[page iii]

History of Brazil:

by

Robert Southey.

Part the Third.

LONDON:

Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row.

1819.

[page iv]

[page v]

PREFACE.

IT was my intention, that the concluding part of the History of Brazil should have contained a Critical Account of all the Documents, printed or in manuscript, from which it has been compiled; but this would have considerably enlarged a volume, which already far exceeds the usual size. I must therefore reserve the materials, which have been prepared for this purpose, till some future time; when, if I live to complete that full series of Portugueze history, upon which I have been employed during almost twenty years, they may form part of a Bibliotheca Historica Lusitana.

I have many acknowledgements to make for assistance afforded me in the progress of the present volume: to Mr. John May, for the use of a Manuscript Journal in his possession, and for procuring for me the third and last volume of the Patriota from Rio de Janeiro, when it was not to be obtained

167544

[page] vi

at Lisbon; to Mr. Neville White, for the Dean of Cordoba's History of Buenos Ayres, printed in that city; to Mr. Kenyon, for the delightful work of Dobrizhoffer, which I had, during many years, vainly sought for, .. not in England alone, but in many parts of the continent; to Mr. Henry Koster, for various communications from Pernambuco, and especially for a Narrative of the Insurrection in that Captaincy, in 1710-11, transcribed from the original manuscript; to Mr. March, for the Recordacoens de Jacome Ratton, .. a book printed for private distribution; and to Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street, for a volume of singular rarity and value, containing accounts of various provinces of South America, as published during a series of many years in the Lima Almanach.

Nor is it to my friends alone, that I have been thus beholden: Mr. Walpole has entrusted me with the papers of his late father, many years Envoy at the Court of Lisbon, in which station he proved himself worthy of his distinguished name. I am obliged to Mr. Greenough, for the use of Montoya's Guarani Grammar, and of a Guarani Dictionary, both printed in the Reduction of S. Maria Mayor; to Dr. Nott, for the loan of Lozano's History of Paraguay; and to Archdeacon Coxe, for the communication of some

[page] vii

valuable papers from the great collection of Diplomatic Correspondence, which has enabled him to make such important additions to the English Historical Library. To Mr. Walpole, indeed, I hardly consider myself a stranger, connected as I am with the Lisbonians of old times, and consequently known to his family and friends; but to Mr. Greenough I am known only as a man of letters; and to Dr. Nott and Mr. Coxe, no otherwise than as their fellow labourer in the fields of literature: and I am performing therefore a public duty, in thus acknowledging their obliging liberality.

One more acknowledgement I must be allowed to make: the proof sheets of this long work have passed through the hands of Mr. Rickman, who, amidst laborious occupations, still found time to peruse them, and to accompany them with occasional remarks, .. one of the many acts of kindness which I have received from him during an intimacy of two and twenty years. The remarks thus timely communicated, sometimes led me to reconsider what I had written; and sometimes opened for me views which I had failed to perceive. And had I been of a temper which required to be cheered, in the prosecution of a great and worthy undertaking, I should have desired no better present encouragement,

[page] viii

and no surer presage of the favourable judgement of posterity, than his approbation.

Of the information which this work contains (and more particularly the present volume), very little, till now, has been within the reach of English readers; and a great portion has never before been accessible to the public in any shape. The printed documents are (for the most part) of extreme rarity in this country, and many of them not easily to be obtained elsewhere: and the collection of manuscripts which I possess, is such, as could only have been formed in Portugal, during a residence of many years; and then only by persevering and well-directed diligence. It has been stated in the Preface to the first volume, that that collection was formed by my maternal Uncle, Mr. Hill, to whom this work is not more affectionately than gratefully inscribed. And now, when I have accomplished it, I will not refrain from saying, that no applause, which might be bestowed by my contemporaries, and no anticipation, however confident, of future praise, could be so gratifying to me, as the thought, that in completing this History from the materials which he had prepared, I have shown that the benefits which he conferred upon me in my youth were not ill bestowed; and that in thus em-

[page] ix

bodying his labours with mine, I have been erecting a monument to him, as well as to myself.

The documents which Mr. Hill accumulated, concerning Portugal and her other dependencies, are of proportionate extent and value to the Brazilian materials; and the present work is but the first fruits of that collection, .. so judiciously and liberally made. It will be followed, as soon as I shall have completed the great history of the Peninsular War, by the History of Portugal, of Portugueze India, and the other conquests, and of Portugueze Literature. Considerable progress has been made in each of these undertakings; and they will be steadily pursued, in due order, to their completion, if it please God to favour me with the continued blessings of health and leisure.

It only remains to say, that the equitable Reader will forgive such errors and oversights as he may detect in a work, upon which neither time, labour, diligence, nor expense, has been spared; and that if it should be republished during the Author's life, whatever corrections or improvements I may be enabled to make, from such materials as I may hereafter obtain, shall be printed separately, for those who may possess it in its present form.

VOL. III. b

[page xw]

[page xi]

CONTENTS.

	Page
CHAPTER XXXI.
Measures of Gomes Freyre at Maranham	1
The Monopoly abolished	2
General distress in Maranham	3
Expedition against the savages on the Meary	ib.
The way from Maranham to Bahia explored	5
Gomes Freyre reforms the abuses of his predecessors	ib.
He goes to Belem	ib.
He convinces the Bishop of his imprudence	6
The Orellana infested by hostile tribes	ib.
An expedition sent against them from Belem	7
Success of the enterprize	9
Attempts of various nations to colonize in Guiana	11
The French establish themselves at Cayenne	14
They trespass upon the Portugueze territory	15
Gomes Freyre superseded	16
Mathias da Cunha Governor General	17
Execution of a Fidalgo	18
Seara cleared finally of the savages	ib.
Defenceless state of Brazil	ib.
Sickness of the Governor	19
The soldiers at Bahia mutiny while he is dying	ib.
Antonio Luiz Governor	20
Order restored in Porto Seguro	ib.
Increase of trade	21
State of the coinage	22
Money coined in Brazil	ib.
Salt mines opened and abandoned	23
Negroes of the Palmares	ib.
Their government and institutions	24
The Pernambucan Government resolves to subdue them	25
A regiment of Paulistas employed	ib.
Chief settlement of the Negroes	26
They compel the Paulistas to retire	27
The Pernambucans besiege them	ib.
Capture of the place	28
Miserable fate of the prisoners	29
Disputes with the Governor of Cayenne	ib.
The French seize the fort at Cabo do Norte	30
The Portugueze retake it	31
Reply of Gomes Freyre to the French Ambassador	ib.
Arrangement concerning the limits, with France and Spain	32
Municipal Alterations	ib.
Improved condition of the Indians	33
Death of Vieyra	34
Troubles in Maranham with the Bishop	35
He excommunicates the Ouvidor	ib.
The matter is referred to Portugal	36
Death of the Ouvidor	ib.
Decision of the Court	37
Insolence of the Bishop	ib.

[page] xii

He returns to Lisbon and is disgraced	39
CHAPTER XXXII.
First laws of the Mines	40
Marcos de Azevedo's discovery	45
He conceals it, and dies in prison	46
Agostinho Barbalho and Fernando Diaz directed to pursue the search	ib.
Fernando Diaz explores the country	47
His services and death	ib.
Antonio Rodriguez Arzam exhibits the first gold	49
Bertolomeu Bueno inherits his papers	50
Gold exhibited at the Rio	51
Smelting-house established at Taboate	ib.
Discovery of the Mines not injurious to the Indians in Brazil	ib.
First method of mining	53
Rivalry between the Paulistas and the men of Taboate	54
Garcia Rodriguez Paez appointed Guarda Mor	ib.
First settlements called Camps	55
Origin of the city of Mariana	ib.
Villa Rica	56
Sabara	ib.
Caethé, S. Joam, and S. José	58
Second Code of Laws	ib.
Effects of mining upon the people	63
They flock from all parts to the Mines	ib.
Decay of the Sugar Trade, and depopulation of the settlements on the coast	64
Government attempts in vain to prevent the emigration	65
D. Rodrigo da Costa Governor	66
Disputes concerning Nova Colonia	ib.
War with Spain, and siege of Nova Colonia	67
The Portugueze evacuate the place	68
Luiz Cesar de Menezes Governor	69
Exemplary conduct of the Archbishop of Bahia	70
Fernam Carrilho Governor pro tempore at Para	71
D. Manoel Rolim Governor of Maranham	ib.
Disputes with the Ouvidor	ib.
Misconduct of the Capitam Mor	72
Jealousy in the Mines between the Paulistas and the Forasteiros	73
The Forasteiros chuse Manoel Nunes Viana for their head	74
War between them	76
Bento de Amaral sent to the Rio das Mortes	77
He massacres a party of Paulistas	78
The Governor of the Rio goes to the Mines	79
The people refuse to admit him	ib.
Manoel Nunes persuades him to retire	80
Manoel Nunes prepares the way for the restoration of order	81
Antonio de Albuquerque goes to the Mines	82
The Paulistas invade the Mines	83
They attack the Rio das Mortes, and are repulsed	84
S. Paulo and the Mines formed into a new Captaincy	ib.
D. Lourenço de Almada Governor General	85
State of Pernambuco	ib.
Recife made a Town	86
This measure is opposed by the people of Olinda	ib.
Arrest of some Pernambucan Nobles	88
Orders to disarm the people	ib.
Attempt to assassinate the Governor	ib.
Arrest of Andre Diaz de Figueiredo	89
The Bishop takes part with the discontented	ib.
Insurrection of the Pernambucans	90
The Governor is induced to fly	91
The insurgents enter Recife	ib.
Measures of the insurgents	93
The Bishop assumes the Government	95
Bernardo Vieira comes to Recife	96
Case of jealousy in his family, and deliberate murder	ib.
Bernardo Vieira acts as leader of the republican party	97
The loyalists are roused by his designs	98
A counter-revolution effected in Recife	99
Arrest of Bernardo Vieira	100
The Bishop assents to the measures of the loyalists	ib.
He goes upon false pretences to Olinda	102
He takes part with the insurgents, against Recife and the loyalists	103
Resolute conduct of the loyalists	105
The Bishop resigns the Government	ib.
A new Governor arrives	106
Order is restored	ib.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Alarm of invasion at the Rio	108
The French land, and advance without opposition	109

[page] xiii

They enter the city	110
The Portugueze overpower them	111
Cruel usage of the prisoners	112
The French prepare a second expedition, under Du Guay Trouin	114
The English arrive off Brest too late to blockade it	115
Negligence of the Portugueze commanders	ib.
The French enter the harbour	116
Wretched conduct of the Governor	117
The Portugueze abandon the city	119
The city taken and pillaged	120
Critical situation of the French	121
The city is ransomed	122
Fate of the French squadron	123
Alarm of the Portugueze cabinet	125
Pedro de Vasconcellos Governor	126
Impost of ten per cent.	ib.
Insurrection at Bahia	ib.
The Governor yields to the demands of the mob	128
They assemble again for the relief of the Rio	ib.
Office of the Juiz do Povo abolished at Bahia	130
Marquez de Angeja Viceroy	ib.
Fear of a second expedition from France	131
Designs of England upon South America apprehended	ib.
Negociations with France at Utrecht	132
Difficulty respecting the commerce of Brazil	133
The Assiento	135
The Portugueze jealous of this treaty	137
Negociations with Spain	ib.
The Portugueze eject the Spanish Missionaries upon the Orellana	142
Measures of Albuquerque in the Mines	143
Misconduct of the Friars and Clergy	144
Foreigners expelled from the Mines	145
S. Paulo made a city	ib.
Regulations concerning grants of land	146
All Religioners banished from the Mines	ib.
Manners of the Clergy	147
Regulation respecting arms	148
Distillation of spirits	149
Mines of Jacoabina discovered	150
New coinage	ib.
Commutation for the fifths	ib.
A Recolhimento founded at Bahia	151
Conde de Vimieiro Governor General	ib.
Expedition against the Indians in Piauhy	153
Piauhy made a Captaincy	154
Progress of the Mines	ib.
The Commutation Tax raised	156
Order for collecting the fifths	157
Insurrection in consequence	ib.
The Conde do Assumar temporizes with the insurgents	158
He seizes the ringleaders	159
Second insurrection	ib.
Severity of the Governor	160
Order is restored	ib.
Minas Geraes made a separate Captaincy	161
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Foundation of the town of Tarija	162
The Chiriguanas	163
This tribe is reclaimed from cannibalism	163
F. Arce advised to go among the Chiquitos	167
Opposition made by the slave traders	168
Province of the Chiquitos	169
Arce arrives in time of pestilence	171
The Paulistas approach these settlements	ib.
They are defeated by the Spaniards of Santa Cruz	172
The Chiriguana Missions abandoned	173
Attempt to communicate between the Guarani and Chiquito Reductions by the Paraguay	173
Navigation of the Paraguay	174
The party attacked by the Payaguas	175
Failure of the attempt	176
Peace made with the Payaguas, and broken	177
Second attempt, from the side of the Chiquitos	178
Success of the Missions	179
F. Cavallero goes among the Manacicas	180
The Manacicas	ib.
Their mythology, as described by the Jesuits	181
Extravagant falsehoods of the Jesuits	184
Journey to the Land of the Departed	186
Cavallero's miraculous adventures	188
His martyrdom	191
A second expedition up the Paraguay	193
Arce reaches the Chiquitos	194
Martyrdom of Blende and Arce	195
Attempt to communicate by the Pilcomayo	ib.
The Pilcomayo	196
The expedition is frustrated	197
Missions among the Moxos	198
Province of the Moxos	ib.
Rivers which form the Madeira	ib.
Baraza forms the first Reduction	199
Manners of the Moxo tribes	200

[page] xiv

Report of Amazons in the country	204
Baraza explores a way across the mountains to Peru	205
He goes among the Baures	206
The Great Paytiti	207
Martyrdom of Baraza	208
Flourishing state of the Moxo Missions at his death	ib.
Uncertain boundary between the Spanish and Portugueze possessions in this part of the country	210
CHAPTER XXXV.
Antequera sent to Asumpcion as Judge	211
He takes upon himself the Government	212
The lawful Governor, D. Diego, is compelled to fly	ib.
Antequera threatens the Reductions	213
He disobeys the Viceroy	215
Garcia Ros is instructed to re-establish D. Diego	ib.
D. Diego seized at Corrientes and put in irons	216
Garcia Ros returns to Buenos Ayres	217
Disputes concerning the territory of Colonia	ib.
The Portugueze determine to occupy the north bank of the Plata	219
They begin to fortify Monte Video	ib.
The Spaniards compel them to withdraw	220
Montevideo founded by the Spaniards	222
Garcia Ros marches against Asumpcion	223
Antiquera prepares to oppose him	224
The Jesuits are expelled from Asumpcion	ib.
Antiquera marches against Garcia Ros	225
He deceives and slaughters the Guaranies	226
He advances to the Parana Reductions	227
He returns to Asumpcion	228
The Coadjutor arrives at Asumpcion	229
Antequera flies	230
Barua appointed Governor ad interim	230
His misconduct	231
The Jesuits are restored	232
Antequera sent prisoner to Lima	ib.
Faction of the Commons begun by Mompo	233
Barua resigns his office	234
Soroeta arrives at Asumpcion, and is compelled to withdraw	236
Barreyro protects the Jesuits	ib.
He arrests Mompo	237
Is compelled to fly	ib.
Antequera condemned and put to death	238
The people of Asumpcion are incensed at his death, and expel the Jesuits	239
Intrigues of the Bishop of Buenos Ayres with the Commons	240
Ruiloba appointed Governor	242
He is murdered by the insurgents	243
Subjugation of the insurgents	ib.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
D. Lourenço de Almeida Governor of Minas Geraes	246
Fifths reestablished	ib.
Danger from the Negroes	247
Laws respecting fugitive slaves	248
Jealousy concerning the people of colour	250
Improved method of mining	ib.
Laws respecting water	251
Advance of salaries	252
Restrictions upon emigration to Brazil	254
Discovery of the Mines of Cuyaba	ib.
Journey from S. Paulo to Cuyaba	255
The Tieté	255
The Rio Pardo	256
Danger from the Payaguas	257
Settlement of Cuyaba	260
A way by land opened	ib.
Tyranny of the Lemes	261
They are put to death	ib.
Restraints upon mining	262
Relaxation of the Laws of the Mines	263
Coiners and false mints	264
Capitation again attempted	265
Gomes Freyre Governor of Minas Geraes	268
The King's Letter to him	ib.
Capitation and Shop Tax	271
Discovery of Diamonds	274
Consequences of this discovery	275
Plans for regulating the extraction	276
Opinion of Dr. Joam Mendes	278
Contract for extracting diamonds	280
Effect upon the diamond trade	281
Description of Minas Geraes	282
The Forbidden District of the Diamonds	284
Disputes between Portugal and Spain	286
Prosperity of Nova Colonia	ib.
Salcedo attacks it	287
Activity of the Portugueze Governor	289
Progress of the siege	ib.
The siege converted into a blockade	291
The siege is raised	293
Cessation of hostilities	ib.
Conduct of the Spaniards	294
France proposes to Spain a partition of the Portugueze dominions	296

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CHAPTER XXXVII.
Growing importance of Montevideo	299
The French East India Company occupy the isle of Fernam de Noronha	300
They are expelled from it	301
Present state of the island	303
Goyaz first explored by Manoel Correa	305
Bartholomeu Bueno the second explorer	ib.
Bueno the son makes the first settlement	ib.
The colony flourishes	306
Goyaz made a Captaincy	308
Mines discovered at Mato Grosso	ib.
Sufferings of the first adventurers	309
Communication opened with Goyaz	ib.
The Bororos	ib.
Expedition of Manoel Felix de Lima down the rivers	310
The Campos dos Parecis	311
Fourteen of the party turn back	312
Voyage down the Guapore	313
They rashly provoke the natives	316
They meet some converted Indians	317
One of these undertake to guide them	318
They come to the Reduction of S. Miguel	319
State of that Mission	322
Precarious condition of the Missionary	323
Departure of the Portugueze	325
They ascend the river Ubay	326
Their reception at S. Maria Magdalena	327
Flourishing state of this Reduction	328
The Jesuit makes a display of his force	329
Some of the party proceed to the Missions on the Mamore	331
Manoel Felix is sent away from Magdalena	332
Voyage down the Madeira	333
The canoe wrecked	335
They find a canoe	337
They narrowly escape the Muras	338
Distress for food	339
They reach a Jesuit settlement	340
Former navigation of the Madeira	ib.
Manoel Felix sent to Lisbon	341
His extravagant demands and miserable fate	342
Return of his companions from Exaltacion	343
Their second expedition to the Missions	344
The Spaniards push their settlements on the side of Mato Grosso	347
Portugueze in Ilha Grande on the Guapore	348
Expedition from Para to Mato Grosso	350
They come to S. Rosa	353
State of S. Rosa	ib.
They touch at S. Miguel	354
Misfortunes at Ilha Grande	356
Distress of the party	358
Intercourse between Para and Mato Grosso	359
Drought in Mato Grosso	360
Discovery of salt	361
Progress of the Portugueze from Para	362
Course of Savage emigration from South to North	363
State of Para	364
State of the Aldeas	ib.
Disputes between the Jesuits and Carmelites	366
Unpopularity of the Jesuits	ib.
System of the Aldeas	368
Manner in which they were supported	369
Exemptions from servitude	370
Intercourse of the Portugueze with the Aldeas	371
Prevalence of the Tupi language	372
Chain of Missions throughout Brazil and the adjoining countries	ib.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
First cattle introduced into Paraguay	374
Their rapid increase	376
The natives become beef-eaters and horsemen	377
The Mbayas obtain horses	ib.
Their mode of fighting	379
Alliance between the Guaycurus and Payaguas	380
They fall upon the Portugueze	381
The Portugueze fit out flotillas against them	ib.
The Portugueze seek for peace	383
Treachery of the Savages	ib.
Practice of abortion among the Mbayas and Guaycurus	384
Fashions and habitations of the Mbayas	385
Their degrees of rank	387
Female boxing-matches	388
Different languages for the married and single	389
Haughtiness of this nation	390
Their funerals	391
The Lenguas	392
The Calchaquis	394
The Mocobios, Tobas, and Abipones	397
Language of the Abipones	ib.
Its capricious mutations	399
Their worship and their jugglers	400
Their superstition and longevity	401
Customs at marriage	402

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Infanticide and abortion	402
Their dread of death	403
Funeral customs	404
Mourning	ib.
Mode of travelling	406
Weapons	407
Distinctions of rank	409
Ceremonies at the birth of a Chief	410
Industry of the women	ib.
Deliberate madness	411
Notions respecting food	412
Tobacco used for the teeth	413
Leathern boats	ib.
Their success against the Spaniards	414
Southern Equestrian Tribes	415
Their mourning customs	417
Wild horses	419
Manners of the Spanish herdsmen	421
Their furniture and food	423
Their employments	424
Their children, how bred up	425
Drinking houses	ib.
State of religion	426
Freebooters	427
State of the agricultural population	ib.
Schools	429
Medical practice	ib.
State of the towns in the interior	430
Guarani more spoken than Spanish	431
Smoking	432
Education	433
Decay of military spirit	434
Defenceless state of the people	436
Ravages of the equestrian tribes	437
People of Santiago del Estero	438
The Jesuits pacify the Abipones	440
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Characters of Ferdinand VI and his Queen	442
Treaty of Limits	443
Seven Reductions ceded in this Treaty by Spain	448
Reasons for ordering the inhabitants to remove	449
This part of the treaty imputed, with little probability, to Gomes Freyre	450
The Jesuits remonstrate against the stipulation	451
Sullen acquiescence of the inhabitants	452
The country reconnoitred in search of places for the new settlements	ib.
The Spanish Commissioners precipitate the migration	454
Insurrection at S. Nicholas	455
The emigration from S. Miguel is begun	456
The people revolt, and recall the emigrants	ib.
The other Reductions determine on resistance	457
Their appeal to the Spanish Governor	458
Perilous situation of the Jesuits	460
The Guaranies compel a party of the Commissioners to retire	461
War declared against the Seven Reductions	462
The Jesuits offer to resign their authority in all the Reductions	463
Commencement of hostilities upon the Rio Pardo	464
Capture and escape of Sepe Tyarayu	466
Entrance and retreat of the Spaniards	467
Proceedings at Yapeyu	468
Advance of the Portugueze to the Jacuy	469
Gomes Freyre makes a truce and retires	471
Hopes of the Jesuits	472
Efforts of their enemies	473
Fable of King Nicolas	ib.
Second campaign	475
Danger of the Portugueze army from fire	477
Junction of the Spaniards and Portugueze	ib.
Inactivity of the Guaranies	478
Death of Sepe Tyarayu	ib.
Letters found after his death	480
Slaughter of the Guaranies at Caaibata	482
Pass of Monte Grande	485
Letter from the Reductions to the Spanish General	488
Passage of the Chiriaby abandoned	491
The armies come in sight of S. Miguels	492
Destruction of that town	493
The Guaranies submit	495
The greater number take to the woods	496
Expulsion of those who submit	ib.
Gomes Freyre refuses to take possession of the ceded country	497
Zeballos arrives at the Reductions	498
He inquires into the conduct of the Jesuits	499
Entire acquittal of the Jesuits	500
Delays in executing, and final annulment of the Treaty	501
CHAPTER XL.
Character of Pombal	505
His brother is made Governor of Maranham and Para	506

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Injudicious conduct on his arrival	507
He visits the Jesuit Aldeas	508
Accusations against the Jesuits	509
Falshood of those accusations	510
Publication of the Bull Immensa Pastorum	511
Pombal's views with respect to the Indians	512
Law for the abolishment of Indian slavery	513
Law for depriving the Missionaries of their temporal power	514
The Aldeas converted into Towns and Townlets	515
Mutiny of the troops on the Rio Negro	516
Fresh accusations against the Jesuits	517
They send home a memorial against the Governor	518
Regulations concerning the Indians	522
Charges against the Jesuits presented to the Pope	536
A Visitor and Reformer of the Company appointed	537
Mandate of the Visitor concerning the trade of the Jesuits	ib.
Attempt to assassinate the King of Portugal	540
The Jesuits condemned as accomplices	541
They are deported from Para and Maranham	ib.
Conduct of the Archbishop of Bahia	543
Different conduct of the Bishop of the Rio	545
Fate of the Brazilian Jesuits	546
CHAPTER XLI.
Companies of Maranham and Pernambuco established	548
The British Factory affected by these monopolies	550
The Maranham Company produces a good effect	551
Whaling Company	553
Salt contract	554
The Donatories extinguished	555
The laws enforced in Goyaz	556
War with France and Spain	557
Colonia besieged and taken by Zeballos	558
Defeat of an English and Portugueze squadron before Colonia	560
Zeballos advances against Rio Grande	563
Rio Grande de S. Pedro, and the Lagoa dos Patos	564
The Carijos	565
First occupation of Rio Grande by the Portugueze	568
The Spaniards expel them from S. Pedro	569
The Commander of S. Teresa put to death	570
Proceedings on the Mato Grosso and Moxo frontiers	571
Villa Bella founded	572
Disputes with the Jesuits of the Baures Missions	573
The Portugueze occupy the Sitio das Pedras	ib.
They take possession of the site of S. Rosa,	574
and give it the name of Conceiçam	575
The Governor of S. Cruz de la Sierra remonstrates	ib.
D. Antonio goes to Conceiçam	577
Appearance of a Spanish force, and notice of the war in Europe	578
D. Antonio surrenders the command to N. Senhora da Conceiçam	579
Activity and confidence of the Portugueze	581
They attack and plunder S. Miguels	583
Retreat of the Spaniards	584
Peace of Paris	ib.
Rio Grande forcibly retained by the Spaniards	ib.
Seat of Government removed to the Rio	585
Conde da Cunha, Viceroy	ib.
The Brazilians forbidden to send their daughters to nunneries in Portugal	586
Laws respecting the New Christians	587
The trade opened for single ships	589
Inhabitants of Mazagam removed to Para	ib.
Colonists sent to Brazil	590
Laws against vagabonds	591
The Capitation abolished, and the fifths resumed	592
Commencement of the decay of the Mines	593
Gold fraudulently debased	594
Law against the Goldsmiths	595
Affairs of Goyaz	596
War with the Cayapos	597
Peace with the Goaitacazes	599
Reappearance of the Aymores	600
Great Britain appealed to concerning Rio Grande	ib.
Bucarelli, Governor of Buenos Ayres	601
The Portugueze repossess themselves of Rio Grande by force	ib.
CHAPTER XLII.
Zeballos recalled from the Plata	603
State of the Reductions	604
Improvements introduced by the Jesuits	606
Outcry against the Company	607
Orders for their expulsion	608
The Jesuits seized in the College of Cordoba	609
Destruction of their papers	610

VOL. III. C

[page] xviii

	Page
Cruel treatment of the Jesuits	611
The Reductions delivered up to the Viceroy	612
The American Jesuits banished into Italy	613
New system of government in the Reductions	614
Ruin of these establishments	616
Some of the Guaranies fly into Brazil	ib.
Rupture between the Guaycurus and Payaguas	617
The Payaguas settle at Asumpcion	ib.
Their arts and customs	618
Annual ceremony which they practise at Asumpcion	620
Foundation of Praça dos Prazeres	622
Ravages of the Guaycurus	ib.
Nova Coimbra founded	623
Forte do Principe de Beira founded	624
The Diamond Contract	ib.
Diamond Demarcation in Goyaz	625
Ruin of the Contractors	ib.
Pombal's Regulations for the Forbidden District	626
Effect of these Laws	637
Manner of working the Diamond Mines	639
Effect of the system	642
Conde de Azambuja, Viceroy	643
Marquez de Lavradio, Viceroy	ib.
Inhospitable treatment of ships in distress	ib.
Academy of Natural History instituted	ib.
The Spaniards send an armament against Brazil	644
Island of S. Catharina	646
The island vilely surrendered	648
Zeballos proceeds against Colonia	649
Capture of Colonia	650
Ill treatment of the prisoners	651
Second Treaty of Limits	652
Death of King Jozé, and disgrace of Pombal	654
Extinction of the Companies of Maranham and Pernambuco	655
CHAPTER XLIII.
Praça dos Prazeres destroyed	657
Encroachment of the Spaniards	658
Treachery of the Guaycurus	ib.
The Guaycurus make peace with the Spaniards of Paraguay	661
They attack the Chiquito Missions	ib.
They make peace with the Portugueze	662
Present state of the Guaycurus	664
The Cayapos reduced	674
Attempt to reduce the Chavantes	675
Route explored by the Araguaya from Goyaz to Para	676
Expedition against the Canoeiros	677
Conde de Rezende, Viceroy	678
Conspiracy in Minas Geraes	679
Cause of discontent	ib.
Plans of the conspirators	681
Discovery of the conspiracy	683
Sentence of the conspirators	684
Abolition of the Salt Contract	686
War with Spain	687
State of the Guarani Reductions	ib.
Expedition against the Seven Reductions	688
The Portugueze retain them after the Peace	690
Treaty of Madrid	691
Conde dos Arcos, Viceroy	692
Expedition down the Rio Pardo	ib.
Removal of the Court of Portugal to Brazil	694
CHAPTER XLIV.
View of the state of Brazil	696
Captaincy General of Gram Para	697
Effect of Pombal's regulations concerning the Indians	ib.
Ill consequences of the Demarcation to the Indians	698
Their miserable state in many places	700
Their number kept up by fugitive hordes	701
Province of the Solimoens	ib.
Fort Tabatinga	702
S. Jozé	ib.
Olivenca	ib.
Remains of the Omagua nation	703
Nogueira	ib.
Ega	704
Mode of debauching with the leaves of the Ipadu	705
Alvellos	ib.
Spotted Indians	706
Crato	707
Extent and natural advantages of this province	ib.
Captaincy of the Rio Negro	709
Fort S. Jozé	ib.
Communication with the Orinoco	ib.
Lamalonga	ib.
Ajuricaba, the Slave Hunter	710
Thomar	711
Moreira	712
Insurrection of the Indians in 1757	ib.
Barcellos	714
Poyares	715

[page] xix

Carvoeiro	715
Rio Branco	716
Moura	717
Town of Rio Negro	718
Settlements on the Japura	719
S. Mathias	720
The Yucunas	ib.
S. Antonio	721
The Xomanes and the Passés	722
Copernican system, and chivalry of the Passés	ib.
The Muras	723
Town of Borba	725
The Muras take shelter there from the Mundrucus	ib.
Serpa	727
The Guarani drink	728
Sylves	ib.
Faro	730
Obidos	ib.
Alemquer	731
Montalegre	ib.
Outeiro	732
Almeirim	733
Mazagam	ib.
Villa Vistoza	ib.
Macapa	734
Santarem, on the Tapajoz	ib.
Villa Franca	735
Aldea of the Mundrucus	ib.
Towns on the Xingu	ib.
Gurupa	736
Melgaço	ib.
Portel	ib.
Oeyras	ib.
Cameta, on the Tocantins	737
Country between the Tocantins and the Sea	738
Villa Nova	ib.
Cintra	ib.
Vigia	ib.
Gurupy	739
Cayte, or Braganza	ib.
Ilha dos Joanes	ib.
City of Para	741
People of Para	742
Cruel treatment of the slaves	743
Happy condition of the better colonists	744
Captaincy of Maranham	ib.
City of S. Luiz	745
Trib s in the interior	746
Internal trade of Maranham	747
River Itapicurú	748
Aldeias Altas	ib.
Arrayal do Principe	749
Communication by the Tocantins	749
River Meary	750
Difficult communication with the South by sea	751
Captaincy of Piauhy	752
City of Oeyras	ib.
Town of Parnaiba	753
Indians in Piauhy	754
State of the Fazendas	755
Trade in cattle	757
Captaincy of Seara	758
Town of Seara	759
Aracaty	ib.
Crato	760
Villa Viçoza	ib.
State of the Indians	ib.
Productions of Seara	763
Captaincy of Rio Grande do Norte	764
City of Natal	765
Assió	ib.
Portalegre	ib.
Captaincy of Paraiba	766
City of Paraiba	767
Captaincy General of Pernambuco	768
Recife	ib.
Olinda	771
Iguarassú	772
Goiana	ib.
The Lagoas	ib.
Inhabitants of the interior	773
Trade of the interior	775
Itinerant Priests	776
Improvement of manners	777
Valentoens, a base kind of knight-errantry	ib.
Great families in Pernambuco	779
Condition of the slaves upon the great estates	780
Slaves upon the conventual estates	ib.
Slaves of the small proprietors	782
Usual state of the slaves
Mitigations of slavery in Brazil	784
Frequent emancipations	785
Difficulty of escaping from slavery	786
Free Creole Negroes	787
Free people of colour	ib.
Mamalucos	ib.
Gypsies in Pernambuco	ib.
Reductions of the last wild Indians	788
Improvement in horticulture	ib.
Plants which afford a substitute for hemp and flax	789
River S. Francisco	790
Salt Trade from Pilam Arcado	791

[page] xx

Villa da Barra do Rio Grande	791
Town of O Penedo	792
Province of Seregipe d'El Rey	793
City of Seregipe	ib.
Lawless state of the people	794
Captaincy of Bahia	ib.
City of Bahia	ib.
Cultivation of pepper	797
Internal trade of the Bay	799
Engenhos in Bahia	800
Town of Cachoeira	801
Sertoens of Bahia	802
Town of Jacobina	ib.
Villa do Rio de Contas	803
Captaincy of Ilheos	ib.
Interior still possessed by savages	804
The Mongoyos	ib.
Town of Ilheos	805
Captaincy of Porto Seguro	807
The Botocudos	ib.
Town of Porto Seguro	808
Villa Verde	809
Caravellas	ib.
Belmonto	810
Captaincy of Espiritu Santo	ib.
Porto de Sousa	ib.
Villa Velha	811
Villa de Victoria	ib.
Villa Nova d'Almeida	812
Captaincy General of Rio de Janeiro	813
City of the Rio	ib.
Climate	815
Slaves	816
Population of the Captaincy	817
Cochineal	ib.
Ilha Grande	818
River Paraiba do Sul	ib.
Town of S. Salvador	ib.
Captaincy of Minas Geraes	819
Villa Rica	820
Effect of the Mines	ib.
Marianna	821
S. Joam d'El Rey	822
Sabara	823
Caeté	ib.
Sucurys and Sucuriús	ib.
Villa do Principe	824
Tejuco	ib.
Destruction of the woods	825
State of the Mines	826
State of Society	828
Improvement in Minas Geraes	831
Captaincy General of Goyaz	833
Villa Boa	834
Meiafronte	ib.
State of the Mines	835
Forbidden District in Goyaz	836
Revenues	837
Captaincy General of Mato Grosso	838
Villa Bella	ib.
Decline of the Trade with Para	ib.
Villa Real de Cuyaba	839
S. Pedro d' El Rey	840
Villa Maria	ib.
Forbidden District in Mato Grosso	841
Forte do Principe de Beira	ib.
Moxo Missions	ib.
Settlement on the Madeira	843
State of the Indians	ib.
Captaincy General of Paulo	845
City of S. Paulo	ib.
Bahia de Santos	849
Road to S. Paulo	ib.
Santos	850
S. Vicente	ib.
Island of S. Sebastian	851
Cananea	ib.
Paranagua	852
Curytiba	ib.
Thaubaté	853
Sorocaba	ib.
Hitú	854
Savages in the Captaincy of S. Paulo	ib.
Manner of travelling	855
Small-pox	856
Revenues	857
Population	ib.
Province of S. Catharina	858
Island of S. Catharina	ib.
N. Senhora de Desterro	859
Slaves	861
Climate and Diseases	ib.
Island of S. Francisco	862
Inhabitants on the main land	ib.
Whale Fishery	863
Population	ib.
Province of Rio Grande do Sul	864
Portalegre	865
S. Pedro	ib.
Population	866
Destruction of cattle	ib.
State of the grazing farms	867
Mules	868
Sheep	ib.
Shepherd's Dogs	869
Conclusion	ib.

[page 1]

HISTORY OF BRAZIL.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Measures of Gomes Freyre at Maranham. Expedition against the tribes on the Orellana. Settlement of the French at Cayene. Mathias da Cunha Governor General. Mutiny at Bahia. Antonio Luiz Goncalez da Camara Coutinho. D. Joam de Lancastro. Money coined in Brazil. War against the Negroes of the Palmares. Disputes with France concerning the boundary. Death of Vieyra. Troubles excited by the Bishop of Maranham.

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

Measures of Gomes Freyre at Maranham.

After Gomes Freyre had seized the ringleaders of the rebellion in Maranham, his first business was to restore all those persons to their offices who had been deprived of them by the usurping government. He re-established the monopoly, rightly perceiving, that if its abolition should be deemed expedient, the measure ought to proceed from the legitimate authority; and he recalled the exiled Jesuits from Para. The good policy of bringing out persons connected by ties of relationship with the inhabitants of S. Luiz was now experienced; through their means the disaffected were conciliated, and he obtained full information concerning the public feeling and the characters of individuals. He appointed the most useful of these persons to such

VOL. III. B

[page] 2

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

posts of honour and emolument as were vacant, and rewarded others with grants of land on the coast, or in the interior, .. sparing thus a treasury which was not in a condition to answer the demands upon it, and improving the colony. In order the better to regulate the affairs of this turbulent State, he desired the Camara of Belem to come to S. Luiz, not thinking it proper as yet to leave Maranham himself: on their arrival he entertained the senates of the two cities with a feast, in which every article was the produce of the mother country; America, it is said, having furnished nothing more than the wood and water for dressing it. The dinner was the worse for this; but it displayed the character of the man: for on all former occasions, when there was any surplus from a Governor's sea stores, it had been sold at a high price.

Domingos Teyxeyra. 2. 2. § 212—220. Berredo. § 1345.

The monopoly abolished.

Having convened the two Camaras for business, and received them with as much ceremony as the circumstances of the place permitted, he addressed them upon the state of the country. The necessity of agricultural labourers, he said, was manifest, and means therefore must be taken for introducing slaves from Africa. The Indians were to be reserved for a more important service; that some being domesticated might induce others to subjection, and all when properly instructed contribute to the increase of Christendom in these wide regions; .. an object which would be frustrated, if the Portugueze should persist in wrongfully enslaving men, who although rude by nature and fierce by custom, were nevertheless by inheritance owners of the land, and had enjoyed an uninterrupted possession of it till the Portugueze arrived. To promote this holy end, the appointments of the clergy should be doubled, and the number of missionaries increased. He then requested that the Chambers would deliberate concerning the continuance of the monopoly, and the means of importing Negroes in a manner less expensive to the

[page] 3

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

Teyxeyra. 2. 2. § 220—226. Berredo. § 1345.

inhabitants; whose interest, he said, the King considered more than any augmentation of revenue. They were desired to deliver their opinions in writing by a certain day: the result was a conviction in his mind, that the monopoly must be abolished, on account of the scandalous frauds which the agents of the Company had practised.

General distress in Maranham.

He now made up his dispatches for Portugal. Among the principal causes of the late troubles, he pointed out the vile conduct of some of the clergy, who, neglecting their duties and unmindful of their profession, had upon the plea of necessity, betaken themselves to trade, and had been foremost in exciting discontent, sedition, and rebellion. The state of the people, he said, was deplorably bad; and should the debts for food and raiment which they had unavoidably incurred for want of slaves, be rigidly exacted, they would have no alternative but to beg their bread, or seek their fortune elsewhere. The Engenhos were in ruins. It deserved consideration, that the same principle which was admitted as authorizing the Portugueze in purchasing Negroes from the Cape de Verds, Angola, Mozambique, and other parts of Africa, applied with equal force to the natives of America. The manners of the Tapuyas were as savage, their wars with each other were as bloody, their religion was not better: and when the Portugueze were at war with them, it was found that no lives were spared now that slavery had been abolished. He advised that the King should take upon himself the business of ransoming cord-Indians by means of the Missionaries, neither the Governor nor any other person interfering; .. a system which would have differed little from Vieyra's, if one Order had been exclusively employed.

Teyxeyra. 2. 2. § 226—229.

Expedition against the savages on the Meary.

He proposed also to relieve the distress at S. Luiz, by drafting from its population for a new settlement. For this purpose a party was sent to examine the coast toward the South:

[page] 4

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

they fixed upon the country between the rivers Itacú and Mony, there being so good a landing place near the mouth of the former stream, that a plank might be laid from the canoe to the shore. These rivers approach so nearly in the interior as almost to form a Delta: and it was thought that two forts at the neck of this peninsula might secure it against the savages: for many tribes had retired into this part of the country, flying from the adventurers in Piauhi, on one side, and on the other from the Paulistas who descended the Tocantins. Having proposed this plan to the Court, Gomes Freyre sent an expedition against the savages who infested the Meary, where there had been formerly so many Engenhos that the state was supplied from thence with sugar and produce of various kinds, and there remained a considerable surplus for exportation. All these had been destroyed, or were fallen to decay, and some runaway slaves who had taken possession of a deserted establishment had been massacred by the Indians. A considerable force for such warfare was appointed, consisting of one hundred Portugueze troops, and two hundred and thirty Tapuyas, under Joam Sarayva. He advanced some days' journey up the river, discovered an ambuscade which had been skilfully laid for him, defeated the savages, with considerable loss on their part and only that of one soldier on his, and then returned; for which he was censured by the people, and put under arrest by Gomes Freyre, his error of judgement being thought injurious to the reputation of the Portugueze arms. The Governor determined to erect a fort upon this river. A party was sent to chuse a good situation; and upon an eminence well suited to their purpose, they found a Nossa Senhora dressed in silk, lying upon the ground, uninjured by exposure to the weather. It was immediately inferred, that the savages had brought it there from some church or chapel which they had destroyed: the preservation

[page] 5

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

The way from Maranham to Bahia explored.

of the dress was imputed to the virtue of the image: so a fort and settlement were established here under the name and patronage of S. Maria, and the river Meary was thought secure under the care of so powerful a protectress. Gomes Freyre was desirous that a way should be explored to Bahia through the interior. Joam Velho do Valle undertook to make the attempt: he made peace as he went with some tribes upon the Mony, the Itapicuru, and the Parnaiba; some Portugueze had settled upon the latter river, and it was desirable to secure their communication with Seara. The adventurer continued his perilous journey, and made a map of his route; but the fatigue and hardships which he underwent proved fatal, and he reached Bahia in a dying state.

Teyxeyra. 2. 2. § 246—269. 280—285. Do. 2. 3. § 2.

Gomes Freyre reforms the abuses of his predecessors.

Teyxeyra. 2. 2. § 277—278.

Teyxeyra. § 286—7.

Gomes Freyre's predecessors had arrogated to themselves the power of giving commissions in the Ordenança, a right which properly appertained to the Camara and they had abused it, to the great detriment of the state; .. giving them to persons who held them only two or three months, and becoming noble in consequence, were exempted from public duties and certain public burthens. The Camara complained to him of this; he saw the evil of thus multiplying a privileged class by illicit means, and gave orders, that in future the right of nominating to the vacant commissions should be exercised throughout the state by the Chambers of the respective towns. After waiting some time at S. Luiz in expectation of being relieved by a successor, or at least that some person would arrive from the Kingdom to whom he might transfer the Captaincy of Maranham while he proceeded to Para, where his presence was daily becoming more desirable, he appointed to the command Balthazar de Seyxas Coutinho, who had retired into the interior during the rebellion. This done, he departed for Belem; and coasting the whole way, made a chart of the perilous course. No Governor had ever

[page] 6

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

He convinces the Bishop of his imprudence.

been received at Belem with more display of honour, nor with such real joy: he had made himself respected by his firmness; and his conduct toward the widow and daughters of Beckman had won for him the love of the people. A delicate task awaited him here, and the more painful because of his religious feelings. The Bishop was at variance with the civil authorities; accusations had been preferred against him at Court, which although exaggerated, were not without some ground; and Gomes Freyre was instructed to examine into the affair, and if it were necessary, send him to Portugal. It was not necessary to proceed so far; but the Prelate's deportment had not been irreprehensible, and Gomes Freyre had to represent to him the faults which he had committed. That this might be done in the tenderest manner, he paid him a private visit, late in the evening and without attendants; entered into conversation with him till he perceived that the Bishop had recovered from the surprise which such a visit occasioned, and then kneeling at his feet, solicited a hearing. The Bishop naturally supposed that he came for ghostly counsel; and was not a little astonished, instead of the confession which he expected, to hear a recapitulation of his own offences: but this representation was made so kindly, so gently, so wisely, as well as so forcibly, that the old man was completely overcome by it, and wept like a child: he saw his error and acknowledged it, and promised to amend it. This promise he fulfilled so well, that the remainder of his life was useful and acceptable to the people, and honourable to himself.

Teyxeyra. 2.3. § 1—35.

The Orellana infested by hostile tribes.

Para no longer enjoyed that state of peace which Vieyra and his zealous comrades had established with the Indians far and near. Under the government of Francisco de Sa, Gonçalo Paes de Araujo went with an expedition up the river to treat with the Caravares, a tribe who desired to place themselves under the

[page] 7

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

protection of the Portugueze. Ground was chosen where they should establish their village, and a small party under Gonçalo Paes himself went forward to begin to clear the land. They came to the country of the Taquanhapes and ¹ Gerunas, who inhabited the banks and the islands of the Xingu. These tribes had long been upon good terms with the Portugueze; but now, in the hope of cutting off this detachment, (enmity to the Caravares being perhaps their motive) they offered to shew them a place near at hand which abounded with wild cinnamon, and thus decoyed them into an ambush. One of the Portugueze was killed. The domestic Indians fought bravely, and perished to a man; thirty of the Caravares fell also, displaying the most undaunted courage, and a sense of honour which had seldom been found among these people. Gonçalo Paes, being severely wounded, was carried by these faithful Indians from the field, while their companions kept up a desultory fight, falling back continually upon the Portugueze, who retired in a compact body, and protected them with their fire-arms. In this manner they effected their retreat to the country of the Caravares, where Paes was hospitably entertained, and cured of his wound. Other tribes were emboldened by this successful outrage to take arms; the Aroaquizes and Caripatenas cut off many trading parties, and the Portugueze could no longer navigate the Orellana without imminent danger. The Gerunas manned a flotilla of more than thirty canoes, and carried as a standard in the Cacique's boat, the head of one Antonio Rodriguez, a serjeant whom they had slain.

Teyxeyra. 2. 3. § 36—62.

An expedition sent against them from Belem.

To chastise these savages was not merely justifiable in itself, it was necessary for the well being, and even the existence of the

1 Probably the Juruunas, who are described, Vol. 2, p. 510.

[page] 8

CHAP. XXXI. 1686.

Vol. 2. p. 614.

Portugueze: but the State was ill able to fit out an expedition. Men, stores, and vessels were wanting; the treasury was empty, and the Aldeas were not as Vieyra had left them: some had been forsaken, others nearly depopulated by disease, by ill treatment, or by the losses which they had suffered during these harrassing hostilities. It was now perceived of what importance it is that the Governor should possess the confidence of the people. Gomes Freyre asked the inhabitants to come forward in this emergency, and lend the government as many canoes as they could spare. He might have demanded them; the people, thankful for this moderation, and sensible of the necessity of the measure, gave him at once all that were in the port, contributed five hundred alqueires of farinha, offered slaves to supply the want of boatmen, and volunteered themselves for the expedition. The Capitam Mor, Hilario de Sousa, took the command, .. better employed now than on his bootless mission to Beckman. Forty Portugueze were drafted from the garrison of Maranham; Belem furnished fourscore: one hundred and twenty Indians were all that could be collected there. They sailed at the close of the year, and coming to Camutá, found a reinforcement of canoes and Indians made ready for them by Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho. A village of Nheengaibas on the banks of the Aracuru, where they touched, was nearly deserted, the greater part of the inhabitants having removed to the Cabo do Norte, allured there by the French at Cayenne, from whom they obtained fire-arms, and set the Portugueze at defiance. Sousa threatened them for this contraband intercourse, but had neither time nor instructions to do more. He proceeded to Curupá, a place so dilapidated and neglected, notwithstanding the importance of this post, that its almost dismantled fort had no better garrison than two officers and fifteen invalids. Here therefore he left a reinforcement, and here he

[page] 9

CHAP. XXXI. 1687.

ordered stores to be collected from Xingú, an Aldea three days' journey distant, upon the river of the same name, that on his return he might punish the Taquanhapes. The flotilla now entered the great river. The first place where it anchored was in a port called Jagacará: the adjoining Aldea was deserted, and when the Chief was found, it appeared that the inhabitants were afraid of military service, being so unwarlike a tribe that it was said many of them would not make a soldier. Leaving them therefore to enjoy the benefit of their unwarlike habits, the expedition took a supply of fiercer allies from Cassary, an Aldea of the Aratus, where all the men eagerly volunteered; .. they were a people who loved war for its own sake, and disdained the spoils.

Teyxeyra. 2. 3. § 63. 88.

Success of the enterprize.

The expedition now crost to the left bank, to some Aldeas of the Tapajozes, and Aruryucuzes, .. warlike tribes who would gladly have joined it, but were reserved for nearer operations against the Taquanhapes; a few only were received under Sebastian Orucurá, the baptized Chief of Curupatubá. Having proceeded some way further, and touched at all the Aldeas upon the way, Sousa detached a party in light canoes to reconnoitre the river of the Aroaquizes, and take a prisoner if possible. They came up with some canoes; the men on board fought when they found it useless to fly, and the Portugueze Indians in their ferocity gave no quarter, but put every man to death; frustrating thus the purpose for which they were sent. The flotilla now entered this labyrinth of waters, and captured three Indians in a small canoe; they belonged to an Aldea which the Carapitenas had laid waste, and these persons were embassadors to solicit aid from their allies for revenging the wrongs they had sustained. The Portugueze accompanied them to their Aldea, and found it as they had affirmed, in ruins. By this time the news of the armament had spread far and wide. The war-

VOL. III. C

[page] 10

CHAP. XXXI. 1687.

riors who had committed this last aggression, knew their danger and fled; but Sousa, knowing the nature of these savages, sent messengers up the rivers Negro and Amatary offering rewards to those who would deliver up the offenders; so they perished by the hands of those from whom they sought protection. Having well examined the islands in the river which they were now navigating; taken observations, and laid down its shoals, they proceeded to a rapid¹ in the Orellana, which was navigable when the waters were full: at this time it was necessary to land, open a way through the thicket, and tow up sixty of the lighter canoes, leaving the rest behind. Having arrived at the first Taba, or town of the Carapitenas, Sousa landed and surprized the place. Sharp stakes had been concealed in the pathway to lame or impale their enemies: this however availed them little, and after slight opposition they abandoned the town, leaving many prisoners in the conquerors' hands. Many other of their settlements were destroyed, and all their canoes taken; and Sousa intrenching himself on the banks of the river, sent Braz de Barros with two hundred men, chiefly Indians of the Aldeas, to pursue the fugitives by land. He followed them eight days before he overtook and defeated them. While the expedition was rejoicing for this success, their spies brought intelligence that the main strength of the enemy was collecting in Caysáva, a place two days' journey

2 Chegaram os nossos à primeyra cachoeyra ou catadupa, em que todo o pezo das aguas do Rio das Amazonas se despeuha; e como se achasse demasiadamente deminuido fazia quasi impraticavel a passage das embarcaçoens. (Teyxeyra, 2. 3. § 100.) Teyxeyra is the only author who mentions any interruption of this kind in the navigation of the Orellana; .. it is very possible that he has supposed the expedition to be in that river, when they were engaged in one of its tributary streams.

[page] 11

CHAP. XXXI. 1687.

distant, the largest and strongest of all their towns. Several detachments had been made from the camp, so that it consisted at this time of only seventy Portugueze, and four hundred and seventy Indians; but all these were chosen men, fit for the severest service which could be required from flesh and blood. A guard was left for the canoes, and Sousa marched against Caysáva with the main force. Some skirmishes occurred upon the way, in which the Portugueze Indians spared neither sex nor age. Terrified at the approach of such enemies, the savages forsook the Taba; they were hunted through the woods during fifteen days, many were slain, and many reserved for the worse lot of captivity. Sousa had now compleated his work with the Aroaquizes and Carapitenas. The skulls and the arms and leg bones of Joam Cascalho and another Chief, his comrade in this rebellion as it was termed, were sent him from the river Negro, and the other Chiefs whose death was in like manner thought necessary for securing the navigation of the Orellana, were slain in the Amatary where they had sought refuge. It was found that the French from Cayenne had ascended as high as the Rio dos Tamurás, exchanging fire-arms for produce and slaves: Sousa reprehended the Indians severely for this traffic, yet he admitted their excuse, that since the Portugueze were prohibited from purchasing slaves they had no other means of disposing of their prisoners. The season was now too far advanced for the intended operations against the Taquanhapes; the flotilla therefore returned to Belem, not having lost a single Portugueze during a campaign of six months. More than one thousand Indians had been put to death, and about half as many were brought back in chains.

Teyxeyra. 2. 3. § 89—144.

Attempts of various nations to colonize in Guiana.

The neighbourhood of the French was now becoming an object of serious disquiet in Para. From the Plata to the Wiapoc,

[page] 12

CHAP. XXXI. 1608.

Relation of the Voyage to Guiana. Harl. Misc. vol. 3, p. 196. (8vo edit.)

Do. 184.

About 1631.

Des Marchais, t. 3, p. 75.

Portugal claimed the country by virtue of Pope Alexander's demarcation ³; but all the maritime powers disputed the title. Early in the seventeenth century, Robert Harcourt took possession by turf and twig of all between the Orellana and Orinoco, for England, in the name of James I., with an exception of such parts as might at that time be actually possessed by any other Christian Prince or State: James in return made Harcourt a grant of the whole territory from the former river to the Essequibo; but although no man seems to have been better qualified for conducting a colony than this adventurous gentleman, the scheme was frustrated, .. it is not recorded how. Ralegh's rash enterprize, in which plunder and not colonization was the object, met the ill fortune which it deserved; and of the subsequent attempts made by daring men of different countries to establish themselves about the Cabo do Norte, and up the great river, no other memorials are to be found, than the brief notice of the destruction inflicted on them by the Portugueze. In one of Ralegh's expeditions, Keymiss observed the excellent harbour at Cayenne, and named it Port Howard. Harcourt also reconnoitred it, and remarked its capabilities of defence. Some French adventurers settled here shortly after the first establishment of their countrymen in St. Kitt's; not thinking it prudent to fix themselves nearer the Cabo do Norte, because the determined policy of the Portugueze to root out all interlopers, had been too severely experienced by their predecessors. They had no commission from the Crown, neither were they in the service of any Company: instead of attempting to conciliate the natives, which, as had been shown by Harcourt's example,

3 The map upon which this famous line was drawn, was in the museum of Cardinal Borgia at Veletri, in the year 1797. D. Nicolas de la Cruz. T. 5. p. 4.

[page] 13

CHAP. XXXI. 1631.

might easily have been done, they took part in their disputes, and joined the Galibes against the Caribs: but these Frenchmen were not practised in such warfare, like the Portugueze. Their friends were defeated; the huts which they had constructed were destroyed; many were made prisoners and eaten, and those who survived were glad to shelter themselves among their allies, and become naturalized as savages. A very few escaped, and made exaggerated reports in France of the advantages which the country possessed. A company was formed at Rouen upon their representations, and an expedition was sent out under M. Charles Poncet, Seigneur de Bretigny. The King appointed him Lieutenant General of the Country of the Cabo do Norte, which he largely interpreted to include the rivers Orellana and Orinoco, with all their islands, and the whole intermediate country. He took out between three and four hundred men, with whom he attempted to form settlements at Cayenne, Surinam, and Berbice: but being cruel by nature, and under no restraint, he fell into that ⁴ madness which the possession of absolute power induces in wicked dispositions; and having escaped one mutiny among his own people, he was deservedly killed by the savages. The enraged natives then attacked the French in their different quarters, and cut them off. About forty made their escape to St. Kitt's, and this unfortunate country was once more forsaken.

Paul Boyer. 137. 231. Du Tertre. 3. 11. Des Marchais. 3. 76—9.

4 He compelled men to tell him their dreams, and then punished them if the dreams were not to his liking. The settlement was surrounded with gallowses, gibbets, and wheels, all garnished up with whole or dismembered bodies! (Paul Boyer, p. 208—9.) He had a particular delight in inventing instruments of torture: .. one of these inventions he called Purgatory; another, Hell! Des Marchais, 3. 77.

[page] 14

CHAP. XXXI. 1631.

The French establish themselves at Cayenne. 1653.

1656.

Notwithstanding this ill success, the Company at Rouen sent out small parties from time to time, and continued to maintain a fortress at Cayenne, till eight years after M. de Bretigny's death; at which time a new Company was formed, upon the plea that the existing one had failed in its engagements with the Crown. This was effected through the influence of the Sieur de Royville, a Norman gentleman, who went out at the head of about seven hundred adventurers ⁵ of all ages. Twelve of the associates accompanied him, as Lords of the Colony. On the voyage these persons conspired against Royville, and murdered him in the night; and in the same spirit, as soon as they arrived they began to intrigue against each other. One of them was beheaded by his ferocious comrades; three others were sent to a desert island. The savages ⁶ soon fell upon these wretches: disease carried off some of the colony; others perished by hunger; many were brought to the boucan, and the few survivors were glad to seek protection from the English, who were at that time in possession of Surinam. A few years afterward, the Dutch, finding Cayenne thus forsaken, occupied it for the West India Company. Guerin Spranger had the command, .. a man admirably qualified for such a situa-

5 Among the rest there was a Doctor of Theology, whose death Labat laments as the first misfortune of the expedition, because "il etoit comme l'ame de la Colonie par la profondeur de sa science dans les matieres Theologiques et Canoniques." Is this grave hypocrisy in the professional character of Pere Labat, de l'Ordre des Freres Precheurs, or irony in the natural character of this adroit and unprincipled Frenchman?

6 Labat ascribes the conduct of the Indians to the instigation of the Dutch at Berbice; but to what could he impute the murders and madness of the French among themselves?

[page] 15

CHAP. XXXI. 1664.

tion: he kept upon good terms with the natives, whom he taught to respect him; fortified the island against them, made sugar and indigo plantations, and had already begun a profitable commerce with Holland, when Louis XIV established a new Company of Equinoctial France, gave them all the country between the two great rivers, and appointed M. le Fevre de la Barré Commander in Chief, and Governor of Cayenne. Holland was not at this time in a state of war with France; .. but such considerations have never been allowed much weight in a French cabinet. Five vessels were sent out, with more than a thousand persons on board, settlers as well as soldiers included. Spranger had no alternative but to capitulate upon the best terms he could; and the French, profiting by the successful labours of the Dutch, found themselves masters of a colony, of which the foundations were now fairly laid. Two years afterward it was taken and laid waste by the English: the French reoccupied it immediately, and during the peace of Breda it began to flourish. In the succeeding war the Dutch captured this unlucky settlement; and the inhabitants, weary of so many changes, were glad to compound with the conquerors, and retain possession of their plantations as subjects of Holland. Shortly afterward the French colonies were taken from the Company, and annexed to the Crown: the Comte d'Estrees then sailed against Cayenne with a fleet of fourteen sail, and landed eight hundred troops to attack the place, which had now been so far fortified, and was so well defended, that the conquest cost him a hundred and fifty men.

1666.

1673.

1676.

Aitzema. v. 5. p. 275. Des Marchais. 3. p. 88—96.

The French trespass upon the Portugueze territory.

The French were no sooner in undisturbed possession of this long disputed colony, than they began to trespass upon their neighbours. They attempted to enter the Orellana, and were forbidden by the Captain of Curupa. Five Frenchmen were found by the Jesuits far in the interior, trading for slaves, and

[page] 16

CHAP. XXXI. 1687.

were sent back with letters to the Governor, and to the Superior of the French Missions, remonstrating against the intrusion into the Portugueze dominions, and against the wickedness of the trade in which they were engaged. Gomes Freyre, in like manner, sent back two others who had been taken in the same vocation, and wrote to assert the claims of the Portugueze Crown. The King commended him for this, and instructed him to send Antonio de Albuquerque, with an engineer, and other persons acquainted with that part of the country, to mark out such fortifications in the Captaincy of the Cabo do Norte as he should think expedient. The Aldeas had now been once more divided among the different Orders: those in this Captaincy belonged to the Capuchos de S. Antonio, .. a branch of the Franciscan family; and the Governor was directed to avail himself of their services, and also of the Jesuits, who were establishing a new Mission on that side. By their help it was hoped that the French missionaries might be prevented from communicating with the Aruans; .. for so jealous was the Portugueze Court of its dominion in America, that this feeling prevailed over its zeal for the salvation of souls.

Teyxeyra. 2. 3. § 221. Do. § 147. Berredo. § 1356.

Gomes Freyre is superseded.

The dispatches which conveyed these instructions, informed the Governor that Artur de Sa de Menezes was appointed to relieve him; and as a mark of peculiar honour to Gomes Freyre, his successor was ordered not to assume the government till the moment of his departure. Artur de Sa, not finding him at Maranham, committed an error of which he afterwards repented; for he left his credentials on board, as if by accident, and took possession without presenting them. When they were subsequently produced, it appeared that if the Chamber had behaved incorrectly in acknowledging him, because they had not seen the proper instrument, he had wilfully acted in opposition to his orders; being sensible of this, he took upon himself no farther act of

[page] 17

CHAP. XXXI. 1687.

authority. When he arrived at Belem, Gomes Freyre received with displeasure the excuses of the Chamber, who accompanied him, but entertained his successor with courtesy and magnificence, dissembling all resentment till a proper season. He drew up for him, by the King's command, a full account of the colony, even to the characters of the principal inhabitants, observing what men were worthy to be employed and trusted, and noting others upon whom it would be prudent to keep a watchful eye. Having dispatched the commission under Antonio de Albuquerque, and discharged all his public business, he resigned the government, and then manifested his sense of his successor's conduct by refusing to walk with him under the canopy when he assumed his powers, as had been customary, and taking his place instead among the nobles in the procession. The few days which intervened before his departure he past in taking leave of individuals, and in retirement with his confessor, that he might set his spiritual affairs in order before he committed himself to the uncertain seas. He had little baggage to embark, .. for he had parted with his own plate to assist the soldiers, and fit out the expeditions for the interior. No Governor before him had been so generally regretted. The Chamber of Para addressed a letter to the King, saying that if they had ever any cause of complaint against his Majesty, it was now, when he had sent out a successor to supersede Gomes Freyre: and the Procurador at Lisbon was instructed to procure two portraits of this distinguished man, for the Senate-houses of Belem and S. Luiz.

Teyxeyra. 2. 3. § 148—163. Berredo. § 1348—54. 1357—8.

Mathias da Cunha Governor General.

Mathias da Cunha had now succeeded the Marquez das Minas as Governor and Captain General of Brazil. The pestilence had not wholly subsided; and fortunate it was that it was not of a nature to be transported to Europe, .. for the Marquis's eldest son died of this disease upon the passage home.

VOL. III. D

[page] 18

CHAP. XXXI. 1687.

Execution of a fidalgo.

The new administration is remarkable for an act of justice; .. such things being rare enough under the Portugueze government to excite admiration when they occur. Fernam Bezerra Barbalho, a Pernambucan fidalgo, and a colonel in the army, murdered his wife and three daughters, and would have murdered a fourth, if the child had not been secreted by a faithful female slave. The cause of this shocking act was not madness, but a false sense of honour arising out of some blind suspicion, and acting upon a wicked heart; and to render it more shocking, the eldest son assisted in the murder of his mother and his sisters. This monster escaped from earthly vengeance: the circumstance however was so atrocious, that even in Brazil it was not suffered to pass with impunity. Bezerra was arrested, carried to Bahia, and beheaded there, and his head sent to his Engenho in the Varzea, to be exposed in the place where he had committed the crime.

Rocha Pitta. 7. § 47. 51. Vieyra Cartas. t. 2. p. 366.

Seara cleared of the savages.

Seara was infested at this time by savages from the interior of that Captaincy. Their aggressions were pronounced by a Junta civil, military, and theological, at Bahia, to be a just cause for making war upon them, and adjudging the prisoners to slavery, pursuant to the law of Joam IV; and accordingly an expedition was sent against them from Pernambuco, Paraiba, and the Potengi. The war was pursued with vigor and great success, and the country in consequence so cleared, that Seara was not afterwards infested; the settlement of the Portugueze in Piauhi contributing, no doubt, to this security. It was fortunate for Brazil that Portugal was at this time in peace; for never had the country been in so defenceless a state. Bahia was open to any invader, without fortifications, without arms, without stores, the population greatly reduced by the pestilence, the garrison not half its allotted number, and consisting almost wholly of undisciplined boys. Meantime the coasts

Rocha Pitta. 7. § 52—3.

Defenceless state of Brazil.

Vieyra Cartas. t. 2. p. 249.

[page] 19

CHAP. XXXI. 1687.

Vieyra Cartas. t. 3. p. 321.

Do. t. 2. p. 363.

Do. t. 2. p. 347.

were infested by pirates, and it is said that this race of desperate criminals attempted now to establish themselves at the mouth of the Plata, on the southern shore. The place was ill chosen, and therefore the attempt failed. They were principally Frenchmen; and some of the same nation, who appeared to be of higher rank, were found sounding the ports in Brazil, and instructing the savages in the use of fire-arms. The defenceless state of these colonies was repeatedly represented to the Court, and earnest demands were made for arms and ammunition: but the same ministers who exacted the duties with rigour, seemed to forget that there was on their side the obligation of affording protection. "Thus, (says Vieyra,) all is not merely going to ruin, but wellnigh ruined; .. this Brazil, which is all that we have, we shall have no longer than till any one chuses to take it; and I no longer grieve that the kingdom should be without heirs, for if we had them, there would be nothing to inherit." "In this emergency, (he says elsewhere,) prudent men advise us to wear cotton, eat mandioc, and take to bows and arrows for lack of other arms, so that we shall shortly relapse into the savage state, and become Brazilians instead of Portugueze."

Do. t. 2. p. 382.

1688. Death of Mathias da Cunha.

Mutiny of the soldiers at Bahia.

Mathias da Cunha had not held the government many months before he sickened of the pestilence; and finding his case hopeless, summoned the Senate to his chamber that they might elect a successor. They named the Archbishop D. Fr. Manoel da Resurreiçam, for the political and military department, and for the juridical, Dr. Manoel Carneiro de Sa, Chancellor of the Relaçom. The pay of the soldiers was now nine months in arrears; and the men, knowing that the Governor was on his death-bed, took a barbarous advantage of his situation, to mutiny and demand their due. They declared, that unless they were paid in the course of the day, they would sack the city; and they began to plunder such persons as were carrying pro-

[page] 20

CHAP. XXXI. 1688.

visions through the streets, in proof that the threat would be executed. The members of the Camara were more particularly threatened, being at that time paymasters. The officers having used all means of persuasion in vain, remonstrated with no better effect against the detestable inhumanity of thus disquieting their dying General. Humanity finds no access to the ears or hearts of a tumultuous assembly. The Vereadores were obliged to borrow the money as they could, and satisfy the demand without delay; but none of the officers would receive their share; .. they all protested against what was done, and declared their willingness to wait till the government could pay them with convenience to itself. The men, when they had thus obtained their object, refused to separate or return to their duty, till they should have a written pardon for their mutiny, signed by the Governor while he was yet living, and by the Archbishop who was to succeed him. Mathias da Cunha, as the last act of his life, was compelled to sign this paper: he expired immediately afterwards; and the men who thus brutally disturbed his dying moments, entered the city to attend his funeral.

Rocha Pitta. 7. § 55—60.

1690.

Order restored in Porto Seguro.

The Crown soon appointed Antonio Luiz Gonçalez da Camera Coutinho to the vacant government, promoting him from Pernambuco. This Governor of many names continued the good example of his predecessor, in executing the laws. Five men of good family in Porto Seguro had collected a set of ruffians, at whose head they tyrannized over the Captaincy, and perpetrated outrages and crimes of every kind with impunity, even in the town itself, and in open defiance of all authority. No man's property, wife, daughter, or existence, was secure from these daring villains. The civil and military officers could scarcely defend themselves, and they applied for aid to the Governor General, as against a public enemy. A Judge was sent against them, with a chosen detachment of fifty soldiers. Having con-

[page] 21

CHAP. XXXI. 1690.

Rocha Pitta. 7. § 71—6.

Do. § 67—70.

Increase of trade.

Vieyra Cartas. t. 2. 374.

Do. 2. 477.

1693.

sulted with the Capitam Mor and the Juiz Ordinario before he entered the port, he landed during the night; a party of the inhabitants joined him, and guided him so well that the five ringleaders were surprized; and though they made a desperate resistance, they were taken alive. Their followers had been dispatched upon some nefarious errand; and hearing of the capture of their Chiefs, fled into the Certam and were never heard of more. The prisoners were carried to Bahia, where they were hanged and quartered, and their heads sent back to be exposed in the scene of their enormities. This wholesome example produced good effect. Nor was this administration of justice the only improvement which took place in Brazil. The Jesuit F. Alexandre de Gusman, a man of high character, and in great esteem for learning, succeeded by perseverance and the aid of charitable contributions, in forming a seminary at N. Senhora do Rosario da Cachoeira, fourteen leagues from Bahia, upon a river of that name. It soon grew into a large establishment, to which children were sent from all parts of Brazil. The trade, meantime, was rapidly increasing in extent and importance. In 1688, the fleet from Bahia was the largest which had ever sailed from that port; yet there was not sufficient tonnage for the produce. The consequence of this was a glut in the Lisbon market, and prices fell so much that in the ensuing year many Engenhos stopt. Excess of enterprize, however, shows that the spirit by which nations become prosperous is at work. Vieyra lamented at this time, as a melancholy proof of the loss of the conquests, that the India House at Lisbon was converted into the Brazil House: the alteration proved, indeed, to what the Indian empire of the Portugueze was reduced; but it proved also the growing importance of a country which could not in the same manner be wrested from them. So great a traffic was now carried on between Buenos Ayres and Brazil, that when by

[page] 22

CHAP. XXXI. 1693.

Vieyra Cartas. 2. 449.

1694. State of the coin.

the mistaken policy of both Courts, the intercourse was with common consent prohibited, goods to the amount of 300,000 cruzados were left dead upon the merchants' hands at Nova Colonia, and of double that amount at the Rio.

Papel de Antonio Luiz Coutinho, M. S. Vieyra Cartas. t. 3. 399.

Antonio Luiz was succeeded by D. Joam de Lancastro. The representations which had repeatedly been made of the defenceless state of Bahia were at length regarded, and under this Governor the forts were put in repair. Three more settlements in the Reconcave were now large enough to be formed into towns: one of these had grown round the seminary and church of F. Alexandre de Gusman. The currency in Brazil was at this time in a state ⁷ which required immediate attention; the practice of clipping had been carried to a great extent, but had been finally put a stop to, when penal statutes were found ineffectual, by permitting only such pieces as were milled to pass. But the piece which passed for 640 reis in Brazil, was worth 750: many therefore were melted down, and more were exported to Portugal, to which country all remittances were made in specie by those who had law-suits depending there, or were purchasing preferment civil or ecclesiastical, or sending their daughters to a nunnery. This could not continue long without occasioning a want of the circulating medium. To remove the cause of the evil, an order was issued that money should pass by weight; but many of the clipt coins then appeared in circulation, and the inconvenience of weighing silver money was found intolerable. At length, on the representations of the Governor Antonio Luiz, the earnest petition of the Senate

7 Money fell in one day at the Rio in the proportion of four parts in nine, and the loss sustained at Bahia in consequence, was computed at half a million of cruzados. Vieyra. Cartas. T. 2. p. 418.

[page] 23

CHAP. XXXI. 1694.

of Bahia, and in spite of the opposition made in Portugal to the measure, the King sent over persons to coin colonial money, which should circulate only in Brazil. Three gold pieces were struck, the moeda or moidore of four milreis, the half moidore, and the quarter; six in silver, of two patacas, one pataca, and half a pataca, one, two, and four vintems. It was thought too hazardous to coin the money for the Rio and Pernambuco at Bahia, and transport it by sea; and therefore when Bahia was supplied, the mint was removed to those Captaincies in succession. After four years the establishment, having completed its object, was broken up.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 4—18.

Salt mines opened, and abandoned.

The new Governor was instructed to inspect some mines of saltpetre in the interior of Bahia, which it was hoped might render it unnecessary to import that article from Asia. In confident expectation of success, he took with him a full establishment of persons for extracting it; and landing at the town of Cachoeira, in the Reconcave, they began their land journey from the Seminary near that place. The mines lay far inland₂ and roads were to be opened, to make them accessible. They were assayed at four different places; works were formed there, and the nitre was sent in leathern sacks to Bahia: but the expence and inconvenience of land carriage for nearly three hundred miles were soon discovered, and the injudicious project was abandoned.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 19—23.

Negroes of the palmares.

Vol. 1. p. 495.

Caetano de Mello de Castro was at this time Governor of Pernambuco. The Negroes of the Palmares, or Palm Forests, in the interior of that Captaincy, who escaping from slavery had established themselves there in the early part of the Dutch war, had now, during the course of more than threescore years, acquired strength and audacity. Not being attacked themselves by the Portugueze, they acted upon the offensive; they infested the districts of Porto Calvo, of the Alagoas and S. Francisco do

[page] 24

CHAP. XXXI. 1695.

Penedo; and even places nearer the seat of government were not secure from their incursions. Their numbers were continually increased by slaves who sought for freedom, and men of colour who fled from justice. A community which was thus recruited, needed a proportionate supply of women; and like the first Romans, these Negroes had no other means of obtaining them than by force. Wherever they made an inroad, they carried off the negresses and mulattoes, and the Portugueze were compelled to pay a ransom for their wives and daughters, in arms, money, or whatever else the enemy demanded. The only account which exists of their short but memorable history, comes from the people who exterminated them; but it renders them full justice, and will not be perused without some feeling of respect for their character and compassion for their fate.

Their government and institutions.

They were under the government of an elective Chief, who was chosen for his justice as well as his valour, and held the office for life: all men of experience and good repute had access to him as counsellors: he was obeyed with perfect loyalty; and it is said that no conspiracies or struggles for power had ever been known among them. Perhaps a feeling of religion contributed to this obedience; for Zombi, the title whereby he was called, is the name for the Deity, in the Angolan ⁸ tongue. They retained the use of the cross, some half-remembered prayers, and a few ceremonies which they had mingled with superstitions of their own, either what they preserved of their

8 Rocha Pitta says the word means Devil in their language. This appeared to me so unlikely, that I examined a book of religious instructions in the Portugueze and Angolan languages, to ascertain the fact; and there I found that NZambi is the word for Deity; .. Cariapemba is the Devil. It is not used in the sense of Lord, which might explain its application here without any religious import, .. but of Deity.

[page] 25

CHAP. XXXI. 1695.

African idolatry, or had invented in their present state of freedom. They had their officers and magistrates. Robbery, adultery, and murder, were punished uniformly with death; and the slave, who having joined them, was detected in attempting to desert, underwent the same penalty; but those whom they captured were considered as slaves, and were treated with less severity if they endeavoured to escape. The chief persons of both sexes attired themselves in the spoils of the Portugueze: and indeed a regular trade was carried on with some of the Pernambucans, who for the double advantage of securing and enriching themselves, supplied them in defiance of the law, with arms, ammunition, and European commodities of every kind, in exchange for the produce which they raised, and the gold, silver, and money which they acquired in their incursions. The slaves were the agents in this forbidden and criminal traffic.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 24—32.

The Pernambucan government resolves at last to subdue them.

The evil had become very great. Some of those slaves who succeeded in escaping from the Palmares to rejoin masters whom they loved, described them as formidable equally for their numbers, their courage, their organization, and the strength of their city; so that the Governors of Pernambuco for many years considered it too hazardous an undertaking to attack them; and contenting themselves with the enactment of laws which it was impossible to enforce, left the evil and the responsibility to their successors. Caetano de Mello determined to make a vigorous effort for extirpating them before they became too powerful; and he applied to the Governor General, soliciting the aid of Domingos Jorge, Camp-master of a regiment of Paulistas which was stationed at that time at Pinhanco in the interior of Bahia. This officer accordingly was directed to repair to Porto Calvo, and there form a junction with the troops from Olinda and Recife, and the Ordenanza of the

VOL. III. E

[page] 26

CHAP. XXXI. 1695.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 33—35.

Chief settlement of the Negroes.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 38—9.

country. He began his march with a thousand men, the greater part undoubtedly being Indians; and he resolved to look at the Palmares on the way, thinking himself strong enough to accomplish the object without farther force or preparation. This presumption arose from the nature of the wars in which he had hitherto been engaged; and he did not consider the difference between the Indian and the Negro character. The sight of their city, for so it may be called, might have convinced him of his error. A double palisade of the hardest wood which the forests of Brazil produce, enclosed within a circuit of four or five miles a population of more than 20,000 persons. The fortification was strengthened by many bulwarks: there were only three gates, which were placed at equal distances; each had its platform of defence, and was at all times under the charge of one of their best officers. The palace of the Zombi was spacious, and not without a kind of rude magnificence; and the houses of individuals were, after their fashion, commodious and splendid. There was a lake within the circuit, abounding with fish, and there were also running streams, .. but the water seems to have been brackish or salt, for the inhabitants sunk wells, or rather those shallow pits that are called cacimbas, which implies that it was only rendered potable by filtration. There was also a high rock within the enclosure, which served them for a watch-post, and from whence some of the Pernambucan towns and settlements were visible in the distance: Porto Calvo was the nearest. The place was called The Palmares, from the number of cocoa groves which they had planted round about. Besides this, their chief city, they had many smaller settlements or garrisons, called Mocambos, in which chosen men were stationed for the defence of the plantations. Their weapons were of all kinds, and they were equally skilled in using the bow and arrow and the spear, or the sword and the firelock.

