of Indian Villages
in Grão-Pará
and Maranhão:
strategies and
adaptations to the
Alvará of July 25,
1638
Benedita do Socorro
Matos Santos
1& Sousa,
A. N.
2University of Évora, Portugal
1 Doutoranda em Ciências
da Educação: História. Subárea: História do Brasil Colonial. Instituto de Investigação e Formação Avançada-IIFA pela Universidade de Évora - Portugal. Endereço: Universidade de Évora: Largo dos Colégios 2, 7000- Évora. E-mail: dra. [email protected].
2 Mestrando em Recursos
Humanos na Universidade de Évora. Endereço: Universidade de Évora: Largo dos Colégios 2, 7000- Évora. E-mail: star. [email protected].
not decide otherwise, having present the virtue and zeal of the priests of this Society which always have elected person of such virtue, instruction, understanding, wisdom and example of life, in order to be able to accomplish the obligations of such great position. (The king, 1638)
However, the settlers were at a disadvantage due to the way they mistreated the Indians describing them as savages and referring the need for controlling them concerning the work in plantations and family ensuring thereby their livelihood and maintenance of their own fortune. But the royal order of July 25, 1638, came to modify the pieces from the Portuguese administration board in Colonial Brazil especially in Grão-Pará and Maranhão which is why the priests of Society of Jesus came to be maligned and frowned upon by the settlers.
The priests, despite the storms caused by the colonists, refused to be slaughtered and soon began to organize missions by building schools, churches, villas and residences, burgeoning and expanding their purpose to redeem the souls in the Luso-Brazilian space. Indeed, the will, persistence and faith they had brought with them and their vows of obedience to “Santa Fé” as a shield of devotion in propagating the Catholic faith sustained a strategic and an adaptable way to the New World contributing to the permanence of the Society of Jesus throughout that vast territory for several years. Even with the threats rising during the promulgation of the law, the priests stood firm in their purpose to catechize, teach and instruct the Indians, the children of settlers and others who were willing to undertake such ecclesiastical movement.
Strategies and adaptations came to be sustained due to the context of Colonial Brazil at that time mainly in the north in the area intended for Grão-Pará and Maranhão which developed with the effort of indigenous and slave labor force, having been inhabited by the largest number of Indian tribes, said “Savages”. And furthermore, who held the majority of them got the power to best produce on their land, ensuring wealth for the kingdom and for themselves. And thus, the Indians were the frequent cause of disputes among Jesuits, settlers, governments and others.
However, the Indians were considered miserable “bugre” in certain derogatory narratives, so persecuted and so desired, the Indian men used as labor force and the Indian women used as labor force and for pleasure3. The difference concerning the Jesuits was that the priests saw the Indians as beings of soul to catechize and redeem. But they also benefited from indigenous services without the physical violence inflicted by settlers.
Thus, farms, villages, residences, mills of the Society of Jesus were the most thriving and widened before the whole territory of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, however, the embryonic germ of fortune and lust glimpsed by settlers emerged from an hour to another effortlessly, the priests having acquired consistent and continuous empire at full steam in properties and Jesuit prosperity.
Indeed, the colonists felt aggrieved because the Indians remained mostly at the disposal of the priests who protected them from all evils imposed by the settlers. Then, just wars were carried out, with unjust properties for the domains of winners and slavery to the losers or annihilation of the prisoners of war.
This generated a very turbulent and violent period since the Indian tribes were constantly waging wars and the losers were enslaved or beheaded by their executioners during a ceremony as shown in the picture below.
Ecclesiastical Administration of Indian Villages in Grão-Pará and Maranhão: strategies and adaptations to the Alvará of July 25, 1638 || Benedita do Socorro Matos Santos & Sousa, A. N.
Image 1. “The enemy captured
in battle was brought to the vil- lage of the winner and, among the Tupinambás, killed and eaten by all the tribe. The cere- mony of the prisoner death was held some days after his capture and, in this interval, they were dedicated good treatment and consideration” (p.39). (Source
História do Brasil (1972) 150
anos de Independência. Rio de
Janeiro: Bloch Editores. V.I.)
