at the Provincial’s feet, offered to take Vieyra’s place abroad, provided he might remain at home. The votes were given secretly; but the majority agreed that Vieyra ought to go upon the mission. The King submitted to this decision; and, after a residence of only four months in Portugal, Vieyra again embarked for Maranham.

When the terms of the new law became known, such discontent was occasioned that a popular tumult sprung up; but it was sternly repressed by Vidal. The new governor soon afterwards proceeded to Belem, accompanied by Vieyra, in order to give effect to the King’s decrees in the province of Pará. The utter contempt of law displayed by the condition of that province was startling. It was known that the slave-dealers had brought down with them not less than sixteen hundred Indians; yet, after every person had made oath that he had presented all whom he had brought or received, the whole number fell short of eight hundred, the rest having been concealed. One man presented eight-and-twenty Indians, who, being examined, replied individually that they had been rescued from other tribes. They were accordingly passed as lawful slaves. A week later, the chiefs of some allied Indians arrived at Belem to request that the governor would release some of their people, whom the Portuguese had stolen. On being told to point them out, they selected the twenty-eight above-mentioned. The poor wretches, who were subjects of the King of Portugal, had been threatened to be flogged to death, unless they should answer that they were rescued prisoners of war. The above are mere samples of the wholesale villany which was practised.

The ecclesiastics who were members of the board upon whom it devolved to determine the lawfulness of the capture of Indians, were too anxious on all occasions to bring them by any means within the pale of Christianity to be at all scrupulous in deciding in favour of the slave-dealers when there was the least opening for doing so. Vieyra, too, was most anxious to bring within the King’s protection, and within the fold of the Church, as many Indians as might be induced by fair means to come, but this without violence or injustice. He insisted that, before Indians were brought from their own country, provision should be made that they might not perish from want, as so many had already perished. One governor coolly replied, when the probability of a great mortality was pointed out to him, that the death of such people was of no consequence; but it was better for them to die amongst the Portuguese, as they would then be baptized.