[page] 27

CHAP. XXXI. 1695.

They compel the Paulista division to retire.

In front of this place the Paulista pitched his camp, with the carelessness of a man who regarded his enemies as an inferior race. During two days he remained there unmolested; for the Negroes, as well as himself, were watching an opportunity when they might act with effect. On the third, while his men were plundering a banana plantation, they sallied in great force. Domingos Jorge collected his people as well as he could, and fought with his accustomed intrepidity: so fierce a conflict ensued, that more than eight hundred persons on both sides were killed and wounded. Each party was taught by such an action to respect its antagonist; and Jorge was fain to draw off, and make his way in good order to Porto Calvo. A force of six thousand men was assembled there, under Bernardo Vieira de Mello, who for his success in having defeated and cut off a large detachment of these Negroes, had been appointed to the command. Olinda, Recife, and the towns on that side of the country, had raised three thousand men, including two regiments of regulars: many of the wealthiest settlers had volunteered upon the occasion. The Alagoas, S. Francisco do Penedo, S. Miguel, and the Alagoas do Norte, furnished fifteen hundred; Porto Calvo, and the Paulista division, made up the rest. The Negroes meantime, having learnt their danger by the first premature attempt, were on the alert: they abandoned all their Mocambos, destroyed every thing without the circuit which could afford subsistence to the enemy, and collected their whole strength within the city; .. it is said to have amounted to ten thousand men.

Rocha Pitta 8. § 35—7.

The portugueze besiege them.

The Portugueze army being thus collected, made no delay, and encamped in front of the fortifications, Bernardo Vieira taking his station before the middle gate, the Paulista against the one on his right, and the Sargento Mor, Sebastiam Dias, who commanded the division from the Alagoas, on the left.

[page] 28

CHAP. XXXI. 1695.

Capture of the place.

They were provided with ladders, and attempted to enter the place by escalade: .. arrows, boiling water, fire-arms, and firebrands, were employed in its defence, and the assailants were repulsed with considerable loss. Many days had not elapsed before the powder of the Negroes was exhausted: they had not apprehended so serious an attack, .. nor, if the whole danger had been foreseen, could they by their contraband trade have procured a supply in any degree equal to the emergency. On the other hand, the Portugueze had come without artillery: their attempts to hew down the gates, and cut a way through the palisade, were always successfully resisted: considerable loss was sustained, and they dispatched messengers to the Governor soliciting a reinforcement, and saying, that without cannon it would be impossible to enter the place. It was now a trial of endurance between the two parties. The Negroes began to feel a want of missile weapons, and of provisions also; but the Portugueze were upon short allowance: this generation was wholly unaccustomed to the privations and habits of war, and the Negroes were daily in hope that in their impatience of disease and hunger they would break up the siege. Cruelly was this hope disappointed when, from the rock which served them for a watch-tower, they beheld large convoys of cattle, laden horses and carts, advancing from the Penedo, on the river S. Francisco, from the Alagoas and from S. Miguel. At this sight they lost their only remaining hope; and it seems that famine had now in a great degree deprived them of their strength: for when the Portugueze, encouraged by this arrival, and by the small succour which joined them at the same time, renewed their attempt to force an entrance with the axe, little resistance was opposed. The three gates were hewn down, and the Zombi and the most resolute of his followers retired to the summit of the rock; and preferring death to slavery, threw

[page] 29

CHAP. XXXI. 1695.

themselves from the precipice … men worthy of a better fate for their courage and their cause. The Governor was on the point of setting out from Recife with a reinforcement of two thousand men and six pieces of artillery, when tidings of the conquest reached him; and it was deemed of such importance, that money was thrown to the populace from the Government-House, and a solemn procession appointed for thanksgiving. In its consequences to the vanquished, this conquest resembles the inhuman wars of antiquity. The survivors, of all ages, and of either sex, were brought away as slaves. A fifth of the men were selected for the Crown; the rest were divided among the captors as their booty, and all who were thought likely to fly, or capable of vindicating their freedom, were transported to distant parts of Brazil, or to Portugal. The women and children remained in Pernambuco, being thus separated for ever, without remorse, the one from their fathers, the others from their husbands. The necessity of rooting out such enemies from their own border is clear and indisputable; but that necessity originated in the nefarious system of slavery, .. and surely the victory might have been more humanely used.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 38—48.

Dispute with the Governor of Cayenne.

1691.

Meantime Artur de Sa had been succeeded in the government of Maranham and Para by Antonio de Albuquerque. M. de Ferrol was at this time Governor of the French colony at Cayenne; and he, in conformity to the all-aspiring views of Louis XIV, wrote to Albuquerque, desiring that the limits of the two countries might be definitively settled, and claiming for France the whole northern side of the Orellana. The Portugueze made answer, that as to the demarcation of the limits, it was a matter which must be left to their respective Courts; but his duty was to maintain the whole which had been entrusted to him, as it had to his predecessors, and which without doubt included both banks of the river, and the whole of the interior.

[page] 30

CHAP. XXXI. 1691.

The French seize the fort at Cabo do Norte.

1697.

M. de Ferrol did not feel himself strong enough to venture upon an immediate contest, but he retained his purpose. A fort had lately been erected by Albuquerque at the Cabo do Norte; it was built upon the ruins of Camaú, which his uncle Feliciano Coelho had taken from the English; and having been dedicated to S. Antonio de Macapa, was known by the Indian name. M. de Ferrol after a while sent an expedition against this place, and it was surrendered without resistance: then, according to the policy of his nation, carrying on negociations and hostilities at the same time, he dispatched a long memorial to Albuquerque, justifying the aggression, upon the plea that the place was within the limits of the French colony. Albuquerque replied, that if M. de Ferrol attempted to maintain the fort he had thus unjustly seized, he would go in person and demand its restitution with those arguments of war, which, being the most summary, always commanded the best attention: and immediately he dispatched a hundred and sixty troops and a hundred and fifty chosen Indians, under Francisco de Sousa Fundam, to recover the place. This officer was a man of more courage than discretion: he occupied an island in front of the fortress, and within cannon-shot, and there took up a position under cover of the wood, .. but in such disorder that a handful of men might have surprized and destroyed him. The French, however, were few in number, and were too much alarmed for their own safety to profit by his imprudence. There was a small fishing canoe in the bay, upon which they depended in some degree for provisions. Sousa was desirous of getting it into his possession, lest they should dispatch advices to Cayenne by this only means, and so obtain a reinforcement; but when he proposed the attempt to his men, they were silent, because of the imminent and evident danger. He then singled out one, Miguel da Silva: this man observed, that he

[page] 31

CHAP. XXXI. 1697.

The Portugueze retake it.

had not volunteered upon the service, because he considered obedience to be his duty; and when the Captain told him to select a companion, he declared that he would risk no life except his own, and immediately leapt into the water. In broad day light, and under a shower of musquetry, he swam for the canoe, succeeded in loosening it, and brought it off unhurt. Sousa had been charged with a letter for M. de Ferrol, which he was to deliver to the commander of the fortress before he commenced operations; .. this he never remembered, in his eagerness to recover the place: he landed upon the main, posted his men under cover of a pottery within pistol-shot of the fort, and having being joined by a small reinforcement under Joam Moniz de Mendoza, ordered them precipitately to the assault. The first difficulty checked this impatient spirit; and he would have retreated with as little prudence as he had shewn in the advance, but Joam Moniz refused to obey, saying that though the attack had been rashly begun it was too late to withdraw from it, their honour being engaged: he therefore persisted and carried the place, more than a fourth part of its garrison falling in the action. Albuquerque lost no time in strengthening and securing the fort: and the question which an appeal to the sword had left as it found it, was now referred to the cabinets in Europe. The French Ambassador at Lisbon was loud in his demands. Gomes Freyre was called to Court upon the business: he happened to meet the French Minister in private company; the conversation turned upon the respective rights of the two countries, and the Frenchman, growing warm in argument, observed that his master had at that time no occupation for his arms; that if these possessions were refused to reason and courtesy, they must be yielded to force; and that the whole of Maranham would be only a breakfast for France. Gomes Freyre with true Portugueze spirit replied,

[page] 32

CHAP. XXXI. 1697.

Arrangement concerning the limits with France and Spain. Berredo. § 1363. 138.

Teyxeyra. 2. 3. § 207—212. Do. 215—224.

Municipal alterations.

that if the French meant to breakfast there, he should request leave of the King his master to go and prepare the entertainment for them. The more momentous interests of European politics suspended the dispute. Upon the succession of Philip V to contested throne, he and his grandfather were glad to purchase the neutrality of Portugal by ceding these claims ⁹ on the part of France, and on the part of Spain resigning all title to Nova Colonia and the Isles of S. Gabriel.

Some changes took place about this time in the judicial and municipal establishments of Brazil. It was deemed indecorous that the Chamber of Bahia should only have Juizes Ordinarios of the Red Wand belonging to it, like the other Camaras, seeing that the same privileges as those of the cities of Porto and Lisbon had long since been extended to it; and that the wealth and importance of the seat of government deserved and required

9 I have not been able to find the Treaty. Rousset's Supplement to the Corps Diplomatique of Du Mont, (T. 2. Part. 2. p. 1.) contains only a summary of it from the Lettres Historiques for December 1701, and from Lamberti's Memoirs. "Le Roi de Portugal demeurera maitre absolu des Isles de S. Gabriel, & Nova Colonia dans la forme qu'il le pretendit en 1681. La France lui remet toutes les pretensions qu'elle avoit sur Maranon." The article respecting Nova Colonia is thus extracted in one of the manuscripts in my possession. "Y para conservar la firme amistad y aliança que se procura conseguir con este Tratado, y quitar todos los motivos que pueden ser contrarios a este effeito. S. M. C. cede y renuncia todo y qualquiera derecho que pueda tener en las tierras sobre que se hizo el Tratado Provisional entre ambao las Coronas, en 7 de Mayo de 1681. Y en que se halla situada la Colonia del Sacramento: el qual Tratado quedara sin effeto, y el dominio de la dicha Colonia, y uso de dicha campaña a la Corona de Portugal, como al presente ta tiene." Teyxeyra (2. 3. § 221,) would make it appear, that Portugal was induced on this occasion to ally itself with France rather than England by religious motives, preferring thei nterests of Catholicism to its own.

[page] 33

CHAP. XXXI. 1696.

magistrates of a higher rank. Accordingly a Juiz de Fora and an Ouvidor de Comarca were now appointed. Juizes de Fora were also introduced at Pernambuco and the Rio; and because of the distance of these cities from the seat of justice at Bahia, the Governor, with the Juiz de Fora and the Ouvidor Literario, were authorized to settle yearly the affairs of the Camara, and appoint the officers. Hitherto the Chambers appear to have chosen their own officers; three persons were nominated for each office, and their names were enclosed each in a pellet of wax; and these being drawn by lot, chance determined the succession for three successive years. The power of nomination in the capital was now transferred to the Desembargo do Paço, which may with sufficient propriety be rendered the Court of King's Bench. The population of Pernambuco had at this time increased so much, that at the petition of the inhabitants, that province was divided into two Comarcas, the Villa das Alagoas being the capital of the new district.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 50—53.

Improved condition of the Indians.

The laws had now done much in favour of the Indians; and more perhaps had been effected in behalf of this long injured people, by introducing in greater number a hardier, and if possible a more injured race, from Africa. Throughout all the old Captaincies, with the single exception of S. Paulo, an Indian was declared free if he demanded his freedom, even though he might have served from his cradle, and his parents before him, provided there was no wooliness in the hair, to indicate a mixture of Negro blood. The evil indeed was only transferred from one race to another, and perhaps in no inconsiderable degree augmented by the transfer; yet there was a step taken toward amendment: a principle had been established, and sooner or later the inconsistency of continuing slavery in any shape would be perceived. After so long a contest between good and evil, this was no slight improvement: in other respects

VOL. III. F

[page] 34

CHAP. XXXI. 1696.

Vieyra Cartas. 2. 476. Death of Vieyra.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 54. 57. A. de Barros. 4. § 234. 271.

Vieyra describes Brazil as presenting a lively image of the mother country. .. It resembled it, he says, in preparations for war, without men or money; in full harvests of vice, without reformation; in unbounded luxury without capital; and in all other contradictions of the human mind. The genial climate of Bahia had relieved Vieyra from all maladies, except the incurable one of old age; it prolonged his mortal existence to the extraordinary term of fourscore and ten: the latter years were indeed sorrow and pain; .. his sight was almost extinct, his hearing dull, and he had to endure slow fever, and long nights of sleeplessness and suffering. The last pleasures which he was capable of enjoying were those of reading, and contemplating the sacrament, in which, according to the doctrine of the Romish Church, he believed that his God and his Redeemer was present: but he was now no longer able to remain in the Chapel, [or beguile with books the wearying and painful sense of time.] He had been seventy-five years a member of the Company when the long desired hour of his release arrived, and he fell asleep in the Lord: .. his brother Gonçalo survived him only one day, the same disease proving fatal to both. Vieyra had outlived the vexations as well as the enjoyments of life; .. his enemies were gone before him to their account, and his virtues and talents were acknowledged and respected as they deserved. His portrait was taken as he lay upon his bier. The Governor and the dignitaries of the Clergy, secular and regular, bore him to the grave; his funeral was followed by the heads and chief members of all the religious orders; exequies were performed for him at Lisbon, at the expence of the Conde de Ericeyra, in the Church of S. Roque, with all possible solemnity of music, tapers, torches, and decorations; the Court attended, and the Cortes also, which was at that time assembled for the purpose of taking the oaths to the Prince of Brazil.

[page] 35

CHAP. XXXI. 1697.

Troubles in Maranham with the Bishop.

He excommunicates the Ouvidor.

The State of Maranham, which had been the scene of Vieyra's Christian labours, and of his struggles with the civil authorities, was now disturbed by ecclesiastical disputes of a very different nature. Fr. Timotheo do Sacramento, a Friar of the order of S. Paul the Hermit, had been appointed to this diocese, and Cardenas himself did not enter upon his office with more extravagant notions of episcopal jurisdiction. Without instituting any process, or admitting any exculpation, he threw men into prison for living in a state of concubinage, and punished them by excessive fines. The inhabitants of S. Luiz complained to the Governor, Antonio de Albuquerque; and he having remonstrated without effect, found it necessary to appeal to the laws, and send the Ouvidor Geral Mattheus Dias da Costa to that city, that if he could not convince the Bishop of the unfitness of such proceedings, he might afford the people the means of legal redress. This Magistrate being also a Judge of the Tribunal da Coroa, under whose cognizance offences properly fell, requested the Bishop in three successive letters, and with all due respect, to release the persons whom he had committed to prison for their first offence, or remit the process against them to the competent tribunal, conformably to law. These applications being haughtily answered, and set at defiance, the Ouvidor gave orders to set at liberty the individuals who were thus illegally confined. The Bishop was a man whose spirit would have qualified him for the papacy in the days of the Guelphs and Ghibelines: he menaced the Ouvidor with the censures of the Church, unless by a certain time he should annul the proceedings; .. the term elapsed, and then he excommunicated him. But in the interval the Ouvidor had appealed against his censures before P. Fr. Antonio do Calvario, who held, it seems, some ecclesiastical office which enabled him to suspend them. This so exasperated the Bishop that he pronounced a

[page] 36

CHAP. XXXI. 1697.

The matter is referred to Portugal.

Berredo. § 1390—1397.

general and local interdict. The Ouvidor called upon the Chief Captain Joam Duarte Franco, for military assistance, and besieged the Bishop. … What had passed in Paraguay might have taught him the danger as well as the inutility of such measures: he perceived that the soldiers acted with reluctance and manifest fear, so on the second day he had recourse to the starving system, and nailed up the Bishop's doors. The Bishop had not stored his house for a blockade; he agreed that the whole matter should be referred to the home government, .. upon which the interdict was taken off, and the siege was raised.

Death of the Ouvidor.

Decision of the Court. 1699.

After this compromise the Ouvidor returned to Belem, and conceiving himself under no ecclesiastical censures, frequented the sacrament as he was wont. Shortly afterwards he fell ill, and knowing that the disease was mortal, he protested at the time of receiving the viaticum, that he fully expected a favourable opinion upon his conduct from Portugal; but if the Priest of his parish, from whose hands he now communicated, was of opinion that he had acted wrongly, and that any private or public atonement was required, he authorized him to make it in his name; and if a pecuniary satisfaction were necessary, he desired that his whole property might be charged with it. On the following day he received extreme unction, and died with every catholic demonstration of true repentance. Some little scruple was felt by the Vicar who administered the viaticum, whether the deceased under these circumstances might receive Christian burial: on the whole however it was thought that no sufficient reason existed for withholding it, and the body being drest in the habit of the Order of Christ, was deposited in the Carmo Church, the Religioners of that Order, the Mercenarios, and some of the Clergy attending. The next dispatches brought out the resolution of the Court. The King reprimanded the Bishop in severe terms for the violence and ille-

[page] 37

CHAP. XXXI. 1699.

gality of his proceedings, for having usurped the royal authority in the first instance, and resisted it afterwards by refusing an appeal to the tribunal which had been instituted in his kingdoms for the purpose of protecting the people against the vexations of the Clergy. His Majesty therefore reproved him for having given occasion to such scandals, admonished him not to exceed in future the jurisdiction of the sacred Canons, Councils, and Concordats, and commanded him to release the persons forthwith whom he held in confinement. But at the same time a more severe reproof was addressed to the Ouvidor, and all who had cooperated with him: the Governor was ordered to summon them before him, and declare to them his Majesty's high displeasure; .. the temporal laws, it was said, allowed of no such harsh proceedings against a simple Priest, much less against a consecrated Prelate; and they were commanded to go before the Bishop, beg absolution with all humility from his hands, and in the same humble spirit accept whatever penance he might impose. The same dispatches admonished the Bishop to proceed in this point with moderation and prudence, like a shepherd applying to his flock that spiritual medicine which was necessary for their health, and not inflicting punishment to gratify an angry and vindictive mind.

Berredo. § 1398—1405.

Insolence of the Bishop.

The Bishop attended only to that part of the dispatch which accorded with his wishes. His censures were allowed by this decision to be valid, and the Ouvidor, though dead and buried, was still within reach of ecclesiastical vengeance. He sent off a boat immediately for Para with a pastoral letter to be read in the Mother Church, giving notice to the Prior and Brethren of the Carmo, that within three days they should abstain from celebrating divine service in their Church, and should fasten its doors, because it was polluted by the body of one who had died under sentence of excommunication. The Prior obeyed with-

[page] 38

CHAP. XXXI. 1699.

out delay; but at the same time that he notified his obedience to the imperious Prelate, he submitted the reasons upon which they had acted, and petitioned him to relieve them from this undeserved indignity, or at least that he would let them see the process against them, and suspend the measure, which was notoriously informal, as they had not been previously cited. The Prior of the Carmelite Convent at S. Luiz was instructed to act in behalf of his brethren. Twice he attempted to see the Bishop, and was refused admittance; he then presented a memorial, which after some days was returned with a simple superscription that the petition must be made in form. To point out the informality, the epithet Most Reverend was erased that the word Sir might stand alone, this being the most respectful of all forms of address, and such as was used to the Sovereign. A second petition was presented in this form, but no answer was vouchsafed. The Prior then appealed to the Juizo da Coroa, as a competent tribunal; upon which the Bishop notified to him, that unless the appeal were withdrawn within three quarters of an hour he would excommunicate him and the community for which he acted, .. a threat which was punctually fulfilled. The Prior now had recourse to the Juiz Conservador of his Order, who required the Bishop to desist from these vexatious proceedings: the Bishop demurred to his authority, objecting some informality in his appointment; the Juiz Conservador proceeded in form to interdict the Bishop; the Bishop replied by excommunicating him; and every step in this contest afforded a case for the Canonists. Orders arrived from Portugal that the Prelate should suspend the censure, and take off the interdict from the Carmelite Church: he disregarded them; and the Carmelites, having waited a month after the receipt of these dispatches, opened their doors for service in defiance of the unjust and irregular prohibition. More and more

[page] 39

CHAP. XXXI. 1699.

He returns to Lisbon, and is disgraced.

Berredo. § 1406—1417. 1427—8.

irritated, and therefore acting more and more imprudently, the Bishop issued a fresh interdict, and declared that the King had no power to interpose in an affair which was purely ecclesiastical. He then embarked hastily for Lisbon. There he was received with the marked displeasure which he so well deserved; so that he retired from Court sullen and ashamed to a poor Quinta near Setubal, and being summoned to appear either in person or by his Procurador at the decision of the cause, refused to do either. He was therefore declared contumacious: and the affair terminated by his signing a declaration that all his excommunications had been null and void.

[page] 40

CHAPTER XXXII.

Discovery of the Minas Geraes. First code of regulations. Discovery and fate of Marcos de Azevedo. Gold exhibited at Espirito Santo by Antonio Rodriguez Arzam. Bertolomeu Bueno inherits his papers and prosecutes his researches. Growth of Settlements. Second code. Influx of adventurers to the Minas. Decay of commerce in consequence at Bahia. D. Rodrigo da Costa Governor General. Siege of Nova Colonia, which is evacuated by the Portugueze. Luiz Cesar de Menezes Governor. Affairs of Maranham. Civil war in the Minas. Disturbances at Pernambuco.

CHAP. XXXII.

While these disputes in the spirit of the twelfth century were disturbing the northern Captaincies, the hopes which the Portugueze Government had cherished from the first settlement of America were at length realized, and the golden age of Brazil arrived. It brought with it no moral melioration, no increase of happiness, and it may be doubted whether it promoted or retarded the progress of the colonies; but it produced a great change in the system of administration, and in the condition and pursuits of the people.

First laws of the mines.

Vol. 1. p. 358.

Santuario Mariano. t. 10. p. 149.

It had long been known that the precious metals existed in the Captaincy of S. Paulo. In the last year of the sixteenth century, D. Francisco de Sousa, after his unsuccessful search for the mines of Roberio Diaz, sent to Philip III a rosary com-

[page] 41

CHAP. XXXII.

Regimento das Minas. MS. c. 1. 2.

posed of native grains of gold; and in the year 1618 that King issued a code of regulations. Being informed that mines had been discovered, and that farther discoveries might easily be made, the King, it was said, in order to shew favour to his vassals, and for other respects which behoved his service, held it good to confer such mines upon the discoverers, that they might work them at their own cost, reserving to himself a fifth of the refined produce, to be delivered at his treasury free of all expence. Any person therefore who adventured to discover a mine was to give, notice to the Provedor whom the King appointed in those parts, and bind himself to pay the royal fifths: his declaration was to be registered and signed by himself. After these preliminaries had been observed, all persons in authority were bound to afford him the necessary assistance; and when he should have succeeded in his search, the time and place of the discovery were to be entered, with all proper particulars, in the same book. He was to present a sample of the metal to the Provedor within thirty days after the discovery, and make oath that it had been extracted from the place which was registered on his account. If it should afterwards be proved that he had sworn falsely, he was amenable for all the expences which other persons might incur by working at that place in consequence of his deceit, and to be punished also; and if the manifestation were delayed beyond the time appointed, unless a sufficient reason could be adduced for the delay, his privileges as a discoverer were forfeited.

C. 3.

The privileges of the discoverer, according to the original code, were, that he should have one mine, as it was then called, of eighty Portugueze varas by forty, allotted him; and a second allotment of sixty by thirty, upon the same beta or vein: both were to be at his own choice; but an hundred and twenty varas, being the space which two such smaller grants would occupy,

VOL. III. G

[page] 42

CHAP. XXXII.

C. 4.

C. 41. 43.

C. 44. 45.

were to intervene between his two portions. He had thus the first choice, and a second allotment, which was permitted to no other person. In running waters, and in ravines whether wet or dry, the discoverer's portion was sixty varas in length, and twelve in width, measuring from the middle of the water or ravine; that of the other adventurers was less by one third in length; but if the stream were large the discoverer was then entitled to eighty varas, and the other persons to threescore. In what were called Minas Menores, lesser mines, which were in the plain country, upon little hills, or by the side of rivers, the allotment of the discoverer was to be thirty square varas, others having a square of twenty: but if the ground was not extensive enough for the number of claimants, the allotments were to be reduced in proportion by the Provedor. No new discovery could be allowed in such places, within half a league.

C. 7.

C. 10.

C. 16.

C. 21. 22.

Any adventurer might demand a mine, but he could only have one which was to be of the same extent as the discoverer's first portion: two days were given him to chuse for himself, and the choice having once been made might not be altered. Boundaries were to be raised, either of stone, or earth well compacted and beaten down, a covado high, and made in a durable manner: the person who neglected to raise his boundary forfeited his grant, and was subject to the same penalty if he removed it: and if any one had more than a lawful allotment, all beyond that measure might be taken by any person who should think proper to claim it. No one, except the discoverer, might have more than one allotment within the distance of a league and half, unless he purchased another person's; but he who possessed a mine upon a rich vein, was allowed to hold another upon a poorer, though it might be within these limits, because rich silver ore melted better for being mixed with some of poorer quality. If more persons than one undertook the dis-

[page] 43

CHAP. XXXII.

C. 4.

covery, he who first found the ore was to be accounted the discoverer; and an adventurer might seek and work a mine upon private property, because it was for the King's service; but he was bound to indemnify the owner of the land for any injury which might be sustained.

C. 20.

C. 30. 33.

C. 28.

C. 47.

C. 36.

Mines might be granted to such persons only as possessed the means of working and peopling them, seeing it was a disservice to the State if they were not worked and settled. If therefore a grant were not taken possession of within fifty days, it was forfeited, unless the delay had been caused by the want of tools, in which case the Provedor might extend the term at discretion: and it was not to be deemed settled (povoado) unless two labourers at least were constantly employed upon it. It might sometimes happen, when the vein lay deep, that the discoverer could not get at it because of poverty, and that others who possessed allotments there would not work to extract ore for his benefit: but this was injurious to the King's service, and therefore all other adventurers were bound to assist him in digging to the depth of ten braças, upon payment of a fourth part of the value of their labour: when they should reach the true vein, then they might demand the full price. By another provision, every person seeking for gold was required to continue the search till he came to the rock. It had been shown by experience in Peru and Mexico, that where the veins were certain and lay deep, it was easier to reach them by horizontal shafts, than by sinking; an entrance therefore might be made wherever it seemed best, even though it should prove to be from the open mine of another adventurer; and in such cases he was bound to allow entrance during fifty days, in which time a pit might be sunk for the service of the mine. Every miner was expected to lay his rubbish upon his own ground; he was not to annoy his neighbours with it, and should he cast it into

[page] 44

CHAP. XXXII.

C. 46.

a stream he was responsible for any damage which it might occasion: the same law applied to the trees which he might cut down.

C. 49. 50.

In order that the mines might prosper, and that Engenhos and dwelling houses might be erected in the mining country, adventurers were admitted to all common rights of the district. They might turn their cattle into the lands of the Conselho, upon the public ground, and even upon private estates if it were necessary; in this case they were to pay the value of the pasturage, but the owner had no power to forbid them. No man could be arrested for debt while he was engaged in mining, neither might distress be levied upon his slaves, tools, provisions, or any thing needful for the work: the public interest, which was paramount to all other, being concerned in facilitating such operations.

C. 52.

C. 53.

The superintendance of the mines was vested in a Provedor; he and his secretary were to visit them as often as they could, to see that all was in order; and they should not allow any idlers or vagabonds to remain there. Neither they nor the Treasurer were to hold any share directly or indirectly, nor to trade in the metal, on pain of losing their offices and having their whole property confiscated, .. a like confiscation attaching to those who traded with them. The Provedor's decision was final in all disputes to the amount of sixty milreis: an appeal lay to the Provedor Mor da Real Fazenda in causes of greater value. A refining house was to be erected at the expence of the Treasury, and no person be allowed to enter it without just cause. Here all the ore was to be melted; it was to be weighed and registered at entering, and after it had been melted and refined, registered again and stamped. The fifth was then to be taken, and deposited in a chest under three locks, the keys of which were to be kept by the Treasurer, the Secretary, and the Pro-

[page] 45

CHAP. XXXII.

C. 56.

vedor. The stamping iron was to be kept in this chest, which was never to be opened except in presence of these three persons. The punishment for selling, exchanging, giving, embarking, or possessing unstamped gold, was declared to be death and confiscation of property, two thirds being forfeited to the Crown, and the remainder assigned to the informer as his reward. A yearly account was to be returned of all the discoveries and produce. It was added, that if copper or pearls should be found, the King was to have his fifth, and would purchase the best at an equitable price ¹⁰.

C. 59.

Marcos de Azevedo's discovery.

This was the first code of the mines in Brazil. Soon after its promulgation the Dutch war began; the home government then bestowed but little thought upon increasing the resources of a country which they found it so difficult to defend; and the Paulistas carried on at that time their hostilities against the Reductions with so much passion in the pursuit of their execrable slave trade, or so much profit in its results, that while it

10 This Alvara was issued at Valladolid, August 15, 1618, and registered at Lisbon January 30, 1619. The copy in the Casa da Fundiçam of S. Paulo, from which my manuscript is transcribed, gives the first date 1603; but a marginal note observes that the Alvara of December 3, 1750, in referring to it, makes the date 1618; and this correction is proved to be right by the time when it was registered. The copy at the Rio bears date May 29, 1652, and is signed by Salvador Correa de Sa Benavides, then Governor. This is the only paper in which I have found the name of the country so written as if the plural form were in use: partes dos Brazíz:—the form is frequently used in England, but is certainly improper. There is an Alvara dated at Lisbon Aug. 8, 1618, which also throws the mines open to all adventurers, reserving to the King a fifth: the reason for this measure is fairly declared; .. many years had elapsed and great search been made, particularly by D. Francisco de Sousa when he was Governor, and by Salvador Correa de Sa, and yet nothing had been ascertained respecting the mines, and no benefit whatever had accrued to the Treasury.

[page] 46

CHAP. XXXII.

He conceals it and dies in prison.

Memorias. MSS.

continued at its height the enterprizing spirit of this active community took no other direction. Specimens of gold however were found about the middle of the century in the Serras of Geragua and Pernagua, and an adventurer by name Marcos de Azevedo went up the Rio Doce and the Rio das Caravellas, with one companion, and brought back samples of silver and of emeralds. This in its consequences proved a most disastrous expedition for the discoverers; it appears as if they had wished to enhance their importance with the government, and keep the scene of their fortunate search secret, till they could make terms which might secure to them the profit as well as the merit of the discovery. On the other hand, the Government remembered the affair of Roberio Diaz, and insisted upon a disclosure: this the adventurers refused to make, acting first upon a mistaken view of self-interest, and afterwards from that stubbornness which the sense of oppression provokes. The result was, that these unhappy but obstinate men were thrown into prison at Bahia, and detained there as long as they lived, .. so absolute was the Government, so tenacious of its sovereignty, when the precious metals were in view, and so tyranical in its proceedings.

Agostinho Barbalho and Fernando Diaz, directed to pursue the search.

Carta d' El Rey D. Affonso 6. MS. 27th Sept. 1664.

Agostinho Barbalho Bezerra, who held the rank of Campmaster at Bahia, was instructed to search for these mines, upon such vague notices as were remembered after some lapse of time; and Fernando Diaz Paez Leme was desired by a letter from Affonso VI, to assist him in the enterprize. Disputes arose concerning their respective powers, between Bezerra, the Governor Salvador Correa, and the Capitam de Mar e Guerra. Bezerra died before the question was decided, and Fernando Diaz, at the age of eighty, solicited and obtained permission to undertake the service at his own charge. So many instances of high public spirit are found in Portugueze history, that such an offer would not be remarkable if it were not for the great age

[page] 47

CHAP. XXXII.

Fernando Dias explores the country. Pedro Diaz Paez Leme. Memorias. MSS.

His services and death.

of the adventurer. A commission was given him, with the command of all the troops who might be employed; and at his own expence he explored, conquered as it is called, and took possession of the whole country included in the present Captaincy of Minas Geraes, opening roads and forming ¹¹ settlements.

Carta d' El Rey D. Pedro. MS.

1677. Dec. 4,

While Fernando Diaz was thus employed, D. Rodrigo de Castello Branco, and Jorge Soares de Macedo, who had been upon an unsuccessful search for silver and gold in the district of Pernagua, were ordered to join him, and assist in exploring the Serra of Sabara Bussu, from whence he had remitted specimens of chrystals and other stones. The hopes of the Court seem at this time to have been almost exhausted, so many attempts having proved fruitless; and in the letter which the King wrote to Fernando Diaz upon this occasion, it was intimated that if the present mission also should fail, it would be the last. These officers were at the Arrayal de Peraupaba, one of his establishments, when they received tiding of his death in a wilder part of the country far distant. His son Garcia Rodriguez Paez, whom at the age of fifteen he had taken with him upon this severe service, delivered to them according to his last

11 Among the settlements which he formed was one in the Comarca of the Rio das Mortes, called A Vituruna; three in Sabara, .. Peraupeba, the Sumidouro do Rio das Velhas, and Rossa Grande; and others at Tucambira, Itamerendeba, As Esmeraldas, Matto das Pedrarias, and Serra Frio. The memoir from whence these particulars are stated was written about the year 1757, by his grandson Pedro Dias Paez Leme, who had succeeded to the office of Proprietary Guarda-Mor. It is stated in this memoir, that the old man would suffer no person to extract gold while he lived, or even to approach the mines, but that he contented himself with sending to the Court a clear account of his discoveries, and of the riches of the land; and then awaited its pleasure. But it is evident from a letter of K. Pedro, and from the official report of his death, that no mines were found during his life.

[page] 48

CHAP. XXXII.

Vol. 1. p. 314.

instructions, some green transparent stones which he believed to be emeralds, and put them in possession of all his plantations of millet, kidney-beans, and mandioc, and of his herds of swine. It was in search of the emerald mines which Marcos de Azevedo Coutinho had discovered, that Fernando Diaz encountered his last and greatest difficulties. From his head quarters at the Sumidouro (or Swallow, as those places are called where a river sinks into a subterraneous channel) he explored the Serra of Sabara ¹² Bussu, and underwent during four years so many hardships in the adventure, that his companions, in despair of persuading him to abandon it, conspired against his life: this danger he escaped; but they forsook him, and he was left alone. The persevering old man persisted in his purpose: he had reason for supposing at this time that the mines lay near Vepabussu, the great lake; and he procured more men and means from S. Paulo, having commanded his wife to execute to their full extent any orders which she might receive from him to this effect. He reached the lake with so large a party, that he was able to detach an hundred men ¹³ to survey the country and take a prisoner if possible; for it was not doubted but that the natives knew where the green stones were found. They brought back a young savage, who being kindly treated, led them to the spot. But this discovery was obtained at a heavy price: the country was pestilential round about the lake. It

12 Guazu, Ouassu, Wassu, Vasu, and Bussu, are so many different forms of writing the Tupi word which signifies great. B and V are used indiscriminately in common orthography by the Portugueze as well as the Spaniards and both those nations, like those who wrote in Latin, represent the sound of our W by Gu.

13 Bastardos they are called, and the word is explained to mean a kind of light troops.

[page] 49

CHAP. XXXII.

Claudio Manoel da Costa. Patriota. April, 1813. p. 53—5.

required all Fernando's vigilance and exertions to quell repeated mutinies among his people; .. even one of his own illegitimate sons whom he greatly loved, was convicted of a design to murder him, and was hung for the intended parricide by his father's orders. He was on the way to S. Paulo with the green stones which had cost him so dear, when he was seized with a fever; and then perhaps, when the next world was opening upon him, he may have understood the vanity of his pursuits in this. The services of this adventurous old man were reported by D. Rodrigo as they deserved. It was represented that in his old age he had left his family in S. Paulo, of which town he had been one of the wealthiest inhabitants, and had engaged in an enterprize which even the Paulistas at that time thought desperate. No person would assist him with means of any kind; he spent his own property in the pursuit, and was reviled for it as a madman who was wasting the substance of his wife and children. He had hired Indians to accompany him at the price of eight milreis a head: they had all deserted, and not one was sent back from S. Paulo, whither they had returned. He had lost thirty of his own Negroes, some dying before him, others of the infectious malady which proved fatal to their master. No priest was sent to him in his last illness, not even though he had kinsmen in S. Paulo who were in orders; and thus he expired in the midst of the wilderness, without confession, and without human assistance. This representation was not ineffectual, and the services of Fernando Diaz were remembered to the benefit of his posterity. He himself did not live to see the desired end of his labours; but he prepared the way for others, and more than any other individual, facilitated their success.

Attestaçam de D. Rodrigo de Castel Branco. MS.

Antonio Roiz Arzam exhibits the first gold.

The first gold which is certainly known to have been produced from this district was a sample of three oitavas, presented in 1695, to the Capitam Mor of Espirito Santo, by Antonio Ro-

VOL. III. H

[page] 50

CHAP. XXXII.

Bartolomeu Bueno inherits his papers.

1691.

1692.

driguez Arzam, a native of the town of Taboate. He had entered with fifty men by way of the Rio Doce, and brought back this proof that his search had been successful. The Commander supplied him and his people with food and clothing, according to the King's instructions; but Arzam could not raise a party sufficient for a second expedition in that Captaincy. In expectation of succeeding better he went therefore first to the Rio, afterwards to S. Paulo, and he died in the latter town, in consequence of the hardships which he had endured, leaving his papers and his pretensions to Bartolomeu Bueno de Sequeira, his brother-in-law. This person had gambled away all his substance, and hoped now to retrieve his ruined fortunes by an enterprize for which he possessed the qualifications of intrepidity, activity, and bodily strength. He raised a competent party among his kinsmen and friends; and they struck into the woods, following the directions which Arzam had left. The tops of certain mountains were their landmark; and after many difficulties, they came out upon a place called Itaverava, or the glittering stone, about eight leagues from the spot where Villa Rica now stands. Here they sowed half a bushel of maize, and then went toward the Rio das Velhas, to support themselves till their crop should have grown and ripened, .. game being more abundant on that side than in the part of the country which they had traversed. When they returned to gather their maize they found a party of other conquerors, as they are called, under Colonel Salvador Fernandes Furtado, and the Capitam Mor Manoel Garcia Velho. There were now hands enough for mining, for they had brought plenty of slaves from the Caete and the Rio Doce; but they had neither skill, knowledge, nor iron tools, and were fain to open the earth with no better instruments than sharpened stakes. Miguel de Almeida, one of Bartolomeu Bueno's company, proposed to the Colonel

[page] 51

CHAP. XXXII. 1692.

Gold exhibited at the Rio.

1693.

Smelting house established at Taboate.

to change blunderbusses, and as his own piece was much inferior, gave him to boot all the gold which he and his companions possessed, amounting to twelve oitavas. Manoel Garcia, desirous of exhibiting this gold at S. Paulo, offered in exchange for it an Indian woman and her daughter ¹⁴: the offer was accepted, and the new possessor, proud of his acquisition, set off for S. Paulo. His way was through Taboate: there he visited a certain Carlos Pedrozo da Silveira; and this person, conceiving the same hopes as his visitor, found means to obtain the gold from him for his own use. He then hastened to the Rio, and presented it to the Governor Antonio Paes Sande; in reward for which he received a commission as Capitam Mor of the town of Taboate, and was appointed Provedor of the royal fifths, with orders to establish a Fundiçam, or smelting house, in that town, being the place where the first conquerors disembarked. The erection of this Fundiçam had the same effect as a proclamation from Government would have had, announcing that there was gold in the land, and inviting all persons to search for it.

Memorias sobre a historia de Minas Geraes. MSS.

The discovery of the mines not injurious to the Indians in Brazil.

Herrera. 7. 2. 4.

No men had ever thirsted for gold so insatiably as the first discoverers of America. The Spanish conquerors sought for mines, and for mines only: they would not settle in Florida because none were found there; .. they had not left their own fair and fertile country, they said, to become tillers of the earth, nor had they forsaken it like the barbarous northern nations of old time, because it was incapable of supporting them. Ava-

14 It proved a happy exchange for these poor women, who thus fell into humane hands. They were instructed in the Catholic faith, and baptized by the name of Teresa and Cecilia; the latter died at a great age in the house of the Colonel's daughter, a short time before the memoir was written from which these circumstances are taken.

[page] 52

CHAP. XXXII.

Ierrera. 3. 15.

rice was so notoriously the ruling passion which led them on, that their great historian attributes the abundance of gold and silver in the New World to an especial provision of Providence, whereby the Castillians might be induced to seek the idolatrous natives, and thus communicate to them a knowledge of the saving faith. But if Herrera had considered the mines to be a lure disposed by the Evil Principle, for the purpose of drawing the Spaniards themselves to perdition, facts would have been more in favour of the assumption; for never was there a more damning tyranny than that to which the discovery of these fatal treasures gave occasion. For it was in great measure by working in the mines that the original inhabitants of the Islands were exterminated, and that Mexico, Peru, and the countries of Bogota and Tunja underwent so rapid and excessive a depopulation as would scarcely be credible, if the evidence were not such as to enforce belief. After all possible allowances have been made for exaggeration, and the utmost weight allowed to every extenuating circumstance arising either from the general spirit of the age, or the inhuman customs and idolatries of the native Americans, the early history of Spanish America must for ever stand prominent in the records of human wickedness. Happily for Portugal, the Brazilian mines were not discovered till humaner principles had been acknowledged. The contest for them had been long and arduous; they who stood foremost in a right cause were exposed to all those calumnies, obloquies, and indignities, which are the weapons of profligate men. But Las Casas and Vieyra had not lived in vain; .. though they saw their hope deferred, the principle for which they contended was at length established, and when gold was found in Brazil the Indians had no cause for lamenting the discovery. That event seems even to have put an end, in this part of the country, to the Indian slave-trade: certain it is,

[page] 53

CHAP. XXXII.

that it came in aid of the laws. A new object was held out to the cupidity of the Paulistas, and every other pursuit was abandoned for one which afforded an excitement strong as gambling, and which was as permanent as it was powerful.

First method of mining. Acosta. l. 4. c. 8.

When the Spanish mines were first discovered, a false theory in this as in other instances led to disastrous consequences. They were regarded as trees, of which the veins are the branches; and it was supposed that the root was the richest part: the root therefore would naturally be sought; and as there was no other expence in the search than that of Indian life, that expence was not spared by the Encomenderos and their remorseless agents. It was happy that no such opinion prevailed in Brazil; the toil of discovering the mines was far more severe than that of working them. The common method at that time was to open a square pit, which they called cata ¹⁵, till they came to the cascalho, the hard and gravelly soil in which the ore was imbedded; this they broke up with pickaxes, and placing it in a batea, or wooden vessel broad at the top and narrow at the bottom, exposed it to the action of running water, shaking it from side to side till the earth was washed away, and the metallic particles had all subsided. Lumps of native gold were often found from twenty to an hundred oitavas ¹⁶ in weight, .. a few which weighed from two to three hundred, and

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 58—65.

15 Cata, search, pursuit. Catar to seek, to explore. The verb is used to denote the chase of certain "small deer" with the fingers, which is among the favourite enjoyments of low life in the south of Europe, and not always disdained by persons of superior rank. By an easy license, the substantive was used in Brazil for a searching-place.

16 The oitava is the eighth part of an ounce, and passed in Brazil at this time for 1200 reis, .. being the quarter of a moidore; in English money six shillings and nine pence.

[page] 54

CHAP. XXXII.

Memorias. MSS.

one, it is asserted, of thirteen pounds: but these were insulated pieces, and the ground where they were discovered was not rich. All the first workings were in the beds of rivers, or in the taboleiros, the table ground on their sides.

Rivalry between the Paulistas and the men of Taboate.

Garcia Roiz Paes appointed Guarda Mor.

Provizam. Dec. 4. 1702. MS.

Pedro Dias Paes Leme. MS.

The first discovery which Government authenticated and proclaimed, had been made by two parties casually meeting in the search, one from S. Paulo, the other from Taboate. These parties seemed to have coalesced cordially; but when adventurers now crowded from both towns, and their surrounding districts, a jealous emulation was excited, bordering upon enmity, so that the Paulistas would not cooperate with the men of Taboate, nor they with the Paulistas. A wider extent of country therefore was explored, and consequently more veins were discovered than if they had acted in unison. At this time, when circumstances were thus prosperous, and the prospect still more flattering, Garcia Rodriguez Paes was named Guarda Mor, with a salary of two thousand cruzados, with the privilege of appointing deputies in distant parts, and with a special exemption from all fees and formalities at entering upon his office. This was in consideration of his father's services; and when he would have declined it as an invidious charge, the Secretary of State wrote to him in reply, that the favours of the Sovereign were not to be rejected, and that in bestowing this favour upon him, the king believed he was giving him a great thing, and one which in time would be well worth soliciting. Garcia Rodriguez continued the course in which his father had been so usefully employed, and opened a road to the Captaincy of the Rio. The increase of adventurers, and the growth of jarring interests, made them request that a minister might be sent to put the laws civil and criminal in regular course; and a Dezembargador was accordingly appointed.

[page] 55

CHAP. XXXII.

First settlements called Camps.

Origin of the city of Mariana.

1700.

Memorias. MSS.

Mawes' Travels. p. 181.

At this time, and by such means, the foundations were laid of many places which now hold a respectable rank among the towns and cities of Brazil; some settlements still retaining the name of Camps, originally given them from the gypsey-like habitations and habits of the first adventurers, who hutted themselves upon the ground. Thus the city of Mariana had its beginning, notwithstanding the difficulties which were at first encountered in working the rich veins in the Rio do Carmo, upon which it stands. The river was shaded on both sides with woods almost impenetrably thick, and the water in consequence was so intensely cold, that it was not possible to work in it more than four hours during the day; provisions were at an enormous price, till the ground could be cleared and cultivated; the alqueire of maize (about the fifth part of an English bushel) varied in price from thirty to forty oitavas, and the same measure of kidney beans sold for fourscore, which is equal to twenty-seven pounds sterling, .. prices which could only be paid by men who were employed in finding gold, and who found it in abundance. They who destroy cities have their names recorded in history, when those who founded them are forgotten. Such founders indeed as these in the Minas Geraes have nothing interesting in their actions, or ennobling in their motives; yet were they men of undaunted courage and unconquerable endurance. Some local interest may justly be attached to their memory, and families in their own country may trace their origin to them with pleasure, and even with pride. The first discovery on the Rio do Carmo was registered in the name of Miguel Garcia of Taboate; the second, nearly at the same time, for Joam Lopes Lima, a Paulista. The ground where they endured and overcame so many difficulties is now the site of a neat and well built city, containing between six and seven thousand inhabitants, and having a college for the education of the clergy.

[page] 56

CHAP. XXXII.

Villa Rica.

1701.

Mawe. 167. Memorias. MSS.

About eight miles to the west of Mariana stands Villa Rica, the capital of the Captaincy of Minas Geraes, and at one time the richest place in the world, if gold alone were riches. Its population is still estimated at twenty thousand, though it has declined in proportion as the mines have failed, and partakes still of the moral and political evils, which both the habits and the laws of mining produce. It is built upon the side of a mountain, part of a long and lofty chain; the streets form so many steps or terraces, crossed by others which lead up the acclivity; and the manner in which the inhabitants have profited by the situation, may be referred to as proof of their ingenuity and activity, when they perceive an adequate motive for exertion. The water with which the mountain abounds is conducted into almost every house, and for public use there are numerous and well constructed fountains in the streets. The whole side of the mountain is husbanded in a manner not unworthy of the Swiss or the Savoyards: it is cut into level gardens at regular distances, supported by low walls, and on these terraces the finest flowers, and the choicest esculent plants are cultivated. The Bairros, or Wards, into which the town is divided, bear at this day the names of the first adventurers who pitched their tents upon the ground, and formed what was then called, the Arraial do Ouro Preto; they were, Antonio Dias of Taboate, Thomas Lopes de Comargo, and Francisco Bueno da Silva, both Paulistas, the latter a near kinsman of Bartolomeu Bueno.

Sabara. 1700.

The mines of Sabara were registered by the Lieutenant General Borba Gato. Manoel de Borba Gato was son-in-law to Fernando Dias Paez; and the gunpowder, lead, and mining instruments which the old man possessed in this part of the country, were in his charge when D. Rodrigo de Castello Branco, with a party of Paulistas in his company, arrived there on

[page] 57

CHAP. XXXII.

their way to prosecute the discovery of the emeralds. They demanded these materials for the public service; and some of D. Rodrigo's companions, perceiving that Borba was not disposed to give them up, attempted to take them by force. D. Rodrigo interfered to prevent this; but before the resentment which had thus been roused was allayed, he threw out a rash menace, which kindled the anger of Borba's retainers, and they killed him upon the spot. They were the weaker party, but Borba Gato, with great presence of mind, pretended that a ¹⁷ large body of his friends were hastening up, and D. Rodrigo's people took flight to save their lives. When they discovered how they had been deceived, it is said that they were ashamed to return to their own country, and therefore struck toward the sources of the river S. Francisco: they were the first persons who established themselves in that part of Brazil; and from the cattle which they took with them, those herds were produced by which the Minas Geraes are at this time supplied. Borba Gato, believing that no efforts would be spared for arresting and punishing him for the murder, withdrew with some Indians into the Sertam of the Rio Doce, and lived there for some years as a Cacique. But he applied for pardon through his kinsmen at S. Paulo; and as the act had not been committed by his orders, the Governor Artur de Sa, with whom he obtained an interview, promised him reward as well as forgiveness, if he would verify the discoveries at Sabara. Borba gladly fulfilled the condition, and was rewarded with the rank of lieutenant

Claxdio Manoel da Costa. Patriota. April, 1813. p. 56—8.

17 He pretended, says Claudio Manoel, that Fernando Dias was unexpectedly arrived. This is certainly erroneous: for the letter to the Government which contains an account of the death and services of Fernando Dias was written by D. Rodrigo.

VOL. III. I

[page] 58

CHAP. XXXII.

Caethé.

S. Joam.

S. José.

Serro Frio.

General. This side of the country was explored before the other parts of the Captaincy, because the first conquerors directed their course toward the Rio das Velhas, where the open country abounded with game, and probably for that reason with Indians, the chase of which they were in pursuit. The Sargento Mor Leandro Vardes, and the Guerras who were natives of Santos, made their discovery in a place called Caethé, which signifies a forest without any intervening glade; and this inappropriate name is still the common appellation of the town into which their settlement has grown, though it was chartered by that of Villa Nova da Rainha. The town of S. Joam owes its foundation to Thomé Cortes d'El Rei, a native of Taboate; that of S. José, to his townsman Josê de Sequeira Affonso; both are upon the Rio das Mortes. Antonio Soares, a Paulista, and Antonio Rodriguez Arzam, a descendant of the first adventurer of that name, explored a wilder region, which the Indians called Hyvituray, because it is exposed to violent and piercing winds: and which for the same reason is now denominated Serro Frio. The former has left his name to one of the Serras in this district, the richest part of all Brazil, in its mineral productions, but the poorest in whatever truly constitutes the wealth, or contributes to the well-being of man.

Memorias. MSS.

Second code.

Regimento das Terras Mineraes. April 19, 1702. MS. § 7.

It was found necessary to alter the existing laws. A greedy desire of gain induced the powerful, (as the new code called them) to solicit so many grants, that none were left for poor adventurers; .. the former code seems therefore to have been disregarded, or to have fallen into disuse; .. these men of influence had not means for working the numerous grants which they monopolized, so they sold them to those whom they had forestalled, or let them lie unopened; in the first case to the injury of the people, and in the second to the detriment of the revenue. Therefore it was enacted, that no second grant should be made

[page] 59

CHAP. XXXII. 1702.

§ 20.

§ 5.

§ 5. 8.

§ 22.

to any person till he had worked the first; and if ground were still remaining after all the adventurers had received their allotments, it should be apportioned among those who possessed more than twelve slaves, a certain quantity being allowed for every additional head. On the other hand, when there were more claimants than could find shares in the extent of ground upon the scale prescribed, the proportions were to be lessened, that all might be satisfied, as well the poor as the powerful, .. though it should be necessary, said the law, to measure the ground by spans instead of fathoms. The allotments were now regulated by the number of slaves which the miner employed, in the ratio of two braças and a half for each. Beside its fifths, the Crown took to itself an allotment, to be marked out in the best place, after the discoverer had taken his first grant, and before he had chosen his second: and if an adventurer did not begin to work his ground within forty days, a third part of it, upon information of the lapse, should be assigned to the informer, and the other two thirds fall to the Crown: but distance, want of provisions, bad weather, and ill health, might be pleaded against the forfeiture; and if this plea were substantiated, it was to be held good. The royal allotments were to be let by auction, after nine days notice; and the law declared, that the powerful should not be suffered to prevent the poor from bidding for them: if the bidding were not thought high enough, the superintendant was then to see them worked for the Treasury by Indians, paying them the same price for their labour which they would have received from private individuals. The inconvenience of this was soon perceived; it was then determined, that if the Crown allotments were not leased, adventurers might work them at their own expence, and take half the produce: the preference, in such cases, was to be given to persons of most conscience and credit; .. a necessary proviso, when these persons were to

[page] 60

CHAP. XXXII. 1702.

Carta Regia. May 7, 1703. MS.

Regimento, § 9.

work for half the produce of the mine, and all other adventurers for four fifths. No officer of the treasury, or of justice, might possess a grant, nor share in one, nor derive from the mines any other emolument than his salary, on pain of loss of office, and forfeiture of all his forbidden gains, with a threefold fine, one third going to the informer. Any person engaging with an officer in such transactions, should forfeit his grant as well as his profits; and a heavy fine was imposed upon the Guarda Mor, or Superintendant, who should connive at these proceedings.

§ 26. 28. 10.

Carta Regia. Mar. 7, 1703. MS.

The salary of the Superintendant was fixed at three thousand five hundred cruzados; the Guarda Mor had two thousand; the Guardas Menores one thousand each, and in that ratio for the time these latter might hold these appointments. The appointment of a Treasurer was vested in the Superintendant. He was to be one of the principal and wealthiest inhabitants, with a salary of three thousand cruzados; and if the funds appointed for these payments fell short, the deficiency in this case was to be supplied from the fifths. As this officer could not be present every where where his services were required, he was to have deputies with salaries of five hundred cruzados each. The law said, that because all these officers were created solely for the advantage of the mines, it was fit that the miners should provide their salaries; each adventurer therefore was taxed in a tenth of the sum for which the royal allotment was let; .. the assessment however being lowered in proportion to the inferior quality of an allotment. This law also was soon revoked, and the privilege of mining was conceded to the officers in lieu of a salary. The prospect of gain must have been very attractive, if this commutation were as agreeable to the officers, as it would be to the miners. Upon the face of this law, it appears to give them nothing but what they might have claimed as simple adven-

[page] 61

CHAP. XXXII. 1702.

turers, and to impose upon them the burden of office without reward.

Regimento. § 11.

§ 18.

§ 24.

§ 23.

Holders were not allowed to sell their grants for the purpose of obtaining others in better situations; this practice was forbidden, on pain of forfeiture of a year's value from both parties; but he who could not work his grant either for want of slaves at first, or afterwards by reason of their death, might in such case obtain a license from the superintendant to sell, that license disqualifying him from receiving another allotment, unless it were proved that he had obtained slaves enough to benefice it. When a discovery was made upon the banks of a river, the artifice was sometimes practised, of asking time to examine the ground, and employing that time in working it, to defraud the government by securing the first fruits. To prevent such frauds, eight days only were to be allowed for examination, and the discoverer if he exceeded that time forfeited his claims. But as it was difficult to lay down a positive law for cases, which might be so greatly varied by circumstances, it was provided, that this term might be enlarged at the discretion of the Superintendant, when the ribeiro, or bank, was extensive, and the catas, or searching places, deep. Allotments on the shore were to be straight, not measured by the course of the water. When gold had been discovered in the bed of a river, claims were sometimes made for new discoveries in the streams which fell into it; these claims were to be allowed or not, according to the magnitude of the streams. This was a point of some importance; for the fortunate adventurer who made four discoveries was entitled to four allotments in the last, instead of two.

§ 5.

The whole ordinary, civil, and military authority, was vested in the Superintendant, as the Juezes de Fora, and the Ouvidores Geraes, possessed it in other parts of Brazil; and because of the dis-

[page] 62

CHAP. XXXII. 1702.

§ 31. 25.

§ 13.

§ 16.

§ 17.

§ 21.

tance of the mines from the capital, definitive powers were allowed him in treasury causes, to the amount of a hundred milreis; for other and graver cases an appeal lay to the Supreme Court at Bahia. Secret information would be received of any frauds committed upon the Government, that proceedings might be instituted against the offenders, conformably to law. Cattle were driven from Bahia to the mines, and gold dust given in payment for them. The drovers were now required to notify their arrival in the mining district, and specify what number of head they imported, on pain of forfeiting the value three-fold of so many as they should attempt to conceal, and suffering the other penalties of smuggling. They were also to inform the Superintendant of the prices which they obtained, in order that if the gold wherewith they were paid had not previously been fifthed, the Treasury might then exact its due. Any person might go from the mines to Bahia for the purpose of purchasing cattle with gold dust; but unless he previously paid the fifth, and provided himself with a certificate, whatever he took with him was confiscable. The ingress was not equally free, no persons being allowed to enter from Bahia, except the drovers. Slaves might not be introduced in this direction, the law not permitting Negroes to come from any other place than the Rio. Nothing but cattle might be imported from Bahia by way of the Certam; it was required that all other commodities should be shipt for the Rio, and introduced by way either of Taboate or S. Paulo. These restrictions were designed to prevent the clandestine extraction of gold dust. And the Superintendant and Guarda Mor were charged especially to look that no idle persons were allowed to remain in the mines; for such persons, it was said, could only serve to consume provisions and smuggle out the gold. No goldsmith was to be tolerated there, nor any settlers suf-

[page] 63

CHAP. XXXII. 1702.

fered to remain, who had a slave capable of exercising this forbidden craft.

Effects of mining upon the people.

The passion for mining is described by those who have witnessed it in Spanish America, to be a sort of madness, .. at once the most acute and chronic form of that disease which the love of gaming produces. Whoever, it is said, has once begun to use the technical language of the miners, ceases to think of any thing else: from the first trial, although he may resolve that it shall be only a trial, the course of his future life receives its unalterable direction. He has tasted of the insane root; he hears and repeats the common saying, that God has deposited the precious ores in the earth for those whom he has predestined to be the happy discoverers; applying this to himself, he determines that he will not be wanting to his own fortune, and he engages the whole of his means in the search. Men who have been noted for prudence, and even for penuriousness, till they have been persuaded to adventure in mining, acquire a new character from that pursuit, and avarice itself is hurried by its own greediness into prodigality. They are led on not only by those mineralogical indications which may reasonably be trusted, but by fantastic correspondences, .. the direction, the form, the magnitude of the hill or mountain, the herbs which it produces. From the hour wherein they commence this enterprize, they live in one continued dream of hope: the gleanings of a wasted property are devoted to the work with more eagerness and keener expectation than the first outlay; one adventure more may bring back all that has gone before it; they are near the vein, wealth will overflow upon them when they hit the spring, and to-morrow repay the labour, and richly realize the hopes of so many patient and painful years.

Ulloa. Entretenimiento. 12. § 9. 14.

People flock to the mines from all parts of Brazil.

The passion was not less vehement in Brazil, but it was less ruinous; and it was far more prevalent, because the ore lay near

[page] 64

CHAP. XXXII. 1702.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 67.

Regimento. MS. § 30.

Decay of the sugar trade, and depopulation.

the surface, and gold instead of silver was the bait; less labour and less capital were required for the search, the temptation was stronger, the risque less, the reward greater. The gold of the mines became now, says Rocha Pitta, the magnet of the Brazilians. Even the Governor of the Rio, Artur de Sa da Menezes, forgetful of his official character and obligations, went there, made himself the companion of the miners, engaged in the pursuit with equal avidity, and did not return till he carried back with him enough to enrich himself. Such conduct did not escape without the reprehension which it deserved; it was noted in the new laws. Experience, it was there said, had shewn that the Governor could not go to the mines without inconvenience to the public service, his presence being necessary in the seat of his government: he was therefore forbidden to visit this district unless by express orders from the Court, or in case of some unforeseen urgency wherein he would be culpable if he did not immediately repair thither. Adventurers now crouded to the scene of action from the other Captaincies, more especially from Bahia; and not mere adventurers alone, to whom having their fortunes to seek all places were alike, and who with regard to the general good might as well be cast upon one place as another, but men of substance also, who were well settled and beneficially employed for the community and for themselves. Farms were forsaken and left to run waste; the cultivator was not content to wait patiently for the wealth with which the ground repaid him, when he might dig for gold, and had in imagination the prospect of coming at once upon the well-head of riches. For this purpose Negroes were bought up at any price. The owners of the Engenhos could not stand the competition with speculators as eager as they were adventurous; none but the wealthiest proprietors could afford to keep up their stock

[page] 65

CHAP. XXXII. 1702.

Labat. Voyage aux Isles. T. 4. p. 77.

when the price was thus enormously advanced; the greater part soon became distressed for want of hands: they made less sugar in consequence, and as less was made it was naturally made worse, .. that business being usually neglected which is carried on without hope; and the works at length were necessarily abandoned as the slaves dropt off, or as the masters were ruined. Hitherto the European states had been supplied with sugar almost exclusively from Brazil; the exportation now rapidly diminished, and the French and English who were beginning at this time to carry on the culture of the cane with success in their islands, took advantage of the opportunity, and occupied the markets. Commerce of every sort declined when the staple article was thus reduced, and the inevitable consequence of this decline was to increase the spirit of emigration by which it was occasioned. Thus villages and towns and cities were thinned, and the marks of depopulation were plainly visible thirty years afterwards.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 111—112.

Government attempts to prevent this emigration, but in vain.

Alarmed at the rapid progress of this unforeseen evil, the Government hoped to check it at once by a decisive interposition: it therefore prohibited the passage of slaves from Bahia to the mines, and enacted that all who were apprehended in making the attempt should be confiscated, and shared between the Treasury and the Informer. Troops were employed to cut off this contraband transit, and many seizures were made. But it was impossible to guard all the passes in so extensive and so wild a country; and fiscal vigilance is seldom so ingenious, and never so indefatigable, as individual enterprize. Hope is stronger than fear; and in these cases, and to men who were either desperate in fortune, or full of confidence, the stake was little in comparison with the prize for which it was adventured. By sea as well as by land the game was carried on with equal exertion. Every vessel which sailed for the Rio, or for the ports

VOL. III. K

[page] 66

CHAP. XXXII. 1703.

of Santos, S. Vicente, and Espiritu Santo, was diligently searched at the hour of its departure; .. the schemers evaded this by previously sending off the Negroes to Itapirica, or some other island in the bay, from whence they went off in boats and waited for the ships upon the bar. When this arrangement was discovered guards were embarked in every vessel, with orders not to leave it till they were many leagues out at sea. This state of things did not continue long before Government perceived the impolicy of counteracting the natural course of enterprize, and attempting to turn the stream when it was set so strongly in this direction. Accordingly the prohibition was revoked, .. the fortune of the mines, says Rocha Pitta, prevailing over that of the Engenhos: their produce contributed to the victory, and converted the Court to the opinion of the Brazilians, that it was better to find gold than to cultivate the sugar cane.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 114—117.

D. Rodrigo da Costa Governor. Disputes concerning Nova Colonia.

These golden discoveries occurred during the administrations of D. Joam de Lancastro, and his successor D. Rodrigo da Costa. In the time of this latter Governor Brazil was again affected by the fluctuation of affairs in Europe. The arrangement which had hitherto been made respecting the territory of Nova Colonia was so indefinite, that it seems as if the terms had been rendered studiously inconclusive, with a view to after litigation. Frequent bickerings occurred. The Portugueze complained of aggressions and murders committed by the Indians from the Reductions. On the other hand, the Jesuits affirmed that the Portugueze had entered into alliance with the Indians who occupied the country between Nova Colonia and their establishments; that they supplied them with fire-arms, instigated them to attack the Christian settlements, and sent troops to their assistance when they were repulsed and pursued. It was necessary for their own preservation, that they should be upon good terms with the neighbouring tribes, and

[page] 67

CHAP. XXXII. 1703.

that the Indians should obtain fire-arms from them would be the injurious but natural consequence of a friendly intercourse. But for the Portugueze, who were few in number, far from succour, and in front of Buenos Ayres, to have provoked hostilities from the Reductions, in which it was certain that Buenos Ayres must take part, would have been an act of impolicy and even folly, which it is by no means likely that they should have committed. With better grounds, the Spaniards accused them of intruding far into the country, by land and by water, of cutting down the wood upon the Isle of Martin Garcia, which they did not pretend to claim, and of slaughtering the cattle for the sake of exporting the hides, with so little regard to any other consideration that the Spaniards had reason to apprehend a scarcity of food in consequence of this wasteful havoc. These complaints were urged by the Governor of Buenos Ayres, D. Manuel del Prado, with as much asperity as if it had been a personal dispute, and he were ambitious of displaying his talents for acrimonious controversy. Yet upon a strange report that the Danes intended forcibly to establish themselves in the Plata, he called upon the Portugueze Governor to cooperate in opposing them, and required him for that purpose to fortify the position of Monte Video; .. a remarkable circumstance in other respects, as well as for the singular cause of alarm: it shows, notwithstanding the frequent contention and bitter enmity between them, how well both nations were disposed to act together for their common interest against all interlopers; and it shows also that the site of Monte Video was at this time acknowledged to be within the Portugueze demarcation.

Charlevoix. 2. 257. Sobre o Terrilorio de N. Colonia. MS.

War with Spain, and siege of Nova Colonia.

Prado had been succeeded by D. Alonso Valdes, when the part which Portugal had taken in the war of the Succession legitimatized hostilities in America. Preparations were imme-

[page] 68

CHAP. XXXII. 1703.

diately made for attacking Nova Colonia, and the Governor Sebastiam da Veiga sent to Bahia and to the Rio for succour. Four hundred men, with stores and ammunition, were embarked with the utmost activity from the former city. As they were crossing the bar, a ship homeward bound from the Spanish Indies came in, having been driven thus widely out of her course, in distress for provisions and water, standing in need of repairs, and ignorant of the war. There were not wanting persons who advised D. Rodrigo to seize her, and thus indemnify the State for the expence of dispatching these reinforcements to Nova Colonia: but conformable as this would have been to established usages, a better feeling prevailed. The Governor prohibited all persons from going on board the ship, or holding any communication with the crew, except those whom he appointed: he allowed the Spaniards to supply themselves at fair prices with whatever they required, to remain as long as was necessary, and when they were thoroughly refitted suffered them to depart in peace, admiring the generosity with which they had been treated.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 84—7.

The Portugueze evacuate the place.

Other reinforcements were dispatched from the Rio. Meantime Sebastiam da Veiga had laboured diligently at the works, which had been carried on slowly when there was no apprehension of immediate danger. There had been leisure for this, because the besieging force was to be collected from distant parts. The orders for the siege came from Peru; part of the troops were to be drawn from Tucuman, and the Reductions were summoned to supply four thousand men. These auxiliaries were formed into three divisions under four Cacique Camp-Masters, with four Missionaries, who were the real Commanders, and four Brethren who practised surgery. Two of the divisions ¹⁸ came down the Uruguay; the third, having a shorter journey to perform, marched by land. The

[page] 69

CHAP. XXXII. 1703.

Sargento Mayor, Baltazar Garcia, commanded the besieging army. The Portugueze burnt all the houses which were without the works, and made a gallant defence. The enemies' batteries discharged from an hundred and fifty to two hundred balls every day, which was thought a great exertion; mines were resisted by countermines, and the war was carried on by water as well as by land, till the Spaniards brought a flotilla from Buenos Ayres, and blockaded the bay. At length they resorted to the slow but surer means of starving out the garrison. Sebastiam da Veiga apprized the Government of his situation, and ships accordingly were sent from the Rio with orders for him to bring off his men and abandon the place; for it was not deemed prudent to spare men for reinforcing him and enabling him to maintain it. These vessels broke through the smaller craft which formed the blockade; .. six of the largest guns were spiked, the rest were put on board with all the moveable things of value, including the church vessels and the images; the Portugueze then set fire to the fortress, and embarked in safety, after having supported a six months siege.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 88—100.

1705. Luiz Cesar de Menezes Governor. 1706.

D. Rodrigo da Costa was succeeded in the government by Luiz Cesar de Menezes, Alferez Mor, or Standard Bearer of Portugal. During his administration, Pedro II. died, and his

18 Charlevoix says they arrived with six thousand horses and mules of burden. .. He forgets that these were not necessary, and overlooks the difficulty of transporting them. Valuable as this author is on many accounts, he writes sometimes without reflection, and sometimes without thinking it his business to look for information where it might be found. For instance, he affirms that the Portugueze reestablished themselves at Nova Colonia, and fortified the place unknown to the Spaniards at Buenos Ayres, whereas the reoccupation was in pursuance of a Treaty.

[page] 70

CHAP. XXXII. 1706.

Exemplary conduct of the Archbishop of Bahia.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 11—13.

Elogio pelo P. Prudencio de Amaral.

Oratio Panegyrica P. Joannis Antonii Andreoni.

son Joam V. inherited the throne. Brazil, which was once so little valued that space enough for a large kingdom was given to any adventurer who would undertake to settle a colony upon it, was now become the most important part of the Portugueze dominions. Hitherto, its Church had been governed by the Constitutions of the Church of Lisbon: the first synod was now convened by the Archbishop of Bahia, D. Sebastiam Monteiro da Vide, and a body of constitutions adapted to the circumstances of the country were compiled for the Church of Brazil. The Bishops of S. Thomas and Angola were among the suffragans who were convoked. This distinguished primate had made himself well acquainted with the state of his own extensive diocese, by going through the whole of it in four visitations, in the last of which he administered the communion to eight thousand persons, and confirmed more than ten thousand: it is sufficient proof of his proper sense of duty and his zealous discharge of it, that he should have undergone the fatigues and difficulties of such journies in such a land. He built churches, and sometimes laid the foundation stone with his own hands, and in his pontificals, to make the ceremony more impressive: he erected a palace for himself and his successors: he provided becoming shrines for the relics in the Cathedral at Bahia, seeing that they were not preserved with that care, nor in that splendour, to which things of this kind are thought entitled by the Roman Catholics: he distinguished by his favour those Priests who were versed either in the Dutch, or English, or Danish languages, and encouraged them to convert sailors of those nations when they came to Bahia; and he drew up a summary of the religious instruction necessary for salvation according to the doctrines of his church, and distributed many thousand copies throughout the country, chiefly among the slaves; thus in all things acting like a true and faithful servant, according to his light.

[page] 71

CHAP. XXXII. 1701.

Fernam Carrilho Governor pro tempore at Para.

1702.

Meantime Antonio de Albuquerque, whose health had suffered from the climate of Para, returned to Lisbon as soon as the disputes with Cayenne were settled, leaving the government in the hands of Fernam Carrilho, till a successor should be appointed. Carrilho was a soldier of fortune, whose short administration is only remarkable for a circumstance which must have confirmed the people in some of their superstitious opinions. Two Franciscan missionaries had been murdered in the Ilha dos Joanes by the Aruans; a party of Portugueze and Indians were sent to take vengeance upon the savages: they found the bodies of these friars in a state of perfect preservation, although they had lain six months upon the ground exposed to animals, insects, and all accidents of weather, and although their habits were rotten. No enquiry was made into the natural causes of this phenomenon because a miraculous one was immediately supposed: but fraud cannot be suspected; no persons whose testimony might reasonably be distrusted were concerned, and Berredo, who relates the fact, and who certainly had the means of verifying it, is not a credulous writer; .. the bias of his prejudices was toward the opposite direction. The bodies were brought to Belem as they had been found, and after the whole city had seen them, were buried in the Capella Mor of the Church belonging to their Convent.

Berredo. § 1421—6.

D. Manoel Rolim Governor of Maranham.

Disputes with the Ouvidor.

Carrilho was soon superseded by D. Manoel Rolim de Moura, whose ill fortune it was, like so many of his predecessors in this troublesome government, to be embroiled with jarring authorities. The Ouvidor Geral, Miguel Monteiro Bravo, had eoncluded some contracts for the Crown, without having previously obtained the Governor's approbation, as the law required; being summoned by the Governor, that the matter might be settled, he refused to appear before him, for which act

[page] 72

CHAP. XXXII. 1704.

1705.

of scandalous disobedience, Rolim immediately suspended him from all his offices. The Ouvidor withdrew to S. Luiz; but after awhile he returned to Belem, and took up his abode in the Jesuits' College. Rolim, either from the placability of an easy temper, or because he apprehended that the Ouvidor, by favour of the Jesuits, might make his case good at Court, offered to reinstate him: the other would not consent to such an accommodation; and in defiance of the express orders, both of the Governor and the Government, that no person should embark from that State without a license, got privily on board ship and sailed for Lisbon. The representations which he there made were so effectual, that the Queen Dowager of England, who then acted as Regent during the illness of her brother King Pedro, deprived Rolim of his office, and ordered him instantly to resign it to the Capitam Mor of Para, Joam de Vellasco Molina, till his successor should come out. His administration had been popular, and his conduct in this affair was thought so justifiable, and so little deserving of this extraordinary severity, that the chief persons of Belem advised him to appeal to the King, when his Majesty should be thoroughly informed of the circumstances, and to retain his authority till such time, in perfect confidence of a favourable result. But Rolim submitted to the rigour of his orders, and having resigned the government in consequence, departed for Maranham, meaning as soon as his successor should have arrived, to travel by land to Bahia, that he might be in time for the homeward bound fleet.

Berredo. § 1429—1438.

1706. Misconduct of the Capitam Mor.

This conduct ought to have exempted him from all suspicion. Joam de Vellasco however was informed that a conspiracy had been planned for setting him aside and reinstating Rolim in the government: and without questioning the grounds, or even the probability of such a charge, he hastened to S. Luiz with the Ouvidor of Para, who perhaps from motives

[page] 73

CHAP. XXXII. 1706.

of personal animosity, believed that his brother magistrate of Maranham was implicated in the plot. Under this persuasion they proceeded in the most arbitrary manner, and without even the forms of law, to imprison the suspected Ouvidor and many of the chief persons of the land. Rolim himself escaped the same unworthy treatment by taking shelter in the Franciscan Convent, after he had for some time wandered about the island. These troubles were terminated by the arrival of the new Governor Christovam da Costa Freire, Senhor de Pancas, who amidst the acclamations of the people received possession of the government from Rolim, according to the instructions of his patent. This was a conclusive proof that the King had not approved the severity with which Rolim had been treated. Inquiry was instituted into the supposed conspiracy, and it was found that the parties had been accused without the slightest cause.

Berredo. § 1439—46.

Jealousy in the mines between the Paulistas and Forasteiros.

Hitherto Maranham had been the most lawless part of Portugueze America. The restoration of order by Gomes Freyre, and the increase of its commerce, had now produced great and permanent improvement; so that from henceforth the authority of the mother country was as much obeyed there as at Bahia or at Rio de Janeiro. The country of the Mines was now becoming the most turbulent, as well as the most important district of Brazil. In the influx of people, the more desperate as well as the more adventurous had repaired thither: a place where there was no law and no appearance of government, and no restraint of any kind, attracted the dissolute and the criminal, as strongly as the knowledge that gold was to be found by searching for it, drew thither the needy and the enterprizing from all parts. In the absence of any other authority, Manoel de Borba Gato, the founder of Sabara, arrogated to himself the title of Governor of the Mines, upon

Manoel Alvaro Carneiro. MS.

VOL. III. L

[page] 74

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

the plea of his merits as a discoverer: the Paulistas, his countrymen, acknowledged him as the head of their party, and by their support, and the active aid of a certain Valentine Pedrozo Barros, he maintained the rank which he had assumed. There are cases in which the wise and equitable administration of power has reconciled men to the defect or illegality of the title by which it is administered. Borba Gato's government was of this kind; it was justified by its expediency. But his influence seems not to have extended far beyond his own district; no individual possessed the same ascendancy after his death; and the jealousy which from the beginning had existed between the Paulistas and the people of Taboate, assumed at length a formidable and destructive character. The latter were no longer the sole object of the Paulistas' enmity. This powerful party, long accustomed to give the law wherever they went, confounded all who were not from their own country under the general name of Emboabas, a word of Tupi origin, and probably of hostile or contemptuous signification. They did not consider that the superiority of numbers which was at first on their side, had gradually been transferred to the Forasteiros, or Foreigners, as they were also denominated; still less did they call to mind that these strangers whom they had been accustomed to despise and insult; were as high-minded, and many of them as lawless and audacious, as themselves.

The Forasterios chuse Manoel Nunes for their head.