Anyway, the colonists were always interested in these movements and even at times they encouraged the tribes by distributing hoes, machetes, sickles and more to fight against their enemies whatever they were Indians, British, French, i.e., depending on the time or the occasion, everything to defend and keep their fortune.
The Jesuits, however, by trying to protect the Indians intervened and formed missions using all the power they had near the Portuguese court always obtaining favorable results and their demands attended without further delay.
The event immediately in response to the appeals of the priests was the Alvará conceiving the jurisdiction of the Village of Grão-Pará and Maranhão to the Order, a fact confirmed by Franco (2006, p. 155) punctuating the following issues:
1. Few religious Orders managed to, from modernity onwards, effectively gather such an extensive amount of material resources and spread, worldwide, an organization marked by its considerable cohesion and effectiveness, on behalf of the supernatural ideas of evangelization as the Society of Jesus.
2. And also in consequence of this religious service, constitutionally defined and justified by the Jesuits as the very significant power of influence acquired near the elites of political power, especially near kings, ministers and counsellors of European Courts and other peoples in the world, either in important functions as confessors, counsellors, educators, preachers, intermediaries, technicians, diplomats and experts in several scientific areas, or simply as trusted friends.
Thus, in this political and administrative context, the Alvará turned into law through the written words and feathers of the king, being fulfilled by the priests of the Society of Jesus and arising riots from the settlers as the law only benefited the Order. Such law confirms the following privileges to the administrator:
tithes, paid in cash and farms, the payments made as usual by the Royal Treasury of that State, for which the provisions necessary will also be carried out (…). (The king, 1638)
Then, the priest chosen for this mission was Luis Figueira regarded by the fellows Jesuits as a gifted man, of value, prestige and knowledge, so-called the “great master of language, he began the construction of the College of Our Lady of Light in the capital of São Luis and started the series of catechizing pilgrimages, going down the Amazon to the Xingu” (Betendorf, 1910: XV).
Luis Figueira was not only the priest but also a man whose mission was the evangelization of souls wherever the Society of Jesus rode their domains with no choices of continents: East or West to develop the purposes of the Order fulfilling what was ordered since the beginning of his Jesuit training. The priests underwent lengthy training of faith, perseverance, which exceeded the limits of body and soul and risked their own lives as narrated by Father João Felipe Betendorf several times in the book Chronica da Missão dos Padres da Companhia de Jesus no Estado do Maranhão referring to the death of Father Francisco Pinto and other missionaries at the hands of the Indians4. The fulfilment of their duty was superior to the ravages of life on earth before the peoples they would have to conquer. On all sides from West to East, the priests needed missionaries and it was not different in the Provinces of Grão-Pará and Maranhão constantly requesting friars to fulfill the mission in that vast territory which was still in a primitive state.
The State of Maranhão, defined by the division of Colonial Brazil under Portuguese administration, in its extent comprised in year “of September 3, 1626, the following limit that started not far from the falls of S. Roque, 30 to 30” L. S., extending to the River Vicente Pinson (Oyapock)5, which would later benefit the State of Maranhão, due to its location close to the Atlantic, i.e., the effect of sea currents favored direct access to Lisbon. Besides goods and connections, it enabled in an agile way to reach the Portuguese Crown. Soon, the State of Brazil was no longer favorable as the State of Maranhão became the main route of loading and unloading of materials (sugar cane, cachaça, rice, gold, etc.). Thus, in the picture below, we may wonder how many missionaries of the Society of Jesus would be necessary to control the area allocated by the State.
Image 2. Map of the State of Maranhão and the two captaincies in 1626 . (Table second from http://objdigital. bn.br/
Ecclesiastical Administration of Indian Villages in Grão-Pará and Maranhão: strategies and adaptations to the Alvará of July 25, 1638 || Benedita do Socorro Matos Santos & Sousa, A. N.
Due to its territorial extent, the State of Maranhão facilitated quick access along the Atlantic coast and also the existence of more indigenous labor force in this area, such fact led to several French, British and Dutch attacks on account of their interest in this Portuguese colony and, according to Father Betendorf (1910, p. XIII), the State of Maranhão comprised two main captaincies,
the one of Maranhão and that of Grampará, subdivided in other secondary ones, some belonging to the Crown, many awarded to donatories, almost all situated along the Atlantic coast, few in the interior, near the rivers’ mouth but already with a great number of communities along the Amazon River banks until the Madeira and Negro.