The first appearance of any serious resistance to the ascendancy which they arrogated, occurred in the Arrayal, or Camp of the Rio das Mortes. A Forasteiro who carried on some humble occupation there, was put to death by a Paulista, with circumstances that were deemed tyrannical and iniquitous: the other Forasteiros in the settlement were so incensed, that they would have taken summary justice upon the murderer,

[page] 75

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

if he had not found means to evade their keen pursuit; but so weary were they of the state of anarchy in which they lived, and so sensible of the insecurity which was its necessary consequence, that they now sent to the Rio, intreating D. Fernando Martins Mascarenhas de Lancastro to send them a Captain who might maintain tranquillity and justice. The Governor accordingly sent a commission to one of the inhabitants whom he judged worthy of the charge. While this was fresh in the minds of the people, making indeed the common talk throughout the mining country, a more serious tumult arose at Caheté. Two of the most considerable men among the Paulistas, the one called Jeronymo ¹⁹ Poderoso, and the other known by the not less noticeable name of Julius Cæsar, were standing in the Church porch, when they observed a Forasteiro passing by with a blunderbuss in his hand: the piece caught their fancy, and as the easiest way of obtaining it, they accused the man of having stolen it, and attempted with many injuries and insults to take it from him. Manoel Nunes Viana happened to see this: he was a native of the mother country, a powerful man in the Mines, and a person of great prudence and resolution; he happened also to know that the piece in dispute was the man's lawful property, and therefore he interposed in his behalf. High words ensued, and Manoel Nunes challenged both the Paulistas. At first the challenge was accepted; but this was not the customary mode of settling quarrels in Brazil: they excused themselves from meeting him in the field, and collecting their kinsmen

19 The name may probably have been Pedrozo, and the alteration either a pun of vanity or of malice. It has already been observed, that the distinction of Poderosos, or men of power, was so well known as to be noticed in the laws.

[page] 76

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

and friends, prepared to assault him in his own house. The intelligence was speedily conveyed to the Camps of Sabarabusú and of the Rio das Velhas; there, as well as at Caheté, the Forasteiros looked up to Manoel Nunes as their protector. They perceived how closely their own interests were connected with his safety, and therefore making common cause, they took arms and hastened to his defence. The quarrel now assumed a serious appearance; the Paulistas however, sensible perhaps that the circumstances of the aggression were disgraceful, and perhaps apprehensive of the result if they should proceed farther, proposed an accommodation, which was readily accepted; they promised on both sides to live in peace and friendship, and returned to their own houses.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 20—3.

War between the parties.

From the temper, habits, and circumstances of both parties, it was not likely that such an agreement would be durable; and the heart-burnings which were still cherished broke out ere long with aggravated force. Some Forasteiros went in pursuit of a Mamaluco who had killed one of their countrymen, to the house of Joseph Pardo, a Paulista poderoso, with whom he had taken shelter: Pardo conveyed him away into the woods, and for not delivering him up was murdered by the furious pursuers, who neither heeded his appeals to the treaty which had been so recently concluded, nor considered that they themselves would certainly have acted in the same manner on a similar occasion. Upon this atrocious outrage the Paulistas again took arms; .. as in countries where there is none to render them justice, men will take it for themselves when they can. A report arose that they combined for the purpose of exterminating all foreigners from the Mines, as the only means of securing themselves: .. in this opinion they were not erroneous: .. and it was said and believed also, that they had determined at an appointed day and hour to fall upon them in every part of

[page] 77

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

the mining country, and massacre them all. Though perhaps not a man among them would have scrupled at a few occasional murders, it may well be doubted whether the whole body were capable of engaging in so execrable a conspiracy. But the report obtained full credit. The other party rose again in arms; they collected together from the three camps, went in search of Manoel Nunes Viana, and elected him Governor over all the inhabitants of the Mines; .. in order, they said, that he might curb the insolence of the Paulistas, and compel them to live in obedience to the laws. Manoel Nunes accepted the nomination; such indeed being the state of the country, that if he consulted his own personal safety in regard to either party, there was no other course. The Forasteiros of the settlement at Ouro Preto, and at the Rio das Mortes, as soon as they heard of this election, sent to notify their obedience to the chosen Governor, and to entreat succour against the Paulistas, who were strong in those districts, and who, they said, acknowledged no law but that of their own will.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 24—5.

Bento de Amaral goes to the Rio das Mortes.

The country was now actually in a state of civil war. Manoel Nunes was presently at the head of a large armed force. He hastened to the mines of Ouro Preto, and having secured the ascendancy of his party in that quarter, dispatched more than a thousand men, under Bento de Amaral Coutinho, to the relief of the Forasteiros upon the Rio das Mortes, where they had thrown up a redoubt for their defence, and were in dread of being attacked, overpowered, and massacred. Bento de Amaral was a native of the Rio; .. a daring villain, who having committed so many outrages and murders in his own province, that relaxed as the laws were, he could no longer abide there in safety, had removed to a part of the country altogether lawless. The arrival of this reinforcement released the Forasteiros from their blockade, and gave them the superiority. Several

[page] 78

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

bands of Paulistas who were prowling about, and watching for opportunities of vengeance, were pursued and driven toward their own territory. One larger body had pitched their tents about five leagues from the Camp where Bento de Amaral was quartered: he sent a strong detachment against them, but the commander returned without attempting hostilities, declaring that they were far stronger than himself: this incensed Amaral, and he immediately proceeded against them with his whole force.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 26—8.

He massacres a party of Paulistas.

These Paulistas were hutted in a thicket in the middle of a wide plain. As soon as they saw their enemies approach they retired into the thicket and prepared for defence, knowing the man by whom they were attacked to be as resolute and as ferocious as themselves. Bento de Amaral gave orders to surround the grove; a fire was kept up from the trees, by which one of his men was killed, and several wounded; but after a blockade of four and twenty hours, the Paulistas seeing that their situation was hopeless, sent out a white flag, and offered upon an assurance of good treatment to surrender their arms. The assurance which they required was given; they came forth accordingly, and no sooner did Amaral get possession of their arms and see them compleatly at his mercy, than the villain gave orders for putting them to death. There were persons in his army who protested against this detestable act; but there were also a set of ruffians worthy of such a leader, and slaves, to whom the shedding of blood was sport; and the whole of these miserable Paulistas were butchered. Amaral returned boasting of his exploits. Manoel Nunes, who had been born and educated in a land where, ill executed as the laws were, the habits of subordination and humanity which they induce were still unimpaired, would gladly have expressed his indignation against this ruffian more effectually than by

[page] 79

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

reproaching him for what he had done; but the act was too consonant to the manners and temper of the people, and any attempt at punishing it would have endangered, or probably assured, his own destruction. He contented himself therefore with preventing farther crimes as far as his power extended, and exercised his illegal authority in the best manner he could for the public weal.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 28—31.

The Governor of the Rio goes to the mines.

The people refuse to admit him.

When information of this war between the two parties, and of the massacre, reached Rio de Janeiro, the Governor rightly conceived that this was one of those urgent cases in which the law required him to repair immediately to the Mines, without waiting for permission or instructions from Portugal. He set off therefore with four companies of troops, and went to the Arrayal of the Rio das Mortes, the nearest place to the scene of this enormous crime, and he remained there some weeks endeavouring to restore order. The dreadful circumstances which had recently occurred, and the representations which were made by the suffering party, who now looked gladly for protection to an authority which at other times they would have set at nought, disposed him naturally toward the side of the Paulistas. Those of the other party who were on the spot and were treated with severity, some of them in all likelihood having been implicated in the massacre, sent round to inform the Forasteiros throughout the country, that the Governor was come for the purpose of subjecting and punishing them; that he had brought with him handcuffs and fetters for those who should fall into his power; and that no resource remained for them, but to march against him resolutely, and expel him from the Mines. These messengers roused the whole country, and the Forasteiros called upon Manoel Nunes Viana to lead them against the Governor. No man could have acted with greater prudence in such a situation. The conduct

[page] 80

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

of his constituents, if he obeyed their call, placed him at once in a state of actual and avowed rebellion; if, on the other hand, he refused to act conformably to their demands, the refusal would probably have been fatal to himself; certainly it would have induced them to chuse some other leader, .. the more desperate the more likely at this time to be preferred. Bento de Amaral might be the man, and then the murder of the Governor and his whole escort might be looked for. It is said that the people over whom he held his precarious authority, had determined to work the mines for their own exclusive benefit, and not to admit any Governor or Officers of the Crown till they had enriched themselves; then they intended to acknowledge the King's authority provided he granted them a full pardon, which if he refused to do, they would then retire with their wealth into the Spanish provinces. It is said also that the persons who suggested and supported this scheme were deserters from Nova Colonia, of whom there were many in the country. More probably they acted from passion and immediate impulse than upon any such settled purpose; but whatever their views might be, Manoel Nunes had no means of opposing their will; all that he could do was to temporize. He put himself therefore at the head of the armed people, and advanced to meet the Governor who was now approaching the Arrayal of Ouro Preto.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 31—3. Claudio Manoel da Costa. p. 60.

Manoel Nunes persuades him to retire.

About four leagues from the Arrayal, he took up his position upon a place called the Congonhas, from an herb of that name which grew there in abundance, and which the Paulistas used instead of ²⁰ tea, and found in it the same virtues. When the

20 Huma herva da qual fazem os Paulistas certa potagem em que acham os mesmos effectos do xâ. (Rocha Pitta. 9. § 34.) This I think cannot be the Herb of Paraguay, because the Caa requires a low and swampy country, and must have been well known to the Paulistas by its usual name. Very possibly it may have been the tea tree itself, which is indigenous in Brazil.

[page] 81

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

Governor came in sight he drew up his force upon an eminence in order of battle, the foot in the centre, and the horsemen on the two flanks. D. Fernando was with good reason alarmed at this hostile manifestation, and sent a Captain forward to inquire what were the intentions of the people. Manoel Nunes took this opportunity of obtaining an interview with him; he represented to him the real state of things, the manner in which the minds of the Forasteiros were possessed, the wrongs which they had sustained, their perfect loyalty to the King, however erroneous their conduct, and the compulsion and necessity under which he himself was acting at their head. He declared that if the Governor was determined to proceed and enter the Arrayal, he as an individual would not attempt to resist him; but he explained so forcibly the perilous consequences which would ensue, that D. Fernando thought it more prudent to return to the Rio, leaving Manoel Nunes to govern the country as wisely as he could under such circumstances, and introduce if possible some degree of subordination among so turbulent a people.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 34—5.

Manoel Nunes prepares the way for the restoration of order.

Thus encouraged, and in some degree sanctioned, Manoel Nunes found his task easy. The Forasteiros had won the ascendancy, which they had been provoked to assert; they had committed great offences during the struggle, and being conscious of this they were well disposed to entitle themselves to forgiveness by an ostentation of loyalty; therefore they readily supported their chosen Governor in every measure which bore this character. He appointed officers, military, civil, and ju-

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[page] 82

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

Antonio de Albuquerque goes to the Mines.

dicial; he put up to auction the fifths which the cattle paid upon entering the mining district. Procuradores were nominated, who should go to Lisbon and solicit on the part of the people, that a Governor and proper Magistrates might, be sent to reside among them, and money was collected by a voluntary assessment for the expences of their mission. Before these delegates could begin their journey, D. Fernando was succeeded at the Rio by Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho de Carvalho, who had conducted himself with such ability in the government of Maranham. The same apprehension which had induced the people to acquiesce in the measures of Manoel Nunes, led them now to propose that they should send and invite their new Governor; thus hoping by a voluntary tender of obedience to disarm the resentment which they deserved. There was a religioner at the Mines, who had been Antonio de Albuquerque's Secretary at Maranham; him they chose for their messenger, and he set out on this charge, bearing letters from Manoel Nunes and all the Poderosos of the party, with protestations of their unshaken loyalty and cheerful submission to the laws. Albuquerque was already on the way; he knew something of the state of the public mind, and prudently took with him only an escort of honour, aware how far the affections of a people may be gained by appearing to rely upon them. A Poderoso, by name Sebastian Pereira de Aguilar, who was at this time rising in influence, received him at Cahete. This man had put himself at the head of the Brazilians, in opposition to the natives of the Old Country, whom he accused Manoel Nunes of favouring; so that perhaps if the lawful authority had not been well established at this critical time, another civil war would ere long have broken out. Here also Manoel Nunes came to meet the Governor, and leaving him in undisturbed possession of the government, obtained permission to return to his estates upon the Rio de

[page] 83

CHAP. XXXII. 1708.

S. Francisco, happy to depart finally from the Mines and to escape from his perilous elevation. Whether his merits were rewarded by the court, is nowhere stated; they are however acknowledged in history. But it was not proper that a tacit amnesty should take place, as if there were no authority to be regarded; and therefore a general pardon, upon their submitting to obedience, was proclaimed for all the inhabitants of the Mines to the East and West of the Rio das Velhas, who had taken arms against the Paulistas.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 35—9. Alvara. Nov. 27, 1708. MS. Claudio Manoel da Costa. 63.

The Paulistas invade the Mines.

Rage of the female Paulistas.

Antonio de Albuquerque went through the country, confirming the appointments which Manoel Nunes had made, and creating others, to the general satisfaction of the people, who were rejoiced at finding themselves once more within the pale of the law. Having put all things in order he set out for the purpose of quieting the ferment in S. Paulo and the towns in its district. Here there had been no man like Manoel Nunes to prepare the way. Far otherwise; the turbulent inhabitants were in a state of violent agitation. The men who had been driven from the Mines were received by their wives with indignation and stinging reproaches, for having dishonoured themselves by leaving their countrymen unrevenged. The fury with which these women were possessed speedily communicated itself to the other sex; an army was raised, and the command given to Amador Bueno, a man of high reputation for courage and conduct, probably a descendant of the person whom at the Braganzan revolution the Paulistas would have chosen for their King. Albuquerque met them on their march; he ventured to expostulate with them upon the offence which they were committing; but his representations were addressed to unwilling ears: private information was given him that they intended to secure his person; he withdrew therefore in time, made his way to the town of Parati upon the coast, embarked there for the Rio and dispatched couriers to the Mines to

[page] 84

CHAP. XXXII. 1709.

The Paulistas attack the Rio das Mortes, and are repulsed.

inform the Forasteiros of their danger. Strange as it may seem, they had never considered the probability of such an invasion, and were entirely unprepared for it. The place which had most to fear was the Rio das Mortes; there the bloodiest provocation had been given, and it lay exposed to the first fury of the Paulistas. The redoubt wherein the inhabitants had formerly taken shelter was hastily enlarged, and succours were solicited from all the nearest points. Before they could be collected the enemy arrived, took possession of the church and of a hill which commanded the redoubt, threw up a cavalier, and from all these positions kept up a fire upon the Forasteiros. On their part they defended themselves valiantly, knowing how little mercy they had reasons, or right to expect. After the siege had continued several days, the Paulistas were informed that a great force was approaching to relieve the place; they broke up therefore in the night, and returned homeward with all speed. The Forasteiros pursued them eight days; but the enemy had the start, and fear being swifter than hope, they reached S. Paulo safely, but with no great cause to expect a triumphant reception from the viragoes who had goaded ²¹ them on.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 40—7.

S. Paulo and the Minas formed into a new Captaincy.

Antonio de Albuquerque lost no time in providing for the tranquillity of the district; he sent a sufficient body of troops

21 Claudio Manoel da Costa represents the Paulistas as undertaking this expedition, not from any desire of vengeance, but purely for the sake of restoring order, and securing to the King his fifths! And he says, that they were defied by a letter from Ambrosio Caldeira Bravo, who commanded the rebels. Partial, however, and confused as his account is, it accords with the view which Rocha Pitta takes of Manoel Nunes Viana's conduct sufficiently to authenticate it. In this part of his history, indeed, Rocha Pitta seems to have obtained fuller and better information than in any other. Manoel Alvares Carneiro also gives the same character of Manoel Nunes.

[page] 85

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

Carta Regia. Nov. 9, 1709. MS.

there, under a Camp Master, who was to act as Governor. The next fleet brought out a royal letter which separated S. Paulo and the mining country from the Captaincy of the Rio, and appointed Albuquerque to the new Captaincy, making him subordinate only to the Governor General of Brazil, and giving him authority to fix his residence wherever he might think fit.

Lourenço de Almada Governor.

State of Pernambuco.

P. Luiz Correa. Sublevaçoens de Pernambuco. MSS. Rocha Pitta. 9. § 52.

Luiz Cesar de Menezes having held the general government nearly five years, was succeeded by D. Lourenço de Almada. The administration of this fidalgo was distinguished by unfortunate events, occasioned by no error or misconduct on his part. The first calamity was a civil war in Pernambuco. It had not been easy to bring the inhabitants of that Captaincy into a course of obedience to the law, after law had been so long suspended that a whole generation had grown up in habits of insubordination and violence. Perhaps also partly from condescension to circumstances, and partly from a sense of the services which the Pernambucans had rendered the mother country, a greater degree of relaxation may at first have been permitted there than in other parts of Brazil, relaxed as the rule of justice was everywhere. Two generations had past away since the expulsion of the Dutch, and meantime the increase of commerce had raised up a monied interest at Recife, whose growing wealth, activity and influence, were regarded with no friendly eye by the aristocracy of the land. For there existed a strong feeling of family pride; the descendants of those persons who had recovered the country plumed themselves with the merits of their ancestors; their fathers, they said, had restored Pernambuco to the Portugueze Crown by their own exertions and at their own cost, they therefore had claims upon the gratitude of Government in preference to all other persons; the Government had no right to that Captaincy but what it derived from them; and they hinted in a manner sufficiently intelligible, that if their

[page] 86

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

Recife made a town.

hereditary merits were disregarded, they might find it as possible to throw off one yoke as another.

The people of Recife solicited that that place might be made a town; for large as it now was, and important as it had become, while Olinda had greatly decayed, it was still in the estimation of the law nothing more than a village. They were desirous of this preferment, because municipal offices conferred rank and privileges from which they were at present excluded; for the Pernambucans took care that none but the nobles of the land should be admitted into the Camara of Olinda. The first applications from Recife for this honour were not successful; the petition however was so reasonable in itself, considering that in point of wealth and population this was the third, or perhaps at that time the second port in Brazil, and it was so much the policy of Government to curb a spirit which would ere long have led to all the evils of feudal independence, that the request was now conceded; and the Governor, Sebastian de Castro de Caldas, received orders to erect a pillar, and create Recife a town, according to the usual ceremonies, with all the establishments and privileges appertaining to that rank.

P. Luiz Correa. MS. Rocha Pitta. 9. § 52. 53.

This measure is opposed by the people of Olinda.

The Pernambucans regarded the merchants and people of Recife with a mingled feeling of contempt and jealousy. They called the new comers, and the natives of the mother country in general, mascates; an opprobrious appellation, the origin of which perhaps is not remembered in the place where it originated, and perhaps was never understood elsewhere: a similar feeling, and a like mode of expressing it, had just at this time occasioned the disturbances in the Mines. But besides this party spirit, and the desire of preserving to their own oligarchy, the privileges which they enjoyed, there were strong local reasons why the people of Olinda should in this instance oppose what those of Recife solicited, the port lying so near Olinda

[page] 87

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

that whatever was placed within its jurisdiction must be taken from that city, which thus suffered not alone a relative loss of dignity, but an actual diminution of authority and revenue. The same order from the Court which required the Governor to erect the pillar, authorized him also to mark out the Termo or district, which was to be annexed to the new town: the inhabitants of the Termo were to be eligible to the new Camara, and the order expressed that some of the adjoining parishes to the south should be included in the demarcation. When this was communicated to the Ouvidor, Joze Ignacio de Arache, he demurred, being of the Olindan party, and delivered in a written opinion that the town should have no larger term alloted it, than from Fort Brum to the Ponta dos Affogados, which would have restricted it to its own single parish, and given it the right of taking shell-fish in only half the river. The Governor, however, in conformity with the Procurador of the Crown, and the opinion of other legal authorities, assigned the three parishes of Moribeca, Cabo, and Ipojuca, leaving to Olinda seven of great extent, besides the two which it contained.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

They protest against it.

The Pernambucans affirmed, that the merchants of Recife had accomplished this object by bribery. Their displeasure was so well known, and so loudly proclaimed, that the Governor judged it prudent to have the stones for the pillars wrought in secret; and it is said, that they were carried privately from the fort where they had been cut, and set up during the night, so that in the morning the place was found to be a town, with the name of S. Antonio do Recife, .. St. Antony of the Reef. A Camara was formed, consisting of townsmen and out-dwellers in equal number, and they went in procession with the wands of office. The Chamber of Olinda resented this so strongly, that they went to the Governor's palace and protested against it; and the Vereador, giving way to an intemperance of anger, told him that if he

[page] 88

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

Arrest of some Pernambucan nobles.

Orders to disarm the people.

Attempt to assassinate the Governor.

could put the pillar up, they could throw it down again. In consequence of the high words which then past, and the seditious discourses which were afterwards held, this magistrate, and Manoel Cavalcanti Bezerra, were arrested and confined in one of the forts. Shortly afterwards, Leonardo Bezerra Cavalcanti, and his son Cosme Bezerra, were apprehended upon a public report that they were the authors of a murder committed upon one of the inhabitants in his own house at night. This report was verified by a judicial inquiry; but murder was too ordinary an occurrence in that country, and had too often been committed with impunity, for the people to regard it with any degree of indignation; .. their sympathies were usually with the offender, not with the law; and the arrest of these persons was considered not as an act of justice, but of malice and political resentment. Plans for getting rid of the Governor were now formed by the malcontents, at the head of whom were the Captain Andre Diaz de Figueiredo, and his nephew Sebastian de Carvalho. He was apprized of these plans, and in consequence of the intimation issued an order that the Pernambucans should give up their arms to be deposited in the royal arsenals. Officers were sent through the different towns and districts to collect them. The people complained that they were deprived of the means of defending themselves against robbers; they who dwelt in the interior were exposed also to the savages, and shooting was one of the common occupations of all Classes, .. many indeed depending in great part for their sustenance upon what they could thus provide. The measure was both futile and offensive: it was certain, that those persons who intended to make an ill use of their weapons would not surrender them; and on the other hand, no security would be obtained by disarming the well intentioned and the inoffensive. The uselessness of this precaution was soon perceived for as the Governor was walking toward the Boa

[page] 89

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

Vista, which was his usual promenade, he was fired at from one of the houses and wounded in four places: three men with their faces painted and each with a musket, immediately ran out from a back door; but they were seen and recognized notwithstanding their disguise.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

Andre Diaz de Figueiredo is arrested.

The Bishop takes part with the discontented.

Sebastian de Castro was carried home, and his wounds appeared so dangerous that they were not examined till he had previously settled his spiritual concerns. One ball was extracted which had a hole in it filled with corrosive sublimate. Andre Diaz de Figueiredo soon came to the palace, as if endeavouring to conceal his part in the intended assassination: his manifest perturbation increased the strong suspicion against him, and he was immediately arrested; one other person was also apprehended, and several fled. The Bishop of Olinda, D. Manoel Alvarez da Costa, was at this time preparing to set out on his visitation to Paraiba. When the public tranquillity was so likely to be disturbed, it was his duty to have remained upon the spot, and have exerted the great influence which his situation gave him, in behalf of the laws; and it was the more incumbent upon him to be present, because in case of the Governor's death he was to succeed him, the first person who had been nominated in the succession-papers being dead: nevertheless, after paying a short visit of ceremony to the wounded Governor, he began his journey. The Ouvidor accompanied him. Sebastian de Castro believed that this Magistrate was implicated in the conspiracy which had been directed against his life, and which was still going on against his authority; he therefore sent a party of soldiers to arrest him. They found him at the Engenho of Tapirema in Goyana; he took sanctuary in the Chapel of the Engenho. The commander of the troops surrounded the Chapel, sent to the Governor for instructions how to proceed, and informed the Bishop of his orders. The Bishop collected

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[page] 90

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

the clergy and friars of the neighbourhood; many persons came to assist their spiritual guides, the Ouvidor was delivered by force of arms, and he and the Bishop accelerated their journey lest they should be overtaken by a second and stronger detachment.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

Insurrection of the Pernambucans.

Encouraged by the sanction which was thus given to their cause, the Pernambucans collected in armed bodies. Troops were sent against them with little success; some were blockaded by the insurgents, others who were ordered to relieve them contrived to make circuitous marches and not reach the spot in time. In many places blood was shed. The Governor, who was still confined to his bed, found it necessary to recall those who were faithful, that he might secure the forts; for the insurgents were increasing in numbers and audacity, and threatened Recife with a siege. Some of the officers obeyed, others permitted their detachments to be surrounded, that they might plead necessity as an excuse for surrendering and suffering their men to join the insurrection. Sebastian de Castro was now thoroughly sensible of his perilous situation, and in no condition either of body or mind to struggle against such circumstances. He had recourse to the worst of all means, those of timorous concession, and sent the Ouvidor, Luiz de Valençuela Ortis, with some of the more eminent Religioners of the different orders in Recife, to mollify the insurgents, and promise in his name that the persons whom he had arrested should be set at liberty, if it were on this account that they had taken arms. Not daring to await the event of this pitiful embassy in S. Antonio, where he resided, he removed within the walls of Recife. The Ouvidor returned at midnight, bringing for a reply, that as for the prisoners, the Pernambucans would set them at liberty themselves, and that the object for which they had taken arms was to have the head of the Governor and of certain other per-

[page] 91

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

The Governor is induced to fly.

sons. Upon this he immediately dispatched a boat to Paraiba to solicit assistance from the Governor, Joam da Maya da Gama. But the enemy would be upon him before this assistance could arrive. Some of the opposite party with whom he was upon courteous terms came into the city, and either really from personal regard, or under the semblance of it to promote their political purposes, advised him to withdraw: there was a vessel, they said, in the port, ready for sea; he had better embark for Bahia, and take those persons with him who were marked for popular vengeance: as soon as it was known that he and the other obnoxious individuals were removed, the insurgents would be satisfied, the people would escape the horrors with which they were now menaced, order would be restored, and he had good reason to expect that the King would approve his conduct in retiring, as the most judicious which under such circumstances could have been chosen. Sebastian de Castro was easily led to this determination; it had already been proved that there were men who sought to murder him, he knew that when a people threaten the life of their ruler it is not likely that any sense of duty or humanity will deter them from taking it; and whether in the present case the point of honour required that he should die at his post, was a question which the most indifferent person might have hesitated to answer in the affirmative, and which the most rigid would not condemn him too severely for resolving in his own favour. So he embarked, and with him some of the principal inhabitants of Recife.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

The insurgents enter the town.

Nov. 7.

One great body of the insurgents, with the nobles of the country at their head, were at Affogados; they saw the vessel cross the bar, but would not readily believe that the object of their vengeance had taken flight, and escaped their hands. When the Ouvidor returned and assured them of the fact, they demanded that he should grant them a formal pardon for all acts

[page] 92

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

Vol. 2. p. 556.

committed during the insurrection. A legist of their party dictated the terms of the instrument, and a notary drew it up. They were interrupted by an uproar in this tumultuous assemblage; a person who had been to Recife ventured to speak on behalf of that obnoxious place, for which some of the insurgents and the soldiers who had joined them sought to put him to death. The Ouvidor and some Religioners rescued him from their fury, but owing to this confusion the pardon was left unfinished; perhaps they who required it had by this time recollected how futile it was to depend upon forms of law when they were acting in defiance of the law. On the following day they proceeded against the forts, which were given up without resistance. Another body had now arrived at Boa Vista; their collected numbers amounted nearly to twenty thousand men, and among their leaders were many names which had appeared with more honour in the history of the war against the Dutch. They prepared to enter Recife; the Religioners endeavoured to dissuade them, dwelling particularly upon the criminality of terrifying the Women, .. an argument little likely to be regarded by the multitude. Joam de Barros Rego was one of the most active in exciting and directing the insurrection; and he, it is said, expected that the chief authority would be confided to his hands, because in the former disturbances his father was the Juiz Ordinario who arrested the Governor Jeronymo Mendoça Furtado. A party was sent forward to throw down the pillar, .. thus in their conceit annulling the obnoxious privileges which had been granted to Recife; and on the second day after Sebastian de Castro's flight, they entered the degraded town in a manner characteristic of the people. They had collected all the Magistrates and the Religioners of all the Convents, those who were not of the triumphant faction thinking it unavailing to resist the stream. These led the way with the image of Our Lady of the

[page] 93

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

Rosary; a train of children followed chaunting the terço, or third of the bead-roll, which was at that time the fashionable practice of devotion at Recife; then came the armed multitude, having laid aside the gala ornaments which before had been ostentatiously displayed, and bare of foot. In this manner they proceeded to the square where the pillar was lying broken on the ground, and there, in safe defiance, a champion on the part of the insurgents demanded if any person would defend the rights of Recife to the privileges of a town. The wealthier inhabitants had taken shelter in the Convents; they were nevertheless compelled to give ammunition, money, and whatever else, according to the license of the times, petitioners who knew that nothing could be refused them thought proper to demand; but no direct act of plunder was committed, neither were any outrages. The greater part of the people, misled as usual on such occasions, believed that they were only, asserting their rights, and perhaps the forms of religion which had been brought forth were not without a humanizing and salutary effect.

P. Luiz Correa. MS. Rocha Pitta. 9. § 57—58.

Measures of the Insurgents.

Their business in Recife being accomplished, they went on to Olinda. Another body of insurgents from Serinhaem and Ipojuca arrived on the following day, and would have their triumph also; they entered in the same order, and finding no pillar to destroy, they broke open the prison and let out the criminals and debtors. For such persons there was perhaps a fellow-feeling among those who on this occasion led the rabble; it is more remarkable that they released some unhappy men who had been sentenced to banishment by the Portugueze Inquisition and were arrived at Pernambuco, and there waiting in jail for means of transport to their destined place of exile; .. their deliverance is recorded as one of the great crimes of the insurrection! Being now collected at Olinda, the great proprietors

[page] 94

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

took counsel how to proceed. It was known that the Bishop was named in the succession-papers for Governor; some however advised that the nomination should not be regarded, but that six of their own countrymen should be provisionally entrusted with the administration till a Governor should arrive from Lisbon; if he brought out a full pardon, and was authorized also to concede such terms as they should insist upon, they would deliver the power into his hands, and continue in their obedience to the mother country as heretofore; if, on the contrary, the conditions which they required should be refused, then they would establish a government for themselves, like that of Holland or of Venice. Such an intention may be traced less surely to their long intercourse with the Dutch, than to the natural tendency of all colonies toward republicanism. But the majority were not willing to proceed so far; they had been brought up in feelings of devoted loyalty, and they hoped or expected to make their case good at court; having therefore accomplished the purpose for which they had taken arms, they determined to proceed according to the course of law, and dispatched a messenger to summon the Bishop from Paraiba, that he might take possession of the Government which had devolved upon him: they knew that the Bishop was of their party. Some acts of authority were exercised before his arrival. Sentence of banishment was proclaimed by sound of trumpet against those who had fled with the Governor, and against a few other persons. A Juiz do Povo was elected, although that office had been abolished, because experience had shown how easily it was made subservient to seditious views; And all natives of the mother country who held offices in Pernambuco were required to present their commissions to the Camara of Olinda on the following day, on pain of death: their commissions were taken from them, and they were deprived of the insignia of their respective situations.

[page] 95

CHAP. XXXII. 1710.

The Bishop assumes the Government.

The Bishop lost no time in obeying the summons; and the Governor of Paraiba sent after him the Ouvidor of that Captaincy, and two Desembargadores, whom he charged to remind the Pernambucans that they had a King whom it was their duty to obey. There was need of such advice, for the republican party resolutely persisted in their purpose, and after three days warm contention, they prevailed so far as to have it agreed that the opinion of the people should be taken, and the question determined by vote. Accordingly delegates were convoked from all the parishes; but upon a division the royalists were found to be the majority, and the Bishop then took possession with the usual forms. His first act was to issue a full and general pardon in the King's name; .. this was an act of necessity as well as prudence, and it enabled him to excuse himself from giving the same sanction to certain conditions which he was called upon to concede, He proceeded in the next place to divide the spoils of office; but here, as in all such cases, there were more claimants than it was possible to satisfy; and though men were appointed to situations who were below the age which the law required, and though a new regiment was formed for the mere purpose of creating commissions, many were discontented because they were not included in these promotions. Processes were now made out, and ²² depositions taken to be sent to Lisbon, for the justification of the

22 An Italian Capuchin was at this time in Recife, on his way to Portugal from the Mission in Angola. There were three ships preparing to sail, each of which carried some of these papers; and he declared he would not embark in either, because they had such a cargo of perjuries on board. P. Luiz Correa refers triumphantly to the event; for the Capuchin went round by Bahia and got safely to Lisbon, but not one of the three ships ever arrived.

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ruling party; and the utmost vigilance was exerted to prevent any counterstatements from finding their way there. Every vessel that sailed for Bahia, or the Azores, or for any other part from whence intelligence might be conveyed to the Court, was rigourously searched, and private letters were examined with so little reserve or decency, that the manner was more offensive than the act. But while this odious authority was exercised for factious purposes, there was a total suspension of the needful and wholesome exercise of power. Men disguised by bringing their hoods over their faces, committed in the streets of Recife whatever outrages were prompted by private malignity, or the spirit of wanton mischief; the inhabitants found it necessary to shut up their houses as soon as the Ave Maria bell sounded, and this precaution did not always preserve them from insult and injury.

P. Luiz Correa MS.

1711. Bernardo Vieira comes to Recife.

Case of jealousy in his family, and deliberate murder.

Bernardo Vieira de Mello, who had commanded the successful expedition against the Palmares, had hitherto taken no part in these transactions. He had been rewarded with the rank of Sargento Mor, and a regiment called the Terço do Palmar in memory of that war, and stationed at the scene of his achievements. Under pretence that the affairs of the regiment required his presence, he came to the scene of action; he brought with him an unusual number of attendants, and appeared in public with a retinue which was stronger, as well as more splendid, than any of the former Governors had thought necessary for the dignity of their office, or the security of their persons. He and his son Andre Vieira de Mello were two of the persons by whom the Bishop was directed; and there occurred a scandalous and shocking instance of the influence which they possessed. Andre Vieira suspected his wife of adultery: she resided at an Engenho in the Freguezia do Cabo; thither he repaired, taking with him some slaves and some soldiers of his

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father's regiment. Joam Paez Barreto, the Capitam Mor of the place, was the person of whom he was jealous; him he put to death, and then putting his wife, who was pregnant at the time, into a hammock, dispatched her under the charge of his uncle and his brother to an Engenho of his father's, to be given into the keeping of his mother D. Catharina Leitam; there she was to remain with guards continually in sight till the time of her delivery, after which she was to be murdered: .. and for this service the detestable husband could rely upon his more detestable mother. Adultery has in many countries been punished with death; .. but horrible must be the manners of that land where a whole family could thus deliberately take upon them selves the office of executioners. In ordinary cases of murder, for it was a thing sufficiently common, men used to go through the form of obtaining an exemption from arrest, before they appeared in public; such a formality was not thought needful now, and Andre Vieira appeared in Recife, in gala dress, publicly avowing not only that he had committed one murder, but that he intended to compleat his vengeance by committing another, under the most inhuman of all imaginable circumstances. The matter was so notorious, that a Friar called upon the Bishop and exhorted him to interfere and prevent the crime; the Bishop coolly replied, that he could not interfere in the private affairs of noble men, who ought not to live, he said, under any note of disgrace.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

Bernardo Vieira acts as leader of the republican party.

Bernardo Vieira's object in coming to Recife was to act as leader of the republican party. The intention was to get possession of the forts; and if the new Governor, who was now daily expected from Lisbon, should not bring out a full pardon, and explicit powers of conceding all the conditions which should be demanded, to refuse him admittance, and proclaim a Commonwealth, .. Bernardo probably expecting to put himself

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The Loyalists are roused by his designs.

at the head of a new order of things. For this purpose, under pretext of an expedition against a Mocambo, which he said had been formed in that part of the country, he brought about a hundred soldiers from the Palmares to his Engenho in Ipojuca, where his daughter-in-law had been murdered, and where the Capitam Mor was one of his dependants. Leonardo Bezerra Cavalcanti went at the same time to the Alagoas, and there excited the inhabitants to throw off the yoke which subjected them to the ministers of the King of Portugal; .. to be a native of which kingdom, he said, was the same thing as to be a rogue. These intentions were suspected in Recife; the inhabitants of that place were good subjects; and indeed, although ambitious and speculative men would gladly have raised a storm which they fancied themselves able to controul, the great majority of the Pernambucans desired the peaceful continuance of an order of things under which they endured few grievances or vexations from Government of any kind. Some of the better party, who were men of resolution, weary of the state of insecurity in which they lived, and perceiving that other and greater evils were designed, began to look about, and calculate the means of resistance, assured as they were of the support of the Crown. The person on whom they cast their eyes was the Governor of Paraiba, Joam da Maya da Gama; they apprized him of the designs which were brooding, and of their own disposition for the King's service. Joam da Maya wrote to the Bishop and exhorted him to be upon his guard. No man could be more unwilling to have his eyes opened; he would have disregarded this as he had done all former advice from the same quarter, if a more alarming intimation, coming about the same time, had not awakened him to some sense of danger. Late at night the commanding officer was roused by loud knocking at his door, and when he came forward, some unknown persons told him to

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watch over the powder magazine, because a plan had been formed for seizing it, or blowing it up. When this was reported to the Bishop a double guard was set in consequence. Bernardo Vieira perceiving thus that the alarm had been given, sent for Leonardo Bezerra Cavalcanti to return to Recife, and directed him to make all their partizans along the road hold themselves in readiness. It is doubtful how far the Bishop was disposed to go with the revolutionary party; ignorant of their designs he could not possibly be, because they had been publicly avowed; and it may be suspected from the whole tenour of his conduct, that he was not disinclined to them, but that his chief solicitude was so to trim his administration, as that if the authority of the Crown were reestablished he might have merits to plead on that side also, and claims to promotion. In the present state of things it became necessary that he should at least appear to make an attempt for removing Bernardo Vieira; and accordingly, through a third person, he communicated his wish that he would depart from Recife. The Sargento Mor replied, he had not yet compleated the affairs which brought him there; and that he had now also the additional business of obtaining an acquittance for his son for the death of his wife and of Joam Paez Barreto; .. so easily were murders of this kind settled in Brazil.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

A counter-revolution effected in Recife.

Orders had been given to arrest certain soldiers of the Recife regiment, for a quarrel with some of Bernardo Vieira's men; some of their officers interfered, and represented to the Bishop the real circumstances of the affray, by which it appeared that the soldiers had not been in fault: all the reply they could obtain was, that it was an affair in which Bernardo Vieira interested himself, and the men must be punished, and condemned to banishment. Upon this they took sanctuary in the Carmo Convent; they were eight or ten in number, resolute fellows,

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Arrest of Bernardo Vieira.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

indignant at the injustice with which they were treated, and now also thoroughly zealous for the Government, seeing that their own present safety depended upon its triumph. They knew that there was a strong party of loyalists in Recife, that the Governor of Paraiba was looked to for support, and that they could reckon upon the fidelity of the Indians to the royal cause, who were still under the command of a Camaram, and of the black regiment still called the Henriques, in memory of their distinguished commander during the Dutch war. At noon-day they sallied from the Carmo ²³ Church, sword in hand, went straight to the house of their drummer, whom they knew they should find sleeping at that hour, and made him take up his drum and beat the rendezvous, while they proceeded to the quarters of the infantry, crying, Long live the King, and Down with the Traitors. The troops instantly joined them; certain officers put themselves at their head, the inhabitants took up the loyal cry, and the Bishop perceiving that Recife was in their hands, retired into the Jesuits' College. He sent messengers to persuade them to disperse, and among others the Ouvidor. They were surrounding the house of Bernardo Vieira when this magistrate arrived, and he found it expedient, in conformity with their decided intention, to take upon himself the office of arresting Bernardo in legal form, and sending him under an escort to the public prison.

The Bishop assents to the measures of the Loyalists;

The soldiers now proceeded to the Jesuits' College, and de-

23 "What however is most certain, says P. Luiz Correa, is, that Our Lady of Mount Carmel incited them to their attempt;" .. a sentence, which may be truly expounded thus; that having taken sanctuary in her Church, they said an additional number of Ave-Marias, and recommended themselves to her peculiar protection before they began their enterprize.

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manded to see the Bishop; he came accordingly to the window, and enquired what they would have. They told him they had arrested Bernardo Vieira, as a man whose tyrannical demeanour and treasonable practices were notorious; and that it was necessary for the King's service to garrison the forts with men who might be trusted, and in like manner to set a trusty guard over the magazine: they required him therefore to give proper orders, and to direct that arms, ammunition, and stores, should be issued for this purpose. The Bishop did as he was required, and the commanding officer was instructed to see these orders carried into effect. The soldiers now put forth a proclamation in their own name, stating the motives of their conduct: when they had surrendered to the insurgents, they said, the fault was not in them, but in their officers; they now vindicated themselves, and it would appear to the King and to the World, that they were his Majesty's faithful vassals. Sebastian de Castro, they maintained, was still their Governor, and the town of Recife was a City. This latter clause proved that the paper was drawn up by ignorant men, and that the insurrection in behalf of the Government originated with them, not with persons of superior rank. The Capitam Mandante, Joam da Mota, was the person whom they required to command them. Joam da Mota now went to the College and requested that the Bishop would return to the Governor's palace, protesting that the soldiers acknowledged his authority, and were ready to obey him, as men who desired nothing more than to be obedient in all things which were for the King's service; he assured the Ouvidor also that no injury or disrespect was intended him, and besought him likewise to return to his own house. They both consented; but before they left the College, they provided for the escape of Andre Vieira and Andre Diaz de Figuieiredo, who had taken refuge there. Horses were brought for them to a

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postern door, and they rode off into the country, telling those whom they met by the way, that they would speedily return and requite the people of Recife for that day's work. Leonardo Bezerra attempted to play a more artful part; at the first alarm he got into the country; but he endeavoured to assume the command of the troops, and sent in an order that the soldiers who received pay should separate themselves from the inhabitants. One of the men returned for answer, that on this occasion they were all soldiers, and that Leonardo Bezerra might reserve his orders for those who were engaged in the same projects as himself.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

The Bishop goes upon false pretences to Olinda.

It was soon known that the independent leaders were again raising the country. The people of Olinda were with them, and cut off the communication with Recife. D. Joam de Sousa, who resided in the city, and was resolved to prove his loyalty on this decisive occasion, had no other means of reaching Recife than by trusting himself upon a jangada and going out to sea at the imminent danger of his life. The Bishop, who appeared perfectly to agree in the propriety of all which had been done by the soldiers, registered a declaration that their intent in this insurrection had not been to injure any person whatsoever, but to secure his Majesty's town and fortress; he sent circular letters to the Capitaens Mores, and Camaras, exhorting them to exert themselves for the preservation of tranquillity; and he wrote to the chief persons of the revolutionary party, commanding them to abstain from all acts of hostility, and commending the disposition and conduct of the troops. Nevertheless, on the third day after the troops had declared themselves, it was known that he and the Ouvidor intended to remove to Olinda. Joam da Mota and D. Francisco de Sousa (father of that D. Joam who at such hazard had come to take his fortune in the town) waited upon him, and required him on the part of God and the King, to

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give up an intention, the dangerous consequences of which to Recife, they said, were evident and certain. His answer was, that the object of his going was to quiet the minds of the people; and persisting in their purpose, he and the Ouvidor set forth. No attempt was made to restrain them; but when they came to embark upon the river, the Capitam Mandante, Joam da Mota, repeated in public the requisition which he had made privately, without effect. Sir, said he, since your Excellency will at this time forsake the King's fortress, and those inhabitants who have relied for their hopes of preserving it upon your presence, I protest against your departure in the King's name, for the sake of his town and forts, and of the lives, honour, and property of his subjects. The Bishop replied with much suavity to this emphatic protest; he again declared, that he departed only for the sake of preserving peace, and said that he trusted the security of the place to the Capitam Mandante, whose zeal, fidelity, and valour, were such as to render his own presence unnecessary for its safety; and he invested him verbally with full powers to do whatever he might think expedient for the King's service; and he promised also in public, as he had done in private, that he would speedily return. Joam da Mota well understood how little such promises were to be credited; he repeated them however to the inhabitants and the soldiers, to allay their apprehensions and discontent, and he lost no time in preparing against the danger which he foresaw.

P. Luiz Correa. MS.

He takes part with the Insurgents against Recife.

The Bishop was received with great ceremony at Olinda, and immediately on his arrival went in procession to hear ²⁴ mass.

24 It was performed by the Coadjutor, a man of whom P. Luiz Correa gives a vile character; on this occasion, he exclaims, Bendita seja a misericordia de Dios, que por este sacrificio se poem em maons de hum tal sacerdote!

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P. Luiz Correa. MS.

On the following day he wrote to the Capitam Mandante, saying that the Olindans had intreated him to remain with them till St. John's Day, in order that he might assist at the festival; he desired therefore that his beds and his kitchen furniture might be sent, assured the Captain again of his approbation, and informed him that he should order prayers to be said in all the convents and parishes for the preservation of the public peace. The household goods which he required were sent accordingly, and there were persons who entertained a hope that when the holyday was over he would return as he had promised; their credulity was speedily undeceived, for on that very day there appeared an address from the Camara of Olinda to the Bishop, assuring him that they were true subjects of his Majesty, whereas the people of Recife had traitorously seized that place and its fortresses, which the Pernambucans had so honourably won, and requiring him as their Governor, to order the Black regiment to the Salinas, and to command D. Francisco de Sousa to return to the city, or retire to his own house: if these things were not done, they said, they would take the satisfaction which was denied them. This requisition was published by the Bishop, and he accompanied it with an order in perfect accord, denouncing the pains and penalties of treason against all persons who should refuse obedience. Obedience was not expected; a proper and firm reply was returned. The aristocratic party then prepared to besiege Recife, and began by intercepting its supplies of food. Parties continually lay in wait for the slaves belonging to the town, who collected shellfish for their owners; these were good booty when they could be captured, and when they could not be carried off there was an Olindan officer who delighted in the sport of shooting them. The pillage of Recife was held out as a temptation to all who would assist in besieging it.

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Resolute conduct of the loyalists.

The Bishop resigns the government.

Joam da Mota and the officers of the loyal party now prepared a summary statement and vindication of their conduct; and in the presence of the notary by whom the instrument was drawn, every man after having signed it, laid his right hand upon the Gospels, and swore to defend his post for the King till the uttermost, and never to deliver it up without his orders. They resolved also that no priest should enter the town, having found by experience that these persons were the most convenient agents of the hostile party. Things were now in such a state, that the Bishop, whether he acted merely with reference to his own personal safety, or that he had hitherto supposed the Pernambucans would not venture to proceed so far, thought it prudent to discharge himself from all farther responsibility, and therefore resigned his authority, vesting it in the Camp-Master of the Regiment of Olinda, the Senado da Camara, and the Ouvidor. A war commenced, more fertile in crimes than in actions worthy to be recorded. The hope of the independent party was to win Recife by famine: it was reduced to great distress; but the sea was open to the loyalists, and they had adherents in the country, who shipped provisions from the ports in their possession, and succeeded sometimes in introducing them by land. The insurgents however had the superiority in the field; they compelled the Governor of Paraiba to retire into Fort Cabedello, they defeated Camaram at the Lagoas, and they besieged the fort of Tamandare. The garrison of Recife dispatched a vessel to Bahia to represent their perilous situation, and to intreat the Governor General that he would interfere, and send one person to take upon himself the command, and another to inquire judicially into the conduct of all parties; and that they might acquit themselves from all appearance of partiality, they said it was not their wish that Sebastian de Castro should be reinstated, because his presence would be in-

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A new Governor arrives, and order is restored.

P. Luiz Correa. MS. Rocha Pitta. 9. § 66—67.

jurious under the existing circumstances. During this state of affairs, and after the siege had continued for three months, the fleet from Portugal hove in sight, having on board the new Governor Felix Joze Machado de Mendonça. The Camara of Olinda immediately sent off to inform him that Recife was in the hands of mutineers, who had taken possession of it for the purpose of delivering it up to the French; and they urged him to put into the Rio Amarello. But Joam da Mota also had lost no time in going on board; .. the sincerity of his professions could not be doubted when he thus put himself in the Governor's power: Machado entered Recife, and on the day following took possession of his appointment without opposition, at Olinda. Andre Vieira, Andre Diaz, and Leonardo Bezerra, were absent, directing some of the military operations; they regretted that they had not been on the spot to have encouraged the independent party, and they said that since their friends had so liberally given the Governor possession, they must be content to pay the costs. Machado proceeded with temper and discretion, listening to all parties, and taking part with neither, till he was well informed and felt his authority established. A second insurrection was attempted, without success. The principal offenders were then arrested and sent to Lisbon. After a long confinement in that city two ²⁵ of them were banished for life to India, and the others were permitted to return to their own coun-

25 Rocha Pitta has not mentioned who the offenders were that were thus punished. His whole account of these transactions is a miserable apology for the Pernambucans, for whom he endeavours to make a plausible story by suppressing every thing which throws any light upon their purpose or their proceedings: he does not even hint at the intention of separating from the mother country! Nevertheless it is so difficult to make a falsified narrative coherent, that this garbled and partial account serves upon comparison fully to corroborate the statement of P. Luiz Correa, who was an eye-witness of the troubles. Correa ends his story with the arrival of the Governor.

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try. The consequences of this civil war were fatal to Some of the great families; .. their lands had been neglected or laid waste during the anarchy; they had expended large sums in the siege of Recife, and they were thus reduced to poverty.

[page 108]

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Rio de Janeiro attacked by the French under Du Clerc, who are defeated, and the whole force slain or taken. A second expedition, under Du Guay-Trouin, captures the city; which is ransomed. Tumults at Bahia. Negociations at Utrecht. Insurrection in Minas Geraes. That Government is separated from S. Paulo, and made a distinct Captaincy.

CHAP. XXXIII. 1710.

Alarm of invasion at the Rio.

August 16.

Rio de Janeiro, which throughout the Dutch war had continued to flourish during all the calamities of Bahia and Pernambuco, was now to have the course of its prosperity interrupted. Francisco de Castro de Moraes had been appointed to the government of this Captaincy when Antonio de Albuquerque was removed to that of S. Paulo and the Mines. Information was expedited to him from Cabo Frio, that a squadron was off the coast; and soon afterwards he was apprized from the forts on the bar, that five large ships were in sight. This was just as the darkness had closed: the alarm was beat, and the troops were hastily drawn out; some were stationed upon the beach, some were dispatched to strengthen the fortresses, others were sent to those points which were judged to stand most in need of defence, In this state of preparation and alarm the night past: in the morning the ships were seen standing off shore; in the afternoon they stood again for the harbour with the sea breeze. As they approached the bar, the fort of S. Cruz fired, according

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to custom, without ball, that they might put out a boat, and explain who they were before they proceeded farther: the signal was not answered; upon this a shot was fired, and struck the leading ship, which then came to anchor. Had any doubt still remained of their intentions, it would now have been removed; for a small vessel, which supposing them to be English made no endeavour to avoid them, was captured in sight of the forts. A second night was past in the same apprehensions as the former; but when it was perceived in the morning that the ships were again standing off, it was believed that all danger was at an end.

Du Clerc lands and advances without opposition.

It was a French squadron under M. du Clerc. Views of colonization and conquest which that nation had so often attempted on this part of the American continent, were no longer practicable; but the Portugueze city which had arisen in Antarctic France, had now become a place of great commerce and great wealth; the produce of the mines might be found there, and this was an age of buccaneering expeditions. They stood to the southward, and made a show of landing on the beach of Sacopemba; but the appearance of the Ordenança deterred them. They then made for Ilha Grande; here entrenchments had been thrown up; after a short cannonade, they carried off two Negroes to serve as guides, proceeded to the bar of Guaratibi, some forty miles from the Rio, and there landed about a thousand marines. No attempt was made to prevent them from reaching the city, though they were seven days on their march through the woods. The Governor contented himself with taking a position in the Campo, where the Church of the Rosary at this time stands, and there he entrenched himself, one wing resting upon the hill of S. Antonio, the other upon that of the Conceiçam. He had no less than eight thousand troops, including the Ordenança, and besides these there were five thou-

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sand blacks and mulattoes armed with matchlocks and pikes, and six hundred Indian archers. With this great superiority of force, the Governor thought proper to wait for the enemy, only sending out a few small parties to observe their progress. One of these, under Captain José Freire, by putting themselves in ambush, killed about twenty of the invaders; and this was the only loss they suffered upon their march, and the only attempt to impede them, though by similar measures in such a country it would have been easy to have cut them all off. Thus unmolested they reached an Engenho of the Jesuits, now called the Engenho Velho, which is near the city, and there they were suffered to pass the night without being disturbed. On the following morning about seven o'clock they came in sight of the Portugueze army.

Sept. 18.

The French enter the city.

Here they met the first resolute resistance, and this not from any strong detachment, but from a handful of men headed by Fr. Francisco de Menezes, a Trinitarian Friar. This person, with a spirit worthy of the name which he bore, occupied a position near the Morro do Outeiro, and when overpowered by numbers, for the Governor still remained inactive, the men took possession of the Igreja do Desterro, a church named after the flight into Egypt, and defended it while the Friar hastened to procure assistance. The enemy lost several men in attempting to enter this church; nevertheless, they persisted in attacking it with exasperated perseverance, which makes it remarkable that when they succeeded they should not have put the defenders to the sword, but at this time the French were more humane than their antagonists. They now past within a few hundred yards of the Portugueze position, proceeded along the Rua d'Ajuda, and having suffered considerably from the fire of the Castle, and from parties posted at the corners of the streets and directed by Menezes the Friar, who was seen every where, they

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came into the Rua do Parto, and there divided: one body went along the Rua do Padre Bento, the larger one by the Rua de S. José towards the Quay. Francisco de Castro, venturing now at last to act when he had suffered the enemy actually to enter the city, sent a detachment to cut off the smaller body; the service was well performed, and this part of the French force, attacked by superior numbers, and confounded by a sense of their own rashness which they discovered when it was too late, dispersed and fled each whither he could, .. thus in their fear exposing themselves to inevitable destruction.

The Portugueze overpower them.

About fifty students, men of that age, rank, and temper which make the best soldiers in situations where zeal, activity, and ready intellect supply the place of discipline, had taken upon themselves to defend the Palace, some firing from the windows, others from the adjoining streets. The French imagined, because of the resistance which was here opposed to them, that the Governor was present; and hoping to make their own terms if they could become masters of his person, a party forced their way in. They were met on the staircase by the students; their Captain was killed, and his men being taken prisoners, were secured by tying them with matchropes to the furniture. The Custom House, which was also the magazine, adjoined this building: here the store-keeper was busily but carelessly delivering out powder; .. a fellow approached too near with a lighted match in his hand, and the powder blew up. Several of the students, besides other persons, perished, and the Palace was set on fire. The French took advantage of the accident; but the explosion guided the Camp-Master, Gregorio de Castro de Moraes, brother to the Governor, and he hastened with his regiment to the spot. A sharp conflict ensued, and he fell; the Portugueze, however, were now heated with action; their spirit and their numbers increased every moment, and Du Clerc, who

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by this time had lost a great number of his men, was glad to retire with the remainder into a large stone warehouse upon the 1710. quay; .. he relied upon the other detachment, and it is said that when he heard the bells of all the churches ring for victory, he was infatuated enough to suppose that this party had won the city, and were thus proclaiming their success. He was presently surrounded, and finding himself threatened from the neighbouring houses, and from the Ilha das Cobras, with no hope or possibility of bettering his condition even if he could succeed in cutting his way through the Portugueze, he proposed that hostilities should cease, and that he should be permitted to reembark without molestation. Such a proposal from men who were at the mercy of their antagonists, was heard with indignation, and they were assured that if they did not surrender prisoners of war, the place wherein they had taken shelter would be blown to pieces. Accordingly they laid down their arms.

Cruel usage of the prisoners.

The Portgueze had little ¹ reason to pride themselves upon this victory, preceded as it was by so much negligence and misconduct, and followed by disgraceful inhumanity. More of the enemies than fell in action were killed when flying through the streets, and seeking to hide themselves, or find protection in the houses. The detachment which had occupied the Morro do Desterro before Du Clerc entered the city, had now them-

1 The wiser Portugueze felt this, though there were illuminations at Lisbon, and a boasting account of the victory was published. "Bom foi o successo do Rio de Janeiro; mas estas acçoens nam se costumam festejar com luminarias, e menos com as fanfarronadas da relaçam que se imprimio. Os Portuguezes sempre foram os mesmos, mas necessitam de quem os leve ao conflicto com audacia e com disciplina." Cartas de Joze da Cunha Brochado. (17 March, 1711) MSS.

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selves entered, hearing that the Magazine was on fire, and expecting that they had nothing to do but to share in the plunder. They soon discovered how differently the enterprize had ended; some seventy retired into a house, taking with them the prisoners whom they had made in the Church of the Desterro, and the Captain sent out a Carmelite to surrender his sword to the Governor, and ask for quarter. But the rabble, who were now raging with the intoxication of success, had neither ears nor hearts for mercy, and nearly the whole of this party were butchered; about one hundred and fifty more were massacred in the streets: .. in the whole somewhat above four hundred French were killed, two hundred and fifty-two wounded, and the remainder of the prisoners were about six hundred. Some hundred and twenty Portugueze fell, several by the fire of their own countrymen in the confusion of the day. On the fifth morning after the action, the French squadron appeared off the harbour, and threw up rockets. It is asserted by the French, that when the issue was known on board, and by permission of the Governor surgeons were sent from the ships to attend their wounded countrymen, they were murdered by the populace; and that many of the prisoners died in prison under the accumulated miseries of filth, durance, and ill treatment. Du Clerc, having been at one time lodged in the Jesuits' College, and afterwards in. Fort S. Sebastian, obtained permission to take a house, where, about six months after his surrender, he was found dead one morning, having been murdered during the night. This assassination assuredly was not an act of popular fury; it could only have been the work of private vengeance, .. and jealousy, in all likelihood, was the cause. But inquiry was not instituted, as it ought to have been in any case, and more especially in one wherein the national faith would appear to be implicated.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 69—81.

Patriota. 2. No. 4. p. 55. Targe, Hist. de l'avenement de la maison de Bourbon au trone d' Espagne, t. 6. p. 80.

1711. The French

This praise is due to the French, that they have never been

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prepare a second expedition under Du Guay-Trouin.

Reinforcements sent from Portugal.

Memoires de Du Guay-Trouin. p. 163—8.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 83—4. Patriota. p. 57.

slow in resenting national wrongs. They might have reconciled themselves to the failure of Du Clerc's enterprize, .. its temerity deserved no better success; but the inhumanity with which the men had been treated wounded the feelings and the honour of the nation, and in the case of the Commander they considered the Government as having sanctioned the assassination which it had neglected to punish. France also was able as well as willing to exact vengeance; for it was at the time when an English ministry, plotting against the Protestant succession, and betraying their own country and the interests of all her allies, had given the French Court full assurance of concluding a peace in subservience to its views. M. du Guay-Trouin, one of the ablest naval officers whom France has produced, felt a strong desire to revenge his countrymen, and acquire by so doing a splendid fortune and a splendid reputation for himself. He calculated the expences of the outfit at 1,200,000 livres: six persons were found to undertake the speculation; .. five were wealthy merchants of St. Malo, the other was Comptroller General of the King's household. Through his interest the project was approved by Government, and ships and troops were placed at Du Guay-Trouin's disposal. The force appointed consisted of two seventy-fours, three sixty-sixes, one sixty gun-ship, one fifty-six, one frigate of forty-six guns, one of forty, two of thirty-six, and four smaller vessels. They were fitted out at different ports, Brest, Rochefort, and Dunkirk, to avoid suspicion: and the Commander and his brother engaged, in addition to the King's ships, two vessels of St. Malo, the one of forty and the other of thirty guns. Secretly, however, as these preparations were carried on, the court of Portugal apprehended some such danger: the sailing of the outward-bound fleet was accelerated, its convoy was doubled, and the merchant ships well armed; stores and reinforcements for the Rio were put on board, and a distin-

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guished officer, Gaspar da Costa de Ataide, was appointed to the command, with the rank of Mestre de Campo do Mar.

The English arrive off Brest too late to blockade the enemy.

The English also, having discovered that an armament was fitting out, suspected its object, and prepared to blockade the port of Brest. Du Guay-Trouin received intelligence of their design, and before the ships in that haven were quite ready, removed them to Rochelle; two days after his departure the English squadron arrived off Brest, so that if it had not been for this promptitude on the part of the Commander, the expedition would have been frustrated. He sailed from Rochelle with his collected force on the 9th of June: the passage was delayed by contrary gales which continued a full month, but on the 27th of August he arrived in the latitude of Bahia: he then called a council of war, and proposed to visit that port on the way, and capture or destroy the vessels which might be found there; but upon examination it was found that their water was running short, and would be in danger of failing if they made any avoidable delay. They proceeded therefore on their destination, and on the 11th of September came into soundings, without knowing the land. Toward evening a fresh breeze sprang up, and Du Guay-Trouin, taking advantage of it, carried all sail, notwithstanding a fog, for the purpose of arriving at the entrance of the harbour just at day-break.

Memoires de Du Guay-Trouin.

Negligence of the Portugueze Commanders.

The fleet from Lisbon had now arrived some days, and the Governor had received more certain information of his danger, from a yacht which the English had dispatched with the intelligence to Lisbon, and which the Portugueze Court had sent on to the Rio, having no vessel of its own ready, which was likely to perform so speedy a passage. This yacht came in the latter end of August, and on the 30th of that month advices came, that a large squadron had been seen from Bahia Fermosa, steering toward the Rio. There had thus been sufficient time for

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preparation. Gaspar da Costa stationed the ships of war, and the armed merchantmen, in the best points for protecting the city, manned them, went on board himself, and exercised his men in the manœuvres which it was intended they should execute, when the invasion should be attempted. After five days had elapsed, he concluded that it had been a false alarm, relanded the troops, and abandoned himself to a false security. On the 10th it was known that an enemy's fleet had past Cabo Frio; and, on the morning of the 12th, when nothing could be seen from the city because of the thick fog, they heard the thundering of artillery at the bar.

Rocha Pitta. 9. Patriota.

The French enter the harbour.

The Chevalier de Courserac, Du Guay-Trouin's intimate friend and second in command, was acquainted with the port, and had therefore been appointed to lead the way. They past the forts by favour of the fog, though not without the loss of three hundred men, according to their own statement; and when the mist drew up, about noon, the French squadron were seen, from the city, within the bar. Gaspar da Costa, seeing his scheme of defence frustrated, instead of making what resistance was still in his power, ordered his ships to cut their cables, and set fire to them when they ran on shore. He had lost all presence of mind from the moment it was certainly known that the enemy were at hand; perhaps, at the time, he was in a state of bodily disease, for he had proved himself a brave man on former occasions; and shame and vexation now induced a disorder of the brain, from which he never recovered. Thus far the French Admiral had succeeded to the extent of his hopes; during the night he advanced his bomb-ships; and, on the following morning, at break of day, took possession of the Ilha das Cobras, where the Portugueze were then busy in spiking their guns, before they should abandon it. Batteries were immediately erected there by the French, and on the 14th, having

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taken possession of some merchantmen which were anchored near the place where he had resolved to disembark, he landed all his troops, three thousand three hundred in number, including trained seamen; there were also about five hundred sick of the scurvy, who being put on shore at the same time, were in a few days able to join the rest. Four mortars were landed, and twenty large perriers, or pattereros, as they were called in this country, which were to serve as field artillery: in order to render them serviceable the Chevalier de Beaure contrived something which is described as a chandelier of wood, fixed in the ground by six pointed claws; upon this they ² rested with sufficient firmness. This artillery was carried in the centre of the strongest battalion, and was ready to play when the battalion should open.

Du Guay Trouin, p. 171—180.

Wretched conduct of the Governor.

Meantime Francisco de Castro pursued the same senseless course as he had done the year preceding; with a regular force, exceeding that of the enemy twice told, he remained in the same position which he had taken up against Du Clerc; and looked on, without making the slightest effort to oppose them, while the French pillaged the houses, and carried off the cattle, within musquet-shot of the town. Du Guay-Trouin believed he was waiting for the French to attack him in his entrenchments; this he supposed, under an erroneous notion that Du Clerc had been defeated, in consequence of attempting such an attack. If the Governor had any plan, it was, more probably, that of permitting them to enter the streets, in the expectation of again engaging them there, where numbers would avail, and discipline be

2 Pedrero, a murthering piece, used in wars to shoot chain-shot or stones from; (Minsheu) .. stones originally, and thence its name. A print, in Grose's History of the English Army, explains the invention of the Frenchman; it represents three of these pieces, mounted like telescopes, upon one frame.

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Du Guay-Trouin, p. 181—189.

rendered useless; but he seems rather to have acted without plan of any kind, without ability, and without courage, waiting for what might happen, and thereby putting every thing in the invader's power. The Commander to whom he was opposed, well knew his own strength and his own weakness; he saw that it was impossible, with his small force, to prevent the inhabitants from removing their effects to the mountains, and that to engage in a street-war would be to draw on his own destruction; but, while he remained without the town, the place was at his mercy. Accordingly, having erected one battery on shore, and another upon the Ilha das Cobras, when all was ready, he summoned the Governor to surrender at discretion. The King of France, his master, he said, had sent him to take vengeance for the cruelties committed against his officers and troops in the preceding year, the murder of the surgeons, the ill treatment of the prisoners, and the assassination of M. Du Clerc; he had ordered him to deliver the surviving prisoners, and to levy such a contribution, as should at once punish the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro for their inhumanity, and amply defray the expence of the great armament which had been sent upon that service. It was not supposed that the Governor had been concerned in the assassination of M. Du Clerc, but he was required to name the author of that crime, that exemplary justice might be done. Du Guay-Trouin added, it was not his intention to commit reprisals, because his Majesty would not make war in a manner so unworthy a Most Christian King; but the town and country were at his mercy, .. nothing could prevent him from carrying fire and sword whithersoever he would, and therefore all resistance would be useless. … In this manner should national injuries be resented; and if the expedition to Rio de Janeiro had originated in a national movement and in the French Government itself, instead of individual speculation, it would have been altogether

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one of the most honourable events recorded in the annals of France.

The Portugueze abandon the city.

Francisco de Castro replied as well as the matter would permit, in all points. The prisoners, he said, had neither wanted rations of bread nor any other necessaries. They had been treated according to the usages of war, although they had deserved no such treatment, because they had invaded Brazil as private adventurers, and not under the commission of the Most Christian King. He had granted life to six hundred men, as they themselves would testify; he had saved them from the fury of the people, who would otherwise have put them all to the sword; and finally, he had not been wanting to them in any respect, following the intentions of the King his master. M. Du Clerc had, by his desire, been lodged in the best house in the country; he had been murdered there, but it had not, in all the inquiries which had been made, been possible to ascertain who was the assassin: yet if he were ever discovered, the Governor promised that he should be punished as he deserved. To the summons for surrendering at discretion, he had no other reply to make, than that the King, his master, had entrusted that city to his charge, and he was ready to defend it to the last drop of his blood; .. a brave reply, if it had been followed by answerable deeds. This correspondence took place on the 19th: on the 20th Du Guay-Trouin, having reconnoitred the points of attack, cannonaded the Portugueze entrenchments, and prepared every thing for a general assault on the following morning. There were five Portugueze ships anchored near the Benedictine Convent, in a situation convenient for receiving the troops who were to make the attack in this quarter: as soon as night closed, they were embarked in boats, that they might get on board these vessels as silently as possible. A storm came on; they were perceived by the light of the lightning, and the Portugueze poured upon

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them a heavy fire of musquetry. This occassioned the Commander to alter his plan: he had brought up two ships to support his batteries, and had given orders, that at whatever time they heard a piece fired from his station, they should all open upon the town. Seeing his boats in this danger, he now fired the signal with his own hand, and the cannonade was continued almost without interruption during the whole night; the storm and the thunder and lightning continuing also. Several houses were set on fire by the shells. The inhabitants were in this respect more fortunate than others who have been exposed to the horrors of such an attack, that the country was open to them, and was also a secure place of refuge; into the country they fled during one of the most tremendous nights which had ever been remembered, in a country peculiarly liable to storms; .. men, women, and children, the whole population of the city, fled, expecting every moment that the assault would be given; the troops caught the panic; and in the morning, when Du Guay-Trouin was preparing to storm the place, the Aide-du-Camp of Du Clerc made his appearance, and told him he might enter without resistance, for the city was his own. Fire had been set to some of the richest magazines, by the Governor's orders, and mines laid under the forts of the Benedictines and Jesuits, .. probably so named as being near the convents of those orders: in both places the explosion was prevented, and the French took possession of their easy conquest.

Du Guay-Trouin, 189—195.

The city is taken and pillaged.

Rocha Pitta, 9. § 92.

They found their countrymen already gathering the first fruits: about five hundred of Du Clerc's men were still living. They had broken out in the confusion, and had fallen to the spoil: some of the inhabitants had shewn kindness to them while they were in prison, and it ought not to be forgotten, in the history of this expedition, that in the general sack which ensued, the houses of these persons were marked by the Frenchmen, and

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faithfully preserved from pillage. In vain did the Commander endeavour to prevent excesses which were so peculiarly dangerous in an open city, and with an enemy superior in numbers close at hand. The patroles whom he established were themselves foremost in the work of plunder. By the next morning three fourths of the houses and warehouses had been broken open; wine, provisions, furniture, stores and goods of every kind, were heaped together pell-mell in the mud of the streets, and the Portugueze, had they known how to profit by the opportunity which was afforded them, might a second time have taken ample vengeance upon their invaders. Du Guay-Trouin shot some of his men; but no examples were sufficient for deterring fellows to whom such temptations were presented, and he found that the only means of preserving order was to keep them constantly at work in depositing in the magazines such goods as it was intended to carry away.

Du Guay-Trouin, 195—196.

Critical situation of the French.

The forts were now surrendered with a facility dishonourable to those by whom they were commanded. The Governor meantime collected his troops, and entrenched himself about a league from the city, expecting a reinforcement from the Mines, whither he had sent to inform Albuquerque of the danger, and perhaps thinking it probable, that the same course of circumstances might ensue as had followed upon the capture of Bahia by Willekens and Heyne; .. but conquest had been the object of the Dutch, and the French came only for vengeance and booty. Du Guay-Trouin perceived in how critical a situation he should soon find himself, if he continued longer than was absolutely necessary in a place where he had found small store of provisions, and could procure none without much difficulty and no inconsiderable danger. He therefore informed the Governor, that unless the city were immediately ransomed, he would burn it to the ground; and to convince him that the threat was serious, he sent

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out a detachment who set fire to every house in the environs for half a league round. This party was fiercely attacked, and would have been cut to pieces as it deserved, had not two battalions arrived opportunely to its support. The leader of the Portugueze fell in the action. He is commended by the French for the intrepidity which he displayed; but he did not deserve so honourable a death, if, as there seems reason to suppose, he was that Bento de Amaral whose name has occurred in the history of the Mines.

The city is ransomed.

The French Commander had proved his will to execute the threat, and master as he was of the forts and of the sea, there was nothing to prevent him from retiring in safety when he should have done it. The Governor therefore offered him six hundred thousand cruzados, protesting that he could collect no larger ransom, for much had already fallen into his hands, and much had been carried into the woods and mountains. Du Guay-Trouin rejected the proposal, and gave orders to show the messenger who brought it, in what manner he was taking measures effectually to spoil every thing which could not be destroyed by fire. But he learnt from some Negro deserters, that the troops from the Mines were immediately expected, and that a reinforcement had already arrived from Ilha Grande, and therefore he drew out his whole force during the night as silently as possible, and presented himself at day-break in front of the Portugueze position, in hopes of accelerating the agreement, and intimidating them into a larger offer. A Jesuit was sent to conclude the terms, as he expected; but the ransom was fixed at the sum which had already been proposed, with the addition of as many head of cattle as the French might require. The contribution was to be paid in fifteen days, and it was agreed that the inhabitants might ransom their own goods. The agreement was signed on the 10th of October, and on the following day Albuquerque arrived with

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one thousand five hundred horsemen, every man bringing a foot soldier behind him for the sake of speed: six thousand armed Negroes were only a day or two behind. Had Albuquerque been Governor, a more honourable resistance would certainly have been made, perhaps a successful one; but after so many errors had been committed, it was fortunate for himself that he did not come up before the whole ignominy was completed. He, however, sanctioned the agreement, which he might, perhaps, have been too high minded to have concluded. Du Guay-Trouin felt his danger, when so large a reinforcement had arrived, under a man of spirit and high reputation; but the terms were punctually observed. The last payment was made on the 4th of November, and on the same day the French reembarked, having previously sent on board all the removeable plunder. Their Commander had punished with death every man upon whom any of the Church-plate was found, and having collected together all he could find, he entrusted it to the Jesuits, to be delivered to the Bishop; .. the Jesuits, he says, being the only ecclesiastics in that city, who had appeared worthy of his confidence.

Du Guay-Trouin. 197—205.

Fate of the French squadron.

Elated with such complete success, this gallant seaman attempted to pursue his prosperous fortune, and sailed from the Rio with the full intention of laying Bahia in like manner under contribution. But after struggling for nearly six weeks against contrary winds, he found it necessary to bear away for France, while he had yet provisions for the voyage. The delay proved fatal to two of his squadron, which in the dreadful weather they encountered on the way home, went down, with twelve hundred men on board. One of them was commanded by the Chevalier de Courserac, who had led the way into the harbour of the Rio; it was the finest ship in the squadron, and for that reason the most valuable part of the booty had been embarked in it, with gold and silver to the amount of six hun-

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Du Guay-Trouin. 206—210

dred thousand livres. A third vessel was driven to Cayenne and sunk there at anchor. Notwithstanding these losses, there remained to the adventurers a profit of ninety-two per cent. upon the capital which they had risked. The people of the Rio were so dissatisfied with their Governor's behaviour in this disgraceful and ruinous business, that they would not suffer him to continue in his office. They insisted that Albuquerque should take upon him the administration, till the King's pleasure could be known; and Francisco de Castro made no attempt at retaining his authority; .. he was too sensible of his misfortune, if not of his misconduct. As soon as the calamity was known at Lisbon, Francisco de Tavora was sent out to supersede him, and bring him and the other persons who had failed in their duty, to trial. They were put into strict confinement, and after a full inquiry, the late Governor was sentenced to degradation and perpetual imprisonment in one of the forts in India, for want of courage, and error in judgment. This was hard measure; he had pursued precisely the same course as in the preceding year; the faults which he had then committed had been overlooked, though they were glaring and notorious, because the issue had been fortunate. If there was any difference in the two cases, besides that of the event, it was in the Governor's favour, who ought to have been held less responsible on the second occasion than on the first, Gaspar da Costa having had the command of that force, which was expressly sent out for the protection of the ³ port. His nephew,

3 Jozé da Cunha Brochado, at first hearing the intelligence, concluded that the fault lay here. He says, "As cartas que vieram dos Estrangeiros dessa Cidade, dizem, que nam houvera resistencia alguma na entrada do Porto; mas tambem he inutil esta reflecçam; porque as nossas injurias tem feito hum callo tam forte que somos invulneraveis a qualquer golpe de mormuraçam. Cartas, MSS. (9 Jan. 1712.) From the same letter it appears, that in the preceding reign he had pointed out to the Court the inadequacy of the fortifications at Rio de Janeiro to protect the place, and presented a plan for their improvement. The King was pleased to thank him for this proof of his zeal; .. the plan was laid aside, and the warning neglected.

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who had succeeded to the rank of Camp Master, when his father was killed the preceding year, was banished for life; and a Captain, who had given up one of the forts, and absconded in consequence, was hanged in effigy.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 93—94

Alarm of the Portugueze Cabinet.

Cartas de Joze daCunha Brochado. MSS. 9 Jan. 1712.

The news of this disaster greatly alarmed the Portugueze, whose commerce had never received so severe a blow; the capture of the city was known before there was any account of the after proceedings, and they apprehended that it might be the intention of the French to retain their conquest, remembering their old claims upon a country to which they had once given the name of Antarctic France, and which the discovery of the mines had rendered now more than ever an important territory. The Portugueze Ambassadors at Utrecht argued, that in this point England and the United Provinces were as much concerned as Portugal, and therefore they would not require the assistance of these powers, lest such assistance should be deemed an equivalent for the barrier which Portugal was then claiming from Spain: this it could not be if the maritime powers were left to feel their own interest in interfering. On the other hand, they were aware that the preservation of Brazil was of more importance to Portugal than any extension of her own frontier, and they knew the perilous insecurity of Bahia, which gave but too much probability to a report, that Du Guay-Trouin had entered and sacked that city also. Yet there was another objection to soliciting, or even accepting aid from Great Britain and Holland; for, although an allied squadron might undoubtedly facilitate the recovery of Rio de Janeiro, their en-

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 12 Jan. 16 Feb. 23 Feb. 1712.

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trance into that port would produce consequences easily to be foreseen, and greatly injurious to that commerce, which Portugal was now determined upon reserving wholly to itself. From these perplexities they were relieved by the next advices.

Pedro de Vasconcellos Governor.

Impost of ten per cent.

Insurrection at Bahia.

The disturbances in Pernambuco, and the two invasions of the Rio, occurred while D. Lourenço de Almada was Governor General: he was superseded by Pedro de Vasconcellos e Sousa, before the northern Captaincy was quiet, and while Rio de Janeiro was in possession of the French. The seas were, at this time, greatly infested by pirates, the last desperate remains of the Buccaneers; and they haunted the coasts of Brazil more than ever, since the discovery of the mines. To prevent such loss as was caused by their depredations, it was necessary to keep up an establishment of cruisers, and to strengthen the forts also. Under the plea of defraying these urgent expences, the opportunity was taken of imposing ten per cent. upon all imports in Brazil. The people, however, justly apprehended, that the impost would be continued after the necessity had ceased; and when the new Governor attempted to put the edict in force, they assembled tumultuously, and at the sound of the City Bell, which was rung incessantly by order of the Juiz do Povo, the Square before the Palace and all the streets which opened into it, were presently filled by a multitude of the lower orders. The first impulse of the Governor was to take sword and buckler, and go out to disperse the rabble, at the head of his guards and domestics; he was dissuaded from thus exposing his person to danger, and his authority to contempt; so he sent a message to the mob, requiring them to separate, and pursue their purpose by means of petitioning, not of violence. They deputed the Juiz do Povo to receive the message, and reply to it; and the reply was, that they were assembled with a determination of not separating, till the tax should have been abrogated, and till the

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increase in the price of salt were taken off; .. the ordinary measure of that prime necessary of life having been raised, in the preceding year, from 480 to 720 reis. The Governor represented, that it was to the throne they must make their appeal, not to him, who had no power to pursue any other course than that of carrying the royal orders into effect. This reply incensed them; they declared that they would accomplish their object by force; and, after insulting the Governor, they proceeded to the house of Manoel Dias Filgueira, who held the salt contract, and to whom they imputed the new impost of the tenths. This person, who was greatly envied for his riches, and had also rendered himself unpopular by a splendour, which was thought more than beseemed his station, was luckily in Lisbon; his wife and family were apprized of their danger in time to escape, or they might have fallen victims to the blind fury of the rabble; every thing in the house was destroyed; and the barrels of wine, and other costly liquors in his stores, were broached into the streets. From thence they proceeded to the house of Manoel Gomes Lisboa, who was connected in trade with Filgueira; and therefore, though not personally obnoxious to the multitude, was marked for vengeance. He also escaped; but his house was sacked, and two chests of gold-dust being thrown out of window, the chests brake with the fall, and the gold was trampled under foot, and lost. While they were at their work of destruction here, the Archbishop came, with as many members of the various brotherhoods as he could collect, and all the dignitaries of the Cathedral, bearing the Host upon an Ambula, as it stands upon the altar; trusting that they might be mollified by this spectacle, he exhorted them to return to their houses: they prostrated themselves before what Rocha Pitta calls their Creator, worshipped the wafer, sheathed their weapons, and attended it devoutly back to the Church from whence it had been brought; but having seen

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The Governor yields to the demand of the mob.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 95—104.

the Pix replaced, they returned to the Square, arms in hand again, and renewed their demand that the tax should be repealed, and the price of salt reduced. Meantime the late Governor, D. Lourenço de Almada, had repaired to the Palace, and, with his advice, Vasconcellos, seeing no other present remedy, yielded to their will. They required also a full pardon for the insurrection, and all acts committed in its course, without exception of persons; rightly thinking that they stood in need of this, but not considering that it was invalidated by the very means whereby it was obtained. About six in the evening the business was concluded, and the mob dispersed. A party of them had been stationed to keep the City Bell in action during the whole day.

The mob again assemble for the relief of the Rio.

No person of respectability appeared in this tumult; the mob consisted of the lowest orders; and, it is remarked, that the ringleaders were men of the mother country, or foreigners of various nations, not natives of Brazil. After some weeks had elapsed, the movers of the first tumult rung the alarm again; the mob readily obeyed the summons; and, as the Governor happened to be without the gates, at the residence of his predecessor, thither they went to seek him in full force. Surprized, as well as alarmed, at this unexpected appearance, he fastened the great doors, and the deputy of the mob was admitted through a wicket. They had chosen a respectable man to make known their pleasure to the Governor: .. it was, that he should immediately fit out the ships which were in the harbour, and enlist men, for an expedition to recover Rio de Janeiro from the French. Such a proposal might well astonish the Governor; he replied, that he had neither ships, artillery, nor men sufficient, to attack such a squadron as that of the enemy; that he had not money for such an expedition; and that, if it were attempted, a certain evil must of necessity ensue, .. for the ships being thus employed, would lose their homeward voyage for the year, to the great injury of

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Rocha Pitta. 9. § 105—113.

the Treasury, and the great loss of the inhabitants of Bahia and the Reconcave. To this they made answer, that there was money enough in St. Teresa's, and in the Jesuits' College, deposited there for various purposes, by persons from different parts; as much as was required might be drawn from these funds, and replaced by an assessment upon the people of the City, and the Reconcave, according to their means. The merchants and traders, they said, would take upon themselves the larger part; he might recall from Pernambuco the two ships of war which had convoyed the fleet thither; there was artillery enough; and the force would be sufficient to attack the French. To reason with them was in vain: Vasconcellos might as well have attempted to turn the wind, or the waves, as to convince them of the folly of their purpose. Once more he found it necessary to obey their sovereign pleasure; and, on the morrow, the Senado was assembled by the Juiz do Povo, to receive orders from that mouthpiece of the mob, for making the assessment. The Senado urged the same objections to this insane scheme as the Governor had done, and with no better effect; the assessment was made, and the immediate expence was to be drawn from the funds deposited in the two Convents in bank. Both the Governor and the Chamber must have expected that the ardour of the people would cool, while the preparations were going on; that the difficulties would be found manifestly insuperable; and, perhaps, that some lucky turn of fortune (the last hope of the feeble), would deliver them from the danger of undertaking so frantic an expedition; and so it proved, for before any great progress had been made in the outfit, tidings arrived that the French had put the city to ransom, and sailed homeward. Little did the Bahians imagine, while they were arming against the French, that Du Guay-Trouin was prevented by nothing but the winds from attacking them upon their own ground, and at

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their own doors; where they would not have been more able, or more likely to have resisted him, than their countrymen at the Rio.

Office of the Juiz do Povo abolished at Bahia.

Marquez de Angeja Viceroy.

1714.

Rocha Pitta. 9. § 114—119.

10. § 5—6.

The Juiz do Povo became so arrogant in consequence of these proceedings, that he attempted to interfere in all public business, in order that the interests of his people, as he called them, might not suffer; and upon every occasion, where his pretensions were opposed, he threatened to ring the City Bell, .. a signal which was now dreaded by all the peaceable and well-disposed inhabitants. The Camara therefore quietly applied to the Court, requesting that this office might be abolished, for the sake of public tranquillity, as it had been, for a like reason, at Porto. The powers attached to it, indeed, were ill defined, and more easily abused to ill purposes, than applicable to any good ones: it was abolished accordingly; and the Governor, when he felt himself sufficiently strong, began to inquire who were the ringleaders in the late disturbances. They, who were conscious of having been most forward in the first insurrection, took flight, and the motive for the latter was allowed its full weight in exculpating others. Vasconcellos now endeavoured to prepare against any such calamity as had fallen upon the Rio: for this purpose he began to reform the discipline of the troops, and to exercise the Ordenanza, according to the new manner, which had not yet been introduced into Brazil. Zealous as the people had lately been for military service, they murmured greatly at being thus drilled, when they perceived no immediate danger; and Vasconcellos, feeling himself more and more unpopular, solicited that a successor might be sent out to relieve him from his ungrateful charge, before the expiration of his term. Accordingly the Marquez de Angeja, D. Pedro Antonio de Noronha, came out with the rank of Viceroy, which he had previously borne in India. He strengtened the fortifications, .. a precaution whereof the necessity was no longer doubtful; and he established, without

[page] 131

CHAP. XXXIII. 1714.

difficulty, the impost of the tenths: for no person was ready to stir up the people to a second insurrection, after the consequences of the first.

Fear of a second expedition from France.

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 31 May. 14 June, 1712.

Bolingbroke's Correspondence, vol.3, p.136.

Designs of England upon South America apprehended.

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 21 June, 1714.

It was not from Du Guay-Trouin only that the Bahians escaped: a second armament was sent out, at the cost of private adventurers, but with the assistance of government; and Bahia was the chief object in view. The command was given to M. Cassar, who was thought more proper for such expeditions than Du Guay-Trouin; but the Abbé de Polignac pronounced the best eulogy upon that gallant seaman, when he rated him below the present commander, because he preferred the glorious to the profitable, and if he fell in with an enemy's fleet, would engage the ships of war, instead of making it his chief business to capture the merchant vessels. Because the new Commander was not a man of this mould, Bahia was spared from the probable loss and disgrace which would have befallen it; and he contented himself with a marauding descent upon some of the smaller sugar islands. The Portugueze were alarmed, at this time, by their friends as well as their enemies. Information was given them by their minister at London, that a certain Captain Thomas Braum, with the aid of private adventurers, but under the sanction of his government, was about to establish a colony in South America; in what part was not known, but that it should be any where near Brazil, appeared a danger of the greatest magnitude, more especially if the island of St. Catalina, or the Rio dos Patos, should be the place. In that case, the Portugueze statesmen conceived that the profit of the mines might be considered lost; for the English, by means of their trade, would attract the greater part of the gold to their settlements. As this territory was disputed between Spain and Portugal, and was unoccupied by either, there was some reason to apprehend that a third power might take possession, and more especially at this time when France and England were adjusting the terms of peace,

[page] 132

CHAP. XXXIII. 1711.

with little regard to any interests except their own. The Portugueze ministers at Utrecht, therefore, urged their Court instantly to send out orders for occupying every port along the coast, and these two important stations more especially, even if they only dispatched settlers enough to erect a few cabins.

Negociations with France.

Bolingbroke's Correspondence vol. 3, p. 433, 469.

Of all the allies of England, Portugal complained the most of its treatment in the negociations at Utrecht, and yet there was no other power whose interests were so sincerely consulted by England in that miserable transaction. By the treaty between Portugal and France, the latter renounced, in the most explicit terms, both for the reigning king and his successors, all right and pretension whatever to the country between the Orellana and the Wiapoc, acknowledged that both banks of the Orellana belonged in full sovereignty to the Crown of Portugal, and renounced all claim to the navigation of that river. This latter point the French were very unwilling to concede, even when they had consented to yield the whole territory: they argued, that their colony from Cayenne might one day form settlements on the north bank far up the stream, and upon this probability they endeavoured to stipulate for a right of navigating the river in that part in vessels constructed there. This, however, was too remote a contingency to have any weight in the scale, and the English ministry insisted upon the total cession, with more spirit than they displayed during any other part of the discussions. They were alarmed at the ambitious views of France in America, though they had wilfully shut their eyes to the danger in Europe. And thus Portugal obtained more than her ambassadors had hoped; for they did not look for any farther cession than that of the country where the forts of Araguari and Camau were erected: their ambition was excited by this unhoped for fortune, and they pointed out to their court, that a treaty, which secured to them the entire command of the river, opened a way for their troops to Quito and Peru. Louis the Fourteenth submitted very reluctantly to this cession, which

[page] 133

CHAP. XXXIII. 1713.

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 15th April, 1713.

April 11, 1713. Du Mont, t. 8, p. 1, p. 353.

disappointed, or at least postponed, projects perhaps of not less extravagant ambition; even after it was made, he said to the Duke of Shrewsbury, he still hoped that between the signing of the treaty and its ratification, the Queen of England would be convinced how unjust it was to deprive him of the navigation of the river. France also engaged, that the inhabitants of Cayenne should not be allowed to go beyond the Wiapoc for the purposes of trade; nor should they purchase slaves in the district of the Cabo do Norte: the King of Portugal engaging on his part, that his subjects should not trade with Cayenne. And the Most Christian King promised, that neither the French Missionaries, nor any others under his protection, should, in the exercise of their functions, intrude upon the lands which were by this treaty adjudged incontestably to appertain to Portugal.

Difficulty respecting the Commerce of Brazil.

The Portugueze negociators had a delicate point to manage respecting the commerce of Brazil. The Dutch had, by the peace of 1661, a clear and positive right of trading with that country. The English had the same right, which was more especially given them by the marriage treaty of Charles the Second. Both nations had suffered it to fall into disuse, .. probably both were now importing sugar and tobacco from their own colonies. With regard to the Dutch, for whom the Portugueze seem at all times to have entertained a rooted contempt, even when they themselves were weakest, and Holland in its greatest strength, the privilege was plainly denied, in direct breach of treaty, and the Portugueze even set up a right of confiscating ⁴ their ships if they went there. The English were content

4 This had nearly involved Portugal in a serious dispute with the United Provinces some years after the peace of Utrecht. A Dutch ship entered the Rio under a pretence of watering and refitting, but in reality for the purpose of smuggling. She was seized and condemned by a sentence of the Supreme Court at Bahia. The Middleburg Company, who were the owners, demanded restitution: and this the King promised, whenever the West India Company would indemnify his subjects for certain ships which they had seized, on a pretext that they were trading within the limits of the Dutch possessions in Africa. Four millions of florins were claimed by Portugal upon this ground. The States threatened to grant the Middleburg Company letters of reprisal, and D. Luiz da Cunha, who was sent to the Hague upon this business, believed that this would certainly have been done, if other troubles in Europe had not intervened.

D. Luiz da Cunha, Carta ao Marco Antonio, MS.

[page] 134

CHAP. XXXIII. 1713.

D. Luiz do Cunha. Carta ao Marco Antonio. MS.

to forego it, because, by means of the factory at Lisbon, great part of the Brazilian trade was really in their hands, being carried on with their capital by Portugueze agents in the country. The Junta de Commercio, however, was apprehensive that France would now demand the same privileges which England possessed by treaty, and therefore they thought it desirable that England should be prevailed upon to give up a right which was never exercised; but it was suggested, that if the question were moved, the English might be led to consider how important this trade might be found hereafter, and would, perhaps, begin to exercise it at once, for the sake of keeping it up: Portugal could not prevent this, and therefore it was better to let the matter rest. The difficulty occurred, as had been foreseen at Utrecht; and though the English ministers at first took part with the Portugueze, as thinking it desirable to have the French excluded from this trade, they changed their opinion during the conferences, because they perceived that this exclusion might afterwards be pleaded as a precedent for extending the same system to ⁵

5 There is a curious passage in one of the letters of Joze da Cunha Brochado, at that time minister in London, which shows that the privilege was sometimes exercised by the English, and disputed, I know not upon what grounds, by the Portugueze Government: .. "Dizem que no Brazil entraram outra vez alguns navios Ingrezes, e a nossa Corte nam faz mais que mandar passar officios, a que esta Corte faz propriamente ouvidos de mercador. Em hum negocio tam preciozo como este, nam ha comprimentos, nem satisfaçoens, e mais val que Inglaterra se queixe da nossa prohibiçam, do que nos do seu attentado.

Cartas ao Conde de Vianna, MS. 15 July, 1710.

[page] 135

CHAP. XXXIII. 1713.

England, against which the Queen could not remonstrate, if she now sanctioned the exclusion of France. When it was stipulated that the French should not trade with Maranham, the Portugueze plenipotentiaries wished to include Brazil in the prohibition; and in the article which provided that the ports of the two countries should be reciprocally open to each other, they would have excepted those of Brazil. But the French would not consent to either of these insertions; they compromised the point by omitting all mention of Brazil in the one article, and saying in the other, that the French merchant-vessels and ships of war should enter those ports of the King of Portugal which they were accustomed to enter. The Portugueze thought that this was gaining a point; the concession which they would have resisted to the utmost had not been required, and the silence of the present treaty, they argued, might be pleaded hereafter as a bar to any such demand in future.

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 15th April, 1703.

The Assiento.

26th March, 1713.

It was at this time that a memorable arrangement with Spain, known by the name of the Assiento, or Contract, gave the British an exclusive right of carrying on the most nefarious of all trades to the Plata, .. a trade which was then as universally thought lawful and just, as it is now acknowledged to be impious and inhuman. The British engaged to transport annually to the Spanish Indies during the term of thirty years, four thousand eight hundred of what were called in trade language, Indian pieces, .. that is to

[page] 136

CHAP. XXXIII. 1713.

Bolingbroke's Correspondence vol. 2.p.104.

Du Mont. 8. P. 1. p. 331.

say, negro slaves, paying a duty per head of thirty-three escudos and one third. For all whom they might import above this number, only half this duty was to be paid during twenty-five years, after which time the number was not to be exceeded: this provision was inserted in expectation that Spain would then be able to carry on the trade for herself, and therefore she chose thus to prepare a demand for the article before she began. At S. Martha, Cumana, and Maracaybo, they were not to demand more than three hundred escudos for each, and as much below that sum as possible, that the inhabitants might be encouraged to purchase; but no maximum was fixed for any other place. One fourth of the whole number was to be imported into the Plata, and here no additional supply was to be allowed: eight hundred of these were for Buenos Ayres, the other four for the interior, and the kingdom of Chili. The King of Spain reserved for himself a fourth share of the contract, and the Queen of England another; she however gave up hers to the South Sea Company, by whom the contract was undertaken. The Assientistas were to be allowed a track of ground upon the Plata sufficient to raise food and cattle for their establishment and their negroes: this was a point upon which the British Plenipotentiaries, were instructed particularly to Insist; .. but it was granted with all the proud and suspicious restrictions of Spanish Jealousy; .. their dwellings and storehouses were not to be built of any other materials than wood, nor was the slightest fortification of any kind to be suffered. A Spanish officer was to reside there; the English subjects were to be amenable to the Spanish laws, and rigorous punishments were denounced against smuggling, .. the only commodity which they were chartered to deal in, being black human flesh. But by the last article of the Treaty, the Company were authorized to send one vessel of five hundred tons every year to the Spanish Indies, on condition

[page] 137

CHAP. XXXIII. 1713.

that they should not attempt to introduce any thing contraband, the King of Spain having a fourth part of the cargo, and a duty of five per cent. upon the net profit of the other three quarters. In this miserable contract ended the high promises of trade with the Spanish Indies which Harley had held out to lure the nation by views of vulgar interest from the course of honour and of duty; and upon no better foundation was the South Sea Company established, .. a worthy project of the vilest ministry to which the fortunes of Great Britain ever were intrusted.

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 17 May, 1712.

The Portuguezejealous of this Treaty.

Do. 22 July, 1712.

Negociations with Spain.

Do. 2 Sep. 1712.

Do. 22 Sep. 1713.

The Assiento was vehemently opposed by the Dutch, especially by the city of Rotterdam: and it was regarded with no slight jealousy by the Portugueze, who had possessed a similar contract before the war, and had demands in consequence were now in dispute with the Spanish Government. They suspected at first that the English were stipulating with Spain for an establishment in the Plata, .. a measure, their Ambassadors said, which might well alarm all powers, and especially the Portugueze, to whom it would introduce so formidable a neighbour. The Portugueze were now endeavouring to have the Plata acknowledged as the boundary between Brazil and the Spanish territories, taking the River of the Missions, as the Uruguay was then called, for the inland line. But the people with whom they treated were as pertinacious as themselves, and in Europe were better able to enforce their pretensions. Even the restitution of Nova Colonia was stiffly contested. The Spaniards perfectly understood the value of that place to the Portugueze as a smuggling station; and this made the Duque de Ossuna say with bitterness to their negociators, that it would be easy to propose an equivalent for the place if its real value alone were to be considered; but it might be very difficult to offer one which they might think a compensation for the advantages to which they looked from an illicit trade. In a calmer temper he

VOL. III. T

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CHAP. XXXIII. 1713.

assured the Ambassadors that the chief or only reason which made the King of Spain insist upon reserving the power of offering some other place in exchange, was his fear lest the nations who traded with Portugal should find means of introducing goods into Peru through that channel. The English were unjustly accused by the ⁶ Portugueze ministers of betraying their

6 The Marques de Monteleon, one of the Spanish Ambassadors, told the Conde da Tarouca, that England had purchased its own favourable terms from Spain by expressly agreeing, that no part of the Spanish territory in Spain should be yielded for a barrier. M. Manages also affirmed the same; and the Portugueze was so prejudiced that he did not perceive the evident purpose of this falsehood. (Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 9 June, 1713.) The Marques also said, that the proposal of giving an equivalent for Colonia came from the English, and would not have been thought of otherwise: and the Conde da Tarouca believed this also, though if vexation and prejudice had not blinded him, he must have seen how greatly it was for the interest of England that Portugal should preserve this port. It was quite certain, he said, that England would not take a single step in their favour, which could offend the Spaniards. (Do. 13 Oct. 1713.) D. Luiz da Cunha (a man of far greater ability than his colleague) makes no scruple of saying, that the reason why Portugal could obtain no better terms from Spain, was because her negociators had no money wherewith to bribe the English Ambassadors, and the Spaniards had. The Duque de Ossuna, he says, carried Lord Strafford in his pocket. (Carta ao Marco Antonio. MS.) The minister at London recommended bribing the English ministry, saying he was sure that Portugal had failed in her most important transactions with the British cabinet for want of this expedient. (Joze da Cunha Brochado. Cartas ao Conde de Vianna. MSS. 15 Dec. 1711.) These assertions prove nothing more than the opinion in which that vile ministry were held by the Portugueze statesmen, .. for Brochado and D. Luiz are well entitled to this appellation. And it is well worthy of notice (as connected with the matter of this note) that Brochado's own judgement concerning the Barrier would have acquitted England of any injurious abandonment of that demand. He saw that no barrier could make them equal to Castille, and that if any were obtained, it would infallibly sooner or later draw on a war for its recovery; he da nossa honra o pedilla, e sera de nosso interesse o nam alcançella, .. these are his pointed words. (Do. 19 Jan. 1712.)

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CHAP. XXXIII. 1714.

Bolingbroke's Correspondence. vol. 4. 217.

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 27 Sep.1714.

interest, and siding wholly with the Spaniards in this discussion: but however the wretched negociators at Utrecht may have conducted themselves, it is certain that the British Cabinet held the strongest language toward the Court of Spain; their Ambassador was instructed to assure that Court, that the Queen would put every thing to hazard rather than abandon the King of Portugal, or let him suffer through the confidence which he had placed upon her word: she would see him safe out of the war, and risk even her nearest interests in his cause. The discussions, however, continued till the death of Queen Anne, when the Portugueze ministers had an interview with George I. as he passed through Holland on his way to take possession of the throne, and they were delighted to find him thoroughly informed upon all the points which were in dispute, and heartily disposed to support the interests of Portugal. The matter had now been prolonged till the more important interests of all the other contracting powers had been adjusted; and Louis took upon himself to conclude it for his grandson, for the double purpose of appearing in a business where the interference of England had given no satisfaction to her ally, and accelerating the determination of the Spanish Court, which seemed to have infected Philip V. with its tardiness as well as its superstition. Some money demands respecting ships detained at the Rio before the declaration of war, and some debts due to the Portugueze Assiento Company, were compromised by sacrificing the interests ⁷ of the

7 This was made the subject of a secret article, for a roguish reason, which is broadly stated by the Portugueze negociators in their dispatches … Por ser melhor por ambas as magestades se livrarem de pretençoens de Estrangeiros, que nam se saiba que houve compensaçam nos navios. A dirtier transaction of its kind has seldom been brought to light, than this of the two Courts combining to cheat the foreign merchants who had relied upon their justice.

[page] 140

CHAP. XXXIII. 1714.

Cartas dos Embaixadores. MSS. 30 Nov. 1714.

Do. 18 Jan. 1715.

individuals concerned. Far more difficulty was found in adjusting the endless question of Colonia. The Spanish Cabinet, ever suspicious of the remotest danger to their wide American possessions, apprehended an intention on the part of the Portugueze, to penetrate by the interior to the source of the Plata, and getting possession of the Parana and the Uruguay along their whole course, finally secure the great river into which they poured their waters. To prevent this imagined purpose a project was suggested of offering to Portugal the whole coast from S. Vicente to the Plata, on condition that their right should only extend ten leagues inland, that they should erect no fortress within ten leagues of the Plata, nor navigate it on any pretext whatever: but the Portugueze replied, that this was only offering them a useless slip of land which was already by many titles their own. A more palatable exchange was proposed by the French Ambassadors, .. that Spain should retain Colonia, and suffer Portugal to retain in its stead Albuquerque and Pueblo de Sanabria, the only Spanish places which she had secured during the war, with their respective districts, .. or that the Gallician coast as far as Vigo should be ceded, including that town, and with a tract extending inland to the Fuerte de Guarda and including it. Either of these equivalents Portugal would gladly have accepted, though with little prudence; but the proposal was not ratified at Madrid. Here all such offers ended, and the long pending discussions were at length concluded. Nova ⁸ Colonia

8 There was something whimsical in the manner of signing this treaty. The Duque de Ossuna had sent away his equipage, so that it was impossible to perform the business with all the accustomed pomp; on this account it was judged proper to do it secretly; and as there were points of etiquette not easily to be adjusted among men who stood upon punctilios with a feeling worthy to have been appreciated and recorded by Sir John Finett, the difficulty was compromised by signing it, .. out of doors, in the public walk. To accomplish this, the several parties, with their two secretaries, met there at an hour when no persons were accustomed to take their promenade; and there, on one of the seats, the treaties, one in Spanish, the other in Portugueze, were signed, and sealed with wafer; .. wax could not have been used in that place without a certain kind of indecorum, .. pois ja que aquelle acto era irregular, nam fosse indecente. So odd a finale had those Negociations at Utrecht, "wherewith all Europe rang from side to side!"

Cartas dos Embaixadores, MSS.

[page] 141

CHAP. XXXIII. 1715.

6 Feb. 1715.

Du Mont. t. 8. P. 1. p. 444.

and its territory, were ceded to Portugal in full and entire sovereignty, all future right or claim to this contested ground being renounced on the part of the Spaniards, in the strongest and what might have been supposed the most explicit terms: the King of Portugal engaging that he would not permit any other nation to establish themselves there, or trade thither, directly or indirectly, under any pretext; and that the Portugueze should not lend any assistance to other nations, for carrying on a contraband trade with the Spanish settlements; neither engage in such trade themselves. It was provided also, that within the space of a year and half from the ratification of the Treaty, Spain might propose an equivalent for this cession; but the cession was not, on that account, to be delayed, and it was entirely at the option of the Portugueze to accept or to reject the proposal. This clause, nugatory as it was, the Spaniards insisted, with their characteristic pertinacity, upon inserting. It was because Nova Colonia, if it were in the hands of the Portugueze, afforded such facilities for smuggling, that Spain was so solicitous to obtain it; well aware of how little avail the stipulations of a treaty must needs be, concerning a contraband trade, even though there should exist in both the contracting powers a mutual and sincere desire of preventing it.

It was not by negociations alone that Portugal supported its

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CHAP. XXXIII. 1711.

The Portugueze eject the Spanish missionaries upon the Orellana.

1708.

jealous claims upon the interior of South America, .. claims to which what were deemed the most important religious considerations, were sacrificed, without hesitation or remorse. F. Samuel Fritz, a German Jesuit, attached to the Spanish Missions in Quito, went down the Orellana, for the purpose of marking its course. The Captain of one of the Portugueze settlements arrested him as a spy, and threw him into close confinement. After two years he obtained his release, and to him we are indebted ⁹ for the first authentic map of this great river, and the first good information concerning its source. Painful as his long imprisonment must have been, and embittered by a fear that the fruit of his scientific labours would too probably be lost, the good man would have felt a deeper sorrow, could he have foreseen the fate of the Missions which he afterwards established. For he succeeded in converting the Omaguas, a people so famous in the age of adventure, and still, in his days, the most numerous of all the river tribes: thirty of their villages are marked upon his map. After his death, these establishments continued to flourish under Missionaries from Quito: but the Governor of Para regarded them as intrusions upon the Portugueze limits; and, as Ignacio Correa de Oliveira happened to be, at this time, with a ransoming expedition, in that part of the river which the Portugueze call ¹⁰ Rio dos Solimoens, he was

9 The original journal of this meritorious Jesuit was in the College at Quito, from whence Condamine obtained a transcript. Like many other precious documents respecting South America, it has never been published, and is, therefore, in danger of being lost, .. if, indeed, it have not already perished.

10 They gave this name to the Orellana, above the Rio Negro, from that of a fish, which is found there in great abundance. Condamine has curiously mistaken its meaning, and its cause. "Rio de Solimoens, (he says,) riviere des poisons, nom que lui a probablement eté donné à cause des fleches qui sont l'arme le plus ordinaire des habitants de ses bords." (p. 131.) Perhaps this is not a mistake of poison for poisson, as would be readily supposed. I rather suspect that Condamine trusted a little too much to his knowledge of Portugueze, and mistook the name of a Brazilian fish for Solimam, .. corrosive Sublimate, .. which is used sometimes vaguely for any poisonous composition.

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CHAP. XXXIII. 1708.

Berredo. § 1454—1457.

P. Guillaume d' Etré. Lettres Edifiantes. t. 8. p. 277. 296.

Condamine p. 69. 80.

ordered to proceed to these settlements, and expel the Spaniards. Repeated advices reached him, that two hundred Spanish troops, with a great body of Indians, would be sent to maintain possession; he found, however, only a few Jesuits, who were fain to withdraw, and suffer all their past labours to be frustrated. Correa dispatched tidings of his easy success to Belem; but he relied upon it too much, for the Spaniards came down, surprized him when carelessly trading, took him prisoner, and burnt the Aldeas which the Portugueze Carmelites had established upon the river. When this intelligence reached the Lord of Pancas, he dispatched one hundred and thirty troops, with a competent number of Indians; they found some of the Spaniards among the Omaguas, defeated them, and brought away several prisoners, among whom was F. Juan Bautista, the head of the Mission. This expedition secured for Portugal an extensive ¹¹ territory, of which it has ever since held undisturbed possession.

Measures of Albuquerque in the Mines.

Carneiro. MS.

Brazil was now delivered from all fear of foreign enemies. The people of the Mines were thanked for the promptitude with which they had repaired to the Rio, during the invasion, by a letter written, in the King's name, to the Chamber of Sabara,

11 According to Condamine, nearly two hundred leagues in length, which even, in French measure, would constitute no inconsiderable kingdom. (p. 80.) F. Guillaume d'Etre says, that in consequence of the representations made to the Court of Lisbon upon this business, orders came out to the Portugueze, that they should not extend their conquests above the Rio Negro. The Jesuit is certainly as inaccurate in this as he is in supposing, that negociations were then going on at Cambray.

[page] 144

CHAP. XXXIII. 1708.

Manoel da Costa. MS.

Carta Regia. 9 Nov. 1709. MS.

Carta Regia. 24 July, 1711. MS.

Carta Regia. 8 Oct. 1712. MS.

Misconduct of the Friars and Clergy.

that place having now been chartered as a town, the first in this country upon which the distinction was conferred. Antonio de Albuquerque, whose summons the people had so cheerfully obeyed in that emergency, was the first Governor who made the royal authority respected in the Mines, and appeared there with the power and dignity which his office required. He was enjoined to regulate the fifths, either letting them by districts, or collecting them, as he might judge best; and he was to build a Casa de Fundiçam, or Smelting-house; and, for the better execution of these orders, as also to secure respect for himself, and enable his ministers to execute justice, he was instructed to raise a regiment of five hundred men, and nominate the officers himself, .. for this time only, and subject to the King's approbation. The pay of these troops was five testoens a day, something more than half a crown. The excessive cost of every thing in the Mines rendered this enormous pay necessary; but the Treasury soon became impatient of so heavy an expence, and, as the land grew more tranquil, the establishment was reduced to two companies, of fifty men each. It was expressly provided, that the officers should not be Paulistas; because, to give commissions unto persons of that country, would be putting arms in the, hands of men, not entirely to be trusted; nevertheless, if a Paulista had given proofs of his fidelity, the place of his birth was not to disqualify him. Albuquerque was directed also to give every assistance to the Archbishop of Bahia, and the Bishop of Rio de Janeiro, during the visitations which they were about to make, and to lend his authority for expelling from the Mines all Religioners and Clergy, who were residing there without just cause, or who were engaged in affairs not appertaining to their profession. The clergy of this district were, in general, of the same stamp as the people. Due respect was paid to the ecclesiastical power, by requiring the Bishop of the Rio to recall

[page] 145

CHAP. XXXIII.

Carta Regia. 9 June, 1711. MS.

Foreigners expelled from the Mines.

Carta Regia. 25 Feb. 1711. MS.

Carta Regia. 7 Apr. 1713. MS.

such turbulent subjects as belonged to his diocese; but he drew upon himself a severe reprimand, and brought on a diminution of his authority, by culpable inattention to the orders of the Court. Instead of preventing any ecclesiastics from going to the Mines, unless they had proper employment there, he granted licenses, indiscriminately, to fellows of profligate conduct and unruly disposition, .. even to some who had been implicated in the late outrages. There were among them many apostate Friars, and others who had taken orders only to escape the punishment of their crimes. The Governor, therefore, was enjoined not to suffer any Friar to remain in the Mines, but to turn out the whole race, with force and violence, if they would not depart quietly; and, in the same manner, he was to expel every Priest, who was not exercising some parochial function, under the appointment of the Ordinary. By another decree, all foreigners were to be sent out of the new Captaincy, except English and Dutch, even although they might have been naturalized. A subsequent order provided, that those persons who were married to Portugueze women, and had children by them, should be permitted to remain, unless they were engaged in trade; in that case time was to be allowed them for disposing of their effects, and they were then to be sent, with their families, to Lisbon. The discovery of the Mines seems to have introduced this jealous policy: it was probably strengthened by the loss and shame which had been sustained at the Rio; and being soon extended to all the other Captaincies, this short-sighted and selfish system of exclusion retarded the improvement of Brazil.

S. Paulo made a city.

Carta Regia. 24 July, 1711. MS.

Ordem. 17 Jan. 1715. MS.

During the government of Antonio de Albuquerque, St. Paulo, as being now the capital of a Captaincy, was made a city; and a few years afterwards it was enacted, that all who had served there as Juizes Ordinaries, Vereadores, and Procuradores do Conselho, should, by virtue of their office, retain the

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CHAP. XXXIII.

Regulations concerning grants of land.

Carta Regia. 15 June, 1711. MS.

Carta Regia. 1 April, 1713. MS.

Carta Regia, 27 June, 1711. MS.

Carta Regia. 8 April, 1713, MS.

Ordem. 29 August, 1718. MS.

All Religioners banished from the Mines.

nobility which attached to knighthood, and enjoy the privileges of that rank, provided they were not criminated in the general examination which the Judges were to make annually, nor in the visitation of the superior Magistrate. Grants of land were to be made sparingly in this growing Captaincy, with regard to the fertility of the country, and the great influx of inhabitants; and no person who obtained one grant might obtain another, either by purchase or inheritance. Care also was to be taken in assigning the jurisdiction of new towns, that ground enough was reserved for the Crown, to have some at its disposal, besides the royal patrimony, and the property of the Camaras. And it was to be specified in all grants of land which the Government might make, that no Religious Order might succeed to it, under any title. Where these Orders already possessed estates, they were to pay tenths, like the estates of the laity; and if any lands or houses were bequeathed to them, the bequest was not to take effect without the King's permission. The Jesuits had not recovered their ascendancy in S. Paulo, where they were regarded with a rooted hereditary hatred; in consequence, the administration of the Indians was in the hands of the Franciscans, Benedictines, and Carmelites; and their mal-administration drew upon them the censure of the Court, because they employed the Indians wholly in their own concerns, to the detriment of the public, so that when they were required for the, royal service they were not to be found. The Captaincy indeed was in a strange state: the very persons who ought to have been foremost in enforcing the laws of God and man, were the first to violate both. The Capitam Mor of S. Paulo, whose office it was to execute the orders of the judicial authorities, by searching for and apprehending criminals, made his house a place of shelter for them; and the Clergy set examples of the vices which it was their duty to have endeavoured, at least, to correct in the people.

[page] 147

CHAP. XXXIII.

Ordem. 12 July, 1721. MS.

Ordem. 23 October, 1721. MS.

Ordem. 19 May, 1723.

Runaways from their Convents, and interlopers who entered the district without the Bishop's license, and remained there in defiance of his edicts, were engaged in every kind of illicit practice; license and gold were what they sought, and the Court sent out order after order, that these men, who were the chief smugglers of gold, should be diligently pursued and expelled. All Religioners, of what family soever, were to be banished from the Mines; because, it was said, experience had shown the great injury they did, and the great disturbances which they excited. Their property was to be sequestered, unless they removed in eight days; and, if they had none, they were, in that case, to be punished, by being sent prisoners to the Rio, and from thence to Portugal. This not being found effectual, a second decree enacted, that all their property, gold, and slaves, should be peremptorily seized, and the produce sent to the Prelates of their respective Orders, or to their Syndic, if they were Mendicants, that the Superior might employ it in their Churches, or other pious works. This, it was said, would be the surest way to keep the Mines clear of this nuisance, for it was the love of lucre which attracted them. After a lapse of eighteen months the order was repeated, because it was found that the Religioners were still haunting the Mines; none whatever were to be suffered, except the parochial clergy who were regularly established there; and thus it was hoped a stop might be put to the cry of relaxation, which their scandalous lives had occasioned.

Manners of the clergy.

Carta Regia. 26 March, 1711, MS.

Ordem. 19 July, 1725. MS.

But even those clergy who were regularly beneficed in the Mines, and in the choice of whom more than ordinary care was supposed to be taken, seem to have caught the ferocious manners of the country. One Vicar is sent out of the country for being foremost in tumults and insurrections; another releases from the public jail the prisoners whom the Camp Master, in the strict exercise of his duty, had committed there. The Vicar of

[page] 148

CHAP. XXXIII.

Ordem. 6 Nov. 1717. MS.

Villa do Carmo, Antonio Cardozo de Sousa Coutinho, names which indicate that he was of high family, forcibly carried off a mulatta girl, with the assistance of his secretary, his Meirinho, and four negroes. The act was as notorious as it was scandalous, .. an open and insolent violation of religion, law, and decency. When he was called upon to restore her, and exhorted to remember his duties as a Priest, and one also who held authority in the Church, he replied, that he would shed the last drop of his blood, rather than not keep possession of the girl; accordingly he convoked all the clergy of the district, and they came to his assistance; other ruffians were easily engaged to assist them; they collected arms, barricadoed the house, and determined to resist force by force. So perilous was it to trespass against clerical privileges, that the affair rested till instructions could be received from Portugal; and when those instructions came, they were addressed to the Bishop of Bahia, notwithstanding his distance from the scene. He was charged immediately to recall this man, and proceed against him as his offences deserved: in case these orders should be neglected, then, and not till then, the Governor of the Mines was authorized and enjoined to seize the criminal.

Regulation respecting arms.

Carta Regia, 24 July, 1711. MS.

Ordem. 28 March, MS.

When S. Paulo and the Mines were separated from the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, it was left to the Governor's discretion whether or not slaves should be permitted to carry fire-arms: he was commended afterwards for not having allowed it, and for restricting the use of such weapons to noble men going from the city to their estates, or upon any other business. It would seem difficult to enforce this regulation; and both injudicious and unjust to deprive men of the most efficient means of self-defence, in a country, which, the very enactment shews to be in a lawless state. A later edict forbade any person of any class, quality, or condition, to carry knife, dagger, poniard, sovalam, (which is a

[page] 149

CHAP. XXXIII.

Ordem. 5 Feb. 1722. MS.

Distillation of spirits.

Ordem. 18. Nov. 1715. MS.

Ordem. 26 Mar. 1735. MS.

Do. 12 June, 1743. MS.

Do. 22 Aug. 1718. MS.

Do. 16 March, 1729. MS.

long instrument shaped like an awl,) estoque, though this kind of sword should have upon it the lawful stamp, great shears, or any other arms or instrument wherewith a cutting wound could be inflicted; .. it is scarcely possible to imagine manners more ferocious than are indicated by such a list. Pistols also were prohibited, and any fire-arms shorter than the legal standard. The ill effects produced upon such a people by the use of ardent spirits were soon perceiveds. From the increase of Engenhos, it was said, in which distillation was carried on, the King's service and the Treasury suffered irremediable injury, and the inhabitants were perpetually disturbed by riots among the drunken Indians: for these reasons, and because a great number of hands were employed in these Engenhos, orders were issued that no more might be erected till his. Majesty should have deliberated further. Twenty years afterward, the Governor was instructed to make enquiry into the mischief occasioned by the Engenhos; and after eight years farther consideration, an edict came forth forbidding any person to erect a new one, on pain of forfeiting it, and all the slaves employed in the building; nor might one already in existence be removed by the owner to a new situation, because under this pretext the prohibition might be evaded. In the same spirit of attention to the morals and tranquillity of the people, raffling was prohibited, that species of lottery having been introduced from foreign countries into S. Paulo and the Mines: it was afterwards enacted that persons who won at this forbidden adventure should forfeit the value of their prize, half to the Informer, half to the Treasury; and that if the offence were discovered without the intervention of an Informer, the Treasury should have the whole. Government may do something towards checking the propensities against which Portugal here tried the force of laws; it can do far more towards eradicating them, by the all powerful means of education.

[page] 150

CHAP. XXXIII.

Mines of Jacoabina discovered. 1714.

New coinage.

Rocha Pitta. 10. § 7—13.

Commutation for the fifths.

Carta Regia. 16 Nov. 1714. MS.

Do. 20 Oct. 1715. MS.

Meantime discoveries of gold continued to be made. In the first year of the century, D. Joam de Lancastro had obtained information of some mines in the interior of Bahia, in a district called Jacoabina, and had sent a party to explore them, under a Colonel and a Carmelite, .. for the Carmelite being a Paulista, was probably better skilled in mining than in theology. The samples which they brought back were not such as encouraged a farther search; it was now pursued by more fortunate adventurers, and the Marquez de Angeja's administration was distinguished by their success. One piece of native gold was brought to the Mint which was worth seven hundred milreis (nearly 200l.), three others of nearly the same size, and one of the value of three thousand cruzados (about 300l.); these were the largest masses that had been found in Brazil; the gold also was of the finest touch; but it had the disadvantage of lying deep. Gold being thus abundant, a new coinage was struck, of moidores, half, and quarter moidores, .. the moidore passing for three hundred reis, or one sixteenth more than its intrinsic value, and the smaller pieces in proportion; and from that time the mint was kept open, because of the profit which Government derived from this difference between the real and current value. Some calculation may be formed of the quantity of gold found about this time in the Minas Geraes, by the sum paid to the Treasury; the Governor in 1714 having accepted an offer from the miners of thirty arrobas, in lieu of the fifths for that year, an arroba being about twenty-eight pounds avoir-dupois weight. The Government was not satisfied with this commutation, and ordered him to collect by bateas instead, .. a mode which the Camara of S. Paulo had originally proposed, and by which, instead of taking a fifth at the Smelting-house, a poll tax of not less than twelve oitavas was to be paid for every negro employed in mining. The experience of a single year proved this to be as little advantageous to the Treasury, as it was agree-

[page] 151

CHAP. XXXIII. 1716.

able to the people, and the Governor therefore was instructed again to accept the thirty arrobas (about 50,400l.).

A Recolhimento founded at Bahia.

Under the viceroyalty of the Marquez de Angeja an institution was opened at Bahia, of a kind which has often been advised, and is greatly needed in Protestant Countries, and no where more needed than in England at this time; .. a Recolhimento, or retreat for women, who were bound by no vows nor distinguished by any habit, but enjoyed as long as they thought fit, the comforts and advantages of living in a community to which just enough of a religious character was attached to make it respected by public opinion. This was originally a charitable foundation, upon the will of a certain Joam de Mattos de Aguiar, usually called Joam de Mattinhos, because of his diminutive stature. By good fortune, industry, usury, and a frugality which amounted to avarice, he had amassed enormous wealth, so that after bequeathing a property of eighty thousand cruzados for this Recolhimento, four hundred milreis for as many convalescent patients every year, one for each upon leaving the hospital, and marriage portions of one hundred milreis, for thirty-eight young women every year; there remained a surplus sufficient to settle an annuity of eleven thousand masses upon his own soul for ever, at two testoens each. When Pedro II granted permission for this establishment, he ordered that the edifice should be made large enough to admit persons, who without being upon the foundation might chuse to retire there, paying a fixed annual pension of eighty milreis. The expences of the building were defrayed by setting aside a moiety of the rents bequeathed, till the whole cost was discharged, after which the number of members was doubled.

Rocha Pitta. 10. § 14—18.

Gonde do Vimieiro Governor General.

The Marquez de Angeja had an easy administration, neither disturbed with wars and tumults, nor straightened for means. He repaired and beautified the churches, he went through the

[page] 152

CHAP. XXXIII. 1716.

1718.

1719.

Reconcave to examine the forts, and gave orders for erecting new works and strengthening the old wherever it was needed; and he built three ships, the names of which may exemplify the curious state of feeling with which the Portugueze regard sacred things; one he called, Our Lady of the Palm and St. Peter; another, the Mother of God and S. Francisco; and the third, the Eternal Father! After holding the government something more than four years, he was succeeded in his office, but not in his rank, by the Conde do Vimieiro, D. Sancho de Faro. Ill omens are said to have preceded the Count's arrival in Brazil. It was confidently reported in Bahia that he had died on the voyage, and the month and day of his decease were specified: how the rumour had arisen was not known, nor is it easy to guess why the Viceroy should have endeavoured to discover the author for the sake of punishing him. On the voyage he was pursued by a Pirate who hoisted the black flag with the death's head, but sheered off when the Portugueze brought to for action; .. as if, says Rocha Pitta, the vessel had followed him for no other purpose than to display that deadly token. A more extraordinary meeting was that of a vessel on board of which no sound was heard and no living creature seen, and which, with only its mizen sail set, passed close athwart the prow of the Governor's ship, as if it were not under human guidance. These stories were much discoursed of at Bahia, because the Count died after he had held the government about fourteen months. His administration was only remarkable for a great fire in the capital, and for the arrest of a crew of pirates, who, after having long infested the coast of the Rio, were wrecked upon the beach at Macape, where forty-eight were apprehended by the country people and brought prisoners to Bahia. Of these, thirteen made their escape from fort S. Antonio; they let themselves down by a rope, got possession of a launch in the harbour, and were never

[page] 153

CHAP. XXXIII. 1719.

heard of more. The others were brought to trial for piracy; eight were condemned to the gallies at Lisbon for life, because five were lads, and against the three the evidence was not thought sufficient to justify sentence of death; .. there was little justice, and no great mercy, in such a commutation. The remainder, twenty-seven in number, were hanged, as they well deserved, and Rocha Pitta devoted two sections in his history to relate how perfectly they were all converted to the Roman Catholic faith, and how contentedly they went to the gallows, as men whom Providence had happily by that means predestined to salvation. No provision had been made of late years in case of the Governor's death; but an old succession-paper of the last reign was found in the Jesuits' College, wherein the Archbishop, the Chancellor da Relaçam, and the senior Camp-Master, were appointed joint Governors upon such a vacancy. This arrangement which designated the members, not as individuals, but by the offices which they held, was as applicable at all times as when it was made. When this instrument was read, and they took possession of the Government, the Archbishop asked with a loud voice of all the spectators, whether there was any person who called in question the propriety of these proceedings. Such an appeal was not an old custom making part of the ceremony, like the challenge at a Coronation in England; and his conduct therefore has justly been noted for imprudence, in asking from the people an opinion where only obedience was required.

Rocha Pitta. 10. § 21—36.

Expedition against the Indians in Piauhy.

The Lord of Pancas was still Governor of Maranham and Para, when the peace of Utrecht delivered that state from its perpetual apprehension of invasion, and from all farther claims on the part of France. The Portugueze were now extending their settlements up the great rivers which flow into the Orellana toward its midland course, and the Capitam Mor of Para, at this time was killed in the Madeira by the fall of a cedar. They

VOL. III. X

[page] 154

CHAP. XXXIII. 1719.

1716.

Piauhy made a Captaincy. 1718.

were also pursuing the conquest of Piauhy; where Antonio da Cunha Sotto-Mayor, who was engaged in this service with the rank of Camp Master, was murdered by the Indians whom he commanded. The ringleader of the mutiny was one Manoel, born and educated in one of the Jesuit Aldeas: he now directed the knowledge which he had acquired against the Portugueze, destroyed all whom he could circumvent, and cut off a large convoy on its way to S. Luiz, which city appears now to have derived supplies from the pastures of this fertile district. An expedition in considerable force was sent against him from Maranham, and failing in its principal object, .. for Manoel understood the superiority of his former masters too well to face them in battle, .. it performed the not less important service of destroying the Aranhies, one of the fiercest tribes of the country. There was at this time another body of troops in Piauhy, under Bernardo de Carvalho de Aguiar; and the conquest seems now to have been thought compleat, for it was made a Captaincy, and the town of N. Senhora da Victoria de Moxa founded, to be the seat of Government. In ecclesiastical concerns the new Captaincy was made subordinate to Pernambuco, in civil affairs to Maranham, while for judicial matters it was under the jurisdiction of Bahia. The Lord of Pancas held the government of Maranham during the long term of eleven years, and was then succeeded by Bernardo Pereira de Berredo, who had served with distinction in the war of the Succession, and has left for himself a more durable remembrance in his historical Annals of the State over which he presided.

Berredo. § 1469—1480.

Rocha Pitta. 6. § 78.

Progress of the Mines. 1711.

6 April, 1714.

The Mines, meantime, had prospered under Albuquerque. He erected a Court of Justice at Sabara, and nominated Juizes Ordinarios with the power of electing Vereadores and Procuradores, .. measures which were approved by the Court. The first division of the Mine Country into Comarcas, or departments, was

[page] 155

CHAP. XXXIII.

Carneiro. MS.

Errors of the Governors.

Ordem. 31 Jan. 1715. MS.

Do. 25 April, 1719.

Do. 16 Nov. 1720. MSS.

now made. Mining flourished; the spirit of enterprize was continually fostered by success; trade increased; all lesser disturbances, which if not speedily checked might have endangered the general weal, were suppressed by the activity of the Ouvidor, D. Luiz Botelho Fogaça; and it appears to have been considered as no slight proof of merit in Albuquerque, that his administration passed without any insurrection. He was succeeded by D. Braz Balthazar da Silveira. Both Silveira and his predecessor incurred the censure of the Court, for having lavished military commissions to gratify the vanity of the applicants, and perhaps to acquire favour. One order came out, saying, it was thought impossible that the Governor of S. Paulo and the Mines could have created posts in the Ordenanza which had never been known either in Brazil or in the Mother Country, such as Brigadiers, Quarter Masters, Governors of Districts, and Camp Masters General; but if it should be as general report affirmed, he was commanded immediately to annul all such appointments. And when Silveira was succeeded by the Conde de Assumar, D. Pedro Almeida, the new Governor was instructed to reduce all the Militia of his Government to the form of the Ordenanza in other parts of Brazil, forming one regiment in each Comarca, no more being necessary, with the exception only of the new regiment which had been raised during the late war. This regulation, it was said, was required, because of the excess to which his predecessors had gone in appointing superfluous officers, and thus multiplying privileges which served only to impede the proper administration of justice. It had also this farther evil, that for the sake of making an appearance in the posts, thus needlessly created, men ran into expences beyond their lawful means, and frequently withdrew from occupations in which they had been engaged to the general advantage

[page] 156

CHAP. XXXIII. 1719.

The commutation tax raised.

Carneiro MS.

Ordem. 19 Jan. 1719. MS.

When Silveira succeeded to the government, the commutation of thirty arrobas was subsisting; the Camaras collected it, and the richest settlers raised it by an assessment among themselves, according to the number of their negroes. This sum, however, the Governor considered as by no means equivalent to the value of the fifths, according to the increased and increasing produce of the mines. He therefore convoked a meeting of the Camaras from the different towns at Villa Rica, and it was agreed that ten arrobas should be added; but as the people seem, at this time, to have exercised the power of taxing themselves by their Camaras, it was determined that the additional sum should be levied, not according to the former method, which would impose the whole burthen upon the owners of negroes, but by a duty upon all negroes as they entered the country, and upon all imports. It does not appear to have been felt as an objection by those who made this arrangement, that the commutation was for the royal claim upon the Mines, and that to raise any part of it by general taxation, was taxing the whole people for the relief of the miners. In this state the Conde de Assumar found the finances; and he, perceiving the impolicy of allowing a general tax to be raised, for which the Government was to receive only a specific sum, took this part of the collection upon himself, and levied an impost of half an oitava upon every load of moist goods, three-fourths upon every arroba of dry goods, and one oitava upon every horse and head of horned cattle. This, however, did not continue long, and these duties, and the tenths also, were let by auction. The Count seems to have made a merit at the Court of having raised the sum at which they were leased by false bidding; but for this he received a reprimand, and in the same communication, which thanked him for having raised the revenue, he was informed that it was not proper to have recourse to such means for doing it. He had also taken upon him-

[page] 157

CHAP. XXXIII. 1719.

Ordem. 14 Jan. 1719. MS.

Provizam. 8 Oct. 1718. MS.

self to decide in legal cases, and for this also he was reproved: an order came from the Court, saying, that though affairs of the utmost consequence might safely be entrusted to the abilities of D. Pedro de Almeida, Conde de Assumar, it was not his business to judge causes: that province appertained to the Ouvidores, of whom the Governor must complain to the Court, if he thought there was cause for complaint. The Count had also trespassed upon the rights of the Guarda Mor, by arrogating the power of appointing Guardas Substitutos, and of making allotments; for this too he was reprimanded, and the privileges which had been given to Garcia Rodriguez, as the reward of his father's services and sufferings, were explicitly confirmed. It was his ill fortune continually to deserve censure, or to incur it; an insurrection was raised at Pitangui, by one Domingos Rodriguez de Prado; this he suppressed, and granted a pardon to the persons concerned in it; but he was admonished to remember, that pardon was one of the prerogatives of the Crown, with which he ought not to interfere.

Carta Regia. 11 Jan. 1719. MS.

Memorias. MSS.

Smelting houses ordered in the Mines. 1720.

Insurrection.

The Mines were, at this time, very populous, on account of the richness of the streams, which offered irresistable temptation to all who loved an idle and vagrant life; but the greater the number of such persons, and the greater the produce, the greater was the contraband trade: so the home Government once more resolved upon collecting its fifths, and issued orders accordingly for erecting smelting and receiving houses in every district. Eugenio Freire de Andrade, who held the office of Provedor of the Mint at Bahia, was sent to superintend the new establishment. The Count convoked the principal Miners, and other powerful men of the land, and they signified their assent to the proposed alteration, and subscribed their names to certain terms, which were, perhaps, some indulgences on his part, to render the measure more palateable. But the very persons who

[page] 158

CHAP. XXXIII. 1720.

The Conde de Assumar temporizes with the insurgents.

had thus professed their obedience to the Law, immediately began to excite the people to insurrection, and presently more than two thousand men assembled in arms at Villa Rica. Their first operations were against the Ouvidor of the district, Martinho Vieira, who had cited some of the Poderosos to appear before him in the course of justice. This, in such a state of society, was regarded as an insult, and was now resented accordingly; they attacked his house at midnight: luckily he was absent, and thus escaped death; but all his goods and papers were destroyed. They then sent their demands to the Governor, which were, that the building of the smelting-houses should be discontinued, and that he should send them a full pardon for the means by which they had sought redress. The Count delayed answering for four days, in hope of finding himself strong enough to put down this opposition with the arm of power; but he found that the other towns throughout the land were determined to follow the example of Villa Rica. Perceiving also that there must necessarily be some delay in the building, because Eugenio Freire was not satisfied with the plan of those which had been commenced, he published an edict, saying, that the new arrangement should be postponed for twelve months, because it was necessary that the King should be consulted concerning certain difficulties which had occurred. This concession, he hoped, would satify them; but it increased their irritation, and the armed insurgents set off for Villa do Carmo, where he was then residing. The inhabitants of this place had remained quiet, chiefly, perhaps, because the Count had some companies of dragoons with him, and partly, it may be, from the personal interest which he might have obtained by his intercourse with them. Nevertheless, he now feared that they would be induced to join the insurgents, seeing their force; and therefore, according to the common policy of the Portugueze Governors in all cases of popular commotion,

[page] 159

CHAP. XXXIII. 1720.

He seizes the ringleaders.

Carneiro. MS.

Rocha Pitta 10. § 40—45.

he yielded to every thing which was demanded, and granted a pardon in terms as full and formal, as they were worthless, .. such amnesties being necessarily invalid. The ringleaders had some farther object in view, for which the co-operation of the Carmo people was required: they remained sixteen days endea vouring to obtain it, without effect; and when they found their endeavours unsuccessful, they committed disorders which had well nigh ruined the town. This conduct, undoubtedly, was considered by the Count as fairly discharging him from the observance of the agreement, even if he had ever felt himself bound by it. As soon, therefore, as the insurgents had returned to Villa Rica, he sent a company of troops after them, who seized the ringleaders in their beds, and brought them prisoners to Villa do Carmo: their names were, Paschoal da Sylva Guimaraens, Joam Ferreira Diniz, Manoel Mosqueira da Rosa, his son, Vicente Boto, who was a friar, and Frey Antonio de Monte Alverno.

A second insurrection.

In such commotions the great majority of the people are always disposed for peace and submission, and that very disposition enables turbulent spirits to controul them, and carry forward their own mischievous purposes. Except a few Poderosos, who were made insolent by their power, and felt it a point of honour to be above the laws, even in the Mines all who were contented with their lot, all who had hope before them, and feared to lose the comforts which they possessed, were averse to the insurrection. On the night after the arrests, the friends of the ringleaders entered Villa Rica a second time in arms, meaning to make the inhabitants join them: they found the place deserted, upon which they proclaimed, in that spirit of tyranny by which all mobs are possessed, that if the townsmen did not appear there the following day, they would set fire to the town, and put them to death, without mercy, wherever they were found. But the Count was prepared to follow up his blow;

[page] 160

CHAP. XXXIII. 1720.

Rocha Pitta. 10. § 45—46.

Mem. MSS.

and, before they could execute the threat, his troops, who were now strengthened by a great number of armed inhabitants, entered Villa Rica, and burnt the houses of Paschoal da Silva, and the other chief rebels, as an example. The prisoners were sent off to the Rio; the insurgents, with one Felippe dos Santos at their head, attempted to rescue them on the way; they were defeated, their leader was taken, and having distinguished himself by his outrages during these tumults, he was brought to summary trial, executed, and his body quartered as a traitor. Attempts were made to renew the rebellion at Mariana; but there also the agitators were seized, and put to death. This vigour on the part of the Government effectually intimidated the party. The matter in dispute, however, remained undecided; for, in this point, the Count adhered to his agreement; and when he referred it to the further consideration of the Court, he communicated from the Camaras the offer of an addition to the former commutation.

Severity of the Governor.

Carneiro. MS.

Mem. MSS.

Order is restored.

The last attempts at rebellion were punished with a severity, for which the Count was held in detestation by the people of the Mines. How far he deserved the opprobrium which is still attached to his name in that country, it would be impossible to judge without fuller details of the circumstances. One writer talks vaguely of his barbarities and horrible proceedings; another asserts, that to his decision and courage Portugal is beholden for the compleat subjection of a province, in which the authority of the laws had never been fully established before his time. It is insinuated, that his recall was owing to the displeasure of the Court at his cruelty; but his successor was sent away before that cruelty was known, and he himself was afterwards promoted to the highest offices and highest honours of the state. D. Lourenço de Almeida, who was appointed to succeed him, brought out an Alvara, confirming the amnesty which he had granted;

[page] 161

CHAP. XXXIII. 1720.

Collecçam Sumaria. MS.

but he also took out private instructions, that this was not to be published if he were received at Villa Rica without opposition, and no disturbances ensued; .. in that case enquiry was to be instituted, and the offenders punished. He was received with obedience; but the Alvara was published, because he found that sufficient examples of justice had been given.

Minas Geraes made a separate Captaincy.

Carta Regia. 21 Feb. 1720. MS.

D. Lourenço came out as Governor of the Minas Geraes, that country being now separated from S. Paulo, and made a Captaincy. The Count had previously been ordered to collect all needful information for arranging the demarcation from the Rio, Bahia, and Pernambuco; to which latter province its vague territory was supposed to extend.

VOL. III. Y

[page] 162

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Progress of the Spanish Jesuits. Chiquito and Moxo Missions established. Labours and Martyrdom of Baraza. Progress of the Portugueze toward the centre of the Continent.

CHAP. XXXIV.

The Portugueze miners were now pushing their discoveries and their camps toward the centre of the continent. Their progress was not followed by the Missionaries. On the side of Para, indeed, new Aldeas were formed, and the old continued to flourish upon the system which Vieyra and his fellow-labourers had established; but, in the other Captaincies, all zeal of this kind seems to have subsided; the Jesuits, and the other Religioners, found sufficient employment in the large towns, and among the settled inhabitants, or the few Indian villages remaining, of those which their more active predecessors had formed. The Spanish Jesuits, meantime, were pursuing their plans with unabated enthusiasm, and answerable success; and, as formerly in Guayra and the Tape, so now, in the heart of South America, they met the Portugueze, and were again prevented from extending the dominion of Spain.

Foundation of the town of Tarija.

When D. Francisco de Toledo was Viceroy of Peru, he gave orders to found a town in the province of Chichas, for the double

[page] 163

CHAP. XXXIV. 1591.

Almanach de Lima. P. Juan Patricio Fernandes. P. 6.

Charlevoix. 2.

purpose of checking the incursions of the native tribes, and securing a communication with Tucuman. The first attempt failed, and the settlement was removed some little distance to the southward, where S. Bernardo de Tarija now stands: the name of the patron Saint, as usual in America, has fallen, into disuse, and the town is called Tarija ¹, after the valley in which it is situated. A fort was built here to protect it from the Chiriguanas, its nearest neighbours, who happened to be one of the most numerous and most formidable of all the South American nations. But it was thought that a College of Jesuits would contribute more to the security of the country, than any military efforts which could be made: D. Joseph Campero de Herrera, afterwards Marquez del Valle Toxo, in concert with his wife, D. Juana Clementia Bermudez, built and endowed one for them; and F. Joseph de Arce, a Canarian by birth, was sent from Cordoba to take possession, and begin the task of reducing the savages.

The Chiriguanas.

The Chiriguanas are a Guarani tribe, supposed to be the descendants of those whom Alexis Garcia led towards Peru, and who murdered him on their return, and settled where they hoped the distance might save them from the vengeance of his countrymen. According to received tradition, they were, at that time, four thousand in number: when the Jesuits were expelled they were estimated at forty thousand. They possess

1 So careless frequently is Charlevoix, that he places this town in Charcas instead of Chichas, and in latitude forty-one instead of twenty-three. The bones of some of those huge quadrupeds, whose species have ceased to exist, have been found in the adjoining valley, and, of course, attributed to a race of giants. The establishment of the town was, perhaps, facilitated by the well-timed invention of a most miraculous cross, which, the Spanish writer says, "is supposed, upon good grounds, to have been made by some one of the Apostles, .. because no Christian had ever been in those parts." Almanach de Lima.

[page] 164

CHAP. XXXIV.

the vallies on the eastern side of that great chain of mountains in which the Rio Bermejo, that is to say, the Red River, the Pilcomayo, and the Guapaix, which is the largest of those streams that compose the Mamore, have their sources. The various tribes into which they are divided acknowledge their common origin as a bond of friendship, and those who live near each other are ready, at all times, to unite against an enemy. Their towns are built in a circle; and, as they are not a migratory people, they rear the vicuna. Many hordes, however, make use of the fleece alone, believing that if they were to eat the flesh it would have the effect of making them woolly. Within doors they usually throw off all cloathing;² but, abroad, the men exhibit a sort of: breeches, which, being designed more for ornament than for use, they frequently carry under the arm, instead of wearing them: these are said to be made of leather. For travelling they put on a sort of buff tippet, or shoulderpiece, as a protection against thorns: this shows that, the leather must have been of the best kind; .. if they learnt the method of preparing it from the Spaniards, it would be a remarkable proof of their aptness for civilization: but it was more likely of home growth, because there is no example of the free Indians having derived from their neighbours the knowledge of any useful art. The women wear only a single short garment, from the waist to the knees. The hair was formed, with some taste, into a sort of coronal on the top of the head. The men used a lip-trinket of silver, or of tin, or of transparent gum. They painted the face a fiery red,

2 Chomé says of some of these tribes, that they only cover themselves with some old rags; .. but of what were the rags? Perhaps they manufactured some kind of woollen cloth; and, indeed, it does not appear to what other use they could apply the wool, for the sake of which they reared the vicuna: for it is not likely that they made it an article of traffic with the Spaniards.

[page] 165

CHAP. XXXIV.

and sometimes varied it with black. Both sexes were thus disfigured, but after a different fashion. At drinking bouts the whole body was smeared in the same manner. They were excessively addicted to drinking, and the women had the art of brewing a potent beverage, to satisfy this passion. For these drunken feasts they assembled in a house built in the centre of that open place, which their own habitations surrounded. This town-house they frequented during the heat of noon, and here strangers were received, and entertained, and lodged. They were remarkably clean, and fond of bathing. One of the most intelligent and most meritorious of the Jesuits, F. Ignace Chomé, who lived among them, declares, that amid all the license of their mode of life, he never observed the slightest act of indecency, nor ever heard an expression which bordered upon obscenity. The tie between man and wife, if the latter appellation may be allowed, was dissolved at pleasure; and this liberty was so generally used, that it was a common thing for a father to have children in several villages. Their courtship had its laws; a wooer presented, from time to time, to the object of his desires, the fruits which he had raised, and the game which he had killed; after these indications he laid a billet of wood at the door of her cabin; if it was taken in he was accepted: but, if she left it untouched, the refusal was decisive, and he had to seek another mistress. A woman, immediately after parturition, bathes in the nearest stream, and then lies down on a heap of sand, prepared for the purpose in the hut; while the father, according to a custom more widely diffused, perhaps, than any other observance which is entirely unaccountable, takes to his hammac, and is dieted for the good of the child. The bodies of the dead are placed in jars, a very general mode of interment among the Guaranies, and buried in the cabin, or near it, a low mound being raised over the grave. During many months the women

[page] 166

CHAP. XXXIV.

bewail them thrice a day, at morning, noon, and evening, and they begin their ominous lamentation as soon as the sick person appears to be in danger. They suppose that the soul upon its departure wanders among the adjacent woods, and they perform a ceremony of seeking it. It seems that they have some rude notion of a metempsychosis: .. A woman with whom one of the Jesuits was conversing, started at seeing a fox, and exclaimed, that perhaps her daughter was dead, and this might be her spirit. No jugglers are tolerated among them, because they believe diseases to be the effect of sorcery: and upon a suspicion of this kind, they once burnt four of their countrymen alive. Their intrepidity was such that they would rush upon fire-arms; the Spaniards therefore, when acting against them, found it necessary to place pikemen alternately with musqueteers in their ranks; and so agile were they in fight, that unless the soldier could level his piece at one of them unperceived, he is said to have had little chance of hitting his mark.

Chomé Lettres Edifiantes, 78, 330, 336. Peramas. Chomé Vita. Dobrizhoffer, 1. 141. Jolis. 146. Almanach de Lima.

The Chiriguanas reclaimed from cannibaliam.

These people made a tremendous destruction among the other tribes: in the course of two centuries they are supposed to have destroyed more than an hundred and fifty thousand Indians; but through their intercourse with the Spaniards they had been induced to abandon their old practice of cannibalism, .. a fact the more remarkable, because this intercourse did not in any other respect mitigate the ferocity of their manners Rather indeed it rendered the task of converting them more difficult; for they saw the dissolute lives of the Spaniards, and were thereby led to think injuriously of a religion which had so little apparent influence upon the morals of those who professed it. It was of little use to preach to them against polygamy, as a forbidden practice, when they knew that the Spaniards were living in habitual and unbridled licentiousness; they saw their own vices practised by these nominal Christians, and they dis-

[page] 167

CHAP. XXXIV.

F. Arce advised to go among the Chiquitos.

covered in them avarice, rapacity, and oppression, .. to which they themselves were strangers. Therefore they held the terrors of the Catholic creed as cheap as the Spaniards appeared to do; and when they were threatened with hell-fire, coolly made answer, that they should find means of putting it out. Such was the unpromising field which F. Joseph de Arce was sent to cultivate. Some little prospect of success was beginning to appear, when the sister of one of the Royalets came to him in great affliction, and intreated that he would intercede with the Governor of Santa Cruz in behalf of her brother, whom upon some false accusation he was seeking to apprehend and put to death. The chief, Tambucari by name, was so confident in his own innocence, and in this protection, that he accompanied the Jesuit, and was accordingly absolved. D. Agustin de Arce de la Concha, the Governor before whom they appeared, was one who both from principle and policy, understood the importance of converting the natives; and he had lived long enough in the country to become acquainted with the character of the different tribes. The Chiquitos had lately made peace with him, and solicited that Missionaries might be sent among them. From Peru he could obtain no labourers for this service: for all who could be spared from that province were employed among the Moxos to the southward; and knowing how bootless all former efforts had proved among the Chiriguanas, he advised Arce and his companion, F. Juan Bautista de Zea, rather to bestow their pains upon this more docile race. But the Jesuits were not at liberty for this; .. where they, had been ordered, there they must continue to serve, till the Provincial should think good to alter their destination. F. Gregorio de Orozco, who held that office, happened shortly after to come to Tarija, in the course of his visitation: and he, having received the Governor's letter, and heard Arce's disposition to enter upon this new field, instructed him to go toward the sources of the Paraguay, and employ

P. Juan Patricio

[page] 168

CHAP. XXXIV. 1691.

Fernandez. 5—19. Charlevoix. t. 1. 16— t. 2. 224—231.

himself there among the Chiquito tribes, where he should be joined by seven ³ fellow labourers from the Guarani Reductions. A reinforcement of forty-four Jesuits had that year arrived at Buenos Ayres, and thus it was that they were enabled to spare so many from that quarter.

Opposition made by the slave-tradere.

Arce set out cheerfully for Santa Cruz, on the way to this more hopeful enterprize. But when he arrived there, an unpropitious change had taken place: the Governor had been superseded by a man of different temper, who, gave ear to a company of slave-traders, and discouraged the attempt. This trade had been carried on with great success from that city. The Governors, indeed, were required by the terms of their first charter to make what were called entries into the country, twice a year; and though by the interference of the Jesuits this clause had been repealed, the agents of the Slave-Company regularly sent off large droves of captives to Peru. This probably was the chief trade which the Chiriguanas carried on with their more civilized, but not more humane neighbours; .. this the means by which they were induced to abstain from cannibalism, and this the cause of the prodigious destruction which they had made among the other tribes. Arce, however, had the laws on his side, and by his perseverance he overcame the opposition of the dealers in human flesh, and the cold unwillingness of the Governor; not that the one or the other were moved by his representations on the score of policy, humanity, or religion;

3 One of these was a Sardinian, one a native of Benevento in the kingdom of Naples, one from Namur; the others were an Austrian, a Bohemian, a Biscayan, and a Spaniard of La Mancha, .. so curiously was this extraordinary Society composed of men of all nations. And what a preeminent knowledge of mankind must the Jesuits have possessed from this circumstance alone; .. this knowledge, of all others the most difficult of acquisition, was thus acquired by them as a mother tongue, and they were fitted for Missionaries and Statesmen, almost without study.

[page] 169

CHAP. XXXIV. 1691.

Almanach de Lima. Fernandes, 58. 63. Charlevoix. 2. 239—242.

but because they thought the shortest and surest way to rid themselves of his importunities was to let him go and perish, as they supposed he would do, by the hands of the savages, the nature of a most unhealthy climate, or the hardships which he must inevitably undergo. The last difficulty was to obtain ⁴ a guide: and Arce then set out the more eagerly, because a contagious disease was raging among the people whom he was bound to convert.

Province of the Chiquitos.

See vol. 1, p. 333.

About thirty tribes were comprehended under the general and absurd appellation of Chiquitos; they were however of the same stock, all speaking one of four ⁵ dialects, the Tao, the Pi-

4 And I am persuaded, says Fernandez (p. 64), that the reason why no guide for that country could then be found, was through the cunning of the Devil, who foresaw the ruin which the zealous Missionary would bring upon his party … "Y me persuado que el no hallar par entonces algun practico en los caminos, fue astucia y traza del Demonio, que precia la ruina que avia de causar a su partidoel zeloso Missionario." So difficult was it for a Jesuit to write without the use of the machinery to which he was accustomed.

5 The Tao was spoken in the Missions of S. Raphael, S. Miguel, S. Ignacio, S. Anna, S. Juan, Santiago, Santo Corazon, and Concepcion. It was used by fourteen tribes, the Taos, Boros, Tabiicas, Tañopicas, Xuberesas, Zumanucas, Bazorocas, Puntagicas, Quibiquicas, Pequicas, Boocas, Tubacicas, Aruparecas, and Piococas.

The Piñoco was spoken by the Piñocos, by a branch of the Piococas, the Quimecas, Guapacas, Quitagicas, Pogisocas, Motaquicas, Zemuquicas, and Taumocas. This dialect was used in S. Xavier, and S. Joseph, among the Chiquito Missions, and in S. Joseph de Buenavista, or, de los Desposorios, among the Moxos.

The Manaci was spoken by seven tribes, the Manacicas, Sibacas, Cucicas, Quimomecas, Tapacuracas, Yuracarecas, and Yiritucas. Before the expulsion of the Jesuits the remainder of these hordes were aggregated to the Mission of Concepcion, where the children acquired the Tao; the native dialect was used only by the old, and consequently would be extinguished in another generation.

The Penoqui differed very materially from the other three, and therefore F. Fe lipe Suarez, who made the first Chiquito Grammar, composed a distinct vocabulary of this dialect, and wrote some treatises in it. The tribe to which it was confined, and from which it took its name, was very numerous and very warlike, and, as Hervas says, gave the first Conquerors, and the Paulistas afterwards, no little to do. They were reduced to the Mission of St. Joseph, and there acquired the Piñoco.

It is doubtful whether the Lengua be of this stock. Fernandez affirms that it is; but the Ex-Jesuit whom Hervas consulted, would not venture to class it as such.

The Zamuco was spoken in some of these Missions. Of this there were three dialects. The Zamuco, used by the Zamucos, Zahenos, and Ugaraños; the Caipotorade, by the tribe from which it took name, the Tunachos, Imonos, and Timinabas; and the Morotoco, which was the language of the Morotocos, Tomoenos, Cucurares or Cucutades, and Pananas, and supposed to have been that of the Careras and Ororebates, who were incorporated with other tribes, and had no longer a separate existence.

Besides these, sixteen other languages were spoken in the Chiquito Missions, all radically different from the Chiquito, Tamuco, and Guarani. They were the Batajé, Corabé, Cuberé, Curucané, Curomina, Ecoboré, Otuque, Paiconé, Paraba, Pauná, Puizoca, Quitema, Tapi, Tapuri, Jarabe, and Baure. What a Babel was here! Hervas. t. 1, cap. 2, § 20—21.

VOL. III. Z

[page] 170

CHAP. XXXIV.

Peramas de Tredecem. p. 424.

F. Francisco Burges, Lettres Edif. 8. 337.

Peramas de Tredecem. p. 314.

ñoco, the Manaci and the Peñoqui; the latter differed materially from the three former, but was manifestly a cognate tongue. They lived in clans each apart from the other, and at great distance, the intermediate country being common to all for cultivation, hunting, fowling, and seeking honey. The hilly ground alone was cultivated, and there they raised maize, mandioc, potatoes, pulse, and fruits, using in their agriculture a kind of wooden spade. The lowlands were inundated in the wet season, and heat and moisture rendered this one of the most unhealthy parts of South America; yet it is remarkable, that diseases prevailed most with a southerly wind, which in that part of the world is the coldest. The tribes who had applied for missionaries were the Pacaras, Rumiquis, Cozos, and Pinocos. After a painful journey over mountains and marshes, Arce arrived

[page] 171

CHAP. XXXIV.

Arce arrives in time of pestilence.

Fernandez. 7.

among the latter people, who were in a miserable state, and received him with as much joy as if they expected miraculous relief from his hands. The contagion was raging among them, and they lay dying on all sides, some in their huts and ham macks, others on the ground and in the open air. Misery and the near sight of death made them docile disciples at this time; they intreated the Jesuit not to leave them, and he, as well moved by compassion as because the rainy season was about to begin, during which it would be impossible for him to reach the place where he had been instructed to meet the brethren from Paraguay, resolved to remain, and lay the foundations of the first Chiquito Reduction. Those Indians who were able to work, exerted themselves with great zeal; and in the course of a fortnight they compleated a wooden church, which he dedicated to S. Francisco Xavier. Arce chose this celestial Patron for his flock, because, during a dangerous illness in the College at Cordoba, where his superiors intended to retain him as a preacher, he had made a vow to Xavier, that if his life should be spared through his intercession he would devote it to the conversion of the savages. The Peñoquis joined him here; he recovered from a severe attack of the fever, and all was going on prosperously, when he was summoned to meet a new Provincial at Tarija. By him Arce was remanded to the Chiriguanas, and F. Diego Centeno, whose name appears to denote a relationship to that Spaniard who has left the fairest reputation of all the conquerors of Peru, was sent with F. Francisco Hervas to supply his place among the Chiquitos.

Do. 63—68. Charlevoix. 2. 242—244.

The Paulistas approach these settlements.

This was just before the great discoveries in Minas Geraes diverted the whole enterprise of the Paulistas to mining. A party of these adventurous people advancing far to the northwest, embarked upon one of those streams which combine to form the Paraguay, .. probably the Taquari, .. and proceed-

[page] 172

CHAP. XXXIV. 1696.