Thus, the articulation between the Jesuits and the king somehow ensured the control of the Indians but also provided wealth to the Portuguese Crown as the Indians after being dominated by the Jesuits became allies and they were the knowers of the earth, of the drugs of the sertões, they deforested, hunted and raised cattle being present at all moments of war and peace.
Conversely, the Portuguese Crown established contact with the settlers and these commanded also the Court when they felt hampered as in the case of the Alvará from 1638 issued by the king and passing a new “law dated from October 17, 1653, by which revoked the previous one and the chapters concerning freedom, leaving the door open to unjust captivities”6.
The Indians, in turn, by joining the wars promoted by the colonists, the Jesuits and the king, set forces to eliminate their adversaries from rival tribes. In fact, we are convinced that this articulation came to benefit all in a certain way, the Jesuits in the catechization for the spread of the Catholic faith, the Indians in the elimination of rival tribes, the king by promulgating the Alvará to help the Jesuits and settlers ensured the maintenance of his wealth, and the settlers in the acquisition of Indian slaves for their own purposes. Therefore, the circle turned constant each one at its time with maintenance and strategies to stay in power.
Bibliographic References
Betendorf, J. (1910). “Chronica da Missão dos Padres da Companhia de Jesus no Estado do Maranhão” in Revista do Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro, Tomo LXXII, parte I. Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional.
Franco, J. E. (2006). O Mito dos Jesuítas: Em Portugal, no Brasil e no Oriente (século XVI a XX). Das origens ao Marques de Pombal. Lisboa: Gradiva.
Leite, S. (1938a). “História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil” in prefácio Tomos IV. Lisboa/Rio de Janeiro: edições Loyola. p. IX.
______. (1938b). “História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil” in Livro I Tomos IV. Lisboa/Rio de Janeiro: edições Loyola. p. 9.
― (1972) História do Brasil: 150 anos de Independência. Vol. 1. Rio de Janeiro: Bloch Editores. ― (1638) Alvará com força de lei sobre a administração das Aldeias do Grão-Pará e Maranhão Julho. Lisboa – Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino., Maranhão, Cx. 1. pp. 25.
literature in the construction of a post-colonial identity. The focus is on individuals and groups who want to build identity through culture.
Literature, in the development of identity, will have a role in territorial, social and intellectual cohesion, and also to provide meaning to community life.
After establishing a parallel between literature and identity, we´ll analyze Pepetela´s work The Utopia Generation, keeping in mind the idealist and fictional nature of literature and its capability in translating certain perspectives of reality. These perspectives will put two different views in contrast: a utopian aspiration in the colonialist era; a dystopian disappointment in the post-colonialist era.
Through the different characters in Pepetela´s book, we will make correlations between the distinctive personalities and the role each will have in a post-colonial Angola. There will be an analysis about the importance of economic and political contexts in the path taken by the characters, and on the importance of analyzing a post-colonial independence that didn’t managed to fulfill innumerous ideals. A government where the politicians would not act on finding a place for everyone in a culturally fragmented country
Keywords: Literature; Identity; Pepetela; colonialism; post-
colonialism.
1. Literature and identity
Literature uses words by transfiguring them, adding new meanings. This enforces the idea that human being is a creative entity. In the never-ending search for meaning the writer and the reader both evolve. They create worlds that go beyond facts.
Some of the great literature themes are justice and oppression, rebellion and liberty, peace and war, good and evil. They impact reality and our own identities.
When searching search for identify in literature, the individual will face metaphysical problems that will be transformed by the exterior and vice versa. Therefore the mark of literature can be:
“…determined hic et nunc and brings identity and an universal value from tbecause it is an historical reality, or in other words, it represents an irrepressible moment of human existence (Salinari, 1981: 50)”
This historical settings of literature are not only temporal, but also connected to the utopical space of the ideas, the transcendent,