They are defeated by the Spaniards of S. Cruz.

ing toward th t labyri th of waters which has been called the Lake of the X rayes, landed in a bay known by the name of the Port of the Itatines. Going from thence east and south, they came first upon the Taos, and having made a good capture there, proceeded to the Penoquis. A horde of these sallied to defend their village, with their characteristic bravery; the Paulistas drew them off by a manœuvre, while a detachment got in their rear and occupied the place. The women and children were there, and the Paulistas by means of these captives induced the men to join company, and guide them in their farther progress; for they proposed to attack the Reduction, and to fall upon Santa Cruz itself. The Reduction was abandoned in time, and the Jesuits having sent intelligence to the city, a force of an hundred and thirty men was dispatched against these free-booters, and strengthened on the way by three hundred Chiquito archers. The Paulistas crossed their track, and seeing the marks of their horses' feet, apprehended the danger; but some Indians had the cunning to persuade them, that the cattle of the Reduction had gone that way, and they were thus enticed to their destruction. The first and second in command, Antonio. Ferraez de Araujo, and Manoel de Frias, fell early in the action; and it is said that only six escaped with life, of whom three were taken prisoners: it may indeed be believed, that little mercy would be shown to these enemies, although there were six Jesuits with the victorious party. Such a defeat would not have been sustained if the Paulistas had not separated their force, leaving a part in the country of the Penoquis to guard their captives, who were about one thousand five hundred head: the Spaniards did not think proper to proceed against them, and they, as soon as they learnt the fate of their comrades, got with all speed to their canoes, bearing off their living booty. On their way home they fell in with a troop of their country-

[page] 173

CHAP. XXXIV. 1696.

Fernandez. 69—79.

Charlevoix 2. 244—247.

men, by whose reproaches they were provoked to join company, and again try their fortune; but falling upon some resolute tribes, they were so bravely resisted, that they thought it better to turn back, than persevere in an unlucky expedition. Some Guarayos, who were in their service, deserted while they were among the lakes and currents of the Paraguay; they settled among the Curacanas, and shortly afterwards were aggregated to one of the Chiquito Missions. The Spaniards believed that the Paulistas were deterred by this adventure from any farther incursions in the same direction; but the reason why they did not appear again for many years was, that they were engaged in a more tempting pursuit among the Mines.

The Chiriguana Missions abandoned.

Attempt to open a communication from the Guarani to the Chiquito Reductions by the Paraguay.

1702.

About this time the Missionaries were compelled to abandon the Chiriguanas, as the Governor of Santa Cruz had foreseen: .. this intractable race set fire to the church, and would have martyred their teachers had they not withdrawn in fear. This was a fortunate event for the more docile tribes of the lower country, among whom three populous Reductions had now been founded. Here the Jesuits had more difficulties to overcome, from the nature of the country, than in any other part of the continent; but they had nowhere else a people so docile and so desirous of instruction. It now became a great object to establish a communication with the Guarani Missions, by way of the Paraguay, instead of the circuitous route through Tucuman;.. of two thousand five hundred leagues, it was thought that one thousand might be cut off by this direct course. With a view to this communication, the Reduction of S. Raphael had been fixed upon the banks of a river, which was supposed to communicate with the Paraguay; and the fathers, Francisco Hervas, and Miguel de Yegros, set out with forty Indians to discover the junction. They travelled in a good season, and found no want of game or fish upon the way, .. and, after a long and laborious

[page] 174

CHAP. XXXIV 1703.

Fernandes. 81—87. 149—153.

Charlevoix. 2. 247—250.

journey, they planted a cross upon what they believed to be the shores of the river which they sought. With these tidings Hervas, on his return, was sent to the Parana Missions, and from thence, in the ensuing year, he was ordered, with five companions, to ascend the river, and search for his own land-mark. His comrades in this arduous undertaking were the fathers Arce and Zea, Bartholome Ximenes, and Juan Bautista Neuman, with the lay brother Silvestre Gonzalez. They embarked at the Reduction of Candelaria, and in six weeks reached Asumpcion; from whence they took their departure, with a flotilla, consisting of a large bark, four ⁶ balsas, two piraguas, and a canoe.

Navigation of the Paraguay.

Falkner. p. 55.

The first conquerors sailed up to Asumpcion in the ships wherein they came from Europe; since that time the river had brought down so much sand, that, in the middle of the eighteenth century, small merchantmen did not venture higher than Buenos Ayres, and larger vessels were unladen at Montevideo. The navigation of the Paraguay is exceedingly difficult, the stream running in many places with great force, and being full of islands, rocks, shoals, and quicksands. A Pilot, or Practico, as he is called, must be hired at a high price, who goes before, sounding; every night the bark must be anchored; and at every appearance of a storm they seek shelter: nevertheless, wrecks are frequent. In many places the river is so wide, that from mid-channel the shores are not visible. There are two noted

6 The Balsa used upon the Paraguay is a double canoe, with a cabin raised upon the platform, by which the two trunks are connected. Lozano, by whom it is described (Historia de la Compania de Jesus en Paraguay, 3, 24, § 6,) says, that this cabin is very liable to be upset upon rough water, or in rough weather: If so, it must either be ill fastened to the platform, or very disproportionately elevated, which is by no means likely; .. for otherwise, of all known vessels, the double-canoe is certainly the least liable to danger of this kind.

[page] 175

CHAP. XXXIV. 1703.

Dobriz hoffer. 1. 204.

whirlpools, the larger and the less; these are well known, and therefore easily avoided: there is greater danger from the current, which sometimes whirls the bark round, and drives it upon the rocks or shallows. Above Asumpcion the chief danger is from the savages; boats ⁷ may ascend as high as latitude sixteen, with sufficient depth of water, and no impediment of reefs, rapids, or falls.

Azara. 1. 67.

The party attacked by the payaguas.

About forty leagues above the city the Jesuits fell in with some canoes of the Payaguas: these people said they were afraid to approach, because some of their countrymen had been killed lower down the river; a few beads, and other trifles, were suspended for them from a tree, and they then drew near, and presented in return some mats, beautifully woven and ornamented. This kind of intercourse continued till the treacherous savages found an opportunity of surprizing some of the Guaranis, whom they immediately butchered. They then defied the Jesuits, and annoyed the flotilla with slings and arrows; but they were soon

7 The cordage used upon this river is made of the bark of the guenbé, a parasite, which grows upon the forks of the largest trees when they begin to decay, and sends from thence its roots to the ground, either perpendicularly, like the filaments of the Banian, or clinging to the tree, and growing spirally downward. These filaments have no contortions, and are about finger-thick; the leaves are palmated, and the trunks, (for every plant has many,) about the thickness of a man's arm. It bears a head like that of maize, and the grains are eaten: they have a sweetish taste. If the bark be dry when it is stripped it must be wetted, otherwise no preparation is required. This cordage never rots in the water, and bears extension well; but it is injured if it be left dry: it will not bear much friction, and must be made larger than hempen ropes, because it is not equally strong. The Spanish frigates, however, were glad to use it at the close of the Revolutionary war. The colour of the bark is a deep violet, and therefore this plant is used in ornamental matting and basket-work.

Azara. 1. 133.

[page] 176

CHAP. XXXIV. 1703.

Failure of the attempt.

October 12.

put to flight. In requital, a Payagua settlement was laid waste; but with an ill-judged and unjust vengeance, inflicted more than a month after the offence, consequently at a distance from the place; and falling on those who were ignorant, as well as innocent, of the provocation which had been given, and being thus the injured party, would, in their turn, seek to revenge themselves upon the Spaniards. One of these hordes had erected three great crosses within the palisade of their village; the Jesuits suspected this to be what they called one of the Missions of the Mamalucos, .. a Paulista decoy for the savages; but it appeared that the Payaguas had learned superstition from their neighbours, and expected that the cross would serve as a talisman to drive away the jaguars. They came now to a reef, where, according to a tradition of their own inventing, footsteps were, at low water, to be seen in the rock, and they had the less welcome sight of fires and smoke raised by the Mbayas, as signals that an enemy was approaching. They proceeded however, without molestation, through an extensive country, where all the surrounding tribes made an ample provision of wild rice; and having reached that part of the river, where it forms a large island (famous in the fables of South America), there they expected to find the land-mark which was to direct them. In this hope they explored every bay and lake, sending out parties by land and by water; but all their search proved ineffectual: it was afterwards ascertained that Hervas and Yegros had not seen the Paraguay, nor any stream which communicates with it. When they had persisted in their purpose as long as the season would permit, Hervas, and Arce, and Zea, intreated the Superior to leave them upon the island, that they might pass the winter there, and having won the good-will of the natives, attempt to reach the Chiquitos under their guidance. The Superior would not expose them to this imminent danger, and they began their

[page] 177

CHAP. XXXIV. 1703.

1704.

Fernandez. 152—172.

Peace made with the Payaguas, and broken.

Fernandez. 179.

homeward voyage with much precaution, and some danger, because the river had fallen. On the way they entered into a friendly intercourse with those Payaguas, by whom they had been so treacherously treated when ascending the stream; these people delivered up to them a Spaniard whom they had captured, and requested that Missionaries would come and establish a Reduction among them. Both Arce and Zea would willingly have remained, but the Superior thought there was little dependance upon the word of these savages, and still less upon their stability, even if their present purpose was what they pretended. Before they reached Asumpcion they were reduced to great distress for provisions; and had they not been supplied, during a course of one hundred and fifty leagues, by some friendly Guaranies, their own stock would have failed. F. Neuman sunk under the hardships of the expedition: they sent him forward to Asumpcion with all speed of sail and oar, in hope of preserving his life; but he arrived in so exhausted a state, that he expired about an hour after he entered the College. Sixteen of the Indians also died of dysentery, and want of sufficient food. They brought with them some Payagua Chiefs, who desired to be at peace with the Spaniards. The people of Asumpcion suspected that their intent was to spy the weakness of the land; nevertheless the Governor, for the sake of the Jesuits, under whose patronage they came, and for good policy, treated them with kindness, and dismissed them with gifts, well pleased at their reception. A good understanding was thus once more established; but it happened not long afterwards, in evil hour, that a party of Spaniards fell in upon the river with some of this very horde, and in that spirit of brutality with which the profligate members of civilized states are still prone to treat those whom they regard as savages, they fired upon them without provocation. From that hour the Payaguas vowed vengeance, and

VOL. III. 2 A

[page] 178

CHAP. XXXIV. 1704.

pursued it with unrelenting hatred, and unweariable perseverance.

Second attempt from the side of the Chiquitos.

1705.

The Provincial, not discouraged by the failure of this expedition, resolved that a trial should be made from the Chiquito settlements; and accordingly instructed F. Juan Patricio Fernandez, the first historian of these Missions, to build canoes upon that river which Hervas supposed to be the Paraguay, and send Yegros, with the lay-brother Henrique Adam, and a party of Xarayes, good boatmen and well acquainted with the river, down the stream to Asumpcion. Fernandez set out with the two adventurers, and an hundred Indians, from S. Raphael; and having found the Cross which Hervas had erected, ascertained that it had been planted, not upon the banks of the Paraguay, but of one of those great lakes which are formed during the rainy season. After much perseverance they came to a sandy shore, where a Penoqui, who had escaped from the Paulistas in their last expedition, said these freebooters left their canoes, when they began their land-march against the Taos. Here they might have embarked with fair likelihood of success; but there was no wood at hand suitable for canoes, and no time to seek it from a distance, .. for the season was now so far advanced, that any farther delay would have rendered their return impracticable. Already the low lands were flooded, and glad were they at night to find any little elevation above the general level, on which they could lie down, though even there the ground was wet and swampy, and myriads of mosquitos, and other bloodsuckers, made it impossible to sleep. After twenty-five days of such labour they reached S. Raphael, their limbs swollen by walking in water, and nearly worn out with fatigue and privations, under which indeed the lay-brother sunk. Some Guarayos were picked up in this expedition, who understood Spanish, and gave an account of the track of the Paulistas. Under their

[page] 179

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guidance Fernandez explored the country a second time; they brought him to what he calls the Lake Mamore, which is divided into two bays by a long neck of land; this had been their usual landing-place, according to the Guarayos, whose information was confirmed by the discovery of five long chains, which had been buried there, intended, it should seem, for linking together large droves of slaves. Fernandez would have persuaded the Provincial, on his next visit to Tarija, to dispatch these Guarayos round by Tucuman to the Guarani Missions, as guides who might be trusted for another expedition from that quarter; but the Provincial would not again expose valuable lives in a hazardous service, upon what he conceived to be such uncertain grounds.

Fernandez. 172—182.

Success of the Missions.

From their first establishment, the Chiquito Missions were uniformly prosperous in all things, save only that they were in an unhealthy country, to which even the natives themselves never became acclimated; indeed it appears to have been more injurious to them than to the Spaniards. The settlements were more than once removed to new situations, which it was thought would prove less insalubrious; but with no very sensible advantage from the change. In other respects the Jesuits were more fortunate here than their brethren among the Guaranis; .. they were not infested by the Paulistas; there was no faction continually striving against them in the neighbouring provinces; and their converts are said to have been more docile, less inconstant, and of greater capability. Here, as in other parts of America, the Jesuits were usefully, meritoriously, and piously employed: ready, at all times, to encounter sufferings, perils, and death itself, with heroic and Christian fortitude; yet they could not forego that habit of audacious falsehood in which the monastic orders, for so many generations, had vied with each other. The practice was begun in darker ages, and they persisted in it when

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CHAP. XXXIV.

F. Cavallero goes among the Manacicas.

it was no longer safe to insult the credulity of mankind. F. Lucas Cavallero, one of the first labourers among the Chiquito Missions, was selected to be the hero of religious romance in these countries, as Anchieta had been in Brazil, and Xavier in the East. He undertook the conversion of the Manacicas, though he was warned that they were a numerous and a dreadful people, whom it was dangerous to approach, because pointed stakes were concealed in their pathways, and more dangerous to reach, because of their fierce hatred of the Spaniards; but the more hazardous the enterprize, the greater would be the merit of exposing himself to it; and there were some peculiar circumstances relating to this tribe, which might peculiarly incite his saintly ambition.

The Manacicas.

The various hordes comprehended under the general name of Manacicas, were of the same stock as those who composed the Chiquito Missions. Part of their country was covered with thick forests: part consisted of wide plains, which were flooded during most of the year, consequently there was no want of fish or game, nor of such fruits as the land produces. The soil is fertile, and the produce of their harvest generally abundant. They were a strong and courageous race; their complexion olive, their stature good, their limbs well proportioned; .. but a cutaneous disease was common and hereditary among them: it is called a sort of leprosy, and described as covering the body with scales, but producing no inconvenience. Their villages are said to have been built with some regard to beauty, in streets and well-proportioned squares. The Chiefs and the Cacique inhabited large dwellings, divided into several apartments, which served also for public assemblies, and banquets, and for temples. The houses of individuals also were well constructed, although they had no better instrument than a stone hatchet. The women were skilful weavers, and their pottery was remarkably good, ringing like

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metal to the touch; the clay was kept long before it was used, that it might ripen: .. upon the same principle the Chinese are said to bury, for many years, that of which their finer ware is made. The villages of the Manacicas were generally near each other, because they liked to interchange visits. These visits were so many drinking bouts: the invitation went from the Cacique, as relating to a public concern, and in his house, the entertainment was held; he had the first place; the Priests, or Maponos, as they were denominated, the second; the physicians, here said to be a different order from the priests, the third; then the warleaders; and afterwards the rest of what are called the nobles. Great deference was shown to the Cacique: his house was built for him, his fields were cultivated, and he received a tenth of the fish and game, the best being selected for his portion; his authority was absolute, and he united in his own person the office of judge and executioner, breaking the bones of criminals with a club. This is so much in savage character, that it may almost authenticate itself. In other parts of their political economy, the same license of embellishment may possibly have been taken by the relators, as in the account of their religion; for it is affirmed, that the principal wife of the Cacique was obeyed by the female part of the community; and that the eldest son, in like manner, ruled over the youths. When this heir apparent attained to mature years, the government was transferred to him; the father was still regarded with respect and reverence; and, on his demise, was buried with many ceremonies in an arched vault, where care was taken that no moisture might reach his bones to corrupt them, and that the earth might not lie heavy on his remains.

Mythology of this people, as described by the Jesuits.

Some glimmerings of the preaching of St. Thomas are left among them, say the Jesuits; after this preamble, there is little cause for wondering at the fables which follow. According to

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the Jesuits, the Manacicas held by tradition from their ancestors, that a Virgin of incomparable beauty brought forth a fair son, who had no father; that this child restored health to the sick, sight to the blind, life to the dead, and having performed his course on earth, exclaimed one day in the presence of a numerous assembly, Behold how my nature differs from yours, .. and soaring therewith into the air, became the Sun. The Maponos, who travelled through the sky at pleasure, confirmed this tradition, by declaring that the Sun is a luminous human figure, though here upon earth it is not possible, because of the distance, to distinguish his form. This personage, however, was no object of their worship; they worshipped three Devils, not in effigy, but in person; and therefore with some reason they insulted the converts for adoring pictures and images which could neither see, nor speak, nor hear. Bold as the Jesuits were in falsehood, they never lied with greater intrepidity than in their account of this devil-worship. The Devil, they say, in mockery of the true religion, was determined to travesty it in this hidden part of the world, and therefore taught these Indians to believe in a diabolical Trinity, of which the three persons were called Omequeturiqui or Uragozoriso, Urasana, and Urapo. Being a Catholic Devil, he also invented a Goddess, Quipoci, as the wife of the first, and mother of the second of these Deities. She used to appear with a resplendent countenance, beautiful, and like an Angel of light; but the three major Gods were always horrible and hideous in appearance; the head as well as the face of each was of the colour of blood, the ears like asses' ears, the nose broad and flat, the eyes enormously large and flashing flames, the bodies burnished and girdled with snakes. Uragozoriso spoke with a loud voice, Urasana with a nasal tone, and Urapo like thunder. The first chastised the wicked with a staff, or some other instrument of pain; the

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other two were intercessors for mercy; but the Goddess Quipoci was more peculiarly the mediator. At all general meetings and solemn funerals these Gods or Tinimaacas were expected; a part of the great hall in the Cacique's habitation was curtained off with mats for their reception, and into this sanctuary only the Maponos might enter. The Tinimaacas came with a sound which filled the air, agitated the mats, and made the building shake. The people who were feasting or dancing at the time then bade them welcome, saying, Fathers are ye come? to which a loud voice made answer, Sons, what are ye doing? are ye eating and drinking? eat and drink, for that pleases me, and I will take care of you, and provide for you; it is for your use that I have created game and fish and all good things. A troop of inferior Demons descended with the three major Gods, and remained on foot in their presence; these the Manacicas believed to be the souls of their enemies and of other nations. When the beverage began to produce its usual effect of drunkenness and clamour, if at any time the revelry and uproar flagged, the fiends would reproach their votaries, and order them to quaff largely, and dance, and fill the temple with their shouts; and to encourage them the more, they called for drink themselves. A cup curiously wrought was reserved for their use; it was filled, and carried to the curtain by the oldest men and women in the assembly; they bore it in the right hand, and as they raised the curtain reverently with the left, a hideous hand with long talons was put forth to receive it. This was done thrice, that each of the Tinimaacas might quench his thirst. None but a Mapono might look behind the curtain; there were one or two of these in every village, sometimes more: it was the highest rank in the Devil's hierarchy. If any priest of inferior rank attempted to pry into the sanctuary, the Mapono prevented him, threatening him with instant death if he persisted in so impious a purpose.

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In the midst of the festival the Mapono came from the presence to repeat the oracles which had been entrusted to him: they related to good weather, seasonable rains, prosperous harvests, successful hunting and fishing; and not unfrequently exhorted the people to make war upon their neighbours. Offerings were then made of game and fish through his hands, and when this ceremony was concluded, the Tinimaacas fled into the air carrying the Mapono with them, and shaking the whole building with their ascent. After awhile the Goddess Quipoci brought him back to the sanctuary in her arms, and held him there sleeping, while she sang in a sweet voice, and the women on the other side the veil danced and rejoiced. In return to their welcomings, she called them her children, and assured them that she was their true mother, and would defend them from the Gods who were cruel and sought to afflict them with infirmities and misfortunes. The cup was presented to her and offerings given, and then she reascended.

Extravagant falsehoods of the Jesuits.

Thus far, though there may be something to suspect, there is nothing impossible in the relation. The mythology might have been framed by some hardy impostor, in imitation of what he supposed to be the Jesuits' faith (there are instances enough of such attempts); credulity may always be supposed, to any required amount; .. the ascension was made behind the curtain, and a little management and some exaggeration would solve the rest of the riddle. But to that which follows, no such solution can be applied. For the Jesuits affirm that the Mapono frequently ascended into the sky, not in company with the Tinimaacas, behind the veil of the temple, and unseen; but by the power of his own mighty volition, in the open air, and in the presence of the people: they affirm, that he would spread his arms as if they were wings, and then soar into the sky in an erect posture. This posture was reversed in his downward

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flight: but sometimes a troop of inferior Gods brought him down, visibly with a terrible uproar, into the midst of the temple, and sometimes the malignant spirits let him fall from the roof, in which manner some of the Maponos perished. One of these gifted Priests was as much respected as the Royalet, and, like him, received a tenth of the game and the produce. They who aspired to this office were initiated before the down appeared upon their chin; the eldest Mapono took the aspirant in his arms, instructed him to look at the full moon, stretched his fingers, ordered him to let his nails grow, (a fashion by which the privileged ranks in many countries designate themselves, as proving that they are above the necessity of manual labour,) and at length fled up with him into the air, and laid him in the lap of Quipoci, from whence he returned in a state of such despondency and exhaustion that it was many days before he recovered. The Priests observed frequent fasts, and abstained at all times from certain animals and fruits, especially from the Granadilla, the fruit of the Passion-flower, because, say the lying Jesuits, of the mysteries which are signified in that marvellous blossom: the people also were frequently required to fast. One of the most solemn observances was at the dedication of a temple, when all the inhabitants abstained five days from animal food, the village was put in mourning (after what fashion is not specified), strict silence was prescribed during the whole time, music and dancing were forbidden, and no business was carried on except that of weaving mats for the sanctuary. On the last day a feast was given to all comers; the most devout old woman of the horde bowed her head before the Cacique that he might twice or thrice strike it gently with a stone instrument of elaborate workmanship; she then went on her knees round the temple, sighing loudly, and with marks of great devotion, and the Mapono compleated the ceremony by blessing the building in all its parts.

VOL. III. 2 B

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The Tinimaacas often visited the Maponos, whose wives fled from the presence of these hideous guests. Sometimes a Mapono retired into the wilderness to enjoy this communion without interruption. He was believed to have the faculty of inflicting injury or death by the mere force of his displeasure; and he made an alarming display of power which he really possessed, by domesticating venomous serpents, and appearing abroad with some of these reptiles wreathing round his arms and neck, and nestling in his bosom. In return for the honours which they received, and the tenths which they enjoyed, the Maponos performed a most extraordinary service: as the members of their flock died, they carried them bodily to Paradise, .. a curious office, which is thus described. After the funeral, the relations of the dead made their offering in the temple, and when the Gods came to receive it, the Oquipau, or Spirit of the deceased, accompanied them, .. a Devil, according to the Jesuits, appearing in this character. The Oquipau consoled his friends with the hope that they should all finally meet in a place of delight: he was then sprinkled with water by the Mapono: this posthumous baptism took away his sins; and being then ready for the journey, he bade farewell to the mourners, while the Mapono, taking the substantial soul upon his back, mounted into the air and began his way for the Land of the Departed. It was a wild, weary journey, over hills and vales, through thick forests and across rivers and swamps and lakes, till after many days they came to a place where many roads met near a deep and wide river: this was the Pass Perilous, where the God Tatusiso stood night and day upon a wooden bridge to inspect all such travellers; and this vigilant warden never went to earth like the other Deities, but was always at his post. He was bald and ugly, his countenance pale, his body disfigured with filth and wounds, and his only clothing a cloth round the loins.

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Fernandez. 222—242.

This personage did not always chuse to consider the sprinkling of the ghost after death as a sufficient purgation: he therefore frequently required the Mapono to stop, that his charge might be cleansed from its impurities; and if any resistance were made to this purification, which was a ceremony nothing agreeable, he would sometimes seize the unhappy Oquipau and throw him into the river, .. a circumstance which was always followed by some calamity to the Manacicas. Once, when unseasonable rains were destroying the harvest, the people enquired the cause of their Mapono, and were informed it was because the Oquipau of a certain youth had behaved irreverently to Tatusiso, and been cast over the bridge in consequence. The father of the deceased was so greatly afflicted at hearing his son's deplorable fate, that the Mapono was moved to compassion, and promised, if a canoe were given him, that he would endeavour to fish up the poor soul. Accordingly he placed the boat upon his shoulders, took flight, and returned after awhile with fair weather, and tidings of good success; but the canoe was never seen again. There were various Paradises to which persons were consigned according to the manner, not of their lives, but of their death; they who died in their houses going to one, they who perished in the woods to another, they who were drowned to the country of the Isituucas, or Water-Gods, to whom tobacco was offered in incense, because that herb was used for intoxicating fish. The Paradise of Quipoci was the happiest of these abodes. The souls were fed with a gum which distilled from certain celestial trees; and there was a huge eagle who continually flew round and round the World of the ⁸ Departed.

8 It is curious to observe, how carefully Charlevoix has weeded out from this relation, those falsehoods, and those only, which were too impudent for the age and country in which he wrote. He says nothing of the flights of the Mapono; nothing of the commotion which the Tinimaacas produced, when they descended into the Temple, and when they rose again; .. nothing but what may perfectly be explained, by mere deception on the part of the Priest; .. yet it is plain that he had no other document before him than the Relacion Historial of P. Juan Patricio Fernandez, where all these things are stated. But as the belief that Heathen Gods are Evil Spirits, prevailed in the Catholic world, Charlevoix improved upon the hint of their imitating the mysteries of the faith; and says, that Quipoci was called, by these savages, the Virgin Mother, .. for which there is no authority in his original. T. 2, 273—278.

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CHAP. XXXIV.

Cavallero's miraculous adventures.

Among the people where these extraordinary superstitions prevailed, Cavallero prepared to attack the Devil upon his own ground. He set out, according to his brethren, with the expectation and in the fear of death; and when he approached one of their villages, and had passed safely along a path wherein spikes were concealed, he made his companions tie the Crucifix to his hands, that if he should be received with a discharge of arrows, he might retain that holy signal when he fell. At one village they assaulted him fiercely; arrows were aimed in showers at his head: some fell harmlessly at his feet, some recoiled with full force against the infidels by whom they were discharged, some pierced his garment; but he himself remained invulnerable, and such of his attendants as were wounded, were healed as miraculously as he had been protected. In the same spirit of invention the Jesuits relate, that the Triad of false Gods appeared to their votaries weeping and lamenting, because, they said, an Enemy was approaching, who bore an image upon which they could not endure to look; that they exhorted the people to fly from the face of this pernicious stranger; but that Cavallero, by the power of his preaching, induced the heathen in many places to bring out the curtains, and all other ornaments of their temples, and

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set ⁹ fire to them. They say too, that he came to one horde, who having heard of the practice of the Christians, imitated them, in time of pestilence, by setting up a Cross, and scourging themselves till the blood streamed: the pestilence immediately was stayed, an Angel came down to adore the Cross, and, of course, the people who had seen the miracle were ready to worship the Missionary when he arrived, and greedily to receive his ¹⁰ instructions. But the scene of their boldest fiction was laid among, some tribes, who are remarkable on another account. They inhabited the shores of a great lake, the water of which was unwholesome; but, instead of making fermented liquors, after

9 The only thing which he preserved was an astronomical instrument of brass, having the Sun and Moon, and the signs of the Zodiac, represented upon it; .. a gift, says the stupid writer who relates the fact, which the Devil had given them many ages ago!

10 In one of his expeditions, the flower of the village from which he set forth accompanied him; on the way a fever broke out among them, and prostrated several of his new disciples; as the unconverted part of his escort happened to escape the contagion, they ascribed their safety to the superior power of their own Gods, and insulted the Neophites upon this supposition. This touched the Jesuit, and made him expostulate in prayer. On the eve of that festival which is dedicated to the Guardian Angels, he relates (for the narrative is in the first person), that one of those Angels appeared to one of the sufferers, told him the disease was sent instead of the death which they would otherwise have received from the hands of the infidels, bade him and his brethren trust in God, and assured him that they should all recover. F. Cavallero, who seems, on this occasion, to have had less faith than he demanded from his readers, and who was a desperately bad practitioner, gave them a medicine, the strength of which he did not know, and which aggravated the disease; till the patients, being no longer able to endure the burning heat of the fever, made their comrades carry them to the nearest river, and plunging in, were healed by that means. (Fernandez. 285.) The physical fact may be true, notwithstanding the suspicious character of the story.

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Fernandez. 299.

the manner of all the surrounding nations, the only beverage which they used was a decoction of maize, thoroughly roasted, and then pounded; they were exceedingly fond of this, and when they went abroad it was the only provision which they took with them. While Cavallero was employed among these people, he suspected that some idolatrous ceremonies were about to be observed upon the death of a woman; and having set spies upon the offenders, he was informed that a sanctuary had been erected, composed of wicker-work, curiously interknit; that in the middle two stakes were planted, as a throne for the Devil; that a net was drawn round the temple, within which no person was allowed to enter except the Mapono, and the near relations of the dead; and that at midnight, when the ceremony would be performed, the better to avoid discovery, the Devil was expected in person to receive his offerings, hear the prayers, and accept the sacrifices which should be made for the spirit of the deceased. Accordingly the Jesuit was upon the alert, and at midnight he surprized the whole party in the fact; for, upon looking in, there he saw the Devil, rendered visible by the light which issued from his own infernal eyes, sitting upon the two stakes in majesty and terrific might; it was a sight which made the priest's hair bristle round his tonsure, and his limbs tremble; nevertheless he rushed in, and the Devil, unable to stand before him, exclaimed, that his votaries should never again behold him in a place where he had been so shamefully put to flight; and immediately he disappeared, carrying away with him, body and soul, the Mapono, who was never seen ¹¹ more.

11 With these circumstances the story was printed at Madrid in 1726. The manner in which Charlevoix adapts it to the meridian of Paris, thirty years afterwards, deserves to be made known. "Il les surprit pendant une nuit faisant les obseques d'une femme avec leurs ceremonies ordinaries. Il leur en fit une severe reprimande; et le Ciel, par un exemple de terreur sur le Mapono, qui y presidoit, et qui disparut dans l'instant, sans qu'on ait jamais pu decouvrir ce qu'il etoit devenu, acheva de leur inspirer une veritable horreur pour leurs superstitions. T. 2, p. 318.

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CHAP. XXXIV. 1711.

Cavallero's martyrdom.

Cavallero's career was closed by martyrdom; and the Jesuits, who had chosen him to be the hero of one of their grandest romances, affirm, that a distinct knowledge of his impending fate was communicated to him from Heaven. Having overcome the weakness of human nature after this revelation, he set out toward the Puyzocas, from whom he was to receive his crown; and he took with him thirty-six Manacica neophytes, whom he exposed, without scruple, to this certain death; for though they might not have the same desire for such a catastrophe, their reward would be the same. They were welcomed with treacherous courtesy, and led into different houses to be feasted, that the massacre might be more easily effected. While they were seated at their food, some naked women approached, and drew upon their faces certain black lines, the sign that they were marked for death: presently afterwards the Puyzocas fell upon them. The few who escaped this first assault ran to Cavallero, who was alone, and in the act of prayer: one of them took him on his back; for, according to the legend, the Jesuit was too much absorbed in piety to use any means for his own preservation. They were pursued, and he was pierced with an arrow between the shoulders. He then made the Indian put him down, and fixing in the ground the Cross which was his staff, he knelt before it, offering up, says Fernandez, the blood which he was then shedding for his murderers: in this posture he was killed, by repeated blows of the macana. Twenty-six of his companions were butchered: and of the ten who reached the nearest Reduction, four died of their wounds. Not satisfied with this, the

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CHAP. XXXIV. 1711.

Puyzocas dispatched a party to watch the motions of the Christians, and carried off some stragglers. This rendered it necessary to apply to S. Cruz for protection; and a detachment was sent from that city to take vengeance for the murder of Cavallero, and bring away his relics. When they arrived at the scene of slaughter it was sunset, and they waited for morning to begin their search; but, in the darkness of the night, they saw at no great distance from their encampment a flame, like that of a torch, which frequently disappeared, and as often became again visible. They marked the spot well, and hastening thither at earliest dawn, on that spot they found the body of the martyr miraculously preserved, and in a miraculous posture: it was kneeling on the left knee, with the right leg extended, and the head reclining on the left hand, in front of the Cross, which stood where he had planted it at the moment of his martyrdom. Many weeks had elapsed while it had been thus exposed to the hot sun upon that wet ground, and the bodies of all his companions were putrid; his alone was entire and uncorrupt.

Fernandez. 304—310.

Charlevoix. 2. 330—333.

This romance brings disgrace upon the Jesuits.

In this manner the Jesuits had been accustomed to embellish their annals; and if such fables could have passed current, as they did in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, St. Lucas Cavallero would soon have been provided with legends not less miraculous and monstrous than St. Domingo himself, and the rival Patriarch of the Friars Minorite. Here was a broad foundation laid; but the fathers who remitted these brave inventions from Paraguay, and they who approved, licensed, and published them at Madrid, seem to have forgotten, that at that time all nations were not in the same state of intellectual darkness as the Spaniards, and the Spanish Americans. When the error was discovered it was too late; and the tardy acknowledgement that certain fictions had crept into the book, did not clear the Company from the imputation of having once more

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CHAP. XXXIV. 1711.

attempted to palm a tissue of fables upon the world for truth. The monstrous stories of the Maponos were related upon Cavallero's own authority, .. one of the most monstrous, as having happened in his own sight. Whether he invented these tales, or his historian, F. Juan Patricio Fernandez ascribed them to him falsely, or the third and nameless brother, from whose Italian papers Fernandez is said to have translated the history, they are equally of Jesuit manufacture. They were invented by Jesuits, written by Jesuits, and published by Jesuits, with the licence and approbation of the Jesuit censors, and under the sanction of the General of the Order. The falsehood was so palpable, that it has been confessed by the Jesuits themselves; and the motive is not less palpable, .. that of exaggerating the merits of the Company, and raising their reputation, by imposing upon the credulity of mankind. But however profitable for a time they may have found the system of imposture (for a system it was), it made those persons their enemies whom it failed to make their dupes; and who, had they not been properly disgusted by such artifices, might otherwise have done justice to their merits, and cooperated in their views.

A second expedition up the Paraguay. 1715.

The project of opening a communication with the Chiquito Missions, by the Paraguay, was renewed after an interval of ten years; and Arce, who had led the way into that country, was again appointed to this perilous service. His companion was F. Bartolome Blende, a native of Bruges. A bark and two shalloops, with a competent number of Indians, were prepared for them at Asumpcion. When they embarked from that city the Sacrament was exposed, as a propitiatory solemnity, and the Governor, and all the inhabitants, accompanied them to the water's edge. They escaped from a stratagem of the Payaguas, who, under an appearance of friendship, meant to kill them, and, seize the boats for the sake of the iron; but some of these peo-

VOL. III. 2 C

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CHAP. XXXIV. 1715.

Arce reaches the Chiquilos.

ple gave intimation of the design: a breeze springing up at the moment it was needed, saved them from an ambush of the Guaycurus, several hundred of whom, in a difficult pass of the river, lay concealed up to the chin in water; and they purchased a passage from others of this formidable tribe, by a rich offering of knives, wedges, and cloth, which the Guaranies of the Reductions had sent as a mark of fraternity and friendship to the Chiquitos. Having reached, as they supposed, the part of the river where Fernandez had left his marks, they spent several months in vainly seeking for them; till Arce, at length despairing in the search, and yet unable to bear the thought of abandoning his object, left the boats, and with twelve of the most enterprizing Indians undertook the journey, without any clue. Game, whether owing to the season, or the nature of the country, was scarce; they subsisted upon tortoises and fish, when they could catch them, and sometimes were in want both of food and water. Arce more than once advised the Indians to make their way back to the boats; for himself, he said, he was resolved to go on, and fulfil the will of God and of his Superiors; and once, believing himself to be near his end, from exhaustion and fever, he desired them to lay him on the banks of the next water, and seek their own safety by returning. But they were attached to him by affection, as well as by habits of dutiful obedience; and he, who was encouraged by their fidelity, made another effort, and renewed his journey at a time when his tongue was so parched and inflamed that he could not speak. The timely discovery of some honey probably saved his life. After having endured these sufferings for two months, they came into a track which evidently led to the Missions, and soon fell in with a party of Neophytes, under F. Zea. When Arce had rested long enough at S. Raphael to have recovered from the effects of the journey, he returned to rejoin Blende, whom he had left with the

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CHAP. XXXIV. 1716.

Fernandez. 322—333.

Charlevoix. 2. 329—330.

boats; but Blende had commenced his return, forced by the mutinous conduct of two Spaniards, the one the pilot, and the other the master of the bark. These fellows had an old grudge against Arce, for having prevented them from buying slaves: and they threatened Blende to turn him upon shore, and leave him there, if he would not consent to return.

Martyrdom of Blende and Arce.

Thus disappointed in the hope of rejoining his comrade, Arce resolved to try his fortune among those Payaguas, with whom they had had some intercourse on the way: so he built a canoe, and embarked with his faithful Guaranies. When they had proceeded some days down the stream, they saw some bodies exposed upon the shore of an island: the heads had been carried away, but, upon landing, it was immediately perceived that they were the bodies of Blende and his companions, .. treacherously murdered by the very savages to whom Arce was about to devote himself. They fled from the fatal spot: the Payaguas were on the watch, and they were surprized and but chered, except four of the party, who made their escape up the river, after two years, and finding their way back to S. Raphael, gave the first intelligence of the fate of the two Jesuits. There was now no safety upon the Paraguay. The Payaguas, who would have justified their conduct to these Missionaries, by pleading the treatment which they had experienced after making peace, were indefatigable in annoying the Spaniards. A bark, going from Asumpcion to Santa Fe, fell into their hands, and two Jesuits, with thirty Guaranies, were massacred before they could even attempt to defend themselves.

Fernandez. 333—342.

Charlevoix. 2. 330—333.

Attempt to communicate by the Pilcomayo.

The communication by the Paraguay being thus rendered impracticable, a hope was conceived of effecting it by the Pilcomayo. A party of Spaniards from S. Miguel de Tucuman, in an enterprize against the savages, had come to a stream which they supposed to be this river, .. especially because they heard

[page] 196

CHAP. XXXIV. 1716.

that some white people were settled upon its shores. Upon this D. Esteban de Urizar, the Governor of the province, prepared an expedition for exploring its course; and the Provincial ordered some Jesuits from the Guarani Missions, at the same time, to ascend the Pilcomayo, and proceed, if possible, till they should meet the party from Tucuman. If they failed in this object, it was hoped they might reach the country of the Chiriguanas, or of the Zamucos, among whom Zea had lately laboured with success, and from whom some of the Chiquito Missionaries were to set forth upon the chance of meeting one or other of these expeditions.

The Pilcomayo.

The Pilcomayo is the largest river which falls into the Paraguay from the West. About eighty leagues before its junction with that great stream, it divides into two branches. The one which disembogues within sight of Asumpcion is called by the Guaranies, Araguaya, .. the wise river; a name which is supposed to imply, that great caution is required in navigating it: indeed it can scarce be deemed navigable. In some parts the channel is hardly to be traced amid broads, and aquatic plants; in others it is entirely concealed beneath a plant, called Aguape by the Portugueze, which covers wide tracts with its broad leaves and intertwisted roots. In wet seasons the banks are frequently falling in; and masses of trees, held together by their rootage, come down in floating islands. The other branch retains its name, and flows into the Paraguay about nine leagues lower down. Between the two there is a third, which separates from the southern arm. During the inundations their waters meet, and not only flood the Delta, but unite with the overflow of the Rio Bermejo. Could the navigation of this river be opened, the way from Paraguay to Peru would be shortened by nearly two thousand miles. A boat attempted it in the second year of the century, but only one of its crew escaped from the Indians.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 135. Jolis. 62. Almanach de Lima.

[page] 197

CHAP. XXXIV. 1720.

The expedition is frustrated.

The party from Tucuman perceived that the stream upon which they embarked did not increase in size as they expected: they persuaded themselves that it did not communicate with the Pilcomayo, being perhaps weary of the adventure; and they returned from their bootless expedition. The Chiquito Missionaries were not able to discover the river. The party from Paraguay consisted of the Fathers Gabriel Patiño and Lucas Rodriguez, the Lay-Brother Bartolome de Niebla, and a Portugueze Donado, by name Faustino Correa, with a Guarani escort from the Reductions, and a few Spanish adventurers, in one bark and two boats. After ascending about eighty leagues, they found that there was not sufficient depth of water for the larger vessel; Patiño and Niebla therefore proceeded with part of the company in the boats; and according to their computation, ascended more than a thousand miles further, till they came to a tribe considerably advanced beyond the savage state. They were agriculturists; they reared sheep and made a good cloth of the wool, and they had horses in great numbers; the men appeared docile, and the women from their complexion might have been supposed to be Spanish. At first the intercourse with this people was so amicable, that Patiño thought it would be easy to reduce them. But all missionary attempts on the side of Tucuman had been frustrated by the interference of the Governors, who had destroyed many a promising establishment by the greediness with which they attempted to impose the burden of personal service upon high-spirited tribes. There were some Tobas and Mocobis here who knew these things, and consequently regarded the Spaniards as mortal enemies. At their instigation the Indians treacherously attacked the party, and killed some of the Guaranies who were cutting wood; .. Patiño was prepared with a covering of hides which resisted their arrows, but he found it necessary to fall down the stream, and escape with all speed.

[page] 198

CHAP. XXXIV.

Missions among the Moxos.

While Arce and his successors were employed among the Chiquitos, other Missions were founded toward the North, approximating nearer that debateable ground of which the Portugueze were now beginning to take possession. Castillo, a lay-brother among the Jesuits, had accompanied some Spanish traders from Santa Cruz into that part of the country, since called the Province of Moxos, after the first converted tribe. He made himself agreeable to the natives, and was on his part so pleased with their apparent docility, that immediately on his return he set out for Lima, to acquaint his Superiors how fair a field was open for the exertions of the Company. F. Cypriano Baraza, who was in the College of that city, and who had long been ambitious of devoting himself to the service of the heathen, obtained leave to go with Castillo upon this adventure. Baraza was perhaps the most enlightened Jesuit that ever laboured in Spanish America.

Lettres Edifiantes. t. 8, p. 92.

Province of the Moxos.

Rivers which form the Madeira.

The scene of his labours is a tract of country roughly computed at one hundred and twenty square leagues. On the North it is divided by the Guapore from the Portugueze territory of Mato Grosso, .. a country wholly unknown to the Spaniards, which had sometimes been crost by the Paulistas, but which was not yet appropriated by either of the two nations who had divided this great continent between them. Thick woods divided it on the South from the Province of the Chiquitos. To the South-east a Cordillera separated it from Cochabamba, and on the West the river Beni from the Missions of Pomabamba, or Apolobamba, as by an accidental error they are sometimes called. Three great rivers flow through the province; the Mamore, which rises in the Mountains on the S. E. and receives in its way the S. Miguel or Apere, and the Guapay or Rio Grande; the Guapore or Itenes, which has its source in Mato Grosso, receives the Rio de los Baures, and joins the Mamore at the end of the province; and the Beni, which falling into their joint

[page] 199

CHAP. XXXIV.

Almanach de Lima.

stream, forms with it the Madeira, one of the largest and most important secondary rivers of South America. All three are navigable in canoes and balsas almost from their sources. The way to the province is by water, .. rivers in such countries supplying the want of roads. For the districts of Moxos and Baures, the traveller embarks upon the Guapay, either at Puerto de Paylas, or lower down at the Puerto de la Pesca: this is the way from Santa Cruz, and is performed in canoes. The other entrance is from La Paz, by the Beni, to the district of Pampas; the place of embarkation is Puerto de Coroyco in the province of Sicasica, and this voyage is performed in balsas.

Almanach de Lima.

Baraza forms the first Reduction among the Moxos.

It was upon the Guapay that Baraza and his companion embarked in a small canoe made by some Indians of the country who served them as guides. Baraza was provided with store of fishing hooks, needles, beads, and other such things, which procured him a good reception, when after a voyage of twelve days, he arrived among the Moxos: and he spent four years among them, learning their language and winning their good-will by that spirit of love which alone could have supported him through the privations of such a life, aggravated as they were by the long sufferings of a quartan ague. At length the disease had so far exhausted him, that he despaired of recovering by any other means than that of breathing a healthier atmosphere, and therefore he went to Santa Cruz. The remedy proved effectual: his heart was still among the Moxos, and in the first days of his convalescence he began to learn weaving, that he might instruct them on his return in one of the first arts of civilized life, and induce them to clothe themselves, as the first step towards civilization. But the Spaniards of Santa Cruz were more interested in the conversion of their formidable neighbours, the Chiriguanas, than in any thing which concerned more distant tribes; and the

[page] 200

CHAP. XXXIV.

Governor, without consulting Baraza, applied to his Superiors, and prevailed upon them to station him among these intractable barbarians. A Jesuit's first duty was obedience. To the Chiriguanas he went, however unwillingly, and laboured patiently among them five years, before he was relieved, and left at liberty to return to a people whom he loved better, and among whom he knew that his exertions were more likely to be rewarded with adequate success. They had not forgotten him; about six hundred readily submitted to his instructions; and as he baptized his first converts on Lady-day, he dedicated the Missions to Our Lady of Loretto.

Lettr. Edif. 8. 93—96.

Manners of the Moxo Tribes.

Because the Moxos ¹² were the first tribes among whom Baraza laboured, that name was applied to all the people who inhabited, or wandered over the country, between the tenth and fifteenth degrees of South latitude; they consisted, however, of not less than ¹³ twenty-nine tribes, among whom thirteen distinct lan-

12 The Spaniards called them thus, either from mistaking the true name, which, according to Garcilaso (l. 7, c. 13,) was Musu; or, according to a believed tradition, because the first person of whom they asked the name of his nation, thought they were asking what ailed him, and replied Muha, which signifies the itch. Muha and Moxa much resemble each other in a Spaniard's pronunciation, the Spanish x being a strong aspirate. The Moxos therefore are offended when they are called by this name. Hervas. 1. 4. § 66.

13 The Moxos, Báures, Mobimas, Erirúmas, Tapacùras, Itonámas, Huaráyos, Caniciánas, Bolèpas, Heréceboconos, Rotoròños, Pechuyos, Coriciàras, Mèques, Mures, Sapis, Cayubábas, Canacúres, Ocorònos, Chumanos, Mayacámas, Tibois, Nayras, Norris, Pacabáras, Pacanàbos, Sinàbus, Cuyzáras, and Cabinas. The Almanach de Lima, from whence this barbarous catalogue is transcribed, says, that the Missionaries were obliged to learn eight languages at least; Hervas, whose authority must be preferred, makes them thirteen. They are thus classed by him. The Moxa and the Baure, kindred dialects: the Ticomeri is from the same root, but so different, that the name implies in Moxa another tongue. The Paicone, altogether different. The Chuchucupucono, Comobocono, Moubocono, and Mosotie, are Moxo dialects. The Mopeciana and Icabicici, distinct tongues. The Majiena, not understood by any other tribe. The Mobima, Cayubaba, Itonama, and Sapibocona; .. Hervas possessed vocabularies and prayers in each, and could detect no affinity. The Cheriba and Chumana, kindred tongues. The Rocotona, Orocotona, and Herisobocona, kindred tongues; .. a curious fact, because the tribe who spoke the last of these dialects were a white people, with red or auburn hair, and might therefore have been presumed to be of different race The Muré. The Canisiana. Hervas. 1. 4. §§ 66—73.

[page] 201

CHAP. XXXIV.

guages were spoken, besides sundry dialects. During four months in the year the hordes have no intercourse with each other, because of the inundation, each being islanded upon the spot of rising ground whereon its cabins are built. The dry season follows, and the sun acting upon stagnant waters, generates pestilence. The weather is then oppressively hot; at other times, when the wind comes from the snowy mountains, it is piercingly cold. Neither corn nor vines will grow there; but the land is admirably suited to such plants as require heat and moisture. The tribes were in many grades of progression, from the lowest state of savage life: .. the Moxos were among the rudest. Their huts were very low, and each family had its separate habitation; some slept upon mats, some in hammacks; and when these were hung in the open air a constant fire was kept near them, not only for warmth, but because the flame protected them against beasts, and the smoke from insects. Their meals were taken, not at stated times of the day, but whenever they could find food, which consisted chiefly of roots and fish. They feasted upon fish when the frost killed them in the stagnant waters: nor was this prey the less acceptable for being putrid, .. the fire, they said, rendered it good. During the floods they removed to the mountains, and trusted to the chase for support;

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[page] 202

CHAP. XXXIV.

the monkey was their most esteemed dainty. Gluttonous they were not, but they were profuse drinkers; and the only, or the chief employment of the women, was brewing a liquor from fermented roots. At certain times they assembled in bowers erected for the occasion, danced riotously all day long, became inebriated, and usually concluded the feast by a bloody fray. The climate, and their way of life, made them liable to many diseases, for which they had no means of cure; for they had no knowledge of any healing virtue in plants, though skilled in extracting from them a deadly poison for their arrows. Their whole system of medicine was confined to the jugglers, who fasted for the patient, sucked the afflicted part as the great remedy, and prescribed smoking tobacco at certain times; .. perhaps they had discovered, that in an aguish region this tended to prevent disease. Simple as their practice was, an arduous course of discipline was required before any man was admitted a practitioner. They were initiated by abstaining, during a whole year, from fish and flesh; and it was necessary that the aspirant should have been attacked and wounded by a jaguar. The jaguar was the visible object of their worship: they considered him, therefore, as setting his mark upon those whom he chose to be his priests; and the affair was easily managed, inasmuch as witnesses could not be demanded for such a mode of initiation. After a long practice as suckers, by which term they were called from the mode in which they attempted to administer relief, they were raised to a higher step in the priesthood. To obtain this degree, it was necessary to undergo another year of severer abstinence, at the end of which the juice of certain pungent herbs was infused into their eyes, to purge their mortal sight, and therefore they were called Tiharangui, .. they who have clear eyes. About the time of new moon the Priests, at break of day, conducted the people in silence to some high place, where, when they were

[page] 203

CHAP. XXXIV.

assembled, they uttered loud cries, to soften the invisible and malignant Powers of whom they stood in fear. They thus passed the whole day, fasting; when night approached the Priests cut off their hair, and adorned themselves with red and yellow feathers, in token of joy that the propitiation had been effected. Jars of liquor were brought as offerings to the Gods; they drank immoderately themselves, and gave the rest to the people, who drank and sung and danced through the night; and generally concluded the meeting with quarrels, wounds, and, not unfrequently, with deaths.

No clothing was manufactured among them, but they were studious of ornament. Some blackened one half the face and reddened the other. They wore lip and nose-pieces, strings of the teeth and pieces of skin from the beasts which they had killed; but the teeth of their enemies were regarded as a far more precious decoration. There were some who covered the arms, knees, and head, with feathers not inelegantly disposed. Marriages were settled between the parents, without consulting the inclinations of either party. It was a singular custom, that the wife chose the place of abode, and wherever she was pleased to settle the husband took up his dwelling. They had seldom more than one wife, for which their poverty, that is to say, the scantiness of food, is assigned as a cause. Adultery in the woman was deemed infamous, and oftentimes punished with death. If the mother died the infant was buried with her; and if she had twins she buried one of them, from a notion that both could not properly be nourished at the breast. When the aged became helpless they were put to death by their children; and if any young children were left, the elder put them to death also, which they said was better than letting them live, when there was none to provide for them. Such people were not likely to treat their enemies with humanity: they tortured their prisoners

[page] 204

CHAP. XXXIV.

as well as ate them, .. a practice which seems not to have prevailed among any of the Tupi or Guarani tribes. Their burials were performed with little ceremony: the relations dug a grave, and accompanied the body thither; then divided the property of the deceased, and appeared to forget him. But the Retoroños, Pechuyos, and Guarayos, manifested their feeling for the dead by a remarkable custom: when the body had mouldered they dug up the bones, reduced them to powder, and mingling it with maize, composed a sort of cake, which they considered it the strongest mark of friendship to offer and partake. Some of the first Missionaries were regaled with this family bread, before they knew what they were eating. The Guarayos were a wild and formidable race, who hunted other tribes for food, and were believed to have no settled habitations, because the ghosts of those whom they had eaten continually persecuted them with their cries. The Tibois moulded the skulls of their new-born infants into a pyramidal shape.

Lettr. Edif. 8. 105.

Almanach de Lima.

Hervas. 1. 4. § 68.

Report of Amazons in the country.

The varieties of character and manners among savage tribes, are as great as among civilized nations. The Tapacures had separated from the Moxos, with whom they had once formed one people; they had neither the strength nor the courage of other hordes; and if, at any time, they were attacked, they instantly took to flight; but they were a docile race. Their country was near the mountains which trend from East to North; and they assured Baraza, that towards the East there was a nation of women, who admitted men to visit them at a stated season in the year, killed all their male infants, and bred up the girls in warlike habits. Baraza was a man whose veracity might implicitly be relied on; and it is worthy of notice, that in this same direction Hernando de Ribera heard of the Amazons. The Canisianas were always on the hunt for their neighbours, whom they cooped and fatted for their feasts. A prisoner made his

Lettr. Edif. 8. 101—102.

Vol. 1. p. 157.

The Canisianas.

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CHAP. XXXIV.

escape to one of the new Reductions, and reported that he had left thirteen of his countrymen in the fatting net. F. Agustin Zapata set out immediately, and offered some hatchets as a ransom for them. The proposal was joyfully accepted; and the Canisiana Chiefs, marvelling why any man should give tools of such value for an object of so little worth, enquired of the guides, whether the person who had paid this absurd price for the captives, intended to eat them. They were told that Zapata wished to make all the Indians happy, and instruct them in a good law, given by a good God, whose will it was that men should love one another like brothers, do good to all, and evil to none. Savages as they were, this was language which they could understand and feel; and its effect was such, that they immediately offered to follow the Jesuit. No other tribe, however, seem to have persisted so madly in cannibalism; for, in the Reductions, they would steal children, and even cast lots among themselves who should give up a child, .. so devilishly did this vice possess them. It was at last found necessary to make every woman give notice to the Missionary when she was delivered, and frequently present the child to him from time to time.

Hervas. 1. 4. § 73.

Baraza explores a way across the mountains to Peru.

Baraza in the course of five years collected about two thousand of these wild people; other Missionaries were then sent to his assistance, and leaving to them the charge of his converts, he advanced farther into the country. He had now acquired a sufficient command of their languages, had accustomed himself to their manners in all lawful things, and won at once their good-will and their respect by kind offices, unweariable benignity, and superior knowledge. He dressed their wounds; he administered medicine to the sick; he taught them weaving, carpentry, and agriculture; and going to Santa Cruz to obtain cattle for their use, he set out on his return with a herd of two hun-

[page] 206

CHAP. XXXIV.

dred, and after a journey no less perilous than fatiguing, of fifty-four days, succeeded in bringing a sufficient number to stock the country in the course of a few years. The second settlement which he formed, and which was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, contained more than two thousand neophytes, who made bricks and mortar under his instructions, and built a church which was the wonder of all the surrounding tribes. Having heard that there was a pass across the mountains, which would materially shorten the road to Peru, from whence these Missions were supplied, he employed three years in exploring it, and at length gained the summit of the Andes, and saw before him the low country toward the sea. He fell upon the ground and returned thanks to God for the successful termination of his search: but though he had been absent twenty-four years from the country upon which he then looked down, and where there were dear friends whom he yearned to behold once more, such was his sense of duty, and his willingness to forego all earthly gratifications, that he sent some of his companions to announce the discovery to the nearest College, while he himself returned to his station. The discovery was of great importance; for a journey of fifteen days by this route would bring Missionaries from Peru to the Moxos.

He goes among the Baures.

Baraza was near the end of his meritorious career. He had proceeded to the Baures, a people to the Eastward of the Moxos, and the most improved of all these numerous tribes. Their villages were built on high places, with some regularity; each was a fortification, so palisadoed as to be secure against any sudden attack, and having loop-holes for the use of their own archers: as a farther precaution, pitfalls were concealed in their paths. The largest and loftiest building was at once their temple and banquetting-house, as among the Manacicas. Their shields were made of platted cane, covered with cotton and fea-

[page] 207

CHAP. XXXIV.

thers, and thus rendered arrow-proof. The women were decently clad: adultery in the female was punished with death, and also the crime of procuring abortion, so commonly practised among other tribes; here it was supposed to bring a mortal plague upon the settlement wherein it was committed, .. a belief which not improbably may have been designedly inculcated. When a guest arrived whom they desired to honour, the women spread before him a large cotton cloth; they had the virtue of hospitality, for they had reached that grade in society of which hospitality is one characteristic; but they were noted for treachery likewise, and are said to have possessed ¹⁴ a deadly knowledge of poisons. Drinking was a public concern, and therefore the plants from which their liquor was made were cultivated in a piece of common ground. The Baures were under hereditary Royalets, whom they called Aramas, and of whom there appears to have been one in every settlement. But the Cayubabas, a tribe resembling the Baures in other customs, had one supreme Chief, who was also the High Priest, and whose title was the Paytiti. Here then is the great Paytiti and the great Moxo, whom the early conquerors supposed to have succeeded to the Inca's treasures, and to have founded a richer empire in the centre of the continent than that which Pizarro overthrew. The more improved customs of these people were in reality the wreck of ¹⁵

14 They were the only tribes who used the coca or betel, to the use of which the Peruvians are as much addicted as any of the East Indian nations. They are said to have employed it in their superstitions and witchcrafts. And they had also some ill-formed idols. Almanach de Lima.

15 The Lima Almanach says they killed the Jesuit-Missionary of the Reduction of S. Simon, by throwing something into his apartment which emitted a mortal vapour.

[page] 208

CHAP. XXXIV.

Lettr. Edif. 8. 112.

Almanach de Lima. Garcilaso. l. 7. c. 13—15.

Peruvian civilization: it is true indeed, that where the Incas introduced their arts, they established with true policy their that true policy their language also; and no traces of that language have been detected tribes, though it is widely diffused among the nations of Tucuman: but this country was the last conquest of the Incas, and there had not been time to effect so great a change before the Spaniards entered Peru, and the communication ceased between that country and this remote province.

1702.

Martyrdom of Baraza.

Flourishing state of the Moxo Missions, at his death.

In many of the Baures' settlements Baraza was well received, and listened to with apparent complacency. But being lodged in one which he had not visited before, his companions were alarmed during the night by a great sound of tambours; and as they knew the manners of the people, they were instantly aware that their destruction was intended. Without a moment's delay they urged Baraza to fly; he had scarcely attempted to leave the place, before the barbarians rushed out: he was disabled by a flight of arrows, and then dispatched with a hatchet, in the sixty-first year of his age, after having laboured twenty-seven years among the Moxos. Thus ended the meritorious life of Cypriano Baraza; and it is worthy of remark, that the Jesuits seem never to have larded his history with miracles, as if they felt that no fables were required to exalt his character, or exaggerate the success of his labours. At the time of his death the Moxo Missions vied with the Guarani in every thing, except m population, and perhaps excelled them in some things; certainly they were more progressive. Fifteen settlements had been formed, containing about two thousand inhabitants each, and from twenty to thirty miles apart. Each family had its portion of ground which it was required to cultivate for its own use; and it had an allotment of cattle. There were public lands and public herds for the use of the Church and the Hospital, into which all persons were received who were past their labour. From these funds the public

[page] 209

CHAP. XXXIV.

Lettr. Edif. t. 8.

Almanach de Lima.

expences were defrayed, and when a new establishment was to be formed, all the others contributed in proportion to their means. The Churches were large, well built, and richly ornamented; for the Spaniards of Peru encouraged these Missions, and sent costly offerings of this kind; and the Indians had made such proficiency in carving and painting, that they were thought skilful artists in that country. Maize, mandioc, rice, plantains, and other esculent indigenous plants, were cultivated with success. Cotton was raised in all the settlements, cacao in many, .. the best it is said in all America, but so unctuous, that the chocolate which is made of it becomes rancid if it be kept very long. Vanilla, copayba, and American cinnamon, are found in the woods, and the tree from which Mary's oil is extracted, .. a name implying that the greatest virtues are ascribed to it. Bees-wax, yellow and white, is found plentifully, and a sort of grey wax in ant-hills; but this is of little value. The Indians evidently possessed an activity not existing in the Guarani Missions, where men having no individual interest in the result of their labour, wanted the strongest motive for exertion which is applicable to the mass of mankind. Here the best workmen were well drest, and even gaily, in cloth and silks, which they obtained by trading with Peru. Nothing was wanting to the prosperity of these Missions, except a better climate. But though the dryest and least insalubrious spots were chosen whenever a Reduction was founded, whole Reductions have been cut off by endemic diseases: and though the women were very prolific, the civilized population would have been thus lamentably extinguished, if the Jesuits had not continually brought in fresh converts from the wilderness. Still however the work of depopulation was going on: for in their scattered and wandering modes of life the natives were only liable to the unwholesome influence of the atmosphere; but when collected into large

VOL. III. 2 E

[page] 210

CHAP. XXXIV.

settlements, they were exposed to infection also. On the other hand, more children were born into the world, and the practices of child-murder, war, and cannibalism, were abolished.

Uncertain boundary between the Spanish and Portugueze possessions in this part of the continent.

The limits between the Spanish and Portugueze territories were as yet no where defined, except upon the side of the Plata; and even there, with such studious ambiguity on the part of the Spaniards, that there remained matter enough for future negociation and future bloodshed. Had the demarcation of the interior been made at the same time, any imaginary line that might have been drawn would have assigned some of the richest metallic ground to Spain. But while the Spanish Jesuits were extending their settlements from Santa Cruz and Peru toward the centre of the continent, the Portugueze from S. Paulo and Minas Geraes, were pushing forward toward the same point; and before the limits became matter of discussion, these resolute adventurers occupied the debateable ground.

[page 211]

CHAPTER XXXV.

Troubles in Paraguay. Usurpation of Antequera. Montevideo founded. Rebellion of the Commons. Antequera put to death. Expulsion of the Jesuits from Asumpcion. Murder of the Governor. The rebellion suppressed, and the Jesuits re-established.

CHAP. XXXV.

The Jesuits encountered no opposition from the Spaniards in forming their establishments among the Moxos and Chiquitos. The situation of these establishments was such as not to interfere with the vile interest of the Encomenderos, or traders of any description. Both in Peru and at Santa Cruz they seem to have been favourably regarded by the Governors, and by the people with whom they carried on a commerce, beneficial to both parties. But, in Paraguay, the old hatred against them, which had been smothered since the affair of Cardenas, for half a century, broke out with renewed violence.

1721.

Antequera sent to Asumpcion as Judge.

D. Diego de los Reyes, an inhabitant of Asumpcion, had been appointed Governor, somewhat to the surprize of the people, and to the displeasure of those who, till then, had been his superiors in rank. Cabals were formed, and, at length, criminal charges preferred against him by a powerful party, before the Royal Audience of Charcas. That Tribunal nominated a Judge

[page] 212

CHAP. XXXV. 1721.

He takes upon himself the Government.

1722.

from its own body to take cognizance of the cause upon the spot, but overlooked the important circumstance, that D. Joseph de Antequera y Castro, the person appointed, had received a commission from the Viceroy of Peru to succeed D. Diego, when the five years of his term should have expired, and was therefore, of all men, most peculiarly interested in the cause which he was to decide. He arrived while D. Diego was visiting the Parana Reductions; the malecontents easily persuaded him to take upon himself the administration; and D. Diego, as soon as he returned, had his Commander's staff forced from him, his person was put in arrest, and proclamation made, that whosoever refused to acknowledge Antequera as Governor, should be regarded as a traitor to the King and the Country. D. Diego had friends among the men who were appointed to guard him; by their help he got out at night, in the disguise of a slave, horses were ready for him, he fled to the nearest Reduction, and embarked for Buenos Ayres, meaning to proceed to Spain, and there appeal to the Sovereign. He learnt, however, in that city, that the Archbishop of Lima, who was then Viceroy, had highly disapproved the conduct of the Audience in appointing for Judge a person who was interested in the decision; that he had annulled the proceedings, ordered the cause to be brought before his own tribunal, and had commanded Antequera to leave Paraguay. Shortly afterwards D. Diego received dispatches from Lima, reinstating him in his appointment; and as he had no suspicion that any resistance would be made to the Viceroy's authority, he set out on his return.

Charlevoix. T. 3. 3—16.

The lawful Governor, D. Diego, is compelled to fly.

But Antequera was as little scrupulous in maintaining his power, as in assuming it. He sent Ramon de las Llanas, one of his most violent partizans, with two hundred men, to arrest D. Diego on the way. The Governor was within twenty-five leagues of Asumpcion, when he received intelligence that this party was

[page] 213

CHAP. XXXV. 1722.

at hand, just in time to take flight, and again save himself in the Parana Reductions. His son, D. Agustin, who had preceded him, was seized, and, though in orders, was treated with great indignity, and carried prisoner to the city. Antequera assembled the Council, told them that he had accepted the government only for the good of the province, but that it was incumbent upon him now to obey the Viceroy's decision; nevertheless, he would not do this without their consent, for it would be abandoning them to the resentment of a man, from whom he well knew what was to be expected. They required him to continue in his charge, while a fresh representation should be made to the Viceroy. The only two members, who had courage to express a different opinion, were suspended from their offices the next day; and some persons, who refused to sign the fresh charges which were now drawn up against D. Diego, were put in irons.

Charlevoix. 3. 17—20.

Antequera threatens the Reductions.

There was a rumour that D. Diego was coming from the Reductions, to establish himself by means of a Guarani force. Antequera knew that he should attach a strong party to himself if he declared against the Jesuits; and believing, or affecting to believe this report, he put himself at the head of the troops, and marching nearly to the Tebiquari, dispatched letters to the Reductions, denouncing the severest threats against the Indians, if they should make any movement in favour of the deposed Governor. The Jesuit, who presided in the settlements between that river and the Parana, wrote immediately to intreat that he would proceed no farther, lest the Indians should be compelled to defend themselves against the license in which his army indulged. The letter was written in terms of cautious respect; he, in an angry reply, ordered the Magistrates of these Reductions to attend him: they were accompanied by two Jesuits, who assured him that no movement should be made from their settlements without an express order from the King, or the Su-

[page] 214

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

perior Tribunals. He extorted the same promise from the Guarani Magistrates, who were as much terrified by his menaces, as they were surprized at being charged with any responsibility; then he marched back to Asumpcion. There the profligacy of his private life attracted notice even among a licentious people, and his rapacity kept pace with his ambition. These latter vices will always find supporters in those who partake of the spoil; and Antequera had powerful friends in the Audience of Charcas, and made his cause good before a Court, which was, in no slight degree, accessary to his usurpation. This Court, either unwilling to acknowledge its original fault, or deceived by the attestations which he had remitted from Asumpcion, sent him fresh orders, prohibiting any person, under a penalty of ten thousand escudos, to make any change in the existing government till the Viceroy should make known his determination, through the channel of that Audience. The Audience had no intention of disputing the Viceroy's authority; they expressed themselves thus inadvertently, because they supposed that, in consequence of the part which they bore in the affair, the dispatches would naturally take this course; and they wrote to the Viceroy, intimating, that as Antequera's commission was effected, it would be prudent to recall him. The Viceroy made answer, that he had already been ordered to withdraw from Paraguay; not because a commission was discharged, which ought never to have been entrusted to him, but because of his conduct, and the troubles which he had excited. The Audience, he added, were already informed, that the charges which Antequera preferred against the Jesuits had been investigated at Lima, and declared to be calumnies; they were now informed, that D. Diego was to be reinstated in his government, and ordered to facilitate his restoration by all means in their power.

Charlevoix. 3. 20—25.

Antequera had eagerly interpreted the dispatches from

[page] 215

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

He disobeys the Viceroy.

Garcia Ros instructed to re-establish D. Diego.

Charcas, to the letter, in his own favour. But when farther advices arrived, and he found that he could no longer expect support from that quarter, he declared that he would maintain possession of the government, in defiance of any orders from Lima. It has been supposed, and not without strong grounds, that he thought to make himself King of Paraguay. Men of his temper derive no benefit from the experience of others; and knowing how loosely allegiance sate upon a people so remote from the Court, and from all the superior Tribunals, in a country rendered easy of defence by its extent alone, as well as by all other circumstances, he might flatter himself, not altogether unreasonably, with hope of success. The Viceroy's orders were, that he should immediately leave Paraguay, and appear before the Audience of Lima, bringing with him copies of his edicts, all which were annulled. D. Diego, and they who had been displaced for adhering to him, were restored by these dispatches to their respective offices; but that Governor was forbidden to take cognizance of any proceedings against the persons who had contributed to depose him, this matter being reserved for the ordinary courts of justice. The property confiscated by Antequera was to be restored. D. Balthazar Garcia Ros, the King's Lieutenant of the Plata, who had formerly been Governor of Paraguay, was instructed to see these orders carried into effect. There might be some danger in this service; three other persons therefore were named in succession to undertake it in his default, and a fine of four thousand escudos was imposed upon either of the four who should refuse to accept the commission, without a valid reason for declining it. D. Diego sent a copy of his instructions to his son D. Agustin, who since his capture was living in Asumpcion, and charged him to notify them to Antequera in such a manner that the fact might be too

[page] 216

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

D. Diego seized at Corrientes, and put in irons.

Charlevoix. 3. 25—30.

public to be denied. D. Agustin took the opportunity of a sort of tournament, held in the Square before the College on S. Ignatius Loyola's eve. Antequera was present at the show; and he, with two other priests accompanying him, held up the dispatches, and required that an assembly of the Cabildo should be convoked, in which he might formally present them. But Antequera took the papers, and neither attempting to restrain his anger, nor dissemble his contempt of the Viceroy's authority, ordered the three Priests to be confined in the sacristy of the Cathedral. Upon examining the papers, he found that one of the persons nominated to execute the orders, in case Garcia Ros should not be able, was D. Francisco de Arce, who was then in Asumpcion; he arrested this officer, exposed him through the city upon a lean horse without a saddle, imprisoned him, and confiscated his property. Then, knowing that D. Diego was at Corrientes, he dispatched his trusty partizan, Ramon de las Llanas, to seize him. Ramon embarked with two boats' companies of soldiers; he arrived at night, and obtained access to D. Diego's chamber upon the plea of having dispatches; thirty of his men followed, under favour of the darkness: they seized him and his papers, hurried him on board in his nightgown, as they had found him, and carried him to Asumpcion, where he was thrown into a dungeon, in chains. The Usurper, as he may now fitly be called, suspected the Jesuits had advised the notification of the dispatches at their festival, and this renewed his animosity against them; the libels of Cardenas, and his Procurador Villalon, the lying Franciscan, were now again brought forward, and a memorial was addressed to the King in the name of the Cabildo, recapitulating calumnies which had so often been confuted, and praying that the Reductions might no longer be under the Company's direction; but that seven of them might

[page] 217

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

be converted into Encomiendas, and the Indians from the others reserved for the use of the people of Asumpcion, who were greatly in need of them.

Garcia Ros returns to Buenos Ayres.

Garcia Ros having reached Corrientes, announced his approach from thence, in a letter addressed to the Cabildo, and to all the officers for the time being, including Antequera. Upon this a council was called of Antequera's partizans, for they had been appointed to all offices, civil and ecclesiastical; the Usurper, in a concerted scene, laid down his Governor's staff, and was required to take it up again, and continue to govern the province till the Viceroy should have nominated such a successor as they should recommend. A Captain, at the head of an hundred men, was dispatched to notify these proceedings to Garcia Ros, and warn him to quit the province, if he should already have entered it, or to abide in it at his peril. There was no demurring to an order backed by such ruffian force, and therefore he retired to Buenos Ayres; but he first visited the Parana Reductions, and lest they might be occupied by the rebels, suggested that those which were most exposed should be strengthened by detachments from the remoter settlements. But the Provincial, F. Luiz de Rocca, being there upon his visitation, prevented any measure of this kind; for Antequera, he said, upon the slightest military movements in that quarter, would execute his threat of expelling the Jesuits from Asumpcion, and delivering them to the Guaycurus, if the Guaranies should take arms against him.

Charlevoix. 3. 30—43.

Disputes concerning the territory of Colonia.

The course of this incipient rebellion was awhile suspended by events which led to important consequences. Spain, notwithstanding the concessions which it had made at the peace of Utrecht, could brook no competitor in the Plata. It soon rid itself of the Slave-factory which had been granted to the English. In the war with England, which Alberoni provoked by his

VOL. III. 2 F

[page] 218

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

Coxe's Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole. Ch. 19.

1718.

5 Nov. 1716.

Protesto do Governador da Colonia. MS.

Instruccam ao Joze da Cunha Brochado. 24 May, 1725. MS.

great projects of ambition, the persons, as well as property of the British traders in that river, were seized, although, in case of hostilities, the Assiento expressly allowed eighteen months for the removal of their effects: the annual ship had made but one voyage at this time, and thus this disgraceful arrangement, wherewith Harley and Bolingbroke had deluded the nation, ended in the ruin of those who were engaged in it. The terms with Portugal, concerning Nova Colonia, were not more faithfully observed. Colonia, indeed, was restored; but Spain would not admit that the question concerning its territory was decided; and when the Camp-Master, Manoel Gomez Barbosa, took possession of the place, the Spaniards refused to withdraw a body of troops from the river S. Juan, where they were posted to keep possession of the country. The Portugueze Commander accepted such cession as was made, rather than give occasion of breaking the peace, and drew up a formal protest, that the claims of his Government might not be prejudiced. When complaint was made to the Court of Spain, and full restitution demanded, that Court pretended that no farther extent of ground belonged to Colonia, than the cannon from its walls could command. The point was debated by the Portugueze Ambassadors at Madrid, year after year, against a Government characteristically pertinacious, and impenetrable to any reasoning that contradicted its own inveterate notions. They were referred to the Council of the Indies, and to the Council of Castille; and one of those Ambassadors, a man of strong sense and caustic manner, observed in his dispatches, that it would be easier to persuade these tribunals, and this nation, to abolish the Inquisition, than to cede a single foot of ground in America to any European people, and, least of all people, to the Portugueze.

Brochado. Cartas e Negociaçoens na sua ultima Missam. MSS.

Portugal had always believed that its share of America extended to the Plata; nor, indeed, could any thing be more evi-

[page] 219

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

The Portugueze determine to occupy the North bank of the Plata.

dent than this, that if it had a right to establish itself at Colonia, its claim must be equally valid to the whole territory between that point and the sea, wherever the interior limits might be drawn. Accordingly, eight years after the signature of the treaty, the Portugueze Government reasonably concluded that no right, in such cases, was so good as that of possession, and therefore determined to occupy a situation which should secure to it the country in dispute. A better choice was made than when Colonia was founded. A hill, about two hundred and fifty feet in height, shelters, in a great degree, from the West wind, the best harbour on the North shore of the Plata; it is the highest ground in that part of the land, and its name from this time became well known, having been given to the town of Montevideo, which was founded on this occasion. The harbour is of an oval shape, and very commodious. Two rivulets of good water run into it. The bottom is muddy, and so soft, that though, in the deepest part, the lead only gives three fathoms and a half, vessels of greater draught may enter at high tide without damage, and bed themselves in the mud at low water. The town, which covers the extremity of a peninsula, and is built on sloping ground, affords some shelter from the East; and the landing-place is within the Eastern point of the harbour's mouth, in perfectly still water.

Voyage to the Plata. MS.

They begin to fortify Montevideo.

The Governor of the Rio, Ayres de Saldanha de Albuquerque, dispatched an expedition under the Camp-Master Manoel Freitas de Fonseca, to take possession of this port, and settle a colony there. The measure would have been wise, if it had been well supported; but never was any important object more feebly attempted, or with more insufficient means. The Portugueze even seem to have calculated, in some degree, for success, upon the chance of establishing themselves before the Spaniards should be informed of their arrival; but when they entered the harbour,

[page] 220

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

27 Nov.

they found a launch from Buenos Ayres engaged in intercourse with the natives. Manoel Freitas landed, with the Engineer, Pedro Gomez Chaves, and his officers, to chuse a site for the intended settlement; and, for the sake of water, they fixed upon a spot at the eastern point of the harbour, though it was commanded by higher ground. This disadvantage they thought to remedy by raising their works; but it was a loose soil, they were not provided with fascines, and could procure none: for the country round consists of open downs, and the nearest wood is upon the river S. Lucia, twenty miles distant. They were obliged, therefore, to support the parapet with some planks which happened to be on board a vessel bound for Colonia. These wretched works were hastily thrown up, under an apprehension of immediate danger; for the Indians, with whom the Spanish launch had communicated, manifested no friendly appearance; a dispatch from Colonia warned them to be upon their guard; and, on the fifth day after their arrival, two hundred Spanish troops appeared. They encamped near the site of the intended town, posting centinels upon the very ground where the Portugueze, till then, had stationed theirs; and, after a few days, the Commandant demanded, by letter, for what reason the Portugueze had thought proper to fortify themselves upon the territories of the King of Spain.

Requerimento de Manoel Freitas de Fonseca, MS.

The Spaniards compel them to withdraw.

D. Bruno Mauricio de Zavala, then Governor of Buenos Ayres, had been equally prompt and decisive in his measures. He had immediately dispatched as many troops as could possibly be got ready, and he did not rely too much upon the weakness of the Portugueze; for, perhaps, he thought it incredible that the Governor of the Rio should have attempted this measure, unless he meant to support it with an adequate force: and as he supposed that Garcia Ros would, by this time, have restored the royal authority at Asumpcion, he sent for assistance from Para-

[page] 221

CHAP. XXXV. 1723.

Charlevoix. 3. 33.

1724.

guay. Antequera received the order, and gladly obeyed it; because it gave him an opportunity of sending away such troops as he distrusted, and this obedience might afterwards be pleaded as a proof of his loyalty. The Jesuits were also called upon for their service, and supplies of men, stores, and ammunition, arrived every day for the Spaniards; while the Portugueze, in all the misery of conscious feebleness, were proceeding hopelessly with works, which, if they could have been finished, would have afforded them no security. Their tools were bad, their means were insufficient; the expedition had been wretchedly fitted out; and when, upon the first day of the new year, they hoisted the Quinas, and fired a salute, the shock of their own guns threw down part of the parapet, and before they could repair the damage, a thunder-storm demolished the rest. Well might the poor Commander lament the hour in which he was ordered upon such a service. Neither aid nor instructions could be expected from the Rio, because of the distance; and Colonia was so little able to assist him, that the Governor of that place having sent him forty horse, was fain to request that ten of them might be returned, as otherwise he could not mount his own guard. Could he have made the works defensible before the Spaniards came up, he would, probably, have defended them without scruple: the celerity of their movements prevented this; and now, when they carried off, in his sight, the cattle which he had purchased for his people, so sensible was he of his weakness, that he dared not make even a show of resistance; his only hope now being, that he might not incur the double demerit of failing in the expedition, and bringing on hostilities with Spain. In this situation it was a relief to him, when he was advised from Colonia that the Spaniards were preparing to blockade him by sea as well as by land, and when the Captain of the King's ship, which had escorted him, refused to expose his vessel in the vain

[page] 222

CHAP. XXXV. 1724.

Manoel Freitas. Requerimento. MS. Peramas Agullii Vita. § 19—20.

attempt of defending the port. No alternative was now left him, so he re-embarked his people, meaning to proceed to Colonia; but the Captain, without regarding his wishes or intentions, made sail for the Rio, as soon as he had got them on board; and, on their arrival, Manoel Freitas and his officers were put in confinement by the Governor, for a failure which was attributable to his own misconduct, not to theirs.

Montevideo founded by the Spaniards.

This attempt was fatal to the just claims of the Portugueze. Zavala saw the importance of the position upon which they had fixed, and was resolved not to lose the occupancy which he had gained. Sending back, therefore, half the Guaranies, he retained two thousand, with two Jesuits to superintend them, and employed them in erecting fortifications, and laying the foundations of a town, while the Portugueze confined their exertions to the humiliating task of making vain remonstrances at the Court of Madrid. A double marriage was, at that time, negociating between the house of Braganza and the Spanish Bourbons; but this did not produce the slightest alteration in the inflexible policy of Spain. The Portugueze Minister presented memorial after memorial, requiring that the Spaniards should be withdrawn from Montevideo; but he clearly perceived that the only use of these memorials was to prevent the Spaniards from saying, at some future time, that the Court of Portugal had tacitly relinquished its claim: a plea which they would gladly have used, had it been afforded them. Meantime the works were vigorously carried on; colonists were sent out, during many successive seasons, from the ¹ Canaries; and, in a very few

Brochado. Cartas e Negociaçoens. MSS.

Peramas Agullii Vita. § 21—22.

1 The last of these colonists, a woman, by name Cabrera, died in 1787. (Peramas.) Charlevoix (3, 33,) is exceedingly erroneous in his account of these transactions. He says, that the Spaniards had begun to fortify Montevideo, which was the only fort remaining to them on that side of the river, and that before they had completed their works, the Portugueze came to menace them there. The account in the text is derived from a memorial drawn up by the poor Portugueze Commander, during his confinement at the Rio, and from the official correspondence of the Portugueze Ambassador at Madrid.

[page] 223

CHAP. XXXV. 1724.

years, Montevideo became the most flourishing of all the Spanish settlements in these provinces, Buenos Ayres alone excepted.

Garcia Ros marches against Asumpcion.

Meantime D. Joseph Palos, who had been appointed Coadjutor of Asumpcion, arrived at Buenos Ayres on his way to that city: the Bishop was detained in Spain by habitual infirmities, which made it impossible to take possession of his See. He found Garcia Ros preparing to set out a second time on his commission, armed with proper powers for employing force if his authority should be resisted. That officer would fain have persuaded the Coadjutor to accompany him; but he, who was a man of great prudence as well as goodness, perceived how important it was to avoid exciting any prejudice which might impede the service he hoped to perform, and therefore he went no farther with him than the Falls of the Uruguay. From Los Reyes the Spanish Commander wrote to the Superior of the Reductions, requiring that two thousand Guaranies, with stores for two months, might be ready for him in six weeks on the Tebiquari; he called upon the Commandant at Corrientes to be ready with two hundred Spaniards upon the first summons, and he also summoned the militia of Villa Rica and Espirito Santo; but from these places not more than fifty men joined him, because a contagious disease was prevailing in that part of the country. He found the Guaranies punctually at the time and place appointed; Ramon de las Llanas, with two hundred of Antequera's troops, was on the opposite bank, and made no at-

Charlevoix 3. 36—38.

[page] 224

CHAP. XXXV. 1724.

tempt to oppose the passage; but retiring a little way before them, he required Garcia Ros to withdraw from Paraguay in the name of the Royal Audience of the Charcas; and he sent to Asumpcion for fresh instructions.

Antequera prepares to oppose him.

The Jesuits are expelled from Assumpcion.

Charlevoix. 3. 38—40.

Antequera immediately fired a cannon as a signal for his partizans to assemble. The people did not take arms in his behalf with so much alacrity as he expected; he therefore spread a report that he had received a letter from Garcia Ros, threatening, if the slightest resistance should be made, to burn the city, put all the men to the sword, and deliver up the women to the Guaranies of the Reductions. This villany succeeded, because men who are possessed with a spirit of sedition will believe any calumnies, however absurd, against those whom it is their duty to obey. A day was fixed for marching against Garcia Ros, and an edict appeared, in the names of all the magistracy, commanding the Jesuits to quit the city within three hours. There were not wanting persons who proposed to batter down their College, and their Church, if they made the slightest demurral. It availed them not to plead their innocence, their common rights, and their peculiar privileges. The second summons was enforced by a body of armed men drawn up in the Plaza before the College: the Vicar General of the Diocese then took the Pix from their altar to deposit it in the Cathedral, and was followed by the Jesuits in procession, two and two, with tapers in their hands. No interruption was offered, for speculative irreligion had not yet entered South America: but as soon as they were returned, they were ordered by a third summons, instantly to leave the College, unless they chose to be buried in its ruins: so each man took his crucifix and his breviary, and leaving every thing else to their enemies, they set out to make their way as they could to the Reductions. That they were treated less brutally than on their former expulsion, must be imputed not to

[page] 225

CHAP. XXXV. 1724.

any melioration in the feelings or manners of the people, but to the difference of temper between Cardenas and Antequera.

Antequera marches against Garcia Ros.

On that same day Antequera set out to put himself at the head of his forces; all Spaniards capable of bearing arms were ordered to join him on pain of corporal punishment and confiscation of property. In such a country the summons was easily disobeyed; yet he found means to collect one of the largest forces which had ever been brought together in that part of the world, consisting of about three thousand men of all shades of colour. He left orders for strangling D. Diego publicly upon a scaffold, if tidings of his defeat should arrive; the Alguazil-Mayor, D. Juan de Mena, was charged with this commission, .. and so ready was he to execute it, that he urged Antequera not to delay the act; but his advice was overruled, and his ferocious disposition controlled, by D. Sebastian Rodriguez de Arellano, who was left with the command in the city. As soon as Antequera joined the troops he promised in an harangue to reward them with the whole plunder of the Enemy's camp, and of the College, and of the Reductions, and to distribute the Indians of the Reductions among the officers and the chief families in Asumpcion. When the two armies came in sight, Garcia Ros began to distrust the Guaranies in whom his chief strength consisted; but on the other hand, when he perceived by a few shot that were fired, how ill the enemy's artillery was served, he acquired confidence, and was less upon his guard than the consciousness of his own inferiority would otherwise have made him. He wished however to avoid an action, in hope that the sense of duty might operate among the Spaniards in his favour; and Antequera, on his part, would not provoke one, because he expected to find an opportunity of attacking the Guaranies unawares, and securing a victory which would be equally easy and compleat; .. for he knew that, under the moral discipline of the Jesuits, they were rather

VOL. III. 2 G

[page] 226

CHAP. XXXV. 1724.

He deceives end slaughters the Guaranies.

to be regarded as great children than as men. Accordingly as he had anticipated, they soon began to quit their posts for the pleasure of bathing; and as no hostile movements were going on, they learnt ere long to consider the opposite army rather as an, object of curiosity, than of vigilance. Every day some of them drew nearer to look at it, till at length, by Antequera's management, they were encouraged to enter the camp, and some of them were brought before him. He treated them with great affability, and assured them that he was at least as good a servant of the King their master, as any of those persons who were now making war upon him; in proof of which, he said, he should celebrate the King's birth-day on the twenty-fifth, with great rejoicings; and he advised them to do the same, and gave them an account of the ceremonies which would be observed by his people, that they might imitate or vie with them. That the Jesuits should have kept no better watch over their soldiers, is indeed surprizing; that the Spanish Commander should have disregarded the commonest precautions of military duty, would appear so, if we did not know the strange and inveterate indiscipline of a Spanish army. On the day appointed, which was the festival of King St. Louis, the Guaranies thought of nothing but the holyday show; and being especially curious to see what would be done in Antequera's camp, they drew near for that purpose. He suffered them to advance so far from their own lines as to be beyond all chance of protection, and then slowly moved towards them at the head of his cavalry. The Guaranies believed this to be part of the ceremony; till, to their utter astonishment, the Spaniards suddenly spurred their horses and charged them sword in hand. So little was Garcia Ros able to afford them any assistance, that he had not time even to save his papers; with only his chaplain in company, he fled full speed to the Reduction of S. Ignatius, hastened from thence to

[page] 227

CHAP. XXXV. 1724.

Corrientes, and there embarked for Buenos Ayres. One of the officers in Antequera's army had compassion upon the miserable Guaranies, and checked the slaughter; but about three hundred were massacred in the first assault, and many were butchered in the woods on the succeeding days, by the more brutal of the enemy. The Spaniards were more intent on making prisoners; and all that were taken were shared among them as slaves. In this affair, which was as disgraceful to the one party for their negligence as to the other for their treachery, the Camp-Master of the Loyalists was mortally wounded, and the two Jesuits who superintended the Indians, were taken.

Charlevoix. 3. 40—45.

He advances to the Parana Reductions.

A requisition was now presented to Antequera in the name of the Province, that he should advance against the Reductions, and reduce the Guaranies to the service of the public, and of those individuals who deserved to be rewarded. The force which he had dispersed had been drafted from the four nearest Reductions, and these were the first objects of his vengeance. But no sooner was his approach known than the inhabitants fled to the woods; and when he reached N. Señora de la Fé, the first of these establishments, no person remained there except F. Felix de Villa Garcia, who met him at the entrance. This was a sore disappointment to Antequera; for some of his officers, and the Camp-Master among them, were averse to the enterprize, and he wished much to have gratified his more violent partizans, who had been in great measure induced to join him, by the hope of obtaining an allotment of slaves. Howbeit, he accommodated himself with some grace to circumstances which he could not overrule, treated the Missionary with respect, and by his means induced about an hundred families to return, protesting that he had no intention of molesting them in any way, and that he only required them to acknowledge him as Governor. For the sake of exercising this authority, he appointed

[page] 228

CHAP. XXXV. 1724.

Antequera returns, in apprehension of an attach.

Charlevoix. 3. 45—53.

some of those who returned, to the offices of the establishment. From thence he proceeded to S. Rosa, where, as in the former instance, he found a deserted town, and the Jesuit F. Francisco de Robles to receive him. Antequera, seeing that his first object was entirely frustrated, had now thought of gratifying his partizans in another manner: he accosted the Missionary, therefore, with a demand that the Reductions should indemnify him for all the expences of the war, in which they had had the temerity to engage. A Jesuit was never at a loss for a prudent answer. Robles replied, he should not oppose such a demand, but it was necessary that a Judge appointed by the King should first condemn them to this amends; and it was obvious, that nothing could be exacted from them while the people continued in the woods. Antequera was not prepared for such a reply, and just at this time he was informed that a body of five thousand Indians, who had been collected to reinforce Garcia Ros before his retreat, were within a few leagues of S. Rosa, burning to take vengeance for their brethren. He had no inclination to meet a force so greatly outnumbering his own, and now in a temper which it would not have been easy to deceive; therefore he gave orders for returning immediately to Asumpcion. His people, thus disappointed in all their hopes of booty, committed havoc as they went along, destroying the few scattered habitations in the Guaranies' country, and butchering the horses and cattle whose owners had not had time for driving them to a place of safety. Antequera was received in the city like a victorious Prince returning to his beloved people. Triumphal arches were erected in the streets, and a soldier in his train trailed the royal flag in the dust. A service was solemnly performed for the souls of the few that had fallen on his side; and the wives and families of those persons who had joined Garcia Ros, were put in confinement.

[page] 229

CHAP. XXXV. 1725.

The Coadjutor goes to Asumpcion.

The Coadjutor had good reason now to rejoice that he had accompanied the military expedition. He proceeded with a small retinue; Antequera went out to receive him, and he was conducted into the city with the honours due to his rank. There, in the exercise of his spiritual functions, he soon discovered that some of the leading men were discontented with their situation, and desirous of re-establishing the lawful authority. His presence contributed greatly to restore some appearance of subordination, and he found means to inform the Audience of Charcas, and the Court, of the real state of things. Meantime a new Viceroy arrived in Peru, and one of his first measures was to direct that Zavala should go to Asumpcion with a sufficient force for reducing the rebels, send Antequera prisoner to Lima, and appoint a proper Governor. The Jesuits were instructed to supply him with any number of Indians that he might require. While Zavala prepared for the expedition, he sent advice of his orders to the Coadjutor and Antequera, saying also that he was authorized to pardon all those who should voluntarily return to their duty. Many persons pledged themselves to the Coadjutor to avail themselves of this pardon, whatever part Antequera might take: he would have prepared for resistance, but he found his schemes counteracted by the silent measures of the Coadjutor; and having then recourse to dissimulation, wrote to Zavala, and signified his readiness to submit. Yet he tried every means to recover his former ascendancy by inflaming the people, alarming them sometimes with reports that the Jesuits were bringing a force of the wild Charruas against them, and sometimes with the more probable apprehension, that Zavala would never pardon them for having seized D. Diego in a town of his jurisdiction. These schemes were so far successful, that the Cabildo presented a Memorial to the Coad-

[page] 230

CHAP. XXXV. 1725.

Antequera flies.

Barua appointed Governor ad interim.

Charlevoix. 3. 53—69.

jutor, requiring him to interfere, and dissuade the Governor from entering Paraguay with an armed force. It was presented by Ramon de las Llanas; and, perhaps, Antequera may have wished that this desperate rebel might engage the Cabildo in some act of violence against the Coadjutor. The Prelate apprehended such an intention, and avoided the danger by promising that he would advise him to enter with no other force than his guards. Ramon was now sent round the nearest settlements, to secure them in their doubtful fidelity to Antequera; but the fall of this vain adventurer was near: the Coadjutor, by means of clerical agents, was before hand with him, and feeling that the moment was come for acting decisively in the King's service, he assembled the Chapter, and issued a decree of excommunication against any person who should oppose the reception of the King's Governor. Excommunications had not been played with, as in the days of Cardenas; this, therefore, had its effect, and Antequera, with his Camp-Master Montiel, and Juan de Mena, fled down the river. Zavala advanced without opposition; and even Ramon de las Llanas, who had used every exertion to excite a resistance, found it expedient to go out, and meet him at his entrance. He brought with him, from Santa Fé, D. Martin de Barua, whom he thought a fit person to be Governor till the King should appoint one; and having established him in that office, and delivered D. Diego from prison, the general appearance of submission persuaded him that tranquillity was perfectly restored, and he returned to Buenos Ayres. The conciliating conduct which he had adopted by the Coadjutor's advice, contributed in no slight degree to this appearance; for D. Diego had been advised not to leave his house, or receive any visits, till his health would permit him to embark for Buenos Ayres; and the payment of a fine, which the Viceroy had im-

[page] 231

CHAP. XXXV. 1726.

posed upon those who had disobeyed his commands, was suspended till the result of the Coadjutor's intercession with the King should be known.

Barua's misconduct.

Apologia da Companhia. MS. § 10.

It soon appeared how little the submission of this turbulent people was to be trusted. They cared little for Antequera; the Spaniards were still a jealous race of men, and his licentious manners had made him some personal enemies, and might alone have lessened him in the general opinion, even if his day of popularity had not gone by. But when a decree of the Audience, for re-establishing the Jesuits in their College, was received, the majority of the Cabildo voted that a representation against it should be transmitted to that Tribunal. Barua was inimical to the Jesuits, .. some of his memorials against them are among the innumerable libels of this kind, which were presented to the Court of Spain, and triumphantly confuted; he therefore made no effort to carry into effect the known intentions of the Viceroy and the Court. This party was farther encouraged by the appointment of D. Bartholome de Aldunate to the Government. At this time the Jesuits were beginning to lose that favour in the Catholic Courts which they had so long possessed; and Aldunate owed his promotion to a project which he had transmitted, for establishing Spanish Corregidores in the Reductions, throwing open the trade of those settlements, and raising the same poll-tax there as upon the Indians in Peru. That part of the scheme, which promised an immediate increase of revenue, was adopted; but, before the order reached Buenos Ayres, Aldunate, for some misconduct in that city, had been suspended from all his employments. Barua thus remained with the government till another successor could be appointed; and the intention of raising the capitation was laid aside, in consequence of events which put the utility of the existing system to the test. An order came out for restoring the Jesuits; and, as a means of

[page] 232

CHAP. XXXV. 1728.

The Jesuits are restored.

preventing farther disputes, the Reductions on the Parana were placed under the jurisdiction of Buenos Ayres instead of Paraguay. After many delays the expelled Religioners at length made a public entry; the Provincial came with them, and their re-establishment could not have been attended with greater ceremonies, if all the demonstrations of joy had been sincere. The Sacrament was carried back from the Cathedral to the College by the Coadjutor, as solemnly as it had been removed; and the very soldiers, who had been the instruments of expelling the Company, assisted now to do them honour.

Charlevoix. 3. 69—83.

Antequera sent prisoner to Lima.

Antequera, when he fled from Asumpcion, landed above Santa Fé, and made his way across the country to Cordoba, where for a time he appeared in public, and sent abroad various writings against the Jesuits. After awhile he thought it prudent to take shelter in the Franciscan Convent; but aving learnt that orders for seizing him, dead or alive, were come from Lima, he escaped by night in disguise, and got to Chuquisaca, where he expected that the Audience would favour him: there he was put in irons, and sent to Lima, with his partizan Mena, who, in a like confidence, had taken the same course. Such is the capricious administration of justice under a Spanish Government, that he was detained there five years, under no other circumstance of inconvenience than that of being lodged in the prison: for he was allowed to go whither he pleased by day, about the city, and the adjoining country. During this time he did not fail to make numerous friends: men are easily inclined to think well of those who appear to be oppressed; and rival Orders eagerly accredited any representations which impeached the Jesuits, whom they hated. He found means also of keeping up a correspondence with Paraguay, and encouraging his partizans there, who were also assured of Barua's protection. This emboldened them so greatly, that when a Judge arrived from Lima with a commission

[page] 233

CHAP. XXXV. 1728.

to proceed against the leaders of the late rebellion, and confiscate the property of the guilty, Ramon and Montiel, who had been permitted to return, attempted to raise an insurrection. They failed in this; Montiel absconded, and Ramon was arrested: but no sooner had the Judge departed, after having performed his commission, than both these men appeared in public, with the knowledge, and therefore manifestly not without the approbation, of Barua.

Charlevoix. 3. 83—90.

Faction of the Commons begun by Mompo.

As soon as the Viceroy understood in what manner Barua was acting, he saw the necessity of removing such a Governor without delay, and dispatched D. Iñigo Soroeta to supersede him. A certain Fernando Mompo, who had escaped from prison at Lima, was in Asumpcion when the news of this appointment arrived. He was one of those men who are usually among the prime movers of popular revolutions; who, being without personal courage, are audacious when they have a multitude to support them; who boast of their public virtue, while they live in the habitual breach of every private duty; and who are never at a loss for words, because they are too ignorant to understand their own ignorance, and are alike regardless of logic and of truth. Such men naturally desire to promote an order of things in which authority shall be conferred by the rabble, and loquacity and impudence be the all-sufficient qualifications. This fellow began to teach, that the authority of the Commons was superior to that of the King; he advised that, in the name of the Commons, they should refuse to admit Soroeta; and argued, that what should thus be done in the name of the collective body, could never be proved as a crime against any individual. Remote colonies tend inevitably toward republicanism: .. his doctrine found willing disciples the few who opposed it were designated by the invidious appellation of Contrabandos, while the Comuneros triumphantly gave the law, and proclaimed

VOL. III. 2 H.

[page] 234

CHAP. XXXV. 1730.

that they would have no Governor except Barua. Barua, meantime, had two objects in view; .. he wished to keep his situation as long as possible; but he was especially anxious to avoid any overt act, which might one day draw upon him the punishment he deserved. When, therefore, letters from Soroeta came, stating that he had reached Santa Fe on his way to Asumpcion, he proposed that a deputation should be sent to welcome him; but at this very time Mompo, Ramon, and Montiel, were exciting the people in the adjoining country to insurrection, and two officers of the faction were actually raising troops. At this juncture the Coadjutor, who had been absent on his visitation, returned to the city; and understanding the state of things, he spoke to the Governor immediately after he had performed mass, in presence of the Chapter, the Cabildo, and all the clergy, told him he was well informed that a conspiracy was going on, and warned him of the specific measures which had been taken to forward it. Barua received this address with no good will; coldly replied that he was ignorant of any such proceedings, and even vouched for the good conduct of Mompo and the two officers. Before two days had elapsed these officers approached the city, at the head of an armed force; and, in reply to a message from Barua, forbidding them to advance, said, they had matters to represent, on the part of the Commons, to the Governor and the Cabildo. So they entered, dispersed placards against the Viceroy, the Coadjutor, and the Jesuits; and declared that they would not admit Soroeta, nor have any other person for their Governor but Barua himself.

Charlevoix. 3. 90—92.

Barua resigns his office in fear.

Barua, who was always calculating how to excuse himself to the Court, when subordination should be restored, was frightened by these proceedings, and resigned his office. This could only make the present evil worse: moderate men entreated him to retain his authority, till he could surrender it to his successor;

[page] 235

CHAP. XXXV. 1731.

the Coadjutor, twice, at the head of all the superior Clergy and Religioners, represented that this was his plain duty; and the more violent, who were still desirous of having a semblance of legality on their side, exclaimed that he should be compelled to resume the staff which he had laid down. At length he promised to consent, provided the Coadjutor would obtain an engagement from the Commons that they would not resist Soroeta; and they agreed to this, upon the Coadjutor's pledging himself that Soroeta should not proceed against them for any thing which had hitherto been done. Their words having been given to the agreement, they went to hear Mass. This ceremony should have been the seal of the accord; but, during the performance, some agitators succeeded in inflaming them more than ever, and they left the Church, exclaiming, with one voice, that Soroeta never should be their Governor. Barua then persisted in his resignation with undissembled fear; and the Commons, taking the authority into their own hands, began to exercise it, as authority so obtained, and in such hands, is usually exercised. They displaced the existing magistrates, elected new ones, threw into prison those persons whom they disliked, cried out that the Jesuits must be peremptorily and finally expelled, and plundered friend as well as foe. The more respectable leaders of the party were startled at these excesses, and withdrew to their estates, that they might not appear to sanction what they were unable to prevent. They left a guard over Barua, for the security of his person; and stationed another at the Town-house, where some of the new Magistrates were held in durance, because they would not consent to the expulsion of the Jesuits.

Charlevoix. 3. 92—94.

Soroeta arrives at Asumpcion, and is compelled to withdraw.

By this time Soroeta had reached the Tebiquari; there he received advises from Barua, informing him of the conduct of the Commons; and from the Coadjutor, cautioning him not to proceed without a safe conduct. A safe conduct was sent him

[page] 236

CHAP. XXXV. 1731.

by the Magistrates, and, as soon as he had crossed the river, he was met by a party of about fourscore soldiers, who said they were sent to escort him. However little he might have wished for such an escort, he perceived that it was intended he should not retreat; and the escort increased, as he advanced, till it amounted to some thousand persons. But he, being a man of prudence and of courage, demeaned himself so as neither to betray any mark of apprehension, nor draw upon himself any personal indignity. Barua had not thought proper to quit the Government-house. Soroeta, therefore, was conducted to private apartments, and a guard assigned him, who suffered no person to communicate with him in private. On the following day he presented his commission in the Town-house; the Magistrates received it, and promised obedience; but the demagogues, immediately assembled the Commons in insurrection, and Soroeta was ordered, in their name, to quit the province. Such orders could not be disobeyed so safely as the King's. Before he departed he learnt how it had been concerted, with the leaders of the Commons, that Barua should be acclaimed Governor on the near festival of St. Blaise, who is one of the patron Saints of Asumpcion; and in taking leave of this poor intriguer, Soroeta said, "Adieu, Sir: as soon as my back is turned you will resume your staff." The hint was conveyed with no friendly feeling; but it had its effect, and intimidated Barua from an act which might have drawn upon him the punishment of treason. Soroeta returned by land, as he came: had he gone down the river, as he was advised by persons who affected a concern for his safety, it is said that measures had been taken for destroying him by the hands of the Payaguas.

Charlevoix. 3. 94—96.

Barreyro protects the Jesuits.

It is remarkable that the Jesuits should still have been allowed to continue in their College. But they had good friends in office; and, perhaps, the thoughts of the people were for a time

[page] 237

CHAP. XXXV. 1731.

He arrests Mompo.

He is compelled to fly.

Charlevoix. 3. 96—102.

P. Geronimo Herran.

Lettr. Edif. 9. 164.

drawn off them, when the disturbances had assumed the character of a contest between the Commons and the Crown. The Coadjutor had declared, that if any wrong was offered them, he would lay the city under an interdict; but when he understood that, notwithstanding this declaration, the Commons were determined upon their expulsion, he thought it better to withdraw, than expose the authority of the Church to contempt. He acted wisely in this, for he was greatly and generally respected; he had made no personal enemies, though he never shrunk from the performance of his duty; and it may be, that the Commons did not proceed with violence, as they had intended, because they hoped that this moderation might induce him to return. The Jesuits had also a protector in D. Joseph Luis Barreyro, whom the prevailing faction had chosen to be one of the Alcaldes, and now, having intrusted the Government to a Junta, appointed him to be its President. Barreyro was bold, subtle, and loyal at heart. He thought the best service which could be effected, would be to rid the province of Mompo; and decoying this demagogue to the Tepiquari, he there arrested him in the King's name, and sent him prisoner to Buenos Ayres: from thence he was ordered to Lima for trial; but he escaped on the way, and taking refuge in Brazil, was heard of no more. Barreyro maintained his authority a few months after this act of vigour; but when he would have brought some other criminals to justice, and had condemned them to death, the Commander of the troops declared against him; and after vainly endeavouring to resist force by force, he was compelled to leave the city, and after many dangers effected his escape to the Reductions. The Commons did not yet expel the Jesuits, though they sought to make them withdraw by means of insults, and perpetual vexations. But they were not long without a protector; for the

[page] 238

CHAP. XXXV. 1731.

Coadjutor was encouraged to return, and his presence again restrained the populace.

Antequera condemned and put to death.

The Viceroy had little expected that his authority would be so openly defied at Asumpcion; and learning, upon Soroeta's return, that Antequera and Mena still continued, through their partizans, to influence that unhappy city, he threw them into strict confinement, and hurried on the proceedings against them, which had been so long suspended that the prisoners apprehended no danger from the result. They were found guilty of sedition, rebellion, and treason, and condemned to death. Antequera was taken from prison upon a horse caparisoned with black, and a crier went before, proclaiming his crimes. Two scaffolds were erected in the great square, one higher than the other; upon the more elevated one he was to be beheaded, and Mena to be strangled on the other. Antequera was exceedingly penitent as soon as his fate became certain; but the justice of his sentence was not so readily admitted by others as by himself. The Jesuits had many enemies in Lima, and he had made many friends: moreover there seemed capriciousness at least, if not injustice, in leaving his cause so long undecided, and then, after many years, during which he had scarcely been subjected to the forms of confinement, condemning him to death for an offence, of which the whole nature, extent, and magnitude, had been known from the first. The streets, therefore, were filled with a tumultuous multitude when he was brought out; loud cries of indignation were set up; a Franciscan mounted the scaffold, and stood there, crying out "Pardon!" with all his might; even the least intemperate of the mob repeated this call, and there appeared a determined intention of rescuing the prisoner. Against this danger the Viceroy had provided, by sending for a detachment of troops from the port: and when the tumult increased, he

[page] 239

CHAP. XXXV. 1731.

himself rode to the place of execution. His presence only irritated the people; stones were thrown at him, and seeing the necessity of instant decision, he gave orders to fire upon Antequera, who was still on horseback: he fell instantly, and expired in the arms of the Religioners who were attending him. Two Franciscans, actively engaged in the insurrection, were marked and shot; this effectually intimidated the multitude, and not a murmur was heard when Antequera's body was decapitated, and the head held up. Mena was then brought from prison: the executioner who should have strangled him was not to be found; but this occasioned no delay, for the Viceroy had him beheaded.

Charlevoix. 3. 102—107.

The people of Asumpcion are incensed at this, and again expel the Jesuits.

The people of Asumpcion, though they had not manifested any strong attachment to Antequera while he was living, were both alarmed and exasperated at his execution. His daughter, the widow of Ramon de las Llanas, and then in mourning for him, threw aside her weeds, and went abroad in her richest attire, saying it did not become her to wear any marks of sorrow for a father, who had suffered so gloriously in the service of his country. Antequera and Mena were now publicly eulogized as martyrs for liberty. A meeting was held in the Town-house, where it was decreed that the Jesuits should immediately be sent down the river; that all persons who had deserted the part of the Commons should be put to death; that guards should be set upon the Coadjutor, to prevent him from quitting his house, or showing himself to the people; and that no person, on pain of death, should publish the excommunication and interdict with which he had threatened them. The first of these resolutions was immediately executed; the College was broken open and pillaged, and the Jesuits driven out, and compelled to embark, without allowing them time to deposit the Sacrament in safety, or take their breviaries on this occasion. The Coadjutor, or Bishop,

[page] 240

CHAP. XXXV. 1732.

Letter of the Bishop in Charlevoix.

Pieces Justif. clxi.

P. Herran. Lettr. Edif. 9. 171.

Charlevoix. 3. 110—115.

as he should now be called, (for at this time he had succeeded to the See) would have accompanied them in their banishment, had it been in his power; he would fain, he says, have shaken the dust from his sandals at the gate of the city, and leaving it accursed for ever, have departed finally from a province, which was worse than Gomorrah. But though he was himself under durance, he found means of having the excommunication published: the rebels did not execute their menace, but they stopt their ears while it was read, supposing that they should not be bound in conscience by censures which they did not hear; and when he ordered the bells to be rung, for announcing the interdict, they surrounded the tower, and suffered no person to approach. This casuistry did not satisfy the troops; and when an alarm was spread, that the Guaycurus were approaching in great force, they declared that they would see the city destroyed, and not lift a hand in its defence, unless the interdict and excommunication were taken off. The Bishop consented, on condition that the parties concerned should swear, in the presence of the Sacrament, that they would not again violate the immunities of the Church. These mutual concessions were made: the Guaycurus retreated when they saw the preparations for attacking them, and the city remained in a state of anarchy. Barua no longer acted as Governor; and the men, who had rashly accepted offices of authority under the Commons, found that popular favour is as inconstant as the wind, and as little reducible to rule or reason.

Intrigues of the Bishop of Buenos Ayres with the Commons.

Zavala, meantime, was taking defensive measures, till he could act more decisively. The Guaranies were ordered to defend the Tebiquari, lest the insurgents should attack the Reductions; and the Commandant at Corrientes was instructed to reinforce them with some Spanish troops. But the people there had entered into an alliance with the Commons: they seized the Commandant,

[page] 241

CHAP. XXXV. 1732.

put him in irons, hand and foot, and sent him to Asumpcion; and having received succours from that city, they attempted to secure an important position in the rear of the Guaranies; but their purpose was foreseen, and prevented. The people of Corrientes were ardent in their new cause: they sent deputies to Buenos Ayres, to require that the form of government which they and their allies had established, should be recognized and approved by the King, as being for his service. It appears, indeed, that whatever might be the views of the leaders, the people, amid all their excesses and acts of rebellion, still regarded rebellion as a crime, and sought to conceal from themselves that they were rebels. The Bishop, who understood this feeling, and relied upon it, as soon as he knew that a Governor had been appointed, endeavoured to prepare the way for his reception; the Camp Master Montiel, and other persons of considerable influence among the soldiers, were well disposed to co-operate with him, and the Commons began to fear the overthrow of their power. They were, however, at this time, about to bring forward a personage of considerable importance in their favour, who had not yet appeared in these transactions. This was P. Fr. Juan de Arregui, Bishop-elect of Buenos Ayres, who was coming to Asumpcion to be consecrated by the Bishop of that diocese. Arregui was a Franciscan, and decidedly in favour of the insurgents, .. in consequence, perhaps, of the envious ill-will borne by his order against the Jesuits. On his arrival, he proposed to Palos that they should exchange sees, saying this arrangement would doubtless be agreeable to the Bishop of Paraguay, now that circumstances had rendered him unacceptable to the greater part of his flock. This impudent proposal was made in the assembly of the Commons; they testified their approbation by clamours; the whole faction took up the cry, and said that Arregui should be their Bishop; but Palos, with his

VOL. III. 2 I

[page] 242

CHAP. XXXV. 1732.

Charlevoix. 3. 115—122.

characteristic firmness, disappointed the project, by declaring that he never would consent to such a measure: and that if Arregui did not, upon that assurance, allay the tumult which he had raised by so unwarranted a scheme, he would not consecrate him, but would excommunicate all who had been engaged in exciting the disturbance, and interdict the city.

Ruiloba appointed Governor.

July 27. 1733.

Arregui, though baffled in this project, chose to linger in Asumpcion, instead of returning to his own diocese, and he openly encouraged the Commons; but he was of some use, when the Commons themselves, splitting into parties, were on the point of taking arms one against another; his influence, with that of the Bishop, was then successfully exerted, and prevented bloodshed. Things were in this state when the new Governor, D. Manuel Agustin de Ruiloba, arrived upon the Tebiquari: he was met there by Deputies from the Cabildo, by the President and Chiefs of the Commons, and by the Bishop of Buenos Ayres. The Bishop of Asumpcion remained in the city, that it might not be said he had sought the first opportunity of prejudicing the Governor, and advising the measures which were likely to be taken. Ruiloba, as he apprehended, was deceived by the honours which were paid him, and the readiness with which his authority was recognized. He was heard with silence, and, as he supposed, with respect, when he declared that the name of the Commons, being a rebellious appellation, must be used no longer; and no opposition was expressed, when he deprived some of the chief military officers of their posts. But he did not venture to move the restoration of the Jesuits; and the Provincial, whom he consulted by letter upon that subject, agreed with him that things were not ripe for such a measure, and that nothing was endangered by delay. Ruiloba thought this concession to the popular feeling would win him the general good will; but the Commons had only dissembled their deep resentment; and

[page] 243

CHAP. XXXV. 1733.

He is murdered by the Insurgents.

the officers whom he had dismissed, raised troops against him in open war. He advanced to give them battle. When the armies were opposed to each other, one of the insurgents came forward, and, in a loud voice, called upon all who acknowledged the Commons, to arrange themselves under its banners. The summons was obeyed by all Ruiloba's people, except a few of the principal officers. The collected force then moved towards him; he took off his hat as they drew nigh, and exclaimed, Viva el Rey! but he was answered by Muera el Gobernador! .. an exclamation which proved that his death had been determined. One Ramon de Saavedra fired, and missed him; a troop of horsemen, cowardly as they were cruel, then beat him from his horse with the but-end of their carabines; Gabriel de Delgado cleft his head with a sabre, as he lay on the ground; and many swords were plunged into his body at the same time. His son, a Mercenario Friar, was present at the butchery, and absolved him as he expired. One of the Regidores also was murdered; others were saved from the like fate by the Bishop of Buenos Ayres. They stript the dead body, and were hardly prevailed upon by the least inhuman of their own party, to allow it christian burial.

Charlevoix. 3. 122—130.

Subjugation of the Insurgents.

The Rebels now appointed the Bishop of Buenos Ayres Governor; the appellation of the Commons was changed for that of the General Junta; and D. Juan Ortiz de Vergara was chosen president, with the title of Defender. Here, indeed, the chief authority was vested; and the ambitious Bishop soon found himself a helpless and miserable puppet in their hands, compelled to issue edicts against the loyalists, and to subscribe and sanction acts which he abhorred, and yet had not courage to resist. Repenting now of the part which he had taken, and listening, at last, to his faithful adviser, the Bishop of Asumpcion, he found means to withdraw; for it was necessary, he pleaded, that he should go to his own diocese, if it were only to deposit

[page] 244

CHAP. XXXV. 1733.

in sure hands the memorials for the Court, which he had drawn in justification of the people of Paraguay. On his arrival at Buenos Ayres he was summoned to answer for his conduct, both before the Royal Audience at Lima, and the Council of the Indies in Spain. He pleaded his great age, being fourscore and two, as discharging him from either journey; and the plea would, probably, have been admitted, if death had not soon removed him beyond the reach of earthly tribunals. Zavala, mean time, as soon as he was informed of the last insurrection, and its atrocious circumstances, prepared to take effectual means for suppressing it. He had been appointed Governor of Chili, and President of the Royal Audience in that province; but he considered this as a business of too much importance to be left unsettled, especially as a war with Portugal was apprehended; and, in that case, his successor, when he should arrive, would find full employment at Nova Colonia. But, for this reason, he could not weaken the military force at. Buenos Ayres; he took with him, therefore, only an escort of forty men, and five cavalry, trusting to the Reductions, and to the troops which he might collect on the way. At Corrientes, where he landed, the inhabitants, guilty as they had been, submitted with little difficulty; for they relied upon the known mildness of his character. By this time the natural consequences of popular revolution had been felt in Asumpcion: wealth, birth, and respectability of any kind, were regarded with envy and hatred by those who were destitute of all, and served only to mark the possessors for insult and danger. The Junta, however, sent out two hundred of their partizans to raise the province: they displayed the royal standard against the King's Governor, and they took post at Tabati. But the rebel army retreated before a detachment of Zavala's force, under D. Martin de Echauri; and that officer, pursuing them closely, cut off the rear guard, with the artillery and ammuni-

[page] 245

CHAP. XXXV. 1734.

Charlevoix. 3. 130—149.

tion, and captured most of the leaders. Only six of the Junta escaped: a reward was offered for apprehending them, and four were in consequence delivered up; the others fled into Brazil, and there concealed themselves. Three were condemned to be hanged; but, as no executioner could be found to perform the sentence, they were shot. One of Ruiloba's murderers, and the man who had murdered the Regidor at the same time, were condemned to be hanged, and afterwards broken on the wheel; but, because of the contrition which they expressed, the sentence was changed for one less ignominious, and they also were shot. Another of the murderers was apprehended in Asumpcion, and hanged there; and a few of the most criminal were publicly flogged. No resistance was now offered to the recall of the Jesuits, and they made their entry with the honours of a procession to meet them, and Te Deum for their arrival. The Rector prudently declared, that he required no restitution of the plundered effects of the Company, from those who were not rich enough to make it; and that they who were should be left wholly to their own conscience, for no process would be instituted against them. Zavala now appointed D. Martin de Echauri Governor; and leaving the province in perfect tranquillity, set out for Chili: but he died at Santa Fe, upon the road, greatly and deservedly lamented by the Spaniards.

[page] 246

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Danger from the Negroes in Minas Geraes. Mines of Cuyaba discovered by the Paulistas. Disturbances there. Attempts to check the spirit of adventure. Administration of Gomes Freyre. Capitation introduced. Discovery of diamonds, and laws respecting them. Disputes with Spain. Siege of Nova Colonia.

CHAP. XXXVI. 1720.

D. Lourenço de Almeida Governor of Minas Geraes.

15 Jannary, 1724.

Fifths established.

D. Lourenço de Almeida succeeded, under favourable circumstances, to the Government of the Mines. He came out with doubtful instructions, given him under an apprehension that the people might be ready to resist his authority, or, perhaps, actually engaged in a formidable rebellion. He found them intimidated by the fate of the ringleaders in the insurrection, and perfectly submissive to whatever might be the will of the Court. The act, therefore, for establishing the fifths, was promulgated at a meeting of all the magistrates, officers, and chief persons of the various towns, held at Villa Rica, in the Church of S. Quiteria. The royal Smelting-house was to open on the first of October, and to stamp the gold during four months, without fifthing it, that no person might suffer by paying fifths for gold, which had been collected while the commutation subsisted. The commutation was to be paid up till the fifthing should begin,

[page] 247

CHAP. XXXVI. 1724.

making, with what was due at the time of this meeting, a term of eighteen months; and it was thought better, for the purpose of saving unnecessary trouble, that the assessment should be made for raising the whole by one payment, rather than by two. A Mint, at the supplication of the Camaras, was to be opened at the same time. The King, it was said, conceived this to be the greatest mark of favour which he could bestow upon the people; and a hope was expressed, that this mint would exceed all others in reputation, for the perfect integrity of its dealings, as it was to be established and directed by the Superintendant-General, Eugenio Freire de Andrade, in person. The Act of Promulgation is remarkable for its ostentatious loyalty; the Speakers throw themselves prostrate at the feet of his Majesty, to acknowledge his great bounty; and the Notary ¹ extols, in the highest language, the obedience, honour, and loving services of the people.

Forma, &c. Pinheiro Collection. Vol. 1. No. 25. MS.

Danger from the negroes.

Ordem. 12 Jan. 1719. MS.

The people of the Mines had escaped a danger which, in all likelihood, was provoked by their own barbarity. The Negroes had formed a conspiracy for massacring all the Whites, on Holy Thursday: an officer discovered the scheme in time; and, perhaps, in consequence of the discovery, so many Negroes took to the woods, that the same evil was apprehended which had been experienced in Pernambuco, and an establishment of Capitaens do Matto, or Bush Captains, was instituted. These officers already existed in other parts of Brazil, and the regulations

1 The person, whoever he was, from whose copy of this act the transcript in my possession was made, was not so well satisfied with it as the majority of the Miners appear to have been. His opinion is expressed in the title which he has affixed to it, .. "Forma com que se estabeleceu a Caza da Moeda das Minas, … ou para melhor dizer, a sua perdiçam, como se tem visto, ve, e vera."

[page] 248

CHAP. XXXVI. 1724.

Laws respecting fugitive slaves.

Regimento dos Capitaens do Matto. MSS. 17 Dec. 1722. § 1.

§ 2.

§ 3.

§ 4.

which were now enacted for them shew, that they were almost as dangerous to the community, as the justifiable marauders whom it was their business to extirpate. A reward of four oitavas was to be paid them for every Negro, Mulatto, or Slave (a word which, notwithstanding the laws, must here be synonimous with Indian) apprehended within a league of any town, Arrayal, or settlement, where the Capitam Mor, Sargento. or Bush Captain resided; but such persons were not to be apprehended, except at the desire of their owners, unless they came from another district. For every one taken more than a league off, and within two days' journey, the head-money was eight oitavas; if at more than two days' journey, and within four, it was increased to twelve; to sixteen, for a distance from four days to eight; and for any farther distance the sum was twenty-five. If more than four Negroes were found in a Quilombo ², with their huts, vessels for peeling rice, and means of subsisting themselves there, it was considered of so much importance to destroy one of these settlements before it acquired strength, that the head-money was increased to twenty oitavas. A Negro, when taken, was to be examined by the Juiz Ordinario, without delay, or by the head of the district, in his absence; if he was found to be a runaway, he was to be put in the prison, where there was one, or otherwise held in safe custody, and immediate notice given to his owner to redeem him, upon payment of the reward. This

2 Antonio de Moraes Silva, in his Dictionary, explains this to mean a house, or habitation, belonging to the Calhambolas, or Bush Negroes, in the woods, or the wilderness; but, from the words of the Regimento, it evidently means more than this, .. probably a rude fortification, like the Mocambo of the Pernambuco Maroons. Both words have a family complection, and are certainly African, .. Angolan, I believe.

[page] 249

CHAP. XXXVI.

§ 5. 6.

Addiçam.

§ 1.

§ 9.

§ 8.

reward naturally gave rise to a new trade of kidnapping: to prevent which, the Bush Captains were prohibited from going beyond their own district, in pursuit of Negroes, without a special order from the Governor. The general patents which some of them possessed were annulled, because of the injury, confusion, and disorders, which had resulted from them; and the Governor was to be informed if any of these Bush Captains made a practice of catching Negroes, who were not runaways. They had devised another mode of roguery, which was to detain the Negroes, and profit by their work; therefore, if a Negro were not produced within fifteen days after his apprehension, the Bush Captain was not only to lose the reward, but to pay the owner the value of the slave's daily labour, from the time of his capture. Knaves in this occupation, who liked their own ease, used, instead of going in search of Negro fugitives, to pay Negroes for running away, and coming to them. This fraud could only have been practised upon humaner masters. As a prevention, the Magistrates were instructed not to let the Bush Captains reside constantly in any town, or Arrayal, but to keep them on their duty in the woods. If they fell in with the Chief of an exploring party (Capitam Mor das Entradas), they were required to obey him; but their gains were still to be their own. And whereas some of these men had behaved with great cruelty when they captured a Quilombo, such conduct was reprehended; only in case of resistance they were authorized to exert what the law here curiously called, the natural right of defence; if they acted otherwise, cognizance was to be taken of their conduct. This mild denunciation was not likely to be so effectual as a sense of interest; the head-money for a Negro slain in the attack of a Quilombo was six oitavas, whereas it was twenty if he were taken alive; yet the ferocity of these Captains sometimes prevailed over their love of gain.

VOL III. 2 K

[page] 250

CHAP. XXXVI.

Jealousy of the people of colour.

Ordem. 27 Jan. 1728. MS.

Ordem. 13 Jan. 1731. MS.

Ordem. 27 Jan. 1726. MS.

Ordem. 26 Oct. 1722. MS.

The great importation of Negroes into this Captaincy, occasioned fears which were not felt in any other part of Brazil. The free Blacks and Bastardos had been formed into a separate company of Ordenanza, at Sabara; an order came out to forbid this in future, and to mix them with white soldiers, that they might be the better kept in subjection. Soon after, a second dispatch recommended, that all the inhabitants of the district should be added to these corps; and the practice was again prohibited, as being highly prejudicial to the state, and highly dangerous to the tranquillity of the people. For the same reason, because of the prevalence of people of colour, no person, who was a Mulatto within the fourth degree, might be chosen Vereador, Juez Ordinario, or hold any office in the municipal government of the towns in Minas Geraes; nor any person, who was not either married to a white woman, or the widower of such a marriage. Such fears were not acknowledged in the other Captaincies. The Governor was required to make a regular report of the state of his province to the Governor General; and even if nothing had occurred, he was to let him know that there was nothing to be reported.

Improved method of mining.

Rocha Pitta. 8. § 66.

The method of mining had now undergone a considerable alteration, introduced by some natives of the mother country. Instead of opening catas, or searching places by hand, and carrying the cascalho from thence to the water, they conducted water to the mining ground, and washing away the mould, broke up the cascalho in pits, under a fall of the water, or exposed it to the same action in wooden troughs. A great expence of human labour was thus spared; but, as soon as the advantage was well understood, the Poderosos took possession of the watercourses, and diverted them to their own grants. Persons of less influence were then obliged either to purchase water from these great men, at an exorbitant rate, or pursue the old manner of

[page] 251

CHAP. XXXVI.

Laws respecting water.

working. There are many things in which the Brazilian manners resemble the worst parts of the feudal system; but, in the Mines, there had been no time for manorial rights of this nature to be established, and the attempt to arrogate them became a more frequent cause of disputes and litigation, than any other grievance. At length the Guarda Mor, Garcia Rodriguez Paez, represented the matter to the Court, and requested that some regulations might be made for putting an end to the continual acts of injustice, and consequent contention, which arose from this practice. A power of deciding summarily in such cases was requisite; because, while suits were pending at Bahia, or, perhaps, at Lisbon, the Mines remained unworked, and the revenue suffered. The Guardas Menores, therefore, were empowered to allot the water, according to the means of the miners; and an appeal lay from them to the Superintendant of the Comarca. No person might appropriate the waters of a stream without a written licence from the Guarda Menor; and that license was null if he had no grant to work, or no slaves wherewith to work it: for there were persons who, having neither ground nor hands in this employ, used to get possession of the water, and thus prevent others from working, unless they purchased the use of the stream. Custom, however, comformably to justice, was allowed to establish it as lawful for those, who brought water-courses upon the mining-ground at much expence, to dispose, in that case, of the water. If a spring was found, upon digging in a grant, it belonged to the grantee. The surplus water from any reservoir which the miners made, was at the Guarda Mor's disposal. Even the water which fell from Heaven was matter of litigation, and the Guarda Mor was obliged to mark out the limits within which each miner had a right to collect it for his use.

Regimento dos Agoas. 24 Feb. 1720. MS.

Advance of salaries.

The attention of the Portugueze Government was now parti-

[page] 252

CHAP. XXXVI.

Ordem. 4 July. 1718. MS.

Provizam. 16 May. 1722. MS.

Ordem. 23 Dec. 1723.

Do. 29 July, 1726. MSS.

Do. 28 July, 1723. MS.

Do. 27 Oct. 1739. MS.

cularly directed to this part of Brazil; and if justice was not administered there with purity, it was neither for want of good laws, nor of jealous regulations. The Governor's salary had been fixed, in Silveira's time, at eight thousand cruzados; that of the Ouvidores at five hundred milreis; that of the Secretaries of Government at four hundred, payable in gold coin, not in oitavas: a specification which was always made in the Governor's commission. Four years afterwards the Governor's salary was raised one-third, making it about twelve hundred pounds. All offices, however, then existing in Brazil, or thenceforth to be erected, except such as were proprietary, were to be purchased from the Crown; and the deputies who served proprietary offices were, at the end of the year, to pay into the treasury, each a third part of the gross profits of the place; but from this, offices which did not render more than two hundred milreis, were afterwards exempted. The sale of judicial offices in France, and of commissions in the English army, has been found to produce no practical inconvenience, because in both countries the power of purchasing implies that the purchaser is of that class of society in which a proper sense of honour is always to be presumed: but such a system can never be adopted with impunity by a people, among whom public opinion has no influence, and the standard of honour is debased. At the end of their term the Governors and Judges were subject to a severe enquiry under a special commission; the remedy introduced an evil as great as that which it was intended to correct, and the history of Spanish America is full of instances of the enormous abuse of the inquisitorial power with which these commissioners were entrusted. The Governor of Minas Geraes was charged to see that such commissioners received no emoluments of any kind within his jurisdiction. No Intendant might succeed another to whom he stood related within the fourth degree, lest there should be any collusion be-

[page] 253

CHAP. XXXVI.

Ordem. 16 Jan. 1723. MS.

Do. 25 June, 1728. MS

Carta Regia. 27 March, 1734. MS.

Ordem. 12 April, 1725. MS.

Do. 5 July, 1725. MS.

Do. 16 Feb. 1733. MS.

tween them. Ministers and officers of the courts of justice were forbidden to act as Procuradores in any cause which should be brought before any tribunal; their wives and children also were under the same prohibition; nor might they present memorials in any cause, nor give letters of favour. It had become a practice for creditors to make over their debts to the servants of the Governor, that thus through his favour they might obtain payment before other claimants; .. the Governors were charged to prevent this mode of injustice. Persons holding judicial offices in the conquests were forbidden to marry without special permission from the King; if they disobeyed the injunction, they forfeited their situations immediately, and were to be compelled to embark in the next fleet for Portugal. The courts of justice must have been dreadfully corrupt, when so many precautions against undue influence were required. The power also of the Governors and inferior Commanders was frequently abused. The Capitaens Mores, in whom no such authority was vested, took upon themselves to imprison persons, or release them. This the Court forbade by an express order: and when the Governor had thrown a man into prison for forming a combination to defraud the revenue by keeping the bidding low when the import duties were let by auction, he was reprimanded, and admonished that the offender ought not to have been confined before a process against him had been instituted according to law. It was found, that private letters were intercepted and opened, under pretext of discovering what persons were engaged in the clandestine exportation of gold: the Governors were forbidden to continue this practice, because, it was said, nothing could be more shameful than thus to lay open private secrets and private affairs without urgent cause. These orders indicate a proper sense of equity and honour in the Portugueze Government: but its practice corresponded little

[page] 254

CHAP. XXXVI.

to these principles; and men who knew how the laws were despised and the course of justice perverted at home, might well suppose, that their mal-administration in so remote a part of the colonies would expose them to little inconvenience, if they had good interest at Lisbon.

Restrictions upon emigrating to Brazil.

Ley. 20 March, 1730. MS.

Ordem. 14 April, 1732.

Do. 20 Feb. 1733. MSS.

The discovery of the Mines had occasioned a great increase ³ of activity and wealth, notwithstanding the loss of the sugar-trade which it had occasioned, and the jealous restrictions by which the commerce of Brazil was now fettered. These restrictions were now exceedingly severe. Not only were all foreigners forbidden to enter the country, but no person whatever might embark for it, unless he were appointed to an office there; he might then take with him only such number of servants as should be deemed necessary, and all these were to be Portugueze. Portugueze going on business must have passports; and of the clergy, none were allowed to embark except Bishops, Missionaries, Prelates, and Religioners of Orders already established in that state, and belonging to that province; ships were of course permitted to carry each a Chaplain. No women might embark without the King's permission, except wives who accompanied their husbands.

Discovery of the Mines of Cuyaba.

The Paulistas, outnumbered as they were in Minas Geraes by the influx of people from other Captaincies and from Portugal, submitted to the loss of their ascendancy with more moderation than might have been expected from so resolute and lawless a race, especially as they had some cause to complain of ill

3 It appears by a memorial from the British Factory at Lisbon, to the Board of Trade, dated July 31, 1715, that within the thirty preceding years, the woollen trade to Portugal had increased two parts in three; and this increase was ascribed to the improvement of the Portugueze trade to Brazil, and the great quantity of gold brought from that country. Walpole Papers. MSS.

[page] 255

CHAP. XXXVI.

Method of travelling from S. Paulo to Cuyaba.

The Tieté.

treatment from the Forasteiros, and partiality from the Government. They were perhaps gratified by having their country formed into a separate Captaincy, and their capital made a City; and being impatient of inaction, it was not long before they hunted out new mines of gold in a remoter part of the interior. It was in the very centre of South America that the Paulista, Pascoal Moreira Cabral, discovered the mines of Cuyaba, .. mines, which long ere that time would have fallen to the Spaniards of Paraguay or S. Cruz, had they possessed half the enterprize and activity of the Brazilians. The Paulistas at this day follow the same route to Cuyaba as the first settlers, and it is still a journey of great difficulty and considerable danger. The adventurers embark in canoes at Villa do Porto Feliz, about eighty miles West of S. Paulo, upon what was formerly called the Anhembi, now the Tieté, which is said to mean, the river of many waters: its navigation is interrupted by nearly fifty falls and rapids, at some of which a portage is necessary, and others can only be past with half cargoes and at great risk. The Tieté rises in the mountains on the coast, behind the towns of Santos and S. Sebastian: its course is estimated at seven or eight hundred miles. The woods through which it flows afford abundance of fruit, .. among others the Jataiz, the produce of a singularly useful tree; its bark being thick and tough, is used both by the Indians and the Sertanejos for canoes, better fitted for rough river navigation than if they were composed of firmer materials; the timber, because of its hardness and durability, is preferred for the Sugar Works, and from its roots the Indians procure a resinous substance in great abundance which they burn for lamps, and of which they make ear and lip-trinkets, resembling amber. Fish of excellent quality abound there, and of such great size, weighing even when dried from forty to sixty pounds, that it has become a trade to cure them for sale. The

[page] 256

CHAP. XXXVI.

The Rio Pardo.

Tieté falls into the Parana, where that great river is about two miles wide; and the travellers falling a little way down the stream, make for the Rio Pardo, which joins it from the north. This river they ascend almost to its source, a voyage of about two months, and rendered difficult as well as tedious by the force of the current and the number of falls and rapids. The water is remarkably clear and good, and is supposed to derive great virtue from the sarsaparilla which grows upon its banks: the want of fruit along its course is compensated by the abundance of honey and of game; but there is danger in pursuing the chace to any distance from the boats, for the Caiapos, a race of unsubdued and wily savages, possess the country. This part of the journey ends at a place called Sanguisuga, .. either because leeches abound there, or for the labour which there becomes necessary, and the expence which must be incurred. Here the canoes are mounted upon wheels, and drawn by six or seven yoke of oxen; the cargoes are packed in carts, or upon the backs of Negroes and hired labourers; and in this manner the party proceed, with an armed escort to protect them against the Caiapos, a stage of some ten miles, to an establishment formed for the purpose of facilitating this portage, and called Capamoan, from the little river upon which it stands. This is considered the half way point, and here the travellers lay in stores for the remainder of the journey. They re-embark here and descend the stream; it is so shallow that the canoes can only be half laden; therefore they unload when they reach its junction with the Coxiim, and deposit the goods under a proper guard in huts made of palm leaves, while the boats return for the remainder of the cargo; this occupies about three weeks. Eight or ten days then hurry them down the perilous rapids of the Coxiim till it falls into the Taquari; and after they have gone six or seven days down this river, they halt at a place called

[page] 257

CHAP. XXXVI.

Pouzo Alegre, .. the Joyful Resting Place: such it must be to those who return from Cuyaba, .. not so to those who are bound thither: for the broads and flooded plains which extend from thence to the Paraguay (a voyage of something more than a fortnight) are infested by the Payaguas; and here the travellers must collect all their canoes, sixty or seventy in number, arm ⁴ some of them as a convoy for the rest, and put themselves in military order under a commander. At night they rest upon some of the wooded islands which are found every where along this wild navigation. The first business is to clear the ground; they then plant the Captain's tent, for which a tall strong cane, called the taquare, serves for the central pole; and a woollen covering lined with linen is thought to repel the rain better than any other. The negroes and common men swing their hammocks from the trees, and cover them with a long cloth which hangs down to the ground, and is even more necessary as a protection against winged ⁵ insects than against the weather. Watch is kept upon the water; and they have always dogs with them upon shore. When they reach the Paraguay the danger becomes greater, for this is the country of the Payaguas, who

Danger from the Payaguas.

4 The Latin translator of Charlevoix, who brings down his history to the year 1767, says that they used horse-hair wadding for their guns, for two reasons; that no spark might remain in the gun after it had been discharged, and because they thought the piece was less heated when this kind of wadding was used, though it might be more frequently and faster fired. Each armed canoe carried one small gun, a falcon between three and four feet long, fixed upon a swivel so as to turn in any direction; it was served by four men who had every thing in excellent order, and were admirably expert at their business.

5 The author of the Supplement says somebody declared that these tormentors were syncatagorematically infinite.

VOL. III. 2 L

[page] 258

CHAP. XXXVI.

of all the American tribes have defended their native land with most perseverance and most success against all invaders. They owe this success to the nature of their country, and to their amphibious habits, which enable them to profit by its advantages. All the tribes of this region are such fearless swimmers, that even broad and rapid rivers, like the Paraguay and the Parana, afford no protection against them; but the Payaguas live so much in the water, that for that reason the men wear no clothing whatever: with their manner of life any kind of clothing is incompatible, and therefore, though other tribes regard their nakedness as abominable, they are not ashamed. Every family has its boat, which is of great length, very narrow, and curved at both ends so as to resemble the new moon: the head and stern are shaped alike, .. it moves therefore with equal facility in either direction, and is impelled by means of a single oar, which is long enough and sharp enough to serve also for a spear. However rough the wind and the waves may be, the Payagua has no fear of either; he gets to the one end of his boat and drives it along, half out of the water; if it should upset (which very seldom happens) presently you see him, says Dobrizhoffer, astride the keel, as if he were riding a porpoise. In case of danger from an enemy, they upset it themselves and rise under it, breathing there as in a diving bell, and protected by it as by a shield. They would dive in the whirlpool, and bring up fish at a wide distance from the spot where they went down: and they would remain so long under water, that many persons, supposing it impossible for a human creature to exist so long without respiring, have absurdly insisted, that they carried with them a cane through which they breathed. Their weapons were the macana, the spear, and the bow and arrow, with which they shot point blank. Their larger war-canoes held forty men, and were excellently made, though with no better instruments than stone

[page] 259

CHAP. XXXVI.

Peramas de Tredecim. p. 206. 300. Dobrizhoffer. 1. 128—133.

Noticias de Paraguay. MSS.

Azara 2. 157—159.

Summa Itinerarii, annexed to the translation of Charlevoix.

Patriota. May, 1813. p. 50—61.

axes, and the aid of fire: these, when upon an expedition, they could impel at the rate of twenty miles an hour; and they drew so little water, that they lurked among the islands, or in the smallest creeks and streams, and lay undiscovered under the boughs which touched the water. Such a people, with some fitness in their fables, believed themselves to be the progeny of a fish called the ⁶ Pacu, and looked for a Paradise after death where the souls of the meritorious Payaguas were to dwell among aquatic plants, and feast upon fish and crocodiles. These people made the journey to Cuyaba so dangerous, that when that colony was fairly established, a vessel strongly armed was always sent from thence to wait for the traders when they entered the Paraguay, one expedition only being made in the course of the year. The greatest vigilance was still necessary: the canoes proceeded one after another up the stream; and never ventured to pass the mouth of a river, or creek, on either side, till the armed vessels had gone before and stationed themselves to secure them against an ambush. The same caution was necessary when they entered the Rio dos Porrudos. After ascending this for five or six days, they came to the mouth of the Cuyaba: here wild rice is found, better in quality than what the Brazilians raise; and here there is a considerable extent of ground covered with banana plants, in such profusion, that neither traders nor Indians have ever found the produce fail. A farther voyage of fifteen days brings the adventurers to their desired port, which is about a mile from the town of Cuyaba. But

6 The Dorado, they say, produced the Spaniards, who for that reason, though otherwise so very inferior a people to the Payaguas, had the advantage of a better complection. The Guaranies were children of the Toad, and therefore a despicable race. Azara, 2. 159.

[page] 260

CHAP. XXXVI.

Supplementum Hist. Parag. p. 335—336.

even the latter part of the voyage was not without danger from the Payaguas; and the Caiapos, according to very recent accounts, still infested the immediate vicinity, to the great detriment and danger of the inhabitants.

Settlement of Cuyaba.

1721.

This, which is the route at present pursued from S. Paulo to Cuyaba, was the course taken by the first adventurers; and as soon as they had fixed themselves there, and the richness of the ground was known, cattle and supplies were carried to them with infinite difficulty and marvellous perseverance, overland; but they were sold for prices which well repaid the persevering speculators, till produce could be reared upon the spot. But about Cuyaba there was a danger from the Indians to which the settlers in Minas Geraes had not been exposed; for that country, before its mines were discovered, had been in great measure cleared by the slave-hunters. Some kind of military discipline was soon found necessary for self-preservation; Fernando Diaz Falcam, therefore, was elected Capitam Mor, with full powers military and civil, till the King should be pleased to supersede him. He was a Paulista of good family. Many restless spirits from Minas Geraes resorted to this new ground; but all private and provincial quarrels seem to have been suspended: for the savages, who looked upon every man of European blood as their enemy, made them all feel as countrymen who were embarked in one common cause. By means of the good discipline which was now established, Cuyaba began to flourish as rapidly as Minas Geraes had done.

Rocha Pitta. 10. § 86—88.

A way by land opened.

Rodrigo Cesar de Menezes, brother to the Viceroy, had been appointed Governor of S. Paulo when that Captaincy was separated from the Mines. As the way by water to Cuyaba was so circuitous and difficult, he offered a reward for opening a communication by land; and this desirable object was effected by the exertions of Manoel Godinho de Lara. A House was then

[page] 261

CHAP. XXXVI.

Tyranny of the Lemes.

They are put to death.

established at the point where the Parana was crossed, to register the gold, and collect the fifths; heavy penalties were enacted against those who should attempt to evade the duties, and a third part of the seizure offered to the informer. But a mode of collecting, which it was not difficult to evade in the Mines, proved absurdly inefficient in such a situation; and after much deliberation it was judged expedient to recur to the old method, of a poll tax upon the slaves. By the choice of the Senado of S. Paulo, Lourenço Leme da Sylva was sent to Cuyaba as Provedor: he was preferred to this office, because he knew that part of the country well, and had many kinsmen and dependants there; and in order to gratify him and strengthen his authority, his brother Joam Leme was appointed Camp Master. These brothers proved to be two of the most atrocious ruffians that had ever figured in Brazil; and the power with which they were intrusted produced in them that insanity into which the wicked fall when they are emancipated from every kind of restraint. They collected about them a band of desperate wretches, to whom they compelled the richest settlers to give their daughters in marriage; others of these unfortunate women they took by force, as many as they pleased for themselves; they put to death persons of whom they were jealous with their own hands, and with their own hands quartered them. At length their enormities became so crying, that Rodrigo Cesar sent a force against them from S. Paulo. The well-disposed part of the inhabitants gladly joined it; and the ruffians, after attempting vainly to defend themselves in their strong holds, were hunted down. Lourenço was killed in the woods, like a wild beast; Joam was taken prisoner, and beheaded at Bahia. Among other acts of tyranny, these Lemes had ordered the Forasteiros to leave Cuyaba. Slight occasion indeed would have revived the old feud, now that the danger from the savages was inter-

[page] 262

CHAP. XXXVI.

Rocha Pitta. 10 § 89—96.

Ordem. 29 April, 1729.

Do. 15 Feb. 1730. MSS.

mitted; and for this reason, when Almeida had begun to open a communication from Minas Geraes to Cuyaba, the Home Government instructed him to suspend the work, lest the Paulistas, under an apprehension of being outnumbered and overpowered there also, should relax in their researches, and perhaps forsake the settlement; for this cause the people of the Mines were ordered to take the road of S. Paulo.

Restraints upon mining.

Carta Regia. 8 Feb. 1730. MS.

Successful as the discoverers had been, it was found that the frequent rumours of new discoveries occasioned much evil in Minas Geraes, by unsettling men who were already prone to an adventurous and wandering life. The miners, eagerly following after vain reports, hurried from one place to another, and frequently abandoned sure profit for the hope of a richer contingency. The injury, both to the revenue and to individual trade, became so great, that the Court sent out an edict forbidding for the present all persons from going upon discoveries in parts which were wholly separated, and at great distance, from the existing mines, unless they had the King's special permission. Perhaps there were other reasons, now that the Mines were so abundantly productive, for endeavouring to check the spirit of adventure. Something like social order had, not without much resistance, been established in this Captaincy. Government had felt the difficulty of reducing such a people to habits of obedience, and was well aware that this, which had unexpectedly become the most important part of the Portugueze possessions, was at the same time held by the most precarious tenure. But every fresh discovery endangered the authority of the laws: for now, when Minas Geraes was perhaps more populous than most of the other Captaincies, such multitudes flocked wherever gold was newly found, that it was no longer possible to observe the old regulations concerning grants; and the Government found it expedient to yield an authority which could not be maintained.

[page] 263

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Relaxation of the laws of the Mines.

Bando. 22 March, 1728. MS.

Bando. 24 Nov. 1728. MS.

Portaria. 2 May, 1734. MS.

The concession was made in time, and in such a manner as to appear an act of grace rather than of necessity. Great crowds had assembled in a new discovery at the Morro de S. Vicente, upon the Rio das Pedras, one intruding upon the ground which another had appropriated; so that instead of extracting gold, all were engaged in tumults and contention. The Governor therefore proclaimed that the ground here should be common to all the people, and that no grants should be made; only a certain distance was to be left between the openings. The Camara of S. Joam d'El Rei, represented, that a few individuals claimed to themselves the whole hill at the Rio das Mortes, and the people, because they had no mining ground whatever, were deserting the town. In a case of this kind there was no time for a reference to the Home Government. D. Lourenço therefore gave notice, that no man should appropriate more ground than his legal proportion, according to the number of slaves whom he employed; and as the hill was of great extent, there was room enough, he said, for the negroes of the inhabitants to mine and search for gold, without interfering with the works of those who had brought water to the ground; for, he added, it had always been the custom in these towns, that the adjoining hills should be common gathering places for all the inhabitants. Here the grasping disposition of a few Poderosos had provoked resistance: but six years afterwards, when the Morro de Cattas Altas was opened, the people demanded that it should be declared common property, free for all to work who chose; and it was proclaimed accordingly that no person should appropriate ground to himself under any title, but that all might take the benefit of it, and employ their slaves there. Wherever a party of miners were hutted in one of those Arrayeis, or Camps, from which so many towns have grown, a set of harpies followed, who opened booths and drinking houses, which were injurious to the miners

[page] 264

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Bando. 24 Nov. 1728. MS.

Portaria. 2 May, 1734. MS.

in every way: slaves were debauched from their work, and tempted thus to spend the gold which they had collected for their masters; and drunkenness led to quarrels, rioting, and bloodshed. Rigorous edicts therefore were issued against these pests of the community. The stores were confiscated, the negresses by whom such places were usually kept, were to be imprisoned, and if it was discovered that the real owner was a free person, he was to be imprisoned also till he paid fifty. oitavas toward the works of the Church. No goods of any kind were to be sold publicly or privately by man or woman in these camps; and the people were authorized to demolish any shops or stands that should be erected: .. these edicts were always proclaimed by beat of drum. The prohibition of trade in these places may have arisen from the double motive of encouraging the fixed traders in the elder settlements, and preventing the disorders with which fairs were likely to be attended among such a people.

Coiners and false mints.

Ordem. 18 Feb. 1719. MS.

Do. 18 June, 1725. MS. Carta Regia. 8 Feb. 1730. MS.

Hitherto the goldsmiths had been the great agents and allies of the miners in their perpetual endeavours to avoid the payment of the fifths. It was not possible to ascertain whether wrought gold had been fifthed or not; and they made it up into trinkets, and pieces of such rude workmanship as evidently to betray the purpose for which they had been fabricated. There was a law which ordered all these craftsman to be expelled, and condemned those who should endeavour to continue in the Captaincy, to confiscation of their effects, and six years banishment to India. After awhile, such goldsmiths as might have taken to other occupations, were exempted from this severe decree; but their frauds were now so palpable, and the mischief so great, that directions were sent out to enforce it, and confiscate all the gold which should be found in their possession. These persons, however, were succeeded by more artful enemies to the revenue. A firm of Coiners, who had practised for some time at the Rio

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Carta Regia. 12 August, 1732. MS.

Carneiro. MS.

removed to the Mines, and established themselves first at Paraipeba, afterwards in the house of the Guarda Mor, Luiz Teixeira, at the Rossa da Itaberaba. It is a proof of remarkable vigilance on the part of the Court, that information of this false mint should have been communicated from Lisbon to the Governor; in consequence the party were surprized, the principal, one Ignacio de Sousa, was arrested, and a great seizure was made of gold, in dust and in ingots. This discovery, and the certain knowledge that frauds were practised to an enormous extent in evading the fifths, induced the Government to think once more of changing the form of the impost, which was moreover so unpopular, that D. Lourenço had consented to reduce it to twelve per cent. Neither had this been the only concession. The Crown winked at frauds which it had no means of preventing, and which it was afraid of pursuing to the utmost: all its dispatches expressed a full sense of the weakness and instability of its authority over such subjects, in so remote a country. An order came out, that bars which were brought to the Mint should not be examined whether they had been marked with a false stamp, for fear of such disturbances as had arisen at the Rio, .. probably from some such cause; and also lest persons should be deterred from bringing bars which had been duly stamped, by an apprehension that they might possibly be condemned, although innocent, and brought under the severity of the law: the Treasury would thus lose its Seignorage, which was something more than five per cent.

Ordem. 27 Feb. 1731. MS.

Capitation again attempted.

Because of these numerous inconveniences the capitation was again taken into consideration, as the simplest method, and one which was recommended by the ablest ⁷ of the Portugueze states-

7 It seems to have been adopted at this time, on the recommendation of D. Luiz da Cunha. This great statesman, while he was employed in embassies, seems to have frequented the society of Portugueze Jews, whom many of his countrymen would have shunned with abhorrence, or in apprehension of the consequences to themselves when they returned within the sphere of their then terrible Inquisition. D. Luiz enquired of a Jew, who was born at Rio de Janeiro, and whom he praises for his sound understanding, what could be the reason that the King of Spain derived so much larger a revenue from his mines than the King of Portugal, though the Spanish mines were silver and those in Brazil were gold. The Jew replied, there was no other means of explaining it, than by the frauds which were practised concerning the fifths; for it was certain, that he who took to the mint two arrobas to be stamped, administered a bribe in the proper place, and paid only for one. The means of remedying this, the Jew said, would be to tax not the gold, but the persons who were employed in extracting it. One hundred thousand slaves were engaged in this employment; each of them collected, upon a moderate average, one oitava per day; which, excluding Sundays and the few holydays observed in the Mines, would be two arrateis, or pounds, every year; and the fifths upon this quantity ought to be forty thousand arrateis, .. an enormous difference this, from the quantity which was actually paid. (The hundred arrobas were twenty-eight thousand pounds weight: .. the fifths when collected probably fell short of twenty thousand, .. and were therefore not half what they ought to have been, according to the Jew's estimate.) The Jew added, that, in stating the slaves at one hundred thousand, he was below the mark; but the numbers might be ascertained with perfect certainty by the Priests; and the Owner who had fifty slaves, ought to be called upon every fifth day for fifty oitavas; but as an allowance for sickness and accidents, he proposed that the master should only pay for four-fifths of the hands whom he employed. D. Luiz objected to this, that although in the streams the supposed daily quantum might be collected with sufficient regularity, it was otherwise where the gold was procured by digging; for in such places the labour of many days must oftentimes produce nothing. The answer to this was, that when a vein was found, the produce was so abundant that it more than compensated for the unproductive time. A last objection was, the danger of exciting an insurrection by such an impost, among a people upon whom the bonds of duty and allegiance sate so lightly: but the Jew, who knew them, replied, that if the King left the arrangement to the people themselves, and not to the Governor, he was certain that the measure would succeed; for they regarded any mark of honour from the King more than any considerations of interest; and nothing would be lost by making the experiment. Carta ao Marco Antonio. MS.

D. Luiz perceived the danger, that by this, or by some other means, the negroes might learn to estimate and understand their great numerical superiority. For this reason he advised, that one place in the Captaincy should be well fortified, and have a strong citadel, with a regiment of infantry to keep the country in obedience. Perhaps he thought this precaution advisable not against the negroes alone.

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Carta Regia. April 24, 1732. MS.

Carta Regia. Oct. 30, 1733. MS.

men. When therefore the Conde das Galveas, Andre de Mello e Castro, succeeded D. Lourenço, he was instructed to propose this measure; and perhaps as a means of inducing the people more readily to acquiesce in it, he was to exact the full fifth as long as the present mode should be continued. But they proceeded with great caution. After awhile the Procuradores of all the Camaras were assembled to deliberate upon the matter: they were unanimous in disapproving the proposed alteration, and as the Count agreed with them in opinion, and had moreover a discretionary power, for fear of resistance, it was deferred for the King's farther consideration. Meantime, till his pleasure should be known, a smelting-house was established in

[page] 267

CHAP. XXXVI.

Carneiro. MS.

every Comarca; and the Camaras engaged to make up to the Treasury the yearly quantity of one hundred arrobas (about one hundred and sixty-eight thousand pounds sterling), if the fifths should fall short of that amount. But in apportioning this impost great injustice was committed. Some Camaras were taxed more heavily than others; and they in their turn laid on the burden unequally among the people within their jurisdiction, oppressing those who possessed no influence, and favouring the Poderosos. The Court in consequence instructed the Governor to make the assessment himself, and by no means leave it to the Camaras. The readiest mode was supposed to be by a capitation on the slaves, which the Camaras themselves affected to adopt: but if such difficulties and unforeseen disorders should arise that it

[page] 268

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Cartas Regias. July. 18, 1734. MSS.

might appear dangerous to put this plan in practice, it was left to his discretion how to make up the sum; and he was charged to take counsel in what manner the frauds which were committed in paying the fifths, might be prevented.

Gomes Freyre Governor.

Jan. 2, 1735.

This compromise did not prevent the contraband practices: more secret Mints were discovered, and the Court was then determined to establish the Capitation; but the perilous task of introducing it was left to the new Governor, Gomes Freyre de Andrada, who was removed from the Government of Rio de Janeiro to that of Minas Geraes, when the Conde das Galveas was promoted to the Viceroyalty of Brazil. If there was one Portugueze family more than any other from which pure loyalty and uncorrupted patriotism might have been expected, it was that of ⁸ Freyre de Andrada. This Gomes Freyre had not derogated from his illustrious name during his administration; and he was destined to bear a more conspicuous part in South American history than his high-minded father, but not one upon which his posterity might look back with equal satisfaction. Upon his removal he received a remarkable letter, not less honourable to the Sovereign from whom it came, than to the subject unto whom it was addressed. … Gomes Freyre de Andrada, it began, Go-

8 When Sebastian was inspecting his army, immediately before the fatal battle of Alcacer, he stopt at seeing a party of only five knights among those who were attached to the royal standard, when all the other parties consisted of six; and he said with some degree of anger, here is one knight wanting! It was Gomes Freyre de Andrada, with two sons on his right hand, and two on his left; the old man lifted his bever and said, Methinks, Sir, a father and his four sons, who are come to die for you, may supply the want of a sixth. .. I place this fine anecdote here, because while I was employed upon this part of the text, the news arrived that the representative of this illustrious family had suffered death by the hands of the executioner at Lisbon!

[page] 269

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vernor and Captain General of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, Friend, I the King, greet you. The good reputation which you have obtained in your government causes me particular satisfaction, since it confirms the judgement with which you were chosen for it. And although on this account it may seem superfluous in any manner to remind you of your duties, nevertheless, I esteem it a fitting and peculiar mark of my good will towards you, and of my expectation that you will in all things justify the choice which I have made, to prepare you with some useful advice, though you stand in need of no admonition. On this occasion especially, when I send you into a country ruder even in customs than in cultivation, where evil examples have struck deep root, where opportunities for misconduct are more frequent, and the remoteness of the Sertam more easily deludes men into a persuasion that their excesses may remain undiscovered; all the light which my instructions can give you, will be useful, in order that the provisional authority which you will exercise in Minas Geraes may accredit my choice, and serve as an example to your successors. The King then observed, that there was the more necessity for his maintaining justice, and setting inferior officers an example of maintaining it, because the more distant the country, the more slowly could the King apply any remedy to the disorders which might arise. He reminded him that there were more ways than one by which a Governor might incur an ill reputation, and fail in his duty; he might do so either by breaking the injunction against engaging in trade, which was imposed upon the Governors for just cause; or by receiving gifts, which, though they might seem to be mere compliments, carried with them always a kind of subornation for future occasions. He was to beware also of showing any undue indulgence toward his servants and favourites; for by this means some Governors, though otherwise upright and disinterested men,

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Collecçam dos Regimento, &c. MS.

had given occasion to as many inconveniences as would have resulted from transgressing in their own persons. Against this fault, into which men sometimes fell, less from ill intention than from an excess of good nature, he was especially warned; and he was charged not to suffer his servants to accept gifts, (which in reality were bribes) nor to use any influence, nor to engage in any trade; for they could not do this without abusing the authority of their master, and drawing upon him the suspicion of being privily concerned in their transactions. "Finally, (said the King,) set before your eyes the difference between a fortune acquired with the public esteem, protected by the royal pleasure, and founded upon good services, which constitute a claim to future honours; and a fortune gained by vile means, arraigned by the cries of the miserable, and never secure from the rigour and displeasure of the sovereign. Let this consideration suffice to make you seek for advancement by those means only which become a man of sound judgement, who respects the reputation of my service, and loves the public good. And I expect that these admonitions, in which you ought to recognize the distinction and benignity wherewith I treat you, will remain in such manner impressed upon your mind, as continually to make you careful that in whatsoever you do you may give me the satisfaction of seeing my anxiety for you well bestowed, and rendering yourself worthy of my especial favour." … At the expiration of the year, the King granted to Gomes Freyre six thousand cruzados in aid of his expences, because the words of the grant expressed, as his Majesty did not choose that he should derive any profit or accept any presents in his government, contrary to the laws, so it was not the King's intention to fail in supplying him with what was necessary for supporting himself suitably to his station.

Avizo. 30 Jan. 1736. MS.

Capitation Tax.

It was doubted at Lisbon whether the Capitation could be

[page] 271

CHAP. XXXVI.

safely introduced. Indeed any change in the mode of levying that share which the Crown claimed from the produce of the mines was sure to be unpopular, because it deranged the settled method of evading that which was established; for this was always so successful, that upon every change the miners doubted whether the new frauds to which they should have recourse would answer as compleatly as those which were now become a matter of routine. The proposed tax was an impost of two oitavas and twelve vinteins of gold every half year, upon every slave male or female, excepting only the females who were employed in vendas and shops, and children either black or mulatto born in the Captaincy, under fourteen years of age, and not employed in mining, or in any hard work. Free persons of European birth or extraction, who worked as miners, were liable to the tax; and free negroes and emancipated people of colour who possessed no slaves, but worked themselves either in agricultural or mining employments; and a shop tax was imposed at the same time of four, eight, or twelve oitavas, according to the extent of the ⁹ business. To superintend and collect these imposts, five

Regimento da Capitaçam. 14 Jan. 1736. MS.

9 The Intendant of a Comarea, by this edict, was subject only to the Governor of the Captaincy, and to the Captain General of Brazil; all other persons were subject to him in his department. There were also for the management of the capitation in each district, a Fiscal, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and a Meirinho; and where the business required it, an Assistant-Secretary. Every year the Ultramarine Council was to send from Lisbon a proper number of billets for the matriculation; the Governor was to distribute these to the Intendants, send back the surplus, and account for the rest. Twice a year, in January and in July, all slaves were to be registered, by name, surname, age, country, and such other individualizing designations as the form required; and the Intendants and Fiscals were charged to observe that no owner should enter two slaves of the same name without clearly distinguishing them. The name and dwelling place of the owner were also to be specified. At each matriculation two oitavas and twelve vinteins of gold were to be paid for every slave, without regard to the condition and quality of the owner, or occupation and worth, or worthlessness of the slaves: the only exceptions were those stated in the text; and boys below fourteen were chargeable if they were employed in any work which required as much strength as mining, or was of equal convenience to their owner. Sickness did not exempt a slave; but the owner was not required to pay for the blind, the incurable, or those who from any other cause were totally unproductive. Slaves newly introduced were to be presented within two months, taxed for the current half year, and entered in a separate book; runaways retaken after some lapse of time were in like manner to be produced. The owner received a billet for every slave, and the forgery of one of these papers was punishable by ten years transportation to the Isle of S. Thomas, and the confiscation of all the criminal's goods, unless he had parents, or children; in either of which cases the transportation of the offender was properly thought a sufficient punishment. Every slave who had not been matriculated was to be forfeited to the Treasury, if discovered by the enquiries of Government, or to the informer who should prove the fraud: and if it were proved that a slave had been concealed, whose person could not be discovered, the owner was to forfeit another in his stead. A slave thus concealed, who either by himself, or by another person, should give information of the deceit, was to be rewarded with a deed of freedom, gratuitously, in the King's name. Free persons of European race who were liable to the tax, might pay it either in person or by attorney; so in like manner the free negroes and mulattoes who had been emancipated: in either party, the attempt at evasion was punishable by a fine of one hundred oitavas, and banishment from the Mines. Persons also were to present themselves who kept store-houses, or shops of any description (loges, vendas, boticas, cortes de carne); the larger were to pay twelve oitavas, those of intermediate size eight, the mascates and loges pequenas four. They were to be rated upon testimony given by two persons on oath; and if it were proved that any had been under-rated, the owner was to be fined in a double impost. Loges in which any kind of food was sold in small quantities, were to be rated at least as vendas, and so were the boticas, cazas de pasto, cortes de carne, and estalagens. The books were to continue open during two months; persons bringing slaves to enter after they were closed were to pay one tenth more to the Intendant for re-opening them, and another as a fine for their negligence. The Treasurers were to be careful that they received good gold, without any mixture or deceit, and not of low touch (de toque notoriamente baixo); they were therefore not to accept in payment, the gold of Borda do Campo, Congonhas de Sabara, or Pitangui, except from persons residing, or having slaves at work there. They who had not gold to pay the capitation, might leave pledges for it, which, if they were of wrought gold or silver, might be redeemed within such reasonable time as the Intendant should appoint; but if they were articles which might impair in value, or were liable to any other risk, they were to be redeemed or sold in time. In the two last months of every half year, the Intendant was to go through his district and inspect it: if the circuit were too large, he was on the next journey to visit those places first which had been omitted in the preceding visitation. The Intendant, his officers, and the soldiers who accompanied them, both as a mark of honour and for their protection, were not to call upon the inhabitants to supply them with beds or provisions of any kind, except capim for the horses, this being by custom a royal right, and an acknowledgement of lordship. Whosoever took any thing without paying for it, or extorted it by force, should be punished as a robber. The Intendant might shorten his visitation at the close of the year, at which season travelling is difficult, and make a longer journey in the other half year, by trespassing on the month of July. On these visitations he was to receive secret information concerning subtracted slaves. Where there was great suspicion, he might summon the party with all his slaves, and read the list before them of all whom the owner had matriculated, telling them, that any person who was not inserted in that list, and who would reveal himself, would obtain his pardon. And he was to go to any farm or works within a certain distance, where he might suspect that slaves were concealed. … The chief duty of the Fiscal was to watch, as Procurador of the Treasury, that no slaves were subtracted, and to enforce the penalty in such cases. For this purpose he was to examine the parochial lists, and collate them with the alphabetical accounts of the matriculation. The Governor might bring the Intendants and their officers to trial for misconduct; and if it were needful, carry into effect, sentence of death against them.

[page] 272

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Intendants were appointed in Minas Geraes, for the districts of Villa Rica, Ribeiram, Rio das Mortes, Sabara, and Serro Frio;

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Carta Regia. 31 Jan. 1736. MS.

four for the Mines of Goyaz, Cuyaba, Pernagua, and Perampa- nema, which were then included in the Captaincy of S. Paulo, and one for those of Arasuahy and Tanados in Bahia. The newly erected offices were exempted from the tax of the thirds;

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Carta Regia. 8 Nov. 1735. MS.

and as the former Intendants had represented that their appointments barely sufficed for their ordinary support, and were altogether inadequate to defray their inevitable expences in preventing, or detecting, the ways by which gold was clandestinely carried out of the country; an increase of five hundred milreis was made to their salaries. When the edict for the Capitation was fixed up in the public places throughout the Captaincy, as usual, the inhabitants in the districts of Papagayo and S. Rumam tore them down and determined to resist the tax. Gomes Freyre knew how difficult it would be to punish this outrage; and dissembling therefore his resentment, he pursued so wise a course of conciliation with these people, that they were induced to pay it before any of their neighbours. Far as the impost fell short of the real value of the fifths, it was thought burdensome, and in reality was so to all except the miners; .. they certainly paid less than before, because the receipts of the Treasury were not increased by the new method; but it relieved them at the expence of all other persons. Fresh mines however were opened about this time at the Morro da Gama, and Papa Farinha, and Paracatu; and these rich discoveries gave such impulse and activity to the whole Captaincy, that it is said there was scarcely a man who did not in some measure partake of the general benefit.

Carneiro. MSS.

Discovery of diamonds.

A curious question, in which the value of individual property was implicated, as well as the rights of the Crown, was at this time under the consideration of the Portugueze Government. The administration of D. Lourenço had been distinguished by the discovery of something more rare and more valuable than gold itself; but instead of deriving any advantage from this good fortune, he drew upon himself a sharp reprimand for the negligence with which he had regarded an affair of such importance. Bernardino da Fonseca Lobo found, in the Serro do Frio,

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CHAP. XXXVI.

Resoluçam de S. Magest. 12 April, 1734. MS.

certain stones which he supposed to be diamonds: .. a rumour that such precious stones existed in that part of the country had long been current, and specimens were sent home to Portugal two years before the Governor thought proper officially to mention the subject. The expectations of the discoverer were well founded; and for his reward he was made Capitam Mor of Villa do Principe for life (subject to a triennial investigation of his conduct,) and vested in propriety with the office of Tabelliam, or Public Notary of the same place. But D. Lourenço was told that his negligence was inexcusable; it was the duty of a Governor faithfully to report every thing which occurred within his jurisdiction, and it was highly unfit that a matter of so much importance should first have reached the King through any other channel. At the same time the diamonds were declared to be royalties, and subject to the same duties as gold.

Carta Regia. 8 Feb. 1730. MS.

Consequences of this discovery.

Ordem. 18 March, 1732. MS.

Carta Regia. 15 May, 1733. Avizo. 16 May, 1733.

Carta Regia. 30 Oct. 1733. MSS.

But it was not possible to collect these duties in the same manner; for neither by number, nor weight, nor measure, could any equitable means of taking a fifth be devised. A capitation upon the slaves employed appeared the only practicable means, and this was first fixed in Portugal at the very moderate sum of five milreis; but before the order reached Brazil, D. Lourenço had agreed upon an assessment of four times that amount for the ensuing year. In the course of the year he was superseded, and his successor, the Conde das Galveas, was instructed to double this, and raise it even to fifty milreis, if he found it practicable. The diamonds were to be remitted as gold was, only in the King's ships, and pay one per cent upon their value for freight. Ere long it was perceived that the value of diamonds was more factitious than that of gold, being sustained by fashion and opinion only, not by common convenience and the necessities of civilized life; and the sudden influx and diminution of their value, (for in the course of only two years they fell more than three

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fourths in price,) threatened such serious injury to individuals, that it was found necessary to take some means for limiting the extraction without delay.

Plans for regulating the extraction.

For this purpose four projects were laid before the Government. By the first it was proposed that all Brazilian diamonds should be purchased by the Treasury, or by a Company to be established for that purpose, and a suitable penalty enacted for selling them to any other purchaser. It was objected to this, that in all monopolies of the Crown, depending as they necessarily must upon the good management, ability, and integrity of many agents, there had always been a loss upon summing up accounts at the end; that as to forming a Company, it would be difficult to find persons who would engage in it, because of the immense capital which was required; and in either case the holders of diamonds, particularly those who were least necessitous, would frequently conceal and dispose of them undetected, to the injury of the lawful trade. A second plan proposed, that the diamonds should be extracted by a Company of Miners, who should either pay to the Crown a fifth of what they found, or an adequate compensation. The objection, that this Company engaging for a certain number of years might collect so many stones in that time, as would render the contract of no value to any future contractors, was anticipated by the proposers, and to be obviated by employing only a certain number of slaves; and the best mode of payment they said would be by a capitation, as had provisionally been adopted. This arrangement might prevent a glut in future, but offered no remedy for the present urgent evil, which was the depreciation of the stones already in the market. The third project recommended, that all farther extraction should be prohibited, till the present stock was sold. To effect this the establishment of a Company was advised under nine Directors, each being a subscriber to the amount of more

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than twenty thousand cruzados, to be elected by those subscribers who had vested property to this amount, to hold their office one year, and not to be re-elected till after a year's interval; a tenth Director was to be appointed by the King. The diamonds now afloat in Brazil might be permitted to circulate freely in that country, but when they came to Portugal all must be sold to the Company without reserve: the price was to be fixed now at a valuation favourable to the owners, and at this price those which were afterwards imported would be taken, all that should be withheld being liable to seizure and confiscation. This Company was to be called into existence, by incorporating all persons who possessed these new-found diamonds, so that there was no difficulty either in finding members or capital, the stones themselves being the capital. They would have the benefit of the certain rise in value, and their shares would be disposable like those of any other company. If any of these persons were poor and wanted immediate money, the Crown might purchase their shares; or monied subscribers might be admitted, and the capital thus introduced be appropriated to the purchase of such shares. The King was to have a tenth of the Company's gains, as an indemnification for his loss while the farther extraction of diamonds was prohibited. It was not to be admitted as an objection, that this was a compulsory arrangement and interfered with the liberty of commerce, because such interference becomes a duty when it is for the public good, and was already practised in the case of all exclusive companies. The reservation of the royal tenth, though an obvious objection to the scheme, was obviously just, because the Crown would lose the amount of the annual capitation, and would also incur the expence of watching the diamond country, while the prohibition should be in force. And the Company would gain through this interference of the Crown, far more than the tenth which was

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paid for it because of the certain advance of price, and the certainty that no more diamonds would be brought into the market till their stock was exhausted. Moreover, it was estimated that by the advantage of sorting the stones, which no contraband trader could enjoy, they would be increased a fifth in value. Nevertheless it was admitted, that many diamonds would be withheld for the sake of avoiding this tax, and a contraband trade be carried on in them, which would not be the case if the owners could look to their share of profit without deduction; and it was acknowledged, that extreme caution would be needful to prevent injustice in valuing the stones, and that to effect this when they were valued, it must not be known to whom they belonged. The fourth plan proposed, that the diamonds thenceforth should be extracted by an Exclusive Company open to all who chose to engage in it, either with diamonds or money, and chartered either for a term of years, or in perpetuity. The quantity extracted was to be kept secret from all but the Crown, and the Crown to have a tenth, which the Company would sell faithfully with their own, and also a tenth of the gains. The diamonds at present in the market were either to be sold to the Company at the present price, or consigned to them to be sold for the owners at a commission of two per cent: if they remained unsold for three years, the Company would then take them at the current price, but would no longer be charged with the business of individuals. This was in fact compelling all holders to embark in the Company, or sell their stock to it; and the difficulty of finding capital was an obvious objection.

Arbitrios que se deram a S. M. MSS. Pinheiro Collection, T. 1, No. 37.

Opinion of Dr. Joam Mendes.

These proposals were referred to some commercial men for their opinion, and a curious memorial upon the subject was presented in reply by Dr. Joam Mendes de Almeyda, .. animated, as he says, to the task by the fear of God, the love of his neighbours, the respect due to the King, and the fidelity of a good

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subject. The object in view was to prevent diamond's from losing their estimation; and this, he affirmed, was the most important affair that had ever been brought forward from the beginning of the world. Till this time large capitals had been employed in the diamond trade; now, owing to the incredible quantity which came from Brazil, there was no disposition to purchase, because there was so little vent for them. Two years ago they had sold for eight milreis a carat; of late two milreis would not be given; and now, when it was known that more were expected in the next fleet, there were no purchasers at any price. Of the four projects, he said, the third was the only one which required consideration; and the formation of such a Company as was there proposed, would be ruinous. It was in fact a scheme which certain foreigners and Jews in the north of Europe had set on foot through their agents, and the persons with whom they were connected. They had bought up so largely that they knew not what to do with their stock, and it would be many years before they could cut the brute stones which were already in their hands: what they were aiming at, therefore, was to lock up the diamonds of the Portugueze in a Company, which would be their prison, or rather burial place, while their own would have a free sale, and the whole market to themselves. For who in Portugal would purchase diamonds? not the Portugueze, it was well known; and certainly not foreigners, while they had any upon their hands: .. the case was indeed palpable; for at this time they would not purchase at any price. Another evil would be, that the directors of the proposed Company would be all connected with these foreigners and Jews, and look of course to their interest, not to that of the country: for the Lisbon Exchange was greatly fallen from what it had been, and foreigners had now got possession of the trade of Portugal. There were yet farther objections. Secresy, which is important in all

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trades, was especially so in the diamond trade; but all sales by the Company must be public. The valuation was another difficulty, for in this the most experienced persons might be deceived. There were in diamonds differences of colour and of water; one might be more chrystalline, another more brilliant; .. delicate matters for the judgement and the conscience; and where it was so nice a point to do right, what complaints would there be of wrong! Men bear patiently the losses which they bring upon themselves; they are impatient under those which are brought upon them by others. And in this business they would have opportunities, if left to themselves, which a Company could not possess. A Company would deal only at stated times; an individual at all times. His advice therefore was that all these projects should be rejected; that the diamond country should be reserved for the King's use, under peculiar laws, and the diamonds extracted for the King's account, slowly. The oriental diamonds had been kept up to their price, because they were few in number; and the practice of the Dutch with the spices was a case in point. Such stones as, because of their size and beauty, were fit for a King's use, should be deposited in the King's treasury, and the others reserved till those which were in the market should be sold, or sent into the market to sell at the market price, with which they would interfere little, because the supply would not be great. Indeed, an immediate advance might be expected; for as soon as it was known that the mines were to be reserved, foreigners would hasten to buy up the stones upon sale, before any other rise should take place in consequence, as the Jews had done with pearls in France. Upon this plan the diamonds would gradually recover their price, and thus they might be kept up.

Reposta aos Arbitrios. MS. Pinheiro Collection, Vol. 1 No. 38.

Contract for extracting diamonds.

After mature deliberation, the Court resolved to reserve the diamond country, according to this advice, and to limit the ex-

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Carta Regia. 30 Oct. 1733. MS.

Condiçoens para à Extracçam dos Diamantes MSS.

Ordem. 4 Feb. 1746. MS.

Ordem. 23 April, 1744. MS.

Effect upon the Diamond Trade.

traction, but not to undertake it on its own account. The Dezembargador, Rafael Pires Pardinho, was therefore charged, with the assistance of proper persons, to mark out the limits of the forbidden district, and a very heavy capitation was to be imposed, so that few persons would undertake to search for the stones upon such terms: thus it was thought that they must necessarily be sold at a high price when they came to market laden with such costs. It does not appear at what the tax was fixed during the seven years next ensuing; but under Gomes Freyre's government, a contract was made for employing six hundred effective slaves in the extraction, paying an annual poll tax upon them of two hundred and thirty milreis; and in favour of the Contractor, a law, reserving stones above a certain size for the Crown, which had been past in 1734, was repealed, and such stones were only to be tendered to the Crown before they were offered to any other purchaser. This contract was for four years, and was found so gainful, that, at the expiration of that term, the capitation was raised to two hundred and seventy milreis; with this condition, that the Treasury should every year give the Contractor credit for sixty thousand milreis, of the hundred and sixty-two thousand for which he stood engaged. The views of Government happened to coincide with the interest of the European lapidaries, and of all persons engaged in the trade. While the market was glutted they kept back their stock, aware that the price of the articles must soon be restored by the restrictions which were now imposed; and therefore, they waited for the certain profits of delay. And they were not scrupulous in the means of promoting this object. At first they diligently spread a report that the Brazilian diamonds, if indeed they were diamonds, for this was sometimes denied, were decidedly inferior to the Oriental. The assertion was false: but what they bought as Brazilian, they sold as Oriental, profiting in both transactions

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by the fraud. It is even said, that for awhile they sent the Brazilian stones to Goa, and thus introduced them into the Indian market, to find their way from thence to Europe through the old channel, till the authenticity and equal value of the Brazilian diamonds were fully established.

Mawe on diamonds. chap. i, § 37.

Description of Minas Geraes.

14 Jan. 1714.

The Serro do Frio, in which these stones were found, had been first explored by Antonio Soares, and Antonio Rodriguez Arzam; and its capital, Villa do Principe, had been made a town about fourteen years before the discovery, .. a discovery which accelerated the peopling of the district, but in every other respect has produced much more evil than good. When the Captaincy of Minas Geraes was separated from the Government of S. Paulo, the boundaries were to be traced between the new Captaincy and the adjoining ones of the Rio, Bahia, and Pernambuco. The surveyors, who in this wild country were significantly called Pilots, performed their office only where it was necessary, on the side of those provinces with which there was a regular communication. Toward the North and West there was a wide extent of unappropriated territory; and even toward the coast, it was not till the year 1800 that the demarcation from Espirito Santo was made. The Province as at present defined, lies between the sixteenth and twenty-second degrees of South latitude. On the South it is bounded by the Captaincies of S. Paulo and the Rio, on the West by Goyaz, by Bahia on the North; and its communication with Espirito Santo and Porto Seguro, so recently as 1799, was cut off by the savages, who possessed a line of forests extending along the whole eastern frontiers. The whole Captaincy is part of an immense tract of mountains, which begins from S. Paulo, and has its main direction from South to North, sending off branches that extend through all Brazil. The seasons are not very distinctly marked there; the trees are not stript of their leaves by the moderate

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cold of June and July, and in August they present only a faint appearance of spring, by putting forth young foliage and flowers. A short winter of two months commences toward the latter end of May, when the average temperature in ordinary years is 50° of Fahrenheit's thermometer; in the hot season the glass rarely or never rises above 80°. The more marked distinction of the year is into its wet and dry seasons, the former continuing from October till May. The rain, especially at its commencement, is accompanied with frequent and tremendous thunderstorms; they come on suddenly, and having spent their force, leave the sky as clear and as serene as they found it, with a freshness which is felt by the inhabitants in every pulse. The rain is heavy while it lasts, which is sometimes for days, and even weeks. The greatest weight of water falls in November and December: in January there is an interval of fine weather, which is called veranico, or the little summer; and in February and March the rains become less frequent, till they cease. The North wind comes constantly with the wet season, and the East with the dry; the latter brings with it cold and fog, which go on increasing till the winter months. Notwithstanding this regularity of the winds, the changes of temperature are said to be sudden; in all other respects the climate is salubrious.

Manoel Ferreira de Camara-MS.

Joze Vieira-Couto. MS.

Its four districts.

The Captaincy is divided into four Comarcas, each having its Ouvidoria or Court of Justice, and its Smelting-house. That of the Rio das Mortes, which is the southernmost division, has for its capital S. Joam del Rey. Villa Rica, which is the seat of government, gives name to another; Sabara to that on the West; and this district almost surrounds the fourth, which is that of the Serro do Frio, having Villa do Principe for its capital. The river Doce with its two arms embraces almost the whole Captaincy; by its southern branch the produce of Villa Rica and Sabara might be exported; by the northern that of the Serro.

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The Rio S. Francisco runs under the mountains to the West, and its different branches are navigable through the greater part of the Comarca of Sabara. The Gectinhonha, which rises near Tejuco, and enters the sea in latitude 18°, where it is called the Rio das Caravellas, is, like the other rivers, navigable; but as yet no use has been made of these great natural advantages. Portage would be necessary in some places upon all these rivers; and assuredly, one day, an active intercourse through these channels will be carried on with the coast.

Joze Vieira. Couto. Ms.

Serro do Frio, and the Forbidden District.

In entering the Comarca of Serro do Frio from Sabara, a remarkable difference is soon perceived: the soil, which before had been a red fertile marle, becomes sandy and covered with small stones; the trees have no longer the same luxuriant growth, and the mountains which rise in the distance, instead of the dark verdure with which they are clothed in other parts of the Captaincy, are bare and black. On the summit of these uninviting fells the air is cold and the winds violent, whence the Comarca derives its name; and the surface of the earth is hard, arid, and full of imbedded stones. Here the Forbidden District of the Diamonds is in sight; and its appearance is such as might form a fit description in eastern romance, for the land where the costliest and proudest ornaments of wealth and power are found. Innumerable peaks are seen, some of prodigious height; mountains of bare rock and perpendicular elevation, others of more perishable materials, and in a state of dissolution, like the Alps of Savoy, with brush wood growing among the grass, and a sort of grey moss which clothes the surface wherever it is not newly scarred, or covered with recent wreck:..a scene of Alpine grandeur and Alpine desolation, but in one respect of more than Alpine beauty, for the waters are beautifully clear; they fall in sheets, in threads, in cataracts, and make their way, sometimes by subterranean channels, to the four larger rivers which carry off the

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waters of the district. Of these the Gectinhonha is the most renowned for its riches in gold and diamonds; the Arisuahy is next in estimation; both have their sources to the east of Tejuco, and flow nearly with a parallel course from North to South, till they meet at Tocuyos, where the latter loses its name, and they enter upon a country which is still possessed by unsubdued savages. These rivers collect all the waters of the eastern side. The Parauna rises to the South of Tejuco, and flowing toward the West, precipitates itself from the Serra by a famous cataract, a few leagues beyond the bounds of the Forbidden District: it then falls into the Rio das Velhas, which carries off all the western waters of the demarcation to the great S. Francisco. The fourth river rises five leagues E. S. E. of Tejuco, on the skirts of the lofty Serra de Itambe; and having received on its way the Itambe, the Turvo, the Rio Vermelho, the Guayana, and the Rio do Peixe, it becomes one arm of the Rio Doce: the other comes from the Comarcas of Sabara and Villa Rica.

Joze Vieira. Couto. MS.

The Forbidden District of the Diamonds is nearly circular in — form, and in diameter about fourteen leagues; in circumference, therefore, about an hundred and seventy English miles. It was supposed that no diamonds were to be found beyond the boundaries of this jurisdiction; but they have since been discovered in Cuyaba and Mato-Grosso, and more recently in many of the rivers and brooks which flow from Sabara to the river S. Francisco; and it is said that they exist in most parts of Minas Geraes, though nowhere in such abundance as within the forbidden ground. They are never found in veins, nor in the cascalho, nor imbedded in a matrix of any kind; but always on the surface of the ground, and generally in the bed of a stream; and they have been picked up on high table lands, and even on the tops of the mountains. Beyond the demarcation, the character of the country changes. The mountains lose their ruggedness, and dimi-

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nish in height till they terminate in a fertile tract of land, which continues some fourscore miles, to a place called Itacambira; there the surface again becomes rugged, and in the river Itacambiruçu diamonds of inferior value are found.

Joze Vieira. Couto. MS.

Disputes between Portugal and Spain.

The Portugueze Court was supposed to receive a much greater revenue from its gold and its diamonds than was actually derived, or could have been derived even if no means of defrauding it had been practised. Portugal was believed to be rich, and known to be weak; both circumstances tended to invite aggression; and notwithstanding the double marriage by which the Spanish Bourbons were connected with the House of Braganza, a bitterer spirit against Portugal never prevailed in Spain than during the latter years of Philip V, when that King was wholly under the guidance of his ambitious and restless wife, Elisabetta Farnese. It happened that the servants of the Portugueze Ambassador at Madrid rescued a malefactor from the officers of justice; and for this offence the Spanish minister Patiño ordered them to be arrested in the Ambassador's house and thrown into prison. The Portugueze Court complained of the manner of their arrest as a breach of the law of nations; and not obtaining the redress which it required, resented it by arresting and imprisoning the domestics of the Spanish Ambassador at Lisbon. Both parties were in so irascible a state that they would willingly have commenced war upon this wretched cause of quarrel; but a strong British fleet was dispatched to the Tagus, and this proof of the readiness with which Great Britain would, in case of extremities, have supported its old ally, induced the Court of Madrid to accept the mediation of France and the Maritime Powers. Hostilities were thus prevented in Europe; but while the negociations were going on, war was commenced in America.

Cure's Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, Ch. 45. Do. Mem. of the Kings of Spain, Ch. 41.

Prosperity of N. Colonia.

Though the question concerning the country round about Nova Colonia was as undetermined as ever, the Portugueze had not

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1735.

Salcedo attacks it.

been disturbed in the use of it while Zavala was Governor of the province of the Plata; and they became exceedingly prosperous, not through the contraband trade alone, gainful as that was, and extensively as it was carried on, but by a general spirit of enterprize and industry. They exported to Brazil dried meat, hides, and considerable quantities of wheat. The annual consumption of cattle for the place itself and the shipping, was about seven thousand head; and the abundance of animal food had not barbarized the Portugueze as it has done the Spaniards of Paraguay and the Plata. They had introduced all the fruits of their native country, and cultivated all its culinary plants, with equal care and success. Their farms and plantations extended above sixty miles inland: Zavala suffered them to enlarge their borders without any serious remonstrances, perceiving undoubtedly that the more vulnerable they made themselves, the less likely would they be to provoke a war, and the greater the booty for Spain whenever war should arise. His successor, D. Miguel de Salcedo, manifested a different temper at his very arrival. Instead of taking the southern channel, which would have carried him straight to his destined port, he coasted along the north shore up to Colonia, reconnoitred the port and the works, and then crost the river to Buenos Ayres. It appears certain that he brought out with him hostile instructions, and his dispatches ¹⁰ were designed to gratify the inimical disposition of the Court: he represented that Buenos Ayres was distressed for provisions because the Portugueze usurped the country on the opposite

10 In a paper upon these transactions transmitted to England by the British Ambassador at Madrid, Salcedo is said to have represented, that the inhabitants and soldiers of Colonia were putting themselves in a condition of penetrating into Peru!! Keene Papers. MSS.

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Silvestre Ferreira. 25—43. Relation of what has happened at Buenos Agres. Keene Papers. MS. Extract des Lettres du Rio de Jan. et de la Colonie de S. S. Walpole Papers, MS.

shore; and he said that unless these enterprizing neighbours were restrained, they would push their settlements to the Rio Grande de S. Pedro. A few days after his arrival he dispatched a letter to the Governor of Colonia, D. Antonio Pedro de Vasconcellos, requiring him to appoint a time when they might meet and fix the demarcation. Vasconcellos replied, that he had received no instructions upon this subject; and Salcedo, after a second and third requisition to the same purport, informed him that if the Portugueze did not keep within the range of gunshot from the place, they must be responsible for all the evils which would ensue. This denunciation was followed by open war, as soon as the forces returned from Paraguay who had been sent there to quell the Commons. By the treaty of Utrecht it was stipulated, that the Portugueze should have six months allowed them after a declaration of war, to remove with their property from the Spanish dominions. In contempt of this stipulation the Portugueze were now ordered by the Governor to quit the Spanish territories on pain of death, and the same penalty was denounced against any person who should harbour one of that nation. A flotilla consisting of a frigate, a galley, and ten gun-boats, manned with six hundred and fifty men, captured the merchant ships of the Portugueze; and Salcedo himself landed ten leagues above the port: horses had been collected there for his army, and there he was joined by six thousand Guaranies from the Reductions, under F. Thomas ¹¹ Werle. Salcedo laid waste the

11 Berly, he is called in the Portugueze history of the siege, and this looks like an English name written by the ear, .. but Werle was a Bavarian. The name was thus metamorphosed by the custom of pronouncing the W as a V, and the practice of indiscriminately using V or B, by which both the Spanish and Portugueze languages are sometimes strangely disfigured.

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country as he advanced, like a barbarian, burning huts, houses, and chapels, destroying plantations, gardens, orchards, and vineyards, and sending into captivity the unoffending labourers on whom he could lay hands.

Activity of the Portugueze Governor.

The population of Nova Colonia consisted at this time of two thousand six hundred persons, old enough to be under the care of the Confessor; in this number a garrison of nine hundred and thirty-five men was included. Some of these troops were old soldiers who had fought in the war of the Succession, but the greater part were bad subjects; for the ordinary punishment for most crimes in Brazil, was to serve in this garrison for a term of years. The works were mounted with eighty pieces of artillery, and were not in good repair. The Governor, with a supineness too common among his countrymen, had relied upon a continuance of peace: he bestirred himself now as the emergency required, and the children in the town were usefully employed in assisting at the necessary repairs. The horses were turned out and hamstrung, because they could no longer be driven to pasture, and it was impossible to support them: .. had there been any consideration of humanity as well as of policy, these poor animals would have been mercifully put to death at once. An act of characteristic superstition followed: Vasconcellos having appointed the stations for his men, and encouraged them to resist a general assault which he expected, went to the altar of St. Michael the Archangel, and prostrating himself before the Image, placed the Governor's staff in its hands and resigned the command to this "Prince of the Armies of Glory," declaring that from that time he should act under him as his Lieutenant.

Silvestre Ferreira. 43—72.

Progress of the siege.

Salcedo issued proclamations inviting the inhabitants and the slaves to come over to him, promising liberty to the latter, and to the former grants of land. The Portuguese Commander replied to this, by offering pardon and rewards to all deserters

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who should return to their duty, and a bounty for all Spaniards who should desert. But he would not, he said, vie with the Spanish Governor in tempting slaves to fly from their masters, because this was contrary to the laws of Christian morality, which ought not to be trampled under foot by Catholics when at war with each other. The Bishop of Buenos Ayres had endeavoured in vain to dissuade Salcedo from undertaking the siege; he told him that the attempt thus to surprize the possessions of a Power with which Spain was at peace, was unjustifiable; and he warned him to remember that the men whom he was about to attack at their own doors were Portugueze, who had their property, their wives, and children, to defend. But Salcedo was confident of success: he took possession of the Isles of S. Gabriel, which the Portugueze abandoned at his approach, erected a battery upon the largest of these Isles, from whence he opened an useless fire, carried on his works against the place, and promised the Court of Spain that he would be master of it in the ensuing month, and keep the feast of the Conception in the Great Church. He destroyed the suburbs, without sparing two Chapels, one dedicated to Our Lady of the Conception, which is the favourite invocation in Brazil; the other to Our Lady of Nazareth, an appellation scarcely less popular: these edifices were razed to the ground, the ornaments were sent to Buenos Ayres, and the materials employed in constructing batteries: but the Portugueze regarded this as an act of sacrilege, and were at once exasperated and encouraged, by conduct which they believed would draw down upon their enemies the vengeance of heaven. On the twenty-eighth of November the batteries were opened, and in the course of twelve days a large and practicable breach was made. Salcedo then summoned the Governor to surrender. Vasconcellos replied, that before he could return a formal answer to the summons, he must know whether war had

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been declared between the two Crowns in Europe; and if it had not, whether Salcedo had received orders to commence hostilities in America; for his dispatches, he said, only informed him that the dispute concerning the Ambassador's servants had not been adjusted. Salcedo answered, that he would never communicate the instructions ¹² which he received from his Sovereign; and on the night following he prepared to storm the breach: but a ball from the works happened to strike the centre of his column, where it killed and wounded so many men, that a general panic ensued and the intention was abandoned; and the Spaniards, not chusing to venture upon any more perilous service, contented themselves with cannonading and bombarding the town.

Walpole Papers. MSS. Silvestre Ferreira. 72—90.

1736.

The siege converted into a blockade.

Early in the new year succours arrived successively from the Rio, Bahia, and Pernambuco, more than a thousand men. Upon the arrival of the first ships the Spaniards abandoned the Isles of S. Gabriel, spiking their artillery and leaving their stores; and their station was immediately re-occupied and strengthened by the Portugueze. Salcedo also withdrew about three miles from the walls, and giving up all hopes of winning Colonia by force, turned the siege into a blockade. Many skirmishes now took place: Salcedo's son received a wound in the arm which maimed him for life; and as the father was sitting at dinner in his own quarters, the cup was struck from his hand by a cannon

12 When the Portugueze agent at Paris informed Cardinal Fleury of this correspondence, "his Excellency said coldly, M. Patiño denies the orders. I answered, your Eminency knows better than any body what value is to be set on M. Patiño's words. He smiled, and said, what would you have poor Patiño do, but to follow and execute the orders and passions of the Queen his Mistress, if he would preserve himself: nor is that enough, for he is even obliged to guess at her thoughts in order to content her." Walpole Papers. MSS.

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ball. The Sargento Mor of Buenos Ayres was killed in one of these rencontres; he was greatly esteemed, and his body was fought for with as much animosity as the Greeks and Trojans were wont to display upon like occasions, but with a better feeling, .. for when the Portugueze succeeded in carrying it off, they bore it into the town with military honours, and interred it in the Great Church with every mark of public respect. The Jesuit Werle was also killed; and the Guaranies ¹³, after four months service, were sent back without any reward, though there was an order that they should receive pay; and the privations which they endured during the siege were such, that this resource, which on other occasions the Jesuits had declined for them, would have been thankfully accepted.

Walpole Papers. MSS. Silvestre Ferreira. 90—95. Charlevoix. 3. 149.

13 Charlevoix says, Je n'ai pû rien apprendre du motif, ni du detail de cette expedition. The detail perhaps was not sought with much solicitude, because it did little credit to the military prowess of the Guaranies. Ces Neophytes n'eurent pas occasion de se distinguer beaucoup, he says, and leaves the event of the siege unnoticed, as if he were uncertain how it had terminated. Bernardo Ibañes de Echavarri, in what he has thought proper to call his History of Paraguay under the Jesuits, says, quant à la Colonie du Sacrament, si elle ne fut pas prise en 1735, ce fut uniquement parceque les Guaranis secoururent les assieges, en leur procurant de la viande et des nouvelles de l'Ennemi. T. 1, 278. This is a fair specimen of the impudent falsehood which pervades the whole of this rascally work! In another part, (T. 2, p. 16,) he says that Colonia would have fallen into the hands of the Spaniards at that time, si les Indiens Guaranis que les Jesuites amenoient à ce siege, pour faire une vaine parade de leur fidelité, n'y avoient pas fait entrer un convoi de bestiaux, et s'ils n'y avoient pas porté la nouvelle que l'on alloit abandonner l'entreprise le jour même que les Portugais, dénués de tout secours, étoient sur le point de se rendre. Joseph Ignacio Almeyda, Sergent Major de la Colonie, et le meilleur Portugais que j'aie jamais connu, avoit été témoin oculaire de cet evenement; et il m'en a rapporté plusieurs fois jusqu' aux moindres circonstances, que je crois inutiles de repeter ici. L'attaque fut changée en blocus. Peu de jours apres il arriva un barque d'avis, avec la nouvelle de la conclusion de paix. The blockade continued from January 1736, till October, when it was broken up by the successful sally of the Portugueze; and the tidings of the peace did not arrive till September 1737.

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CHAP. XXXVI. 1736.

The siege is raised.

1737.

Cessation of hostilities.

Salcedo had not given credit to the Portugueze for the military virtues which they possessed; and he was now as much disappointed by their patient fortitude as he had been by their activity and their courage. The troops from the northern Captaincies were ill able to bear the severity of a winter season on the shores of the Plata; they suffered severely from sickness, and their sufferings were increased by the want of wholesome and sufficient food. At length the supplies which Gomes Freyre dispatched from the Rio arrived, after they had long been retarded by bad weather. Upon this occasion Vasconcellos went with all his officers in procession to return thanks at the Church of the Sacrament; and as soon as his men by means of a proper diet had recovered strength, he marched out by night and surprized the enemy's camp. The Spaniards were caught sleeping: without waiting to dress themselves, they got on horseback, and fled as they could: their works were destroyed, and their magazines and stores fell into the hands of the Portugueze. A naval action afterwards took place off the Isle of Martin Garcia, in which the Spaniards lost two corvettes; and the Portugueze were thus victorious by land and by water, when, nearly two years after the commencement of this unprovoked attack, orders came out from Europe that hostilities should immediately cease, and the prisoners on both sides be released. The loss of the Spaniards in killed, wounded, and deserters, is said to have exceeded two thousand eight hundred men; that of the Portugueze was trifling in point of lives, but they suffered grievously in their possessions: two hundred and forty-eight country houses were destroyed, and all the chapels, potteries, windmills, and limekilns in the surrounding country; farms, gardens, orchards, and plantations, were laid waste in a spirit of brutal havoc; vineyards were extirpated, some of which were of such extent as to contain nearly one hundred thousand vines. Above eighteen thousand

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beasts of burthen were captured by the invaders, eighty-seven thousand head of cattle, and two thousand three hundred sheep. The loss in property, even before the bom bardment, was computed at one million two hundred thousand cruzados. Colonia recovered its commercial prosperity, and the cattle soon became as numerous as before; but the vineyards were not replanted; the humanizing employments of horticulture were not resumed, and the inhabitants of that country at this day have cause to execrate the name of Salcedo.

Walpole Papers. MSS. Silvestre Ferreira. 95—106.

Conduct of the Spaniards.

During the blockade the Spaniards apprehended an attack upon Monte Video, which might easily have been taken if the allies of Portugal would have encouraged the Court in its views of just resentment: but Portugal was withheld from any act of offensive war by the prudence of the English cabinet; and the Spaniards, emboldened by this forbearance, attempted, but without success, to establish themselves at the Rio Grande de S Pedro. They gained no reputation by this war, which was begun wrongfully, and miserably conducted; but they effected one part of their object, in reducing to a desert the fine country which the Portugueze had occupied; and for awhile they stopt the ¹⁴ illicit trade, which had been carried to such an extent that

14 During the year 1735, (and before the month of October in that year) thirty vessels laden with goods of all kinds for the contraband trade, entered the bay of Nova Colonia. Four of these were English ships, straight from Lisbon, with passes from both Governments, and carrying both flags, to use either as might be convenient. (Relation of what has past at Buenos Ayres since the arrival of D. Miguel de Salcedo.) Joam V said at this time to our Envoy, Lord Tyrawley, that the English would find the loss of Nova Colonia in their trade more than he should, for it took more of their woollen goods than the whole of Brazil beside. (Letter of Feb. 19, 1736.) It appears, however, by a dispatch from Azevedo to the Portugueze Minister in England, (31 July, 1736,) that the London merchants thought differently, He says, I do not like one thing I hear from certain merchants on the Exchange whom I believe impartial; this is, that the loss the English suffer at Colonia is for once, and of goods already there; but that as for the trade in general, it is indifferent to this nation whether they carry it on by the way of Cadiz, or that of Colonia." (Walpole Papers.) Dobrizhoffer, who was there in 1749, speaks of the place thus, in his lively and forcible manner: In adverso fluminis Argentei littore, quod orientem solem spectat, Boni Aeris urbi opponitur Colonia S. S. Sacramenti, quem Hispani, suo scilicet in solo a Lusitanis conditam olim, munitamque, expugnarunt toties, totiesque, dum pax in Europâ coalesceret, pactorum vi reddidere, palam plaudentibus Boni Aeris inquilinis, in quos ex clandestino cum Lusitanis commercio plurime redundabant utilitates. Ast privatorum hominum lucra Catholici Regis œrario fraudi erant maximopere ob debitorum vectigalium imminutiones. Urbecula hœc, tot discordiarum pomum, editiori fluminis ripœ incubat. E domibus et paucis et humilibus componitur, pago quam urbi similior. Neque spernenda tamen: miseris enim sub tectis, opulenti mercatores, omne mercium genus, aurum, argentum, adamantes delitescunt. Muro simplici ac pertenui clauditur, militari prœsidio, machinis bellicis, armorum supellectili, annonâ ad subitos belli casus affatim instructa. Nihil cœterum aut elegantiœ, aut roboris ostentat.— Territorium quod Lusitanici erat juris tam exigui est ambitus, intra semihoram a pedite vel languidissimo perambulari ut possit. Naves Lusitanicœ Anglorum Batavorumque mercibus, et, quœ ingenti cum fœnore in America veneunt, mancipiis Africanis onustœ, certatim ad hunc confluxere portum, e quo, delusis vel œre corruptis Hispanis excubitoribus, in Paraquariam, Peruvium, Chilenseque regnum res venales clanculum deportabantur. Fidem superat quot milliones ex vetito hoc mercatu Lusitanis accreverint, quot pericerint Hispanis. Prona hinc est conjectura, cur hanc coloniam quantovis demum sumptu conservendam Lusitani, quam primum evertendam Hispani sibi semper putaverint. T. 1, p. 6.

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it had almost ruined the commerce of Peru. The Court of Spain had just cause to be irritated at the use which was made of this port, in direct violation of treaty; but its own conduct was far more dishonourable. The Court of Lisbon was no otherwise implicated in the contraband trade, than that it connived at what it could not have prevented, even if the desire for preventing it had existed. And that it suffered itself in no trifling degree by the trade, is certain; for by this channel much

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of the gold and diamonds which were subtracted from the Treasury, found its way out of Brazil. But the chicanery respecting the territory, (it deserves no better name) was the act of the Spanish Government: that Government, in the present instance, disowned the orders which Salcedo had certainly received, and the whole transaction was as disgraceful to the faith of the Court, as to the military character of the Commander.

Representation des Ministres des Puissances Mediatrices MS. Walpole Papers.

France proposes to Spain a partition of the Portugueze dominions.

Walpole Papers. MSS.

Although Phillip V, during the latter years of his life, was the mere instrument of his wife's ambition, he entered cordially into her hostile feelings towards Portugal; for when the other allies, upon entering into the Succession War, spake only of obtaining for the Emperor a just equivalent for his pretensions, Portugal had stipulated that the Duke of Anjou should never be allowed to reign in Spain. The French Government relied upon this resentment; and when it was preparing for that war in which it hoped to drive George II from the throne, it endeavoured to tempt the Spaniards into a war against Portugal, by proposing a partition of the Portugueze dominions: Portugal and the Islands were to be seized by Spain, and France was to take Brazil as her portion of the spoil. But even the passions of Philip and his Queen could not blind them to the impolicy of this arrangement. Such however was the known disposition of the Spanish Court, and such the weakness of Portugal, that the ablest Portugueze statesman of that generation was induced to record his wish that the King should remove to Brazil, fix his Court at the Rio, and assume the title of Emperor of the West. Sooner or later, he foresaw that such a removal would become inevitable, and he seems to have regarded it rather as a glorious ¹⁵ dream of

15 What in such a case would become of Portugal, is the question which D. Luis da Cunha anticipates when he proposes this measure: and he asks in reply "What is Portugal? It is a slip of land (huma orelha de terra, .. the expression is stronger in the original) of which a third part is uncultivated, though capable of cultivation, a third belongs to the Church, and the other third does not produce sufficient corn for the inhabitants. The other powers of Europe would protect Portugal from Spain, and Spain itself would be deterred from attempting to seize it, by the fear of losing in return the Provinces of the Plata and Paraguay. .. In the event of such a removal a compleat demarcation in America would become necessary: the Wiapoc and the Plata ought to be the boundaries on the North and South, and in the interior, the Paraguay up to the Lake of the Xarayes; from thence an imaginary line trending westward for an hundred leagues, till it reached the Madeira." D. Luiz argued, that whether or not the removal of the Court took place, the Portugueze Cabinet should exert itself to have these limits determined. The Spanish Jesuits, he said, were neither better, nor more zealous Missionaries, than their Portugueze brethren; and indeed, the Jesuits were, like the Jews, a peculiar people, having the same character wherever they were found. By such an arrangement the King of Spain would sacrifice a considerable extent of country; but it was a country wherein he had only the mere right of dominion, and the Jesuits had the whole profit. They had satisfactorily proved that there was neither gold nor silver there; but there was the Herb of Paraguay, and he wondered that it was not introduced into Europe, like tea. He had tasted it in London with Dr. Fernandes Mendes da Costa, and that great Physician said it was much more wholesome than either tea or coffee. .. Returning then to the proposed removal, he says, Spain would tremble for Peru, and the whole line of country as far as the isthmus, because all men know that the rigour with which the miserable natives are treated by the Spaniards makes them always ready to throw off the yoke whenever any assistance shall be given them. And it might not be impossible to effect an exchange of the kingdom of Chili and the whole country to the Straits, for Algarve, which, because of its ports, would be very convenient for Spain. .. So many Portugueze would follow the Court, that in this respect there would soon be little difference between the cities of Brazil and of Portugal. "And as for the Tapuyas of the Sertam, I may say that they differ in nothing but complection from the rustics in our Provinces; and moreover, that when they have suffered themselves to be instructed, they observe the precepts of the Church better than our peasants, who either forget them, or disregard them. .. But the strong point is this; the King cannot maintain Portugal without Brazil; whereas, for maintaining Brazil, he stands in no need of Portugal: it is better, therefore, to reside where you have strength and abundance, than where you are in insecurity and need. .. I shall conclude this my vision by observing, that though this may not be the time for taking it into consideration, a time may come (from which God preserve us!) in which it may be remembered with advantage: .. Acabarei pois esta minha visam, dizendo a V. M. que sem embargo de nam ser ja tempo de fallar nella, pode vir algum (de que Deos nos livre) em que nam seja mal lembrada. Carta ao Marco Antonio. MS.

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ambition, than as matter for melancholy contemplation and natural regret.

VOL. III. 2 Q

[page] 298

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[page 299]

CHAPTER XXXVII.

War between Spain and England. The French attempt to occupy the Island of Fernam de Noronha. Discovery and settlement of Goyaz and Mato-Grosso. The Portugueze reach the Moxo Missions. Voyage of Manoel Felix de Lima down the Madeira. Progress of the Portugueze up the Orellana, and its tributary streams.

CHAP. XXXVII.

Growing importance of Monte Video.

Could the British Ministers have foreseen how soon they were to be forced into a war with Spain, they would have engaged at once in the King of Portugal's just quarrel concerning Nova Colonia, instead of exciting his resentment and ill will by interfering only to patch up the dispute. They would then have had an efficient ally in America; and a better cause would have been found in the spirit and letter of existing treaties, than in the grievances, real or alledged, of men who were actually engaged in a contraband trade. The Ministers were driven into that war by the violence of an opposition which cared not what injury it might do the country, so it could but annoy the existing administration; and by the clamours of a deluded people. The war was unprovoked, impolitic, and unjust; and we deserved the disasters and disgrace which were incurred by ill planned expeditions against Spanish America. Spain also suffered heavy losses both in treasure and in men; but her strength in America

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was proved, and the events of the war contributed to the growth and prosperity of her settlements on the Plata. A squadron of six ships, carrying about three thousand five hundred men, under D. Joseph Pizarro, was sent to wait for the expedition under Commodore Anson. This squadron rendezvoused in the Plata, and was afterwards driven back there from Cape Horn in a miserable state: its long continuance upon that station, and the great number of the men who settled in the country (for of the whole number scarcely an hundred returned to Europe) brought a great increase of wealth and activity both to Monte Video and Buenos Ayres. The importance of the former position was now fully perceived, and these ports were from this time more rapidly progressive than any other part of the Spanish Colonies.

Anson's Voyage. Echabarri. T. 3, p. 133.

The French East India Company seek to occupy Fernam de Noronha.

1738.

Happily for itself and for Brazil, Portugal was not involved in the contest, nor in the wider warfare which soon ensued upon the death of the Emperor Charles VI. Their failure at Monte Video warned the Portugueze to make no farther attempts at enlarging their border where a superior force might be brought against them; and for this reason, they seem to have left the debateable ground in this direction untouched. But they guarded their own possessions with their usual jealousy. The new Governor of Pernambuco, on his arrival at Recife, was informed that some foreigners had established themselves upon the island of Fernam de Noronha: who they were was not known, nor in what strength; but seeing that Portugal was then at peace with all other powers, and that its right to this island had never been questioned, the presumption was that they were Pirates. This name had not lost its terrors in South America, and the Governor immediately dispatched a squadron strong enough to subdue any force which could possibly be found there. The squadron was dispersed on its way: one vessel arrived, and was at anchor off the island waiting for her consorts, when a Portugueze seven-

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ty-four, in its passage from Angola to Bahia, hove in sight; and the Captain, D. Miguel Henriquez, having learnt the state of affairs, took upon himself the direction, and landed part of his men with the Pernambucan troops. Five and twenty French-men were found on shore, who without any show of resistance came to meet the Portugueze, and said they had been sent there by the French East Indian Company, to take possession of the Island. The Portugueze Commander did not at first give credit to this account. The Island, he said, was incontestably part of the King of Portugal's dominions; and it was not possible that the King of France, being at peace with Portugal, should have authorized such an attempt; nor that a Company of French subjects should have the audacity to act thus upon their own authority. They seemed therefore, he said, to be Pirates, who had established themselves there for the purpose of infesting the Portugueze commerce; and they deserved the severer punishment for this falsehood, which they had invented as an excuse. The men, however, produced a formal act of possession drawn in the name of the French Company: a copy of this act was found inscribed upon two sheets of lead at the foot of a cross which they had erected; and the white flag, which was hoisted at their quarters, appeared to corroborate their story. It was properly determined, therefore, that they should be well and courteously treated till the truth of their statement could be ascertained. They were then desired to strike their flag; and upon their refusing to do this, the Portugueze took it down, delivered it with military honours into their keeping, and hoisted their own. At this time the remainder of the Pernambucan squadron arrived; they made an inventory of all the French property upon the island, and the poverty of the establishment made the Frenchmen's story seem the more incredible. It proved, however, to be perfectly correct.

Officies de Antonio Guedes Pereira. MSS.

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1738.

Isle of Fernam de Noronha.

Joannes de Laet. Verhael van West Indian, p. 47. Do. 110. Ulloa. Book 9, Ch. 3. Cook's second Voyage. Book 4, Ch. 10.

1602.

The island of Fernam de Noronha is about seventy leagues from coast of Brazil, and some twenty miles in circumference. Many little islets are divided from the main one, and from each other, by narrow channels. There are two harbours, or rather roadsteads: the best of these is well sheltered from the South and East, but both are entirely exposed to the North and West; and when those winds prevail, which is periodically, but for no long time, the shore cannot be approached without the greatest danger. The main island is mountainous, and one of its rocky peaks, when seen from the sea, so much resembles a church tower, that it is called O Campanario, or The Belfrey. There are some brooks which proceed from the mountains, and their sources are said never to fail; but this is the only water upon the island; and sometimes not months alone, but even whole years in succession pass without rain, so that every thing parched up. At the beginning of the seventeenth century a Portugueze factor was established there with some ¹ fourteen negro slaves of both sexes; .. there were then goats, swine, and cattle, wild upon the island, where they had been put ashore

1 They had all been baptized, and called themselves Christians, but they were living without the Sacraments, or spiritual food of any kind, and were equally devoid of all charity. Thus they are described by the crew of the Galeon Santiago, who were set on shore there by the Dutch squadron. The tropic-birds frequented the island in great numbers, and were at first so fearless of men, that they suffered themselves to be taken by the hand; but they soon became shy, and discovered remarkable sagacity and boldness in defending themselves. A sailor struck one with a stick, and failed in killing it; the bird set up a cry which brought its companions to its aid, and they attacked the man so fiercely as to put him in considerable danger; nor did he escape till he had killed a dozen in defending himself. When the crew were in great distress for provisions, purslane sprouted up in abundance. Melchior Estacio do Amaral. Successos do Galeaō Santiago. C. 10. Hist. Trag. Mar. T. 2.

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by some of the early navigators who were so excellently provident in these things. Pigeons also were numerous there. About the year 1630, it was in possession of the Dutch: but after some years they abandoned it, becauseof a plague of rats ² who multiplied so greatly as to destroy whatever was planted. The coast abounded with fish, and the Dutch during their dominion in Pernambuco, dispatched vessels there to profit by this never-failing harvest. At one time they sent a number of negroes ³ to maintain themselves upon the island, for the purpose of lessening the consumption in Recife when they were confined to its walls; afterwards they transported criminals there, whom they supplied with implements of agriculture, and left to fare as they could. If the Portugueze made any use of the island after the Dutch were driven out of Brazil, it could only have been by private adventurers, and only for a time. But this attempt of the French alarmed the Government, and they immediately gave orders for fortifying it strongly. The State was then rich enough to disregard expence; and no fewer than seven good forts were erected to secure it against all interlopers. From that time to the pre-

Nieuhof's Zee en Lant Reize. p. 6.

Present state of that island.

2 Amaral's narrative (p. 497,) mentions the great number of rats; but if the account which is there given of them be correct, it should rather seem that they were jerboas, though it is certainly difficult to imagine how this animal should have found its way there, ..tem os pes tam curtos que nam andam nem correm, e o seo fugir e meneyo he em saltos como pulgas, e assim os matavam facilmente: they have such short feet that they neither walk nor run, and thus their pace and mode of escape is by bounding like fleas, so that they are easily killed. .. Very possibly this race, like the old English rats, may have been exterminated by the Norway rat, .. the great sailor, and colonizer of this species.

3 A certain Gillis Venant commanded this colony, which remained there for some time, and cultivated the ground. The rats had probably turned cannibals after they had driven out the former colonists.

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sent, the island of Fernam de Noronha has continued in a most extraordinary and disgraceful state; .. it has been garrisoned, not colonized; no women are allowed to go there, and it is used as a place of banishment for male convicts from Pernambuco: the soldiers are relieved annually, and so is the miserable Priest, who is usually pressed into the service; for no men can be found to go voluntarily among this community of miscreants. It is wonderful that so detestable a system should ever have been introduced; but it is not possible that so moral and religious a Government as that of Portugal should suffer it to continue.

Ulloa. Book 9, Ch. 2. Koster's Travels, p. 39.

Gomes Freyre Governor of the Rio and Minas Geraes.

The Portugueze were now advancing in the interior of Brazil, and on the Orellana, with an adventurous intrepidity which the Spaniards could neither emulate nor oppose. Gomes Freyre had conducted himself so entirely to the satisfaction of the Court that he was appointed to the united Governments of the Rio and Minas Geraes: the appointment stated, that news could be conveyed from the Rio to Villa Rica in four days, he having performed the journey himself in that time; .. there would therefore be no inconvenience in his residing at that distance from the seat of his maritime Government. A wide extent of territory was explored and appropriated during his long administration. The Paulistas and the people of Minas Geraes spread themselves into that extensive region behind the Captaincies of Bahia and Piauhy, which now forms the Captaincy General of Goyaz; and from Cuyaba the Portugueze continued to advance, on the one side in a direction which brought them nearer to the Chiquito and Moxo Missions; on the other they came upon the great western branch of the Tocantins and its tributary streams; and they secured for Portugal, a country containing not less than two hundred thousand square miles, which is now the Captaincy of Mato Grosso.

Avizo. 5 Oct. 1737. MS.

Goyaz derives its name from the Goya tribe. The first person

[page] 305

CHAP. XXXVII.

who discovered the mineral riches of this country was the Paulista Manoel Correa, who sometime in the seventeenth century, made his way there at the head of a party of slave-hunters. He brought back a few oitavas of gold which had been collected in one of the rivers, and on his return he offered them, as his contribution towards a crown for N. Senhora da Penha, in the town of Sorocaba. Bartholomeu Bueno, the most renowned adventurer of his age, explored the same country after him. In one of his expeditions he found some rich samples of gold in the territory of the Aracys, upon one of the great rivers which flow into the Orellana, .. the. Araguaya as supposed by some, the Xingu by others; for the place, though often sought, has never been rediscovered. He named it Minas dos Martyrios; not, as might be supposed, on account of the sufferings which he and his companions had undergone in the journey, but because it is said, the site was marked by a natural representation of the instruments of the Passion, rudely formed by the veins of the rock. But it has been surmised, that in reporting this wonder Bueno designed to act upon the credulity of his countrymen, as he had been used to sport with the ignorance of the Indians: by playing tricks before the natives with burning brandy he had obtained the appellation of Anhanguera, The Old Devil, and had persuaded them that he could dry up the rivers by his art.

Goyaz first explored by Manoel Correa.

Bartholomeu Bueno the second explorer.

Almeida Serra. Patriota. T. 2. No. 1. p. 50.

Cazal. Coregrafia Brazilica. T. 1. p. 314. 312.

Bueno the son makes the first settlement.

In another expedition, wherein he was accompanied by his son Bartholomeu, then only twelve years old, he made some stay upon the Rio Vermelho, a river which flows into the Araguaya: and he observed, that the Goya women wore pieces of gold which they picked up in the beds of the torrents. This was in the year 1670. The discovery was not pursued at the time: the age of mining was not yet arrived; and when it came, the Minas Geraes were so productive, that for many years adventurers had little inducement to wander farther in the quest. More than

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fifty years therefore elapsed, before Bueno the son, then more than threescore years of age, proposed to the Governor of S Paulo to go in search of the place which he had reached in his boyhood, and still vividly remembered. The recent discoveries in Cuyaba excited in him this desire, and made the proposal appear reasonable; and the Governor, Rodrigo Cesar de Menezes, sent him upon this service with an hundred musqueteers and a numerous body of attendants. After the lapse of so many years, it was hardly possible that he should be able to retrace his way though a wild country. He got too far to the South, and found gold: some of his people, believing that they had totally lost all clue to the place of which they were in search, would fain have given up all farther exploring, that they might profit by the fortune upon which they had fallen. Bueno however persisted in his purpose, and continued to wander, till at the end of three years, having lost the greater part of his companions by disease, hardships, and accidents, he returned to S. Paulo. But this ill success had neither broken his spirit, non extinguished his hopes: his character stood high for probity, as well as enterprize and sagacity, and the Governor sent him out a second time, with better hap. After some months he came to a place where it appeared certain that some Portugueze must have been in old times: there he took up his quarters, and having caught two Indians they were immediately known to be Goyas. The first enquiry was, if they knew where the white men had formerly been encamped: they led him to a place not far distant, and Bueno recognized the spot which he had seen when a boy. He collected gold from five different streams, and returned with such rich and abundant samples, that he was presently sent back to establish a colony there, with the rank of Capitam Mor.

1722.

1726.

Corografia Brazilica. 1. 314. 317.

The colony flourishes.

He founded an Arrayal upon the place which he had so long.

[page] 307

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and painfully sought. It was probably named at first after St. John the Baptist, to whom the Chapel was dedicated; but when the miners removed to richer ground, the blacksmith chose to remain; and from him, as a personage of no little importance in a new country, it was called the Arrayal do Ferreiro, which name it continues to bear. The Goyas lived a while upon friendly terms with the settlers, till, upon suspicion of some treacherous design ³, which the recollection of foul treatment in old times rendered but too probable, they appeared in arms. Bueno knew their customs, and captured some of their women, .. to whom these people were so much attached, that rather than leave them in captivity they solicited for peace. As the price of this reconciliation they shewed the Portugueze where the richest veins were to be found. The Mines of Goyaz, in consequence, soon rivalled those of Cuyaba: and because the way to Cuyaba was very dangerous, infested as it was by the two most formidable of all the South American nations, adventurers who had yet their place to chuse, preferred a country which appeared to offer attractions as tempting, with the advantage of a shorter and safe communication. There was, therefore, a great influx of settlers; provisions came regularly from S. Paulo, but, gainful as the carrying trade was found, not in sufficient quantities for the

3 It has certainly always been the desire of the Portugueze Government that the natives should be treated with humanity and justice, and even with forbearance, In 1738, the Governor of S. Paulo was instructed to take care that the persons who were busied at some newly discovered mines in this country might be enabled to defend themselves; and if the savages continued to commit any excesses, he was to collect full evidence, that it might be seen whether there were just cause for proceeding to an offensive war against them, conformably to the laws. The exposition which the Superintendant of Goyaz had sent home, was not thought sufficient for such a determination. (Ordem, 12 April, MS.)

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population. The bushel of maize sold for six or seven oitavas, that of mandioc flour for ten, and the first milch cow was purchased for ten pounds weight of gold. It was not long before men began to rear cattle and cultivate the ground, finding that by this means they could enrich themselves with less labour and greater certainty than by mining. In the course of ten years after the first huts had been erected, the Colony required a separate jurisdiction, and was made a Comarca of S. Paulo; and twelve years afterwards it was declared to be a distinct Captaincy, having Villa Boa for its capital. This town, which stands upon low ground on both sides of the Rio Vermelho, a league westward of the first settlement, was originally called the Arrayal de S. Anna. It was chartered in 1739, and is at this time described as a large, populous, and flourishing place, with seven places of worship, and three bridges. Some of the first adventurers, whose disposition led them rather to explore the country for gold, than to labour for it when it was found, made their way, travelling sometimes by land and sometimes by water, to Para; but the difficulties which they underwent were such as to induce a persuasion, that it was not possible to open a communication between that city and the new mines.

Goyaz made a captaincy. 1737.

Corografia Brazilica. 1. 317. 318. 333.

Cartas de Aut. Guedco Pereira. MSS. C. 22 Feb. 1738.

Mines discovered at Mato Grosso.

The first mines in Mato Grosso were discovered upon the banks of the river Sarare, in 1734, by Antonio Fernandes de Abreu, a Paulista in the service of Brigadier Antonio de Almeida Lara, then stationed at Cuyaba. He and his companions built a Chapel for S. Francisco Xavier, which they thatched with grass; and taking the Saint for their patron, called the Arrayal which they founded after his name. Gold was so plentiful, that for the first year every slave commonly returned three or four oitavas a day: it lay upon the surface of the ground. But the thoughtless adventurers had made no provision for supporting themselves in the wilderness, and they discovered when too late,

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that in their situation food was more precious than gold. The land afforded them very little; a few white deer were the only animals, and the mangava the only fruit. The alqueire of maize sold for six, seven, or eight oitavas; the same measure of kidney beans rose from fifteen to twenty; a pound of pork, bacon, or jerked beef was two oitavas, four for a plate of salt, six for a fowl, six for a pound of sugar, fifteen for a bottle of rum, wine, vinegar, or oil. Higher prices have seldom been demanded in a besieged town, or during extreme famine, than these poor miners were glad to pay. The gold which they gathered was expended upon provision; .. all was not enough, and most of them literally died for want of food. At length Antonio de Almeida sent cattle from Cuyaba; but when they arrived the flesh and bone together were sold at an oitava and half per pound. The time when gold was most abundant is described by one of the survivors as a season of pestilence and famine; and the discoverer himself, who counted his gold by arrobas, died of leprosy.

Sufferings of the first adventurers.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Communication with Goyas opened.

The Bororos.

Noticias de Paraguay. MSS.

But the report of the riches of this land was more powerful in alluring adventurers, than the tale of misery in deterring them. Many people flocked thither from Cuyaba and from S. Paulo, and the supply of provisions became regular when a road was opened to Cuyaba from Goyaz, which was by this time become a great breeding country. Teodosio Nobre, and his son-in-law Angelo Preto, both Paulistas, were the men who established this beneficial communication. There existed upon the Rio dos Porrudos, a tribe called the Bororos, remarkable for their docility. They adorned their heads with feathers, but wore no clothing whatever. They were not given to excess at their feasts, neither had they any of the ferocity which habits of drunkenness excited and fostered in other tribes: and it is said of them, that if one of their women were captured by the Portu-

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gueze, all her family would voluntarily follow her into bondage. This attachment to their women, which is so rare among savages, seems to indicate that they were of the same race as the Goyas. Nobre and Preto had got a considerable party of these people in their service: at their head they penetrated through the country; and when the first persons who went with cattle along the road which they had opened, were cut off by the Caiapos, they made active war upon the savages in revenge, and cleared the way so as to render it safe. The Arrayal of S. Francisco Xavier began now to flourish. A capitation of four oitavas and three quarters upon every slave, was allowed without resistance; a shop-tax of sixty-four, or thirty-two, according to the extent of the business, and an impost of sixteen upon the vendas. A prison was built at the expence of the settlers, who seem to have contributed readily to every useful work. Churches were erected and hung with silk on holydays; for the finest silks which were imported into Brazil found their way to this new establishment in the centre of the continent, where the miners purchased them with characteristic prodigality.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Expedition of Manoel Felix de Lima down the rivers.

Manoel Felix de Lima, a native of the mother country, was one of the few companions of Antonio Fernandes de Abreu who survived ⁴ the miseries of the first year. He had held some honorary offices in the Arrayal, but he had not enriched himself: gold became every day scarcer, the prices of every thing continued high, and being weary of a settled life and of a pursuit which had lost its attractions, he found companions who

4 He escaped, he says, by miracle; but whatever part he may assign to N. Senhora da Conceiçam in preserving him through that year of famine, something is certainly to be ascribed to seventy boxes of marmalade from Taboate, which he consumed, and which cost him three and a half oitavas each, .. in the whole rather more than two pounds weight of gold.

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agreed to seek their fortune with him in an adventure down the rivers. Three of this party were, like himself, Reynoes, or Kingdomers, as those who were born in Portugal were at this time called in Brazil. Their names were Joaquim Ferreira Chaves, Vicente Pereira da Assumpçam, and Manoel de Freitas Machado. The Paulistas were, Tristam da Cunha Gago, a Licentiate who had the reputation of being a good scholar, his brother-in-law Joam Barbosa Borba Gato, Matheos Correa Leme, the Licentiate Francisco Leme do Prado, and Dionizio Bicudo: Joam dos Santos, another of the party, was a native of Rio de Janeiro; .. their slaves and Indians made up the number of fifty. Manoel Felix was at the sole expence of the ⁵ outfit, the others indeed had nothing but their persons and their slaves to embark; some were mere vagabonds, without character or means; the others, young raw men, unprincipled, and deeply in debt, some of whom had already fled from Cuyaba to Mato Grosso to avoid their creditors; and having now contracted new obligations, they engaged in this enterprize for the purpose of escaping. Before the preparations were compleated the creditors suspected their intent, and began to take legal means for preventing their flight; but the adventurers getting intimation of this, embarked in two canoes on the Sarare, fell down the stream till it joined the Guapore, and there at the point of junction, called A Pescaria, or the Fishery, built two more canoes, and laid in stores for the voyage without being discovered.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS. Itens, &c. MSS.

The Campos dos Parecis.

The Sarare and the Guapore rise within three leagues of each

5 The account of this remarkable expedition is drawn from two manuscripts in my possession. The one is by Manoel Felix himself, and in his own handwriting; .. perhaps there may be no other copy in existence. The other contains the official examination of those persons who returned to the Arrayal, taken by the Ouvidor of Cuyaba, Joam Gonsalvez Pereira.

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other, in the Campos dos Parecis, as the highest tract of ground in Brazil is called, from a people once the most numerous of all its tribes; but now the few who have escaped from death and slavery are incorporated with the Cabixis and Mambares. These Campos are a succession of sandy downs in long ridges, one higher than another, and of very gradual ascent. The soil is so loose that horses sink over the fetlock at every step; and when they attempt to crop the plants which grow there, the roots come up with the stem, and their teeth are filled with sand. The tract ends in a chain of mountains of the same name, which extends some eight hundred miles in a N. N. W. direction. Thirsty as the soil is, it is every where intersected by streams, along the course of which the horses find subsistence during the difficult passage; and here the Paraguay, the Tapajos, and the Madeira, have some of their remotest sources. The Sarare is navigable, from the place where it leaves its native mountains to its junction with the Guapore. It was upon the Guapore that the adventurers embarked when all their preparations were compleated. Manoel Felix says they began their voyage in the name of Jesus, and trusted themselves to the course of the river, expecting to find gold.

Almeida Serra. Patriota. T. 2. N. 6. p. 58.

Do. No. 1. 51. 54. No. 6. 41.

Fourteen of the party turn back.

On the tenth day of his voyage they landed on the right bank, at the mouth of a stream where they found marks of a recent encampment, made, as they supposed, by a party under Antonio de Almeida Moraes, who had set out from the Arrayal six months before them, on an expedition to enslave Indians, and seek for mines. They encamped upon the ground and sent scouts in quest of these adventurers: on the second day the scouts returned, and Almeida came with them. He said that he had met with an old Indian who spake the general language, (so the Tupi is called) and by him he was informed, that if he proceeded down the river he would be in great danger from the

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natives, who were spearmen, very numerous, and warlike; but if he ascended the smaller stream, which there fell into the Guapore, he would find people in the interior who were less ferocious, and were, moreover, at war with these more formidable tribes: therefore he had taken the old Indian's advice; and having sent his men forward to explore the country, had remained with the baggage. This intelligence discouraged some of the party. The Licentiate, Tristam da Cunha, said their wisest course would be to join company with Almeida, for it would be madness to pursue their voyage and encounter these terrible savages, unless they had a greater force. Borba Gato supported this opinion: Manoel Felix said he would go on till he came to the Indians, and it would be time enough to turn back when he found it impossible to make his way through them. The Licentiate replied, that he must have a heart of brass to persist in such a resolution; but he desired that ammunition and provisions might be left for his brother-in-law and himself and those of their company, who were fourteen in number, and one of the canoes also. In this determination they persisted, after a dispute which continued through the night: the rest of the party declared that they would follow Manoel Felix till death, and scoffed indignantly at their late comrades as sheep-hearted adventurers, when they saw them actually set off with Almeida.

Voyage down the Guapore.

The more resolute, who were probably also the more desperate of the party, proceeded on their way. Presently they perceived great numbers of the birds called yacu, from their cry, eating the earth on the banks, and innumerable parrots covering the trees, who were come for the same food; .. the earth was salt, and therefore they concluded that salt was to be found somewhere near. The next day brought them into an inhabited country, where there were many huts on the left bank, and many landing-places cut through the reeds. They landed and

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entered a circular dwelling, the wood work of which consisted of poles resting at the top upon a central pillar; it was hung round with hammocs, for which this is the most convenient form of building. About thirty Indians fled at their approach: a woman remained, with three children, seated upon a little bench, made by some of those tribes who use the teeth of a fish for their instrument, Manoel Felix made a sign as if he wished to take one of the children; .. the woman embraced that child, but pushed another towards him. The one whom she thus offered was a boy with red hair and light complexion; and it was supposed that she was not his mother. He gave her some beads, served himself in exchange with a basket of mandubi and a small hammoc for one of his lads, and re-embarked. On the following day they came to an island which divided the river into two streams, so equal in size that they suffered the canoes to find their own course: the current carried them to the right hand channel. On both sides the land was low, and subject to inundation. During the whole day's voyage they saw the devices used by the Indians for catching fish; and coming afterwards to a grove of cacao, they concluded that they should find people there because it was a land fit for plantations. Manoel Felix therefore, with four Portugueze and four Negroes, went to explore. They entered a great lake, where the crocodiles were very large and very numerous, and presently they discovered a landing-place. As soon as they got upon a little rising ground, they saw some Indians and fired a blunderbuss to frighten them. This was not the best way of opening a friendly intercourse; the natives fled along a path which seemed to lead into a well frequented country; but one man of great stature, in running through a plantation, struck his foot and fell. Two of the Negroes caught him by the hair before he could rise; Manoel Felix came up, and thinking that his breast was covered with blood,

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began to blame the Negroes for having wounded him. The man had hurt his leg in the fall; but what Manoel had mistaken for blood, was oil reddened with roucou, with which they smeared themselves, for the double purpose of a defence from insects, and of making their skin so slippery that an enemy could not lay fast hold upon them. Manoel Felix made signs of friendship to the Indian, and followed him into a house thatched with palm leaves. Here there were ten or twelve jars full of a fermented liquor made from maize, some of which the Indian presented to them in a gourd; but Manoel cautioned them not to taste it, because they did not know what it might be. The house was well furnished with bows and arrows, and instruments so formed as to serve both for oars and macanas, the wood being hard and elastic, and the broad blade like a two-edged sword. Another large building belonging to the same owner was fitted up with ovens for a baking house; and the appearance of a large ⁶ domesticated bird sitting upon its nest, was another proof of settled life and improved manners. A woman entirely naked, and carrying a child upon each arm, stood by the house gazing at the strangers, without any semblance of fear; but the man after awhile went out, and looking toward the cultivated part of the country, twice set up a long and loud cry. Presently Joam dos Santos came up with two Indians behind him; one of them cried aloud, and going into the house, took one of the two-edged oars. Manoel Felix, among other necessaries for the expedition, had provided an image or portrait of Our Lady of the Conception, which in Brazil is the most in vogue of all her numerous invocations. He had as firm a trust

6 What this bird may have been it is impossible to discover. Manoel Felix says it was a hawk bigger than the American ostrich! .. tinham de xoco hum grande gaviam, maior que huma ema!

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in this as Ulysses in his guardian Goddess; and upon this occasion, he says, Nossa Senhora reminded him that he had left his canoe in the dock of these Indians, who, if they chose to seize it, might kill him and his companions, and eat them. He had previously given a knife to the first Indian, to put him in good humour; he now made one of his slaves take the weapon from the other, and moved toward the boat, going the last of the party, and giving some knives to the Indians as a peace-offering. Just as they reached the port three Indians came up with bows and arrows, which they levelled at them: his companions called out, and he was preparing his gun, when the first Indian spake to his countrymen, and they lowered their bows, .. a great miracle, says Manoel, of N. Senhora da Conceiçam in the canoe. He adds, that the Paulistas when they were few in number, never ventured to go among the savages in their own country by day, .. but that the Mother of God favoured the bold.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Rash provocation of the Indians.

On the following morning they renewed their voyage early, and proceeded in silence because they knew that the natives would be on the alert. On the right bank there were habitations the whole way, and canoes lying in their ports; but as soon as any of the people saw them, they set up a cry and ran into the country. Joam dos Santos and two Negroes went first in a small canoe, exploring the way, and shooting and fishing as they went. In the evening they came to the termination of the island, and there they met a canoe with an old man and woman on board, a young man and his wife, the two latter being handsomer than any Indians whom he had ever seen either in S. Paulo, Minas Geraes, Cuyaba, or Mato Grosso. Joam dos Santos, in his intercourse with the Indians, seems to have acknowledged no other code than the law of the strongest; and not expecting any resistance, he attempted to seize these people in their canoe; but they stood bravely upon their defence, the young woman sup-

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plying her husband with arrows as fast as he could use them. They got to shore and escaped, leaving their canoe with a few ⁷ mamoens on board, a prize for the Portugueze. But early on the morrow seven canoes came in pursuit of the aggressors: there were seven armed men in each, and the leader of the party was the youth who on the preceding day had been so wantonly attacked. He was now gaily ornamented with macaw feathers, as a gala dress of war, and they raised the war-whoop as they approached. The Portugueze had not yet begun their day's voyage, and were lying moored to the shore; and the Indians seeing this landed, leaving only one man in each canoe, and defied their enemies. Manoel Felix immediately gave orders to push off, and keep the mid stream; he answered their warwhoop with a shout, that no want of resolution might be betrayed; but seeing that the Indians did not begin the attack, he tried to conciliate them by holding up some iron hoops; then tying this precious metal to a piece of wood, he threw it into the water. Immediately the whole party re-embarked, took up the present, and came up to his canoes without fear or hesitation; they were bold beggars, and the interview might have ended in blood, when one of them seized the pistol and would not allow it to be wrested from him, while the muzzle was directed to his own breast, if their leader had not authoritatively interfered; for this he received a looking-glass in addition to his former gifts, and giving a friendly whoop at parting, they made signs to the Portugueze to continue their voyage.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

They meet with some converted natives.

Three days afterwards they came to some high ground, and here they would have searched for gold; but having landed, they heard the natives singing in the woods, and thought it pru-

7 A sort of bread fruit, probably the Mammea Americana.

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dent to re-embark without delay. This day they past by many deserted habitations and many ports; landing at one and following a path, it led them to a house where there were many broken jars, and many graves: the mode of interment was strange and hideous; for though the bodies were concealed, the long hair of every corpse was carefully left above ground. It was supposed that the persons in this burial place had either perished in war, or been cut off by pestilence, which the number of forsaken dwellings renders more probable. The next day they shot an antelope which was crossing the river, and landing to skin the carcase, they found a piece of black cotton cloth, which was manifestly part of a tipoya, or sleeveless shirt of the converted Indians. Presently they perceived a little cross fixed upon a pole, some marks in a tree which appeared to have been cut with a chissel, and a boucan for drying fish; and they halted for the night with confidence, because, says Manoel, it had been the quarters of Indians already half christian. In the morning they met a canoe full of men and women, who made from them in such fear that the women paddled with their hands to assist the motion of the boat. But having reached the mouth of a lake or river, where they felt themselves safe, they repeated the words Capibari and S. Miguel, giving the Portugueze to understand that they belonged to that Reduction, toward which they pointed, and that they were hunting the capibari. They were clothed in black tipoyas, and they had beads round their necks, and crosses.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

A Christian native undertakes to guide them.

These people belonged to the left shore; and Manoel Felix therefore kept that side of the river, which was here very wide. Upon meeting another canoe he hailed it, and asked one of the men if he was a Christian; the man replied, Ignacio; and in like manner told the names of all his companions; then in his turn repeated the word Christian in an interrogative tone, and Manoel in reply told the baptismal names of himself and his com-

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panions. Presents were now exchanged; the adventurers received some cakes of maize, and gave in return a portion of the smoked antelope's flesh, some fishing-hooks to the men, some large needles to the women, a looking-glass, which set them all laughing with wonder and delight, and lastly, a yard of ribband to Ignacio, who in his gratitude volunteered to guide the bountiful strangers; and taking the lead accordingly, entered a stream which joined the Guapore from the left. It was not long before they saw a canoe, from which they were accosted in Spanish with the religious salutation of 'Blessed and praised be the Most Holy Sacrament;' but the Indians who thus saluted them were in great fear, and running the canoe ashore, drew it out of the water and carried it overland to a place where they could embark without danger of being pursued. They met many canoes in the course of that evening, and most of them fled; though they saw that the Portugueze were guided and accompanied by men whom they knew. The adventurers were now amid a labyrinth of islands and channels, where they might have wandered, as they say themselves, till they became food for the crocodiles and insects, unless they had had a guide. About night-fall they came to a part of the river where the water was entirely covered with a matted weed called morurus. Ignacio then told them, that as their canoes were laden and made little way, they could not reach S. Miguel before the next evening: he gave Manoel Felix a piece of cotton dipt in cocoa oil, and made signs that he should rub his head with it to keep off a stroke of the sun: then, saying that he was going to hunt for capibari, he bade him farewell, and turned back, to the no little grief of the Portugueze, who were however too honourable or too prudent to make any attempt at detaining him.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

They come to the Reduction of S. Miguel.

Ignacio however had only left them for the sake of passing the night in greater security than he should have felt in their com-

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pany. He rejoined them in the morning, and guided them among an infinity of channels, where it would have been impossible for them to have found their way. They saw many islands which were cultivated, and many canoes, all of which shunned them fearfully. At length Ignacio made known by signs that the port of S. Miguel was behind the next bending of the river, and Manoel sent him forward with a letter to the Missionary, complimenting the Father upon his labours, and letting him know who he was, and whence he came. The adventurers followed slowly; when they came to the turn they saw the port, and such multitudes of people assembled there to see the strangers, that the trees were clustered with them. An apprehension of danger came upon them, undoubtedly from a consciousness of what the Paulistas had deserved both from Jesuits and Indians; and they told Manoel Felix that it was his duty to run the risk of entering: .. Certainly, he replied, it was; but he added, they ought to understand that if he were killed, they themselves had no chance of escaping with life. So he drest himself for the occasion, to make the best figure which circumstances would permit: .. after a lapse of sixteen years, when Manoel Felix was in extreme poverty, he described with evident pride the grand costume in which he appeared that day. It consisted of a full dressed shirt, red silk stockings, breeches of fine green cloth, a miner's jacket of crimson damask lined with silk and laced with ribbands, morocco shoes, a wig, and a gold-laced beaver hat, which had been worn at the espousals of D. José, then Prince of Brazil. Thus equipped he got into a small canoe, taking with him two Negroes, with a musket for each, some of those ⁸ knives

8 Faca de ponte, a weapon, or instrument, commonly worn in Brazil, two-edged and pointed; the point so sharp and strong that it will strike through a piece of copper money. It is carried at the waistband in a leathern case; the handle is like that of a knife, and it is used either as a knife, a tool, or an implement for settling quarrels.

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which serve the Brazilian Portugueze either for their meals or their murders, and a pistol. He himself stood erect in the canoe, with an Indian walking-cane in his hand; and in this manner, says he, I made for the port, at all risks, trusting in God our Lord, and in our Lady of the Conception, who always was my helper.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Manoel Felix lands.

As soon as he landed he was met by a great number of old men, who were dressed in their gala attire to receive him: they were in cotton shirts without sleeves, blue baize breeches, and hats made of feathers; and kneeling down before him they besought his blessing, as if he had been a Bishop. Manoel Felix blessed them one after another as they succeeded, till after nearly an hour his arm was weary with this unusual exercise, and he desired that they might proceed to the Reduction. Upon this they formed a lane for him, and as soon as he ascended the bank, his heart, he says, leapt at the sight of cattle and mules. The houses were faced with a kind of white clay called tabatingue, which looks well, but has the inconvenience of falling off in wet weather. The Church was a long building, with three bells, and in the Terreiro, or Square, there were five crosses. The Alcaides of the Mission came out to meet the stranger, and the Jesuit himself, with a white cloth thrown over him so as to resemble a surplice. This Missionary was a German, called by the Spaniards, Gaspar de Prado, and nearly fourscore years of age. He addressed Manoel Felix with an apology for the state of the square; the cattle had made it filthy, and he said that he had not received the Lieut. General's letter in time to have it cleaned. Ma-

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noel, in his reply, desired that they might go into the Church, for after so long a voyage through a savage country, his religious feelings were awakened now that he found himself in a place where he could enjoy the ordinances of his faith. The three bells chimed as they entered the building: in the middle there was a Crucifix, large as life, raised upon three steps which were formed of wood-work and clay; and there were three altars of Our Lady, well ornamented. But while Manoel stood in a pious meditation upon the mercy of God who, he says, had wrought such a miracle as to bring him to that spot, the old Jesuit, being naturally desirous of some conversation with a civilized being, proposed to adjourn to his house, and told him he might say his prayers at leisure.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

State of the Reduction.

To the Jesuit's house accordingly he went, and presently the doors and windows were blocked up with the heads of the Indians, .. so eager were they to see the stranger. Paraguay-tea was brought him in a gourd, upon a silver waiter, and with sugar. He tasted it, but spit it out; for though the Paulistas were accustomed to take it copiously in the morning, he believed it to be unwholesome. When the Jesuit learnt that his visitor came from Mato Grosso, he was astonished, and exclaimed, This Lieutenant Governor has discovered the whole world! and upon his explaining it to the Indians they were astonished also, for they had supposed that the country up the Guapore was possessed by savages alone. This Reduction, which was situated upon the River Baure, twenty miles above its junction with the Guapore, belonged to the Moxo Missions, and was the most recent of their establishments. It was composed of the Muras, a people whose various hordes, in various grades of civilization, were almost as widely dispersed upon the rivers which flow from the centre of the continent into the Orellana, as the Tupi race in those parts of Brazil which had been earlier colonized. Whether

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their ⁹ language is a derivative, or an original tongue, has not been ascertained. The tribes who approach nearest to the back settlements of Para are remarkably savage, both in their customs and their manner of life. Many of them are elaborately tattooed, and therefore probably it is that when any of them are reclaimed from their wild state they are more unwilling than any other tribe to put on the slightest clothing,.. for this fashion takes away the appearance and the sense of nakedness. It has also the effect of preserving the skin from the annoyance of insects, by destroying in great measure its sensibility: other hordes defend themselves by painting the body, or smearing it with clay. The men bore their lips, noses, and ears, and adorn them with shells, tusks, ánd teeth of animals: many of them have beards like Europeans. The women are noted for affection to their infants. But the hordes on the Guapore from whom the Reduction of S. Miguel was formed, were among the most civilized of all the native tribes. They cultivated maize, plantains, potatoes, and other fruits and roots: they had domesticated many kinds both of land and water fowl, and they manufactured their clothing from bark, like the South Sea Islanders. They poisoned their arrows with a certain gum.

Corografia Brazilica. 2. 316.

Itens. MSS.

Precarious condition of the Missionary.

F. Gaspar had charge of about four thousand of these people: they had killed some former Missionaries, and his own authority over them was very precarious. He always slept in the Church, evidently in the hope that he might derive some protection from the sanctity of the place; and he told his visitor that the Indians sometimes snatched his food out of his hands, and sometimes

9 Hervas (1. 4. § 72.) conjectures, that they may have been the people who inhabited the country to the East of Cuzco, called Muru-Muru, which Capac Yupangue added to the empire of the Incas. (Garcilaso, L, 3, C. 14.)

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beat him. They were honest however, notwithstanding these fits of brutality; for when, at the desire of Manoel Felix, they were sent to bring the things from his canoe, not even the smallest article was purloined. The Jesuit allotted a house to these unexpected guests, and sent the Lieutenant General, as he called him, a cow, apologizing that he had no people to dress it for him, because none of the Indians understood cookery. Manoel now presented the Father with a fine beaver hat, three pounds of white candles, three carpenter's axes, and some knives. He made his men fire a salute, upon which the Indians who filled the house, and were handling every thing which they saw, ran away, and the Jesuit came presently to thank him for having thus terrified them. The next day being Sunday, Manoel drest himself in black velvet, and went to hear mass. The women were on the left side of the Church, drest each in a single sleeveless garment, which had been dyed black; their hair was loose, and wet with palm oil; round their necks they had many strings of small beads, for they were ambitious who should have most. The men were on the other side, and space was left between them for approaching the high altar. The Licentiate, Francisco Lemos, confessed to the Jesuit, and when he had done F .. Gaspar ascended the pulpit: .. Praised be God, said he, who has sent Christians all over the world to magnify his name! The discourse which the poor old man thus introduced betrayed the sense of his perpetual insecurity: he said to the Indians, You see how this D. Francisco has confessed to me, and see the presents which have been made me by the Lieutenant General, .. and then he displayed them from the pulpit; .. know therefore that there are Christians every where, and that if you do any wrong this Christian Commander will return, and with balls of fire kill all those who shall have killed me. Mass was then performed to the sound of a stringed instrument, which, says Manoel, was

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out of all tune, but with God would be like the music of Angels. His Negroes had been ordered to fire three salutes during the service; one in honour of All Saints, the second at the elevation of the wafer, the third at the elevation of the cup. This threw the Indians into a tremor and cold sweat, and strengthened the impression which the Jesuit desired to make.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Departure of the Portugueze.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

But Manoel Felix was more liberal in his gifts than was quite consistent with the good order of the Reduction: two or three persons having been requited for bringing him fruit with fishhooks and beads, he was besieged the next day by women and girls, who came in large parties, each bringing a beju, or cake of maize, for which she was rewarded with a sash; and Manoel kept measuring on, to gratify his visitors, till he had distributed among them nine pieces of ribband containing about three hundred yards. But then the Jesuit came to him with a doleful countenance, and requested that he would give away no more, saying that these women were leading loose lives, and he had done him unintentionally much harm by supplying them with such finery. Manoel then departed, and in the square he met above fifty women coming with their cakes, who were sorely disappointed at being too late, and who, he says, would all of them have had sashes, if it had not been for that servant of God. He had determined to visit the Missions on the Mamore. F. Gaspar told him he would find the Provincial there at this time, in the Reduction of S. Pedro, and entrusted him with a box of books for him, and a letter. This letter stated, that D. Manoel Felix de Lima, Commander of the Portugueze, had conferred upon him many favours; and expressed a wish, that if all the Portugueze were such as these, many might come to visit him. He directed him also to S. Maria Magdalena, the nearest Mission, situated on the second river which they would come to on the left, after they had re-entered the Guapore. The old man embraced him

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at parting, saying he took away his heart with him, and requested to see him again on his return.

They enter the river Ubay.

On the third day after they had entered the Guapore they came to the second river, which is the ¹⁰ Ubay. Ascending it, they saw large crocodiles in great numbers, and observed crosses upon the shore, wherever a party of converted Indians had made their halt. On the tenth day they came to cultivated fields, in which scare-crows were set up; and they learnt from an Indian that F. Gaspar had sent news of their coming over-land; that the nearest Reduction was that of S. Maria Magdalena, and that it was under F. Joseph Reiter, an Hungarian, having for his assistant an Italian, by name F. Athanasio Theodoro, who was learning the language of the wild Indians that he might preach the faith to them, and receive martyrdom from their hands. By this Indian Manoel Felix sent a message to the Missionary, requesting permission to visit him, and rest a few days from the fatigues of an expedition in which he had mistaken his course; .. a falsehood this, which implies some apprehension of danger on his part. About nightfall a canoe came from the Reduction with two Indians on board, one of whom addressed the Commander in Spanish, and in the Jesuit's name presented him with two dozen fowls, some pigeons, beef, fruit, and sugar. Manoel Felix replied, that on the morrow he would go to thank the Missionary in person, and hear mass in honour of St. Ignatius Loyola, whose festival was appointed upon that day; then giving the messengers a piece of they set up a whoop and took their leave.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

10 This river is sometimes called the Magdalena, from the Mission. And in Arrowsmith's map it is called the Itonamas, from the name of the most powerful tribe. Coleti makes the Ubay fall into the Itonamas. .. In this part of the story there is a confusion, both in the narrative of Manoel Felix and in the depositions of his companions. They call this river the Mamore, .. though the error manifestly appears in the course of the relation.

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1742.

Their reception at S. Maria Magdalena.

Manoel prepared for the interview with as much solicitude as on the former occasion; and from the extraordinary wardrobe which he carried with him on this wild voyage, he attired himself in pearl-colour silk stockings, a waistcoat and breeches of embroidered dove colour velvet, and a coat of red barbarisco, lined with white silk, and with cuffs of rose colour velvet; the wig, the gold-laced hat, and the Indian cane, compleated his costume, and his arms were a pocket-pistol, a silver-hilted sword, and the formidable faca de ponte, or knife of all work, inlaid with gold and silver. Matheos Correa, whom he desired to accompany him, wore a coat of blue cloth embroidered with silver. If such details are less dignified than the descriptions of chivalrous or oriental costume, they are not less characteristic. They took with them two Negroes armed with muskets and knives, and swords which they wore round the neck. The landing place was about six miles from the spot where they had passed the night, and the Indian archers were drawn up in a double row to see them land. Mass was over before they arrived; the two Jesuits received them courteously in the Church porch, and led them to a house where there was a large table covered with an embroidered cotton cloth; a wrought salver with refined sugar was on the table, and in the corners of the room there were plantains, mamoens, oranges, and that fruit which the Spaniards call Almendras, and the Portugueze, Maranham chesnuts. Before the food was served Manoel's companions arrived, not in such imposing costume ¹¹ as their leader: the Jesuit would have placed them at another table; but Manoel said this would be failing in what was due to honour and cour-

11 They were however dressed, he says, vestidos em corpo, que todos os tenham, se entende es brancos.

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tesy, for they were his friends, and for friendship had accompanied him, being all white men, some of S. Paulo, some of Portugal, and all having slaves of their own. F. Joseph then called for napkins, and giving one to each of the Portugueze, put one carefully under Manoel's chin; and when he, not being used to this uncomfortable ceremony, took the napkin off, the Jesuit replaced it, assuring him that it was a mark of respect. A plentiful repast was set before them, of pigeons, poultry, game, meat, and neats' tongues, all good in their kind if they had not, much against the visitors' taste, been all seasoned with sugar. The want of bread was supplied by cakes of maize, kneaded with milk and baked in a pan.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Flourishing state of this Reduction.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

This was a flourishing Mission. The Church was a spacious building of three aisles, the columns, as in Paraguay, being each the trunk of a tall tree: the walls were well made of clay, and the roof tiled. A Calvary stood in the middle; there were three altars richly ornamented, an organ, four stringed instruments which are called harps, and four trumpets, which though made of canes, are said to have been as finely toned as if they had been of metal. Some Indians who were expert in the art of carving, had been brought from another Mission; they were employed upon a pulpit, and the Portugueze were astonished at the beauty of the work; it was covered with foliage and the figures of various birds, and was to be gilt when finished. A golden pix had been sent from Lima as the offering of some devout persons; its value was three thousand five hundred pieces of silver. Manoel Felix, who was wanting neither in devotion nor in liberality, presented for the service of the altar a large piece of blue taffeta, and a smaller one, of the richest brocade which had ever reached the mines of Mato Grosso. The Jesuit accepted the gift, and then opening the Sacristy shewed him thirty hangings of tissue and brocade, which had been sent from

[page] 329

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Potosi and Lima, for the same purpose. Manoel was somewhat mortified at perceiving how little his own present would be valued: nevertheless, he said, he had given what he could.

The whole settlement was inclosed with a square wall, which being probably of clay, like the Church, was covered to preserve it from the weather; and this covering projected so far that there was a dry walk at all times round the Reduction. The great square, according to the usual style of these Jesuit establishments, had a Cross at each corner, and a larger one on its pedestal in the centre; but in other respects the ground plan appears to have been traced by some whimsical architect; for Manoel Felix says, that in whatever direction the houses were seen they appeared in regular order, like the chequers of a chess-board; and the country was laid out in farms after the same fashion, with paths of white sand. A considerable space was enclosed within the walls, so as to afford room for folds and gardens; and the settlement bore many marks of civilization: there were shops for weavers, carpenters, and carvers; an engenho, where rum as well as sugar was made; public kitchens, and stocks for the enforcement of wholesome discipline. The plantations of bananas, mamoens, and cotton, were numerous, and the cultivation extended many leagues along the river. The children were instructed in Spanish, and taught to read; and there was a school of music. Horses and kine were very numerous, and two beasts were slaughtered every day for the various artificers who were employed in the service of the Mission. The Indians who had been Chiefs before their conversion, held the rank of Alcaides.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

The Jesuit makes a display of his force.

Though the Portugueze were so well received in these Missions, that according to their own relation greater honours could not have been shewn to a Prince, nor to the General of the Company himself; the Jesuits at S. Maria Magdalena were not

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desirous that such visits should be repeated, and thought it prudent to make a display of their strength. On the second morning, therefore, after the guests had breakfasted upon chocolate and spunge cake, and after mass had been performed, fourscore horsemen were exercised in the great square before the Church. They were drest in cotton shirts which had been ornamented with some labour, and large trowsers of blue baize; their weapon was the macana; they had cotton horse-cloths, and many small bells fastened to the poitral and saddle. They saluted the Jesuits first, and then the strangers, the Alcaides, and the women who were seated upon mats to see the spectacle. They were all good horsemen, and their usual employment was in tending cattle. When they had concluded their exercise both sides of the square were presently filled with archers, naked, their bodies stained red as if for battle, stamping with their feet and setting up the war-whoop. They discharged, their arrows into the air skilfully, so as that they should fall in the middle of the square; and the great cross was bristled with them as they fell. Both sides then drew nearer each other; and when they were within point blank, shot, they raised; so terrible a shout, that Manoel Felix ordered his people to stand upon their defence, and made some of his Negroes gather about him, because he perceived that the natives were more afraid of them than of the Whites. Some of these tribes had been old enemies before the Jesuits had brought them to live together in peace; and this circumstance afforded Manoel a pretext for requesting the Jesuits to bid them disperse for fear of evil; the men, however, were heated in their sport, and appeared to pay little attention to the commands of their Alcaides. Manoel then fired a pistol in the air, .. they stopt immediately and began to pick up their arrows; and he noticed with wonder that every man knew his own. The day had been consumed in these exhibitions. When they were seated at supper, one of the

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1742.

Jesuits asked Manoel Felix what he thought of these Indians; adding, that the Missionaries could bring into the field forty thousand archers. Manoel, who perfectly understood the hint, spoke in reply of the effect of field-pieces upon such troops; and the dexterous Jesuit then turned the conversation by complimenting the military prowess of the Portugueze. But especial care was taken that these suspicious guests should have as little opportunity as possible of reconnoitring the place; and for that purpose amusements ¹² were continually devised for them.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Some of the Portugueze proceed to the Mamore.

Manoel Felix had sagacity enough to perceive that the information which he had obtained concerning these Missions, might be of some political importance; for now that the Spaniards and Portugueze were so rapidly drawing near each other, it was evident that a question must soon arise concerning the right of occupation. Some of his companions believed that they might better their fortunes by returning with this intelligence, and that a speculation in cattle would answer their purpose well, and serve as an excuse for having absconded. Manoel thought this part of the scheme impracticable, because the intermediate country was full of swamps, and inhabited by fierce savages; they nevertheless proposed to F. Joseph, to purchase beasts from him at the rate of seven hundred and fifty reis per head, in such articles as they had with them. The Jesuit replied, that as far as concerned himself he would willingly present them with

12 An old man was brought, to exhibit his skill in catching oranges with his feet as well as his hands. His whole body was so seamed with the scars of arrow wounds received in war before he became a convert, that Manoel Felix says he was like a St. Sebastian. And now, notwithstanding his advanced age, the Jesuit affirmed that seven stout Indians could not stand against him in battle.

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a thousand head, but that it was not in his power to dispose of any thing belonging to the Mission without authority from the Provincial, who was then at La Exaltacion de S. Cruz, upon the Mamore. Thither they determined to go, less perhaps in the hope of effecting this object, than for the sake of exploring the land farther; and probably for that same reason Manoel Felix and the three Europeans chose to perform the journey by land, while the Paulistas went in their canoes. The latter set off; the others remained while F. Joseph sent persons to facilitate their way by burning the country. But before this was effected a messenger arrived with a letter from the Provincial, in which the Father was reprimanded for having entertained the Portugueze, informed that he had incurred the displeasure of the Governor of S. Cruz by so doing, and commanded to dismiss them as soon as he could, giving them all necessary assistance for their return.

Manoel Felix de Lima. Itens. MSS.

Manoel Felix is dismissed from the Reduction.

Manoel Felix had been nearly three weeks in the Reduction, and the good Jesuit, notwithstanding his reasonable suspicion of such guests, had become so familiar with them, and had perhaps derived so much enjoyment from their society, that he did not obey these orders without sorrow. He suffered them to linger three days longer, in hope that their companions might return; and when he could not permit of any further delay, stored their canoes with every thing needful. F. Athanasio entrusted Manoel with a letter for his friends in Italy, and gave him a silk mask with green goggles, which fastened behind the head and below the breast, as a protection against sun, wind, dust, and insects. They parted, with many tears on both sides; and Manoel, confiding firmly in the recent confession by which he had made up, as he believed, his accounts with Heaven, and trusting not less firmly in his constant Patroness N. Senhora da Conceiçam, committed himself once more to the stream. Soon

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1742.

after they had re-entered the Guapore they met a canoe with a cross erected in the middle; but it gave them no tidings of their former companions: and all hope of rejoining them was at an end when they came to the place where the Mamore and Guapore join, and lose their names, the great river which they form being from that point called the Madeira, because of the quantity of wood which after the rains it carries into the Orellana. The Mamore comes with such power that it makes its way through the other stream, and strikes forcibly against the right bank. Even the crocodiles cannot make way against it, unless they swim deep. The canoe passed over some of these creatures who were lying upon the sand in shoal water, and the splash which they made had nearly swamped the incautious voyagers.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Voyage down the Madeira.

In the course of a few days they reached the point where the great river Beni joins the Madeira, and immediately they came upon falls and rapids, more formidable than any which they had yet passed. At the first of these impediments Manoel Felix got upon a large crag in the middle of the stream; there was a hole in the stone from top to bottom, and hearing distinctly that there was some animal at the bottom he fired into it: one of his Negroes then was ordered to creep in, which he did in great trepidation, and there he found a capibari, killed by the shot. This was a good prize for men who had had neither meat nor fish that day, and they feasted upon their prey. On the morrow evening they moored for the night at a place where some Indians had formerly been stationed, but which was grievously infested with a long legged fly, called by the Portugueze pernilongo: these blood-suckers attacked mouth, nose, and ears, in such swarms, that their hands were covered with blood in killing them as they alighted on their faces. Manoel Felix hoped to escape from this intolerable plague by means of a large mosquito net,

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under cover of which he ordered his hammock to be slung; but upon getting in he found that the net was of no use, having been eaten in holes by the ¹³ ants. The rest of the party would gladly have remained where they were for the night, but Manoel, who suffered more acutely from the flies, made them re-embark, and they fell down the river till they came to a piece of high ground, where, by favour of a slight breeze, they slept free from this torment. In the morning a quarrel arose between Manoel and one of his companions as they were passing a rapid; and as they were too angry to attend to the canoe, they had very nearly been lost. When they got into smooth water, the one party leapt on shore with a blunderbuss and challenged Manoel; he instantly landed with his musket, and they were about to fire upon each other, but their companions interposed in time, and convinced them of the madness of quarrelling and fighting in such a situation. One of the Portugueze that day fired thirteen shots successively at some birds, without killing one; he was so chagrined at this, that he made a vow never to shoot again; and this vow he observed faithfully during the voyage, though they were often in want of food.

On the following day Manoel Felix saw some birds which he calls marequas, upon some level ground which he supposed to

13 Manoel Felix says that these red ants devoured the cloths of the altar in the Convent of S. Antonio, at S. Luiz, and brought up into the Church pieces of shrouds from the graves, so that the Friars were obliged to prosecute them, according to ecclesiastical law! A similar case, he assures us, had occurred in that Seraphic Paradise, the Franciscan Convent at Avignon, where the ants did so much mischief that a suit was instituted against them, and they were excommunicated, and ordered by the Friars, in pursuance of their sentence, to remove within three days to a place assigned them in the centre of the earth. It is gravely added, that the ants obeyed, and carried away all their young and all their stores.

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be a dark sand. He landed in pursuit of them, while the canoe proceeded to a bend of the river a little way below; and bringing down three at one shot he ran to secure them, when, to his misfortune, what he had mistaken for sand proved to be a morass of which the surface was dry, and he sunk to his middle. The more he plunged about to extricate himself, the deeper he sunk; and no sooner had he begun to cry for help, than he was answered by a growl from the thicket, where a jaguar was watching at about thirty paces distance. His musquet was wet and full of mud, his cartridge-box in no better plight; and seeing himself in double danger of being smothered in the bog, or eaten alive by the wild beast, he vociferated for assistance, and called upon N. Senhora da Conceiçam. They in the canoe heard him, but supposed that the cry proceeded from the savages; till one of his slaves, wondering that he did not return, ascended the bank to look for him, and then recognizing his voice, summoned the others to his aid. The jaguar fled at their appearance and the shout which they raised; the Negro, meantime, threw off what little clothing he wore, and plunging into the morass, made his way through the mud like a crocodile up to his master, and bade him lay hold of him: in this manner, struggling with his feet to assist himself, Manoel was extricated; the Negro also recovered the gun and the cartridge-box, and got the birds. Manoel remarks, that he had often been obliged to punish this slave for theft, but that he was always ready to exert himself in any danger.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

The canoe wrecked.

The following evening Manoel with one of his Negroes kept pace with the canoe by land; they came to a small river, and Manoel not being able to swim, was ferried over upon the trunk of a tree by the slave, who swam beside it. In washing himself from the dirt which he had contracted in this passage, he took off a small leathern bag containing a golden amulet called a

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Voyage up the Madeira in 1749. MS.

¹⁴ Breve, which he wore about his neck. When they had reached their resting place and he was about to lie down for the night, a sudden pain made him lay his hand upon his breast, and he missed the charm; so the next morning the canoe was unladen, and they went back to fetch it. If this had not been done, the misfortune which that day befell them would have been ascribed to the loss of the amulet. They had to pass a rapid in which the canoe went so close to the left bank that Manoel leapt ashore, for the purpose of seeing it pass an upright rock; the current carried it against the rock with such force that the lading was thrown forward; the men were thrown out and got safely to land how they could, but the canoe was carried down the stream and presently out of sight. A few things were saved, but the prospect was sufficiently appalling; they had advanced so far that it was impossible to return: how far it might be from the nearest settlement on the side of Para they knew not, but it was certainly a great distance, and the intermediate country was full of wild beasts and formidable tribes. They rested for the night near a bank of salt clay, which was a great place of resort for animals. Antas, boars, deer, and many other creatures, birds as well as beasts, feed upon this Clay:.. the marks of their feeding are manifest upon the ground itself, and when they have been killed, the stomachs of the one and the craws of the other have been found full of it. It is said to render their flesh insipid. Here they shot an anta, which eluded their search at the time, but was found dead the next morning. They rested that day, and having eaten half their game, salted the other and

14 The Brazilians at this time, commonly wear these amulets, which are called Bentinhos when they are purchased from the Benedictines. They are seldom seen on young men, but few persons of middle age are without them.

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placed it upon the moqui, or boucan, to be smoked: on the morrow, when they returned at night to the same spot, having spent the day in reconnoitring the river without perceiving any termination to the rapid, they found their fire scattered and their meat carried off by the jaguars, who were very numerous and very bold, and whose tracks were seen every where. On the following day they proceeded along the shore; Manoel Felix led the way, and at a place where he least expected such a change, found that the rapid ended. To his still greater joy, he discovered a canoe caught between two large stones near an island in the middle of the river, the prow resting upon one and the poop upon the other, and the body suspended in the air, .. he says, like Noah's Ark. He shouted for joy, and cried out to his companions, that God in his mercy had succoured them when they must else inevitably have perished.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

They find a canoe.

There yet remained a difficulty in reaching the canoe, and there appeared so much danger in swimming to it, because of the force of the stream, that when one of the slaves undertook the service, Manoel Felix engaged to pay his master for him if he should perish in the attempt. He failed in the first trial, but got near enough to ascertain that the canoe was whole and serviceable. Then having re-landed, rested, and strengthened himself with food, he took water a second time higher up the stream, and reached the island, carrying some cords with him, by the help of which the rest of the party joined him upon a jangada, and then they embarked once more and pursued their way. They came now to the falls, which are numerous upon this river; but by means of the embiras and embambas, long lithe creepers which are found in the woods, the canoe was let down safely. At one time they were in distress for food; they shot a huge jaguar, who was too much intent upon catching fish to perceive his own danger: this animal not only served as meat, but as a

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good bait for their hooks. When this resource failed, they laid a loaded musquet in a path made by the beasts in their way to the river; about midnight it went off and an anta fell. They preserved it with some rock-salt which F. Joseph had given them, and fed upon this as long as it lasted.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

They narrowly escape the Muras.

At length they left behind them the last rapid and the last fall, where the river leaves the mountains through which it had passed during a considerable part of its course. Immediately on the right hand, they saw ground which had been cleared for cultivation, and the remains of a settlement made by the people of Para, who came up the Madeira thus far, to seek for the cinnamon of the country, sarsaparilha and cacao, and tortoises, .. animals which are not found above the falls. The Muras had cut off the settlers, and therefore, the place was thus desolate. Manoel Felix found sugar-canes growing which these unfortunate persons had planted, and was glad to meet with them, not merely as an indication that they were approaching a civilized country, but as a wholesome and refreshing food. Some few miles lower down he landed upon an open bank with Vicente Ferreira and an Indian lad, to keep pace along the shore with the canoe. They saw a plantation of bananas and mamoens at a little distance, and Manoel sent them forward to gather some of the fruit, in doing which, each of them disturbed a nest of wasps, and both were dreadfully stung. They had well nigh brought upon themselves more serious danger. There was a large house in sight, and a gerau also, which is a sort of frame or scaffold in a tree, as a place for watching game. Manoel made signal to the canoe; it was nightfall when they landed, but they could distinguish the recent marks of naked feet upon the bank; he thought there were some Christians near, and in their joy they fired off all their guns as a salute; immediately there was a rush in the thicket, as if a herd of swine had run off: and in the

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morning they perceived the track of savages, whom they had thus unwittingly terrified, and thereby providentially been preserved. They learnt afterwards that a Missionary had been driven from hence, with the loss of an hundred of his people, by the Muras. Blessed, says Manoel, be Our Lord for this deliverance, and blessed also be Our Lady of the Conception, to whom this prodigy is owing, as well as all the others which we experienced, for we had her Image with us.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Distress for food.

They reach a Jesuit settlement.

The left side of the river in one place was full of tortoises, who were going on shore by thousands to lay their eggs. Manoel and his party were at this time suffering much from hunger; but by a strange ignorance they did not know that the tortoise is good food, and by a stranger stupidity, they appear not to have made the experiment. Some threescore were lying on their backs, and they supposed them to have tumbled over in that position, though the slightest consideration might have convinced them that this was impossible: it must have been done by the Indians, for there was an Indian hut in sight, and the people of Para ¹⁵ at this time did not venture so far up the river, for fear of the Muras. In five days more they came to a tapera, or farm, in a fallow state, and here there was a Cross standing. And now, because they were in great distress for want of food, they brought out Nossa Senhora da Conceiçam, and spread a clean towel over a little box by way of altar, and said her Litany, and the Salve Regina and other prayers, and made their vows; and moreover, Manoel Felix promised thirty masses for the souls in Purgatory, if they should fall in with Christians before the end of the following day. The next morning they entered upon a

15 Manoel Felix says, that they kept tortoises at Para, and sold them for three milreis each; and that they made pots of butter (potes de manteiga) from their eggs.

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reach where the river was about four miles wide: at its termination they saw a fire upon the shore. They fired their guns when, as they supposed, they were near enough to be heard, .. but they had mistaken the distance: as they approached nearer they heard the report of a musquet, at which certainly, says Manoel, my heart rejoiced. Here he found a Mission of the Jesuits, where F. Manoel Fernandez had collected the wreck of a former establishment, which had been broken up by the attacks of the Muras. The situation was unhealthy, and almost all the inhabitants were diseased. Here the adventurers were hospitably entertained; and here leaving, not without regret, the canoe which, as Manoel Felix says, by the miracle of N. Senhora da Conceiçam he had found in the river, they re-embarked in a larger vessel given them by the Jesuit, and proceeded to the Aldea do Jacaré, and the Aldea dos Baquazis, both Jesuit Missions, below the last of which they entered the Orellana. The Madeira, when it approaches toward the end of its course, sends off one great branch, and several smaller ones forming as many islands; the straighter stream, at its mouth, is about eight hundred fathom in breadth, and the adjacent country low, swampy, and uninhabitable, because of the inundations to which it is subject.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Voyage up the Madeira. MS.

Former navigation of the Madeira.

Juan Patricio Fernandez. p. 47.

The Madeira had been navigated before this time. It is said, that so early as the days of Nuflo de Chaves, when the first settlement of Santa Cruz was abandoned, a party of the more adventurous inhabitants went among the Moxo tribes, and embarking in their country either upon the Ubay or the Mamore, followed the stream as boldly as Orellana, and with a like good fortune, till they reached the main sea. About twenty years before the present adventure, the Governor of Para, Joam da Gama da Maya received information from persons who traded with the natives upon the Madeira, that there were European settlements above the falls; but whether of the Portugueze

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1742.

Itens. MSS. Voyage up the Madeira. MS.

Itens. MSS.

Itens. MSS.

Manoel Felix sent to Lisbon.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

or Spaniards, was uncertain. Upon this he dispatched a party under Francisco de Mello Pacheco to explore the river. They ascended as far as the mouth of the Mamore, and there fell in with a Mestizo who guided them to La Exaltacion. Pacheco then ascertained that these settlements were made by the Jesuits from Peru; and after an uncourteous correspondence with the Governor of Santa Cruz, who forbade him to advance into the country, he returned without any satisfactory account even of what he had explored. That Reduction had also been visited by a party of runaways from Bahia, with a Priest in company, who frankly avowed that they had fled their own country in consequence of having committed certain acts, which rendered it impossible for them to continue in it with safety, and they requested permission to take refuge in Peru; but this was refused, and it is not known what became of the adventurers. A Carmelite, also, had reached La Exaltacion; he had ascended the river from the most advanced of the Para Missions on that side, which was afterwards destroyed by the Muras, and the purport of his coming was to ascertain the distance to the Spanish settlements, and to require that the Spaniards would keep on their own side of the river, and not form any establishments on the right bank, nor collect any Indians from thence, because all the country on that side belonged to the King of Portugal, the natives were his Indians, and his Missionaries were employed there. But Manoel Felix was the first man who performed the voyage from Mato Grosso to Para, and proved that a communication by water might be established: his expedition, therefore, was thought of much importance; and the Governor, Joam de Abreu Castello Branco, sent him to Lisbon to give an account of it. The news was carried to Mato Grosso by his companion Chaves, who enlisted at Para as a soldier, took the first opportunity of deserting and getting by way of Maranham to Goyaz, proceed-

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ed from thence to Cuyaba, and finally to the country from which he had commenced the circle of his wanderings, where he had the good sense and the good fortune to settle upon a plantation on the Guapore.

Voyage up the Madeira. MSS.

His extravagant demands and miserable fate.

Manoel Felix was less fortunate. He sailed for Lisbon with exaggerated notions of the service which he had performed, and in full expectation of receiving magnificent rewards. On his arrival he was put in confinement, and detained a week without cause or pretext, his two Negroes and his baggage being kept on board the whole time. He was then examined by the Ministers touching his discoveries; and his opinion, he says, was asked concerning the measures which ought to be taken. His advice was, that a fort should be erected, and a Portugueze settlement made at the mouth of the Mamore upon its right bank, another at the mouth of the Ubay, and a third at the mouth of the river upon which the Reduction of S. Miguel stood; he conceived that he had discovered these positions, and therefore, that they belonged to Portugal; and he appears to have been perfectly unconscious, that by the right of possession, as well as of discovery, they were vested in Spain. For himself, he required the appointment of Guarda Mor of all the country which he had thus added to the Portugueze dominions, a suitable grant of lands, and such other favours as his Majesty might be pleased to bestow. The Ministers observed to him, that the measures which he proposed would be acts of aggression toward Spain. They offered to ask the King for a recompense for his expences in the expedition; but he insisted upon claiming what he thought his due reward; and so strongly was he possessed with this notion, that he continued to haunt the court as a miserable suitor, till the whole of his substance was expended, and he was reduced to extreme poverty and wretchedness. In that condition, after sixteen years obstinate attendance, and in the

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sixty-sixth year of his age, Manoel Felix found a melancholy solace in recording his services and his complaints, little thinking, that the very writing which then beguiled his hopeless hours, would one day find its way to the mountains of Cumberland, and that from that writing, the story of his adventures would be incorporated, by an Englishman, in the history of Brazil.

Return of his companions from Exaltacion.

The voyage of Manoel Felix was of importance, not only because it first opened a communication between Mato Grosso and Para; but also, because it first brought the Portugueze in contact with the Spaniards upon that frontier. His companions who left him at S. Maria Magdalena for La Exaltacion de Santa Cruz upon the Mamore, reached that place, and were as well received there by F. Leonardo de Baldivia, as they had been by his brethren in the other Reductions; but to their proposal for purchasing cattle the same answer was returned, and the same insurmountable difficulties in removing them were represented. They remained there eighteen days; and when they departed they gave some trifles to the Indians, but they could only prevail on the Jesuit to receive a piece of silk for the altar, while he liberally presented them with loaves of salt and of sugar, wax, soap, wine, wheaten bread, biscuit, rum, calico, and books of devotion, .. in so flourishing a state were the Moxo Missions. They returned to S. Maria Magdalena, and ¹⁶ finding

16 Such is the account which they gave to the Juiz Ordinario, upon their examination. It seems, however, very unlikely that they should have revisited that Mission, without being informed that Manoel Felix had been sent away by orders from the Governor, for the purpose of preventing all farther intercourse with the Portugueze. Upon considering this, and likewise, that they could not reasonably expect to find him there, because when they parted, his intention was to march over land and join them at La Exaltacion, I am inclined to suspect, that they did not touch at Magdalena on their return; but affirmed that they had done so, lest any reproach might attach to them for returning without their companions.

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1743.

that Manoel Felix had departed, they then determined to make their way back to Mato Grosso. In forty days they reached the point from whence they had begun their voyage, and they were not long before they appeared at the Arrayal de S. Francisco Xavier. These adventurers were so well pleased with their visit to the Reductions, and thought so much profit might be derived from trading with the civilized Indians, that they persuaded some of their kinsmen and friends to embark with them in a second expedition, and set out again about two months after their return. They went in two parties, one under Francisco Leme, the other under Jose Barbosa de Sa.

Itens. MSS.

Their second expedition to the Missions.

The numerous Indian habitations which they had seen upon their former voyage were now forsaken; the landing places had been filled up, and the houses burnt by the natives themselves: for Antonio de Almeida, with whom the comrades of Manoel Felix had joined company, had made such havoc, and taken so many slaves, that these poor people thought it better to lay their own country waste, and fly into the interior, lest they should be assailed by the same enemies. Barbosa's party came first to S. Miguel. F. Gaspar received them with great coldness, and having merely enquired whether they wished to hear mass, or stood in need of any of the Sacraments, he then turned away and left them abruptly. They did not prolong their visit after such a reception; but to their great surprize, soon after they had re-entered the Guapore, they discovered a new establishment upon the right bank. There they found their old acquaintance F. Athanasio, who with as much ¹⁷ courtesy as was compatible

17 "Tratandoos de ladroens, cosarios, bandoleiros e fugidos, mas tudo com modo de Padre da Companhia." This is a curious instance of that Jesuitical manner which has become proverbial.

[page] 345

CHAP. XXXVII. 1743.

with such a communication, informed them that they were a set of runaways, robbers, and pirates; that the Governor of S. Cruz had instructed all the Missionaries to be upon their guard, and draw out their Indians to oppose them, while he prepared forces to destroy the settlements in Mato Grosso, and erect forts for the purpose of excluding the Portugueze from the navigation of that river. Upon his proceeding to search the canoe, Barbosa thought it expedient to make his company produce their fire-arms; and the display of eight musquets in the hands of men who were ready enough to use them, prevented any violence which might else have been offered: for the establishment was so recently formed that it did not contain above an hundred and fifty Indians. F. Athanasio enquired carefully concerning the distance to Mato Grosso, and the state of the Portugueze settlements there, both as to population and means of defence: and he fairly told the adventurers, that they might pursue their voyage because he was not strong enough to prevent them; but that the other Missions would be able to effect what he could only desire. His assistant was a young Irishman, by name John Brand; and he, though a Jesuit also, seemed not to enter into the political feelings of his Superior, and wished to enjoy the company of these visitors as long as he could. Francisco de Leme arrived at this Mission, which was named after S. Rosa, four days after their departure; but none of his party were allowed to land. Barbosa, meantime, proceeded to S. Maria Magdalena, where F. Joseph Ruiter desired to know immediately what they wanted; for, he told them, they must be sent away on the morrow. They petitioned that they might tarry there two days, in order to confess; and to this he consented: but he said, that if they came thither in consequence of the good treatment which the first visitors experienced, they would find themselves greatly disappointed: that treatment was bestowed in Christian compassion,

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upon persons who were supposed to have lost their way in a wild country; had it been suspected that they came on purpose, they would have been very differently received. Barbosa repeated the old pretence of the cattle, saying falsely, that there were none in Mato Grosso, and they wanted to stock the country; this, he said, was the sole object for which he came, for he well knew that the Fathers were not traders, neither was he himself one. He was told that this request could not be granted, and moreover, that what he wished to attempt was impracticable. During the two days of their abode the Portugueze were kept in one house, and their slaves in another; and they were not permitted to go out for a moment, except when they went to church. Their fare was coarse and unceremonious, .. maize cakes and boiled beef with a little salt to savour it, served upon the bare table; and when they departed they were requested for the love of God never to return, but rather to prevent any of their countrymen from coming, seeing that the only end of such visits would be to create vexation and mischief. The persevering Portugueze were not yet satisfied, but would proceed to La Exaltacion also. Francisco de Leme fell in with them on the way: they were well received, and permitted to remain more than a week. But though the Jesuits here were induced by their own good nature to relax the rigour of their instructions thus far, they pronounced the same peremptory interdict of all future communication. All intercourse, they said, between the Spaniards of Peru and the Portugueze, was prohibited by the laws; and that ¹⁸ prohibition the Royal Audience of Chuquisaca, and

18 The deponents, with true Portugueze pride, supposed that fear was the chief motive for this conduct, .. the muito medo que tem de que os Portuguezes the vam invadir as suas terras, botar fogos e destruhir as missoens. Tem a cada Portuguez por hum leam, e a cada Negro por hum tigre. This fear of the Negroes is said to have arisen from their knowledge of an insurrection which had taken place in Minas Geraes. .. Not a single article of Portugueze manufacture was observed in any of these Missions, nor any thing which might be supposed to have come through the hands of that people. Itens. MSS.

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1742.

the Governor of S. Cruz, had now ordered them to enforce. The poor Indians, who would gladly have had a regular intercourse established, and a better market opened, both for the supply of their wants, and the disposal of their produce, were much disappointed at this determination, and came in secret to purchase knives, needles, and axes, from their visitors. Their wishes, however, were of no effect; and the adventurers being now thoroughly convinced of the jealous, or hostile temper of the Spanish authorities, returned to Mato Grosso after an absence of nearly four months.

Itens. MSS.

The Spaniards push their settlements on the side of Mato Grosso.

Itens. MSS.

The Spaniards were more alarmed at the appearance of the Portugueze in the Ubay and the Mamore, because a party under Antonio Pinheiro de Faria, had recently found their way to the Chiquito Reductions also. Difficult as it was for the Spaniards to open a communication between those settlements and Paraguay, the Portugueze had scarcely broken ground in Mato Grosso before they made for themselves a way. There was no reason now to apprehend a repetition of such evils as the Guarani Reductions had suffered in Guayra and the Tapé, from the Paulistas. The influence of the laws, and the spirit of a humaner age, had mitigated the ferocity of the Paulista character, while its activity and enterprize were unabated; and perhaps in these Missions, where the Indians were stimulated to individual industry by the prospect of individual advantage, the Jesuits might gladly have promoted an intercourse which would

[page] 348

CHAP. XXXVII. 1743.

have been beneficial to their people, and desirable for themselves. But the Government dreaded such adventurous neighbours; and thinking to prevent the contraband trade and the encroachments which it feared, encroached itself upon the territory which Portugal had begun not only to claim, but to occupy. Three Missions were hastily established on the right bank of the Guapore. That of S. Rosa, which Barbosa had visited, was ill situated, a little below the mouth of the Ubay; the second was higher up, upon one of the rivers which rise in the Campos dos Parecis, and which, from this establishment, now bears the name of Rio de S. Simam Grande; the third was among the Mequens, still farther up the Guapore, and consequently nearer the settlements in Mato Grosso.

Almeida Serra. Patriota. T. 2. No. 6. 53, 56.

Portugueze in Ilha Grande on the Guapore.

Before these encroachments could become matter of dispute between the two Crowns, the Spaniards were impeded in their course by a party of desperadoes who had absconded from Mato Grosso for debt, and established themselves upon an island, called Ilha Grande, in the Guapore, about forty miles long; but of such low land, that at the time of the freshes the greater part is inundated. There were twelve of these persons, who with the slaves and women belonging to them formed nine households, and were renewing, as far as their means permitted, the system of the old Paulistas. They had the same audacity, the same lawless and remorseless courage, and the same strong national feeling. They subsisted wholly by plunder, attacking all the villages of the natives round about, either openly or by surprize, and stripping them of every thing which they could carry off: the surplus of their spoil they bartered with the nearest back-settlers in Mato Grosso, for other necessaries, and for powder and ball to be used in other expeditions. Their prisoners were soon brought to act with them, serving also as guides and interpreters. By frequent incursions, they drove the tribes on

[page] 349

CHAP. XXXVII. 1749.

Voyage up the Madeira. MS.

the left bank back upon the Mission of S. Nicholas, on the Rio Baures; and on the right they prevented the Jesuits from extending their settlements, and made great havoc among the Mequens, a warlike people from whom the new Reductions were chiefly formed, and among the Abebas, Paivajaes, Urupunas, Travesoens, and Pataquis, .. tribes in a state of rudeness, but disposed to live peaceably, tractable, and not cannibals. As the Jesuits could not muster a force able to chastise these ruffians, they talked of applying to the Governor of S. Cruz for troops. But they seem also to have speculated upon the possibility of conciliating them, and inducing them to side with Spain, when their aid might become needful; for they well knew, that whether the question concerning the boundary should be amicably adjusted or not, whenever a war should occur between the two nations in Europe, hostilities would certainly ensue upon the frontier of Mato Grosso and the Moxos. Therefore, though these ruffians had been excommunicated by the Vicar of Mato Grosso, to whose flock they belonged, the Jesuits, with more than their wonted skill in casuistry, discovered some plea for still admitting them to the rites and sacraments of the Church. It appears that the men themselves were not troubled with much anxiety about the matter; for when F. Raimundo Laines came to celebrate mass upon their island, bringing with him his Cross, his portable Altar, and the rest of his apparatus, outlaws as they were, they made a formal protest against his performing the ceremony, lest it should prejudice the rights of the Crown of Portugal. There happened, however, to be a Portugueze visitor with them, and at his intercession the Father was permitted to go through the service; but as soon as it was done, they took down the Cross which he had set up, and desired that he would never again set foot upon the island. Two other Portugueze of the same description were at this time in the service of the Missionaries, who received and

[page] 350

CHAP. XXXVII. 1749.

entertained them, on condition that they should conduct expeditions in search of the fugitive Neophytes.

Expedition from Para to Mato Grosso.

The Portugueze Government had been less active than the Spanish, with regard to this country, perhaps, because it relied upon the known spirit and activity of the Brazilians; but the importance of the communication between Mato Grosso and Para, and the propriety of securing the dominion of the rivers, were not overlooked; and orders were given that the voyage should be performed from Para by a strong party, well provided with stores, means of defence, and instruments for laying down their course. The two Lemes, who had twice visited the Missions on the Mamore, were in this expedition; they had probably been sent from Mato Grosso, to act as guides in the upper part of the navigation. When about three weeks' voyage up the Madeira, they reached a deserted plantation of cacao, where one Antonio Correa, with five domestic Indians, had been murdered by the savages: here they were attacked by the Muras; and having repulsed them, they found on the following day an arrow stuck in the sand, which was a signal of defiance. But when the savages who had given this challenge, saw the superior force of the Portugueze, they made to the shore, sunk their canoes, and presently eluded pursuit. Their canoes are made of bark; and it is little inconvenience to these people that they are easily swamped, for they are expert swimmers, and easily recover them; at night they secure them from being stolen by sinking, and thus also the discovery of their own quarters is rendered more difficult. About a week afterwards they sent their large canoes back to one of the nearest Missions to wait their return, and began to build lighter ones, as better adapted for the increasing difficulties of the navigation, and for portage. While this business was going on, they were abundantly supplied with fish and tortoises; but they were fain to fortify themselves against

[page] 351

CHAP. XXXVII. 1749.

the Indians; and having been harrassed by them during many days, found it expedient, as soon as the trunks of the trees were prepared, to remove to an island where they could finish the work without molestation.

Voyage. MS.

Toward the termination of its course, the Madeira passes through a low and most unhealthy country. In the Aldea dos Abacaxis, where the Jesuit F. Joam de S. Payo had once collected a thousand Indians, more than two thirds of the population had been cut off, partly indeed by the small pox and measles, but partly also by the more permanent evil of a near lake, which is regularly filled in the season of the floods, and during the remainder of the year stagnates and is dried up. A degree of civilization high as that of ancient Egypt, must be attained before such physical circumstances can be overcome. Other settlements had been abandoned, or removed, for similar causes; and melancholy vestiges of meritorious industry appeared in lemon, orange, and other fruit trees of European or Asiatic extraction, growing wild and continuing to flourish, where man himself had not been able to take root. The curse of insects is usually superadded to such evils, .. or rather it co-exists with them, as if for the purpose of preventing mankind from attempting to inhabit such situations till they shall be strong enough and wise enough to replenish the earth and subdue it. Part of the country through which they passed is called Carapanatuba, .. the land of musquitoes. But higher up the river, as the land rises, the country improves; and the adventurers were delighted with the rich combinations of lake, island, and sylvan scenery, which it presented. Of all the streams which fall into the Madeira from the right, the Jamary is one of the largest; it rises in the Serra dos Parecis, and was at that time the most known of all the rivers of Para, as being frequented for cacao. They who gathered it associated in companies for mutual defence, and

[page] 352

CHAP. XXXVII. 1749.

usually went with a flotilla of four or five canoes. A settlement, called Trocano, had been formed a little above the mouth of the river; its only remains now were the fruit tress, which bore testimony to the carefulness of the unfortunate settlers, and the favourable nature of the soil and climate. A little way farther the navigators arrived at the first fall, and then entered upon the Cordillera. There is a portage here of about a third of a mile. The second and most formidable cataract is three leagues higher, where the whole river, being in that place nearly half a mile wide, makes a fall of about a hundred feet. Here there is a steep portage for nearly three quarters of a mile; and the canoes were so much opened by the carriage, that it was necessary to halt three days for repairing them. A substitute for hemp was found on the spot, in the inner rind of the jacepo-caya, and the sap of the cumaa was found better adapted for the seams when filled with this material, than pitch or tar would have been. Some of the other falls occasioned greater difficulty; and at the fifth, a portage of a mile in length cost them the labour of four days. From the entrance of the mountains upwards almost to the mouth of the Beni, there is a succession of falls and rapids. The Beni, which at its mouth is eight hundred braças wide, brings with it a body of water little inferior to that of the great river which it joins. Like the Mamore, it is turbid, and the navigators on their voyage clarified the water with alum to make it potable: but the mud is deposited in its long course, and the Madeira becomes clear before it divides itself and enters the Orellana. There are seven falls or rapids above the junction of the Beni, making in all nineteen. The party were more than an hundred in number: on some occasions the exertions of every individual had been required, and yet no accident had happened to any one person, .. a good fortune which the most experienced adventurers in company regarded with admiration.

Voyage. MS.

[page] 353

CHAP. XXXVII. 1749.

They come to S. Rosa.

Immediately above the last fall, they came to the first Pantanal; and here the stream appeared to be stagnant, partly because of its expansion over the low ground, partly because the fall made a natural dam. The next point was the mouth of the Mamore; the width of that river, at the junction, is five hundred braças, its depth seven; the Guapore is not so deep by about three feet, but it is the wider stream, and its waters are clear. The party were enjoined in their instructions to pass S. Rosa during the night, that they might not be seen by the Missionary; and this they effected: but the intention was frustrated by the obstinacy of their Chaplain. He requested leave to go and confess at the Reduction: this permission it was not in the Commander's power to grant, directly contrary as it would have been to the tenour of his orders: the Chaplain chose to consider the case as one in which the temporal authority had no right to interfere; so on the following night he stole away with one of the small canoes. It was thought necessary to reclaim this extraordinary deserter, and for that purpose the two Lemes were sent to the Mission: they were selected because they were known there; but as they were not men who could be entirely trusted, a third person of superior rank went with them in the character of their servant. But it proved that no precaution was necessary, and that there had been no cause for any jealousy as to the disposition of the Jesuits: for since the overtures for opening an intercourse with them had been so sternly rejected, a total change in the feelings of the two Courts toward each other had been produced by the accession of Ferdinand VI. to the Crown of Spain. This Prince had no affection for his ambitious step-mother, and the greatest fondness for his wife, a daughter of Portugal. Implacable hatred was then succeeded by cordial good will, and the alteration was felt in the centre of South America.

State of S. Rosa.

F. Athanasio had been obliged to remove his settlement from

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1749.

its original situation, because of a plague of ants, who destroyed all the young plants. It was now placed lower down the stream, near to the skirts of the great Cordillera which approaches the river in that part; but neither was this site found convenient, and preparations were then making for a second removal nearer the mountains. There were none of the comforts and luxuries here, which had been found by the first adventurers at Magdalena and Exaltacion. All the effects of the Indians consisted in their hammocs, and earthen vessels for dressing their maize: this they performed in various ways; but though the visitors may be supposed not to have been very nice in their palates, they found every preparation of this food insipid, and disgusting in appearance. The Indians complained that they were obliged to break up the ground with stone implements, for want of better tools; that they had neither fish-hooks, nor knives, and were almost as destitute of conveniences, as they were before they listened to the Jesuits, and for the hope of bettering their condition consented to forego their former manner of life. But this was owing to the infant and unsettled state of the Reduction: they had been so employed in the removal, and in clearing ground, that there had been as yet little time for weaving calico, by the sale of which, at S. Cruz de la Sierra, the wants whereof they complained were to be supplied. Both sexes wore the tipoya, .. with this difference, that the habit of the women came down to the feet, whereas that of the men fell only a little below the knee, and had its opening in front. The population amounted to about five hundred persons, of whom one hundred and fifty were capable of bearing arms.

Voyage. MS.

They touch at S. Miguel.

After a friendly reception here, the messengers returned with the Chaplain, who resumed his place in the flotilla, without either apology or reprimand for his culpable conduct. The party now began to experience some difficulty in procuring

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1749.

food. The waters were rising: at such times the fish forsake the rivers and enter the lakes and pantanaes; when the inundation abates, great numbers are left in the flooded lands, and there become a prey for the birds, who know the season, and flock thither accordingly. The game also had retired to the rising ground, too far to be pursued; though by persons who know the country, and are prepared with the light canoes, called ubas, it may be found in great abundance upon such elevated spots as are above the floods. The first level country which they reached was on the western shore; on the eastern side were lakes, which were now widening, and mixed their waters with the pantanaes, formed at the mouths of the rivers which came from the Campos dos Parecis. The navigation might have been much shortened by leaving the river, and making across the line of waters: but for this, more local knowledge was required than their pilots possessed; neither could it be done in their large boats, because of the woods through which they must have passed. On the second day after they entered upon the champaign country, the eastern shore also became level, but covered with thick wood. They had now but a scanty stock of flour remaining, and no resource either from fishing or hunting; so they were compelled to look for a supply at S. Miguel. F. Gaspar was still living; but the Mission had been removed to the right bank of the Guapore, soon after the second visit of the Portugueze, because of some unusual sickness. The Indians were better lodged than those at S. Rosa, and their houses upon a larger scale, each holding three or four families; but they were not better furnished. However, the settlement was in a more flourishing state; it had large plantations of rice and maize, and cattle and poultry in abundance; and it carried on an active intercourse by land with the new establishment of S. Simon. Eight hundred of the baptized inhabitants were capable of bearing arms. They were well made,

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and of a colour more approaching to the Portugueze than the Tupi complection. Their dress was the same as that at S. Rosa; but on holydays the women girdled the tipoya with a ribband, (a fashion which had probably originated from the bounty of Manoel Felix) and gathered it up a little in front, in order to expose the feet. The good old German welcomed them as hospitably as he had done his first guests, .. happy, no doubt, that such hospitality was no longer forbidden by his superiors: he entertained them with music, gave them an ox, and allowed his people to trade. Fruit, maize, meat, and poultry, were plentiful; and two needles were the price of a hen. Here they laid in a supply which they supposed would suffice them till they reached the settlement upon Ilha Grande: .. banditti as the settlers were, they were Portugueze, and their countrymen looked to them with confidence. The virtue of nationality, indeed, is one which the Portugueze possess in the highest degree.

Misfortunes at Ilha Grande.

But the voyage now became more painful. As the waters increased, they could find no piece of dry land on which to dress their food, or take their rest at night, and they were constrained with great inconvenience to do both in the canoes. The Indians also fell sick, which was imputed to change of water, change of air and climate, and change of food: all hope of concluding the expedition depended upon them; a long and arduous way was still before them, and for their sake it was necessary to lessen the daily fatigue by making short stages, and when they reached the great river-island to remain there six days. During those days so many disasters occurred, that the Portugueze almost believed a malediction lay upon the place, and that they were visited with the displeasure of Heaven, for holding intercourse with its excommunicated inhabitants. A sergeant died on the day of their arrival of a fever, which carried him off in less than eight and forty hours. A Negro who went

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hunting, .. for none of the Indians were now capable of any such exertion, .. was killed and eaten by a jaguar; and fifteen of these poor Indians, impatient of the distress which they endured, stole a canoe from the islanders, and set off on their return. It was learnt afterwards, that they arrived in safety at their own settlement, which was a Jesuit Aldea on the Xingu. Here, however, the party procured what little maize the settlers could supply, and they took from hence one of these people, who agreed for twenty-three oitavas, to guide them to the river Sarare, and support himself upon the way, but on condition that he should not be compelled to go farther. The stock which they had obtained was scanty, as might be expected from the habits of such people. In the course of a week they were reduced to half rations. The Indians, who bore their sufferings worse than either the Negroes or Europeans, were afflicted with agues; and when by good fortune an Anta ¹⁹ was shot, or any

19 Among the "small deer" which they were glad to meet with, was the Paca. An Indian, who held the rank of Major in the escort, pursued one of these little animals to its hole; and putting in his hand in hope of drawing it out, was bitten by a Surucucu, a deadly snake, which frequently nests in the burrows of the Paca, .. as if fond of associating with it. Actual cauteries were applied, and borne with great fortitude, but to no purpose: in the course of three hours the patient felt a great oppression, lost his speech, and appeared to be in the agonies of death. In this state, as there was no Venice-treacle to be had, they had recourse to Bico de Acavan, and Unicornio de Inhuma, .. the beaks of two birds, reduced to powder and given internally The patient had much difficulty in swallowing this; but it is affirmed, that as soon as the cordial reached his stomach, the oppression was relieved, the lethargy passed away, and his spirits returned. The medicine was frequently repeated, and in five days he was perfectly recovered. "This fact," says the writer, "is mentioned for the benefit of future travellers, the remedy being always to be found in those parts; for the two birds, especially the Inhuma, are common upon the lakes. The same effect is produced either by the bill, or bones reduced to powder; and they are found not only to cure the bites of various reptiles, but to be equally efficacious in expelling poisons which have been taken into the stomach" It is not specified in what vehicle the powder was taken; .. if it were in ardent spirits, this may have been the efficacious part of the dose. Manoel Felix, in the short Tratado das Cobras, which he has appended to the account of his voyage, relates a story of a Negro in Brazil who was bitten by a rattlesnake at a time when he was drunk with rum, and had a calabash of rum in his hand, to which probably he applied after the bite. He killed the snake, and lay down to sleep under a tree. When he awoke and saw the dead reptile lying by him, and recollected what had passed, he declared that rum was a cure for the bite of the rattlesnake.

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birds, it was necessary to be careful that the invalids might not injure themselves by eating too much, .. a proof that want of sufficient food was a main cause of the malady.

Distress of the party.

As they advanced, the inundation appeared like a boundless lake. The woods bore no fruit at this season, the waters contained no fish, and if a bird were seen, it was only now and then a solitary macaw, whose hoarse voice, says the journalist, seemed to complain of the general famine. Even when they came to large tracks of country, where the rice rose above the floods, they had only the tantalizing knowledge, that at a more favourable time their wants might have been abundantly supplied there by the wild harvest. They must have been bewildered here amid the lakes, woods, and pantanaes, had it not been for their guide from the island; his experience preserved them from that miserable fate; and as they advanced they sent their light canoes forward, to bring provisions from the nearest of the back-settlements, while they cut down some wild palms, and subsisted upon the cabbage. In ten days the canoes returned laden with maize, rice, beans, and fruit, from the plantation of Chaves, .. the comrade of Manoel Felix, who after all his adventures had been wise and fortunate enough to take to a settled life. He was established, with other farmers, upon a tract of level ground,

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extending from the river to the mountains, and above the reach of the floods: here they enjoyed the advantages of a good climate and a fertile soil; and the Chapada of S. Francisco Xavier, as what was then the chief settlement in Mato Grosso was called, was often supplied from hence. The party rested two days with Chaves to recruit their strength. A few hours after they had resumed their voyage they entered the Sarare. This river, which is full of islands, is two hundred braças wide at its mouth: there are pantanaes on both sides, and the water is covered with accapi, a floating weed. which must be cut away with hooks or hatchets, before any boat larger than a fishing canoe can pass. The navigation also is much impeded by trees which fall into the river, being undermined by the stream, or loosened by the inundations. In three days more they reached the port of Pescaria, having been nine kalendar months upon the voyage. The voyage down may be performed in forty-four days.

Voyage. MS.

Intercourse between Para and Mato Grosso.

Corografia Brazilica. 2. 262.

From that time the navigation between Mato Grosso and Para was frequented, notwithstanding the length, and difficulty, and danger of the way. It was found that Mato Grosso could be supplied at a cheaper rate with European goods from Para, than from the Rio, and that the voyage was far less perilous than that from S. Paulo, where two such enemies as the Guaycurus and the Payaguas infested the way. Other lines have been proposed instead of the Guapore and Madeira: .. by the Rio das Mortes, or the Araguay, into the Tocantins; .. or by the Xingu, which is the clearest of all those rivers that flow into the Orellana, and in magnitude little inferior to the Madeira; .. or by a course taken by Joam de Sousa e Azevedo, a man famous in Brazil for his discoveries. Two years before the expedition from Para, he embarked upon the Cuyaba and d scended it into the Paraguay, ascended the Paraguay to the mouth of the Sipotuba (upon which the only bearded tribe of Indians in these

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CHAP. XXXVII. 1742.

parts is found), and navigated that river up to its sources: he then transported his canoes to the Sumidor, which in English might be rendered the Mole, because it performs part of its way underground. The Sumidor carried him into the Arinos, the Arinos into the Tapajos; and by the same route he returned to Mato Grosso, with a cargo of goods in his canoes. But upon the Tapajos the impediments of falls and rapids, though not insuperable, are greater than on the Madeira; and therefore the route by the latter river is preferred, though it is longer by two hundred leagues. Boats carrying from one to two thousand arrobas can perform the voyage to Villa Bella, whereas neither the Xingu nor the Tapajos, in parts of their course, afford draught for such burden. But either of these latter rivers would in time of war have the advantage of being perfectly secure from the Spaniards.

Bento da Fonseca, in a letter prefixed to Berredo's Annaes do Maranham.

Almeida Serra. Patriota. T 2. No. 1. 50—56.

Drought in Mato Grosso.

Sept. 24, 1744.

Mato Grosso and Cuyaba were now rapidly increasing in population and prosperity, notwithstanding a drought which is said to have lasted from 1744 to 1749, and to have been so excessive that the woods took fire, and the atmosphere on every side was filled with clouds of smoke. A great mortality ensued; and to add to the dismay of the people, at mid-day and under a bright sun, a sound like thunder was heard beneath their feet, and this was immediately followed by several shocks of an earthquake. Two years after this alarm, the great convulsion took place by which Lima was overthrown; and that shock, which produced such frightful effects along the coast of Peru, was distinctly felt in the centre of the South American continent. But Brazil as yet had suffered nothing from these visitations, which had been so peculiarly fatal in the mother country. The effects of the drought soon disappeared when the seasons resumed their ordinary course: the fountains which had been dried up, burst forth again; the vegetation speedily recovered;

[page] 361

CHAP. XXXVII.

diseases ceased as soon as the prevailing cause was removed; and the places of the dead were presently supplied by new adventurers. In one year more than fifteen hundred persons passed from Goyaz to Mato Grosso, with droves of cattle and horses, .. though twenty years before that time, there had neither been horse, nor cattle, nor Portugueze, in either of those countries. Great distress had at first been experienced for want of salt: it is recorded, that one Paulista sold a ²⁰ handful to another for a pound of gold. This it was which made Manoel Felix and his companions notice the salt earth upon the Guapore as a hopeful indication. But about the time of his voyage, a salt lake was discovered near the river Jauru; .. a discovery of more importance to the well being of the people, than that of the gold and diamonds, which had drawn them into this country. A certain Almeida was the first person who profited by it; and his name is preserved there in consequence. Two years before the expedition from Para, a surgeon from Mato Grosso carried a venture of this salt to Exaltacion, having understood, probably by means of the Indians, that the Mission was greatly in want of it. He was well received there, exchanged the salt to great advantage for dry goods, wax, and calico, and formed a sort of partnership with the Missionary, who gave him a list of the things which they wanted, and wished the exchange to be carried on at S. Rosa: but the Governor of S. Cruz interfered, and prevented the continuance of this traffic.

Corografia Brazilica. t. 261.

Discovery of salt.

Manoel Felix de Lima. MS.

Almeida Serra. Patriota. T. 2. No. 2. 52.

Voyage up the Madeira. MS.

20 A small quantity finely sifted was made to suffice for curing a whole pig. They cut slices in the carcase, and carefully inserted it; then smoked the meat with a plant called the aroeira, which is thought to possess an antiseptic quality. (At this time, when they lay fish upon the moquim to dry it, it is upon the boughs of this plant; and meat is packed upon it.) Both the colour and taste of bacon thus cured were good, and it would keep for many months.

VOL. III. 3 A

[page] 362

CHAP. XXXVII.

Progress of the Portugueze from Para.

The Portugueze meantime had not been less active in extending their settlements from Para, in other directions, up the rivers. If indeed it be considered how small a slip of land constitutes the kingdom of Portugal, .. small as it is, how inadequately that land is peopled, .. and that Portugal, partly for bigotry, partly for suspicion, and partly because of that pride which predominates in its national character, derived no assistance for her colonies from the redundant population and activity of other nations, .. the Brazilians will perhaps be found to have made a greater and more rapid progress, in proportion to their means, than had ever been made by the colonists of any other nation; .. so ignorantly and so falsely have the Portugueze, and more especially the American Portugueze, been accused of a listless and spiritless inactivity. They had established themselves so far up the Orellana, as to occasion many disputes with Spain concerning the boundary, and some far-sighted apprehensions for the security of Peru. They had made their way up the Rio Negro, and from thence by a chain of rivers and lakes, till they ascertained the extraordinary fact of a communication between the Orellana ²¹ and Orinoco, by reaching in their canoes the Spanish Missions.

21 This was thought so contrary to all usual experience of the course of waters, that it scarcely obtained belief in Europe, till in our own days all doubt was removed by the testimony of Humboldt, from whose authority there could be no appeal. The doubt ought not to have existed; for the fact had been stated upon competent authority by the Jesuit F. Bento da Fonseca, in the year 1749, in a letter prefixed to Berredo's Annaes do Maranham. Condamine also obtained the same information at the Missions on the Orellana. Gumilla (T. 1, c. 2.) argues at length to disprove it: he was a man of weak judgement, and reasoned only upon what he had seen of the one river, without recollecting that he knew nothing of the other, .. that even upon his own side of the country, his observations had been limited, .. and that one man's ignorance can weigh nothing against the knowledge of another. He lived to be undeceived: for Condamine tells us, that his letters to the Portugueze Commander and Chaplain on the Negro, went by the very communication, the existence of which he had denied.

[page] 363

CHAP. XXXVII.

Course of savage emigration from South to North.

Condamine. 86.

P. Lombard. Lett. Edifiantes. T. 7. 334.

Vieyra. Hist. do Euturo, § 280.

At this time, there was not one hostile tribe upon the ²² banks of the Orellana, along the whole of its course: all had either submitted to the Missionaries, or retired into the interior, from their indefatigable pursuers. They, who being weary of the monotonous life which they led in the Aldeas, or of the labour which was exacted from them, returned to their former habits, did not feel themselves secure till they had retreated far into the country. Many did not rest till they came upon the French territory of Guiana, where they received every encouragement to settle: and it is to the credit of the Portugueze Missionaries, that the French Jesuits found them well instructed in the principles of their faith. The course of migration which the natives took in flying from the Portugueze, seems generally to have been from South to North. The Tupi tribes from Pernambuco fell back upon Maranham. The race of warlike women, for whose existence the evidence is too strong and coherent to be lightly disbelieved, had been heard of first in the centre of the continent, lastly as crossing the Orellana toward Guiana. And upon the higher part of the Orellana, Condamine found the lop-eared Indians who had disappeared from the Paraguay.

22 There were however some places, Condamine says, where it would have been dangerous to pass the night on shore. A few years before his voyage, the daughter of a Spanish Governor, who attempted to return to Europe by this course, was surprized on shore by the savages, and murdered. The poor woman had probably chosen to take this route, notwithstanding all the difficulties and privations to which she must inevitably have been exposed, rather than run the risque of falling into the hands of the Buccaneers.

[page] 364

CHAP. XXXVII.

State of Para.

Condamine. 173.

Gerogrufia. Brazilica. 2. 299.

Inoculation introduced.

Condamine. 181.

The City of Belem, or Para, as it is now generally called, bore evident marks of its prosperity. When Condamine arrived there from Quito, the year after the expedition of Manoel Felix, it seemed to him, he says, as if he had been transported to Europe, finding himself in a large town, with regular streets, chearful houses well built with stone, hewn as well as unhewn, and magnificent churches. During the thirty preceding years it had been almost wholly rebuilt, and the old dwellings replaced by larger, more commodious, and more substantial edifices. The climate, which the first settlers had found very injurious, was now so materially improved, by clearing the country and converting what had been close woodland into pasture, that it had become a healthier city than any of the southern capitals. The small pox indeed made great ravages there; it was observed to be more fatal to the newly-reduced Indians who were naked, than to those born among the Portugueze, or long domesticated, and therefore accustomed to clothing. Condamine thought that the disease could not so easily throw itself out through their indurated skin, and that their custom of rubbing themselves with various unctuous substances would obstruct the pores, and increase the difficulty,..a supposition which was strengthened by the fact, that the Negroes, who had no such custom, bore the disease better. About the year 1730, a Carmelite Missionary read of inoculation in a newspaper which reached him at his Mission near Para: half his Indians had died of this frightful malady; he inoculated all the rest, and did not lose one; and the example was followed by one of his brethren on the Rio Negro, with like success. These men deserve statues;..and yet Condamine has not preserved their names.

State of the Aldeas.

The Portugueze Missions upon the Orellana, were in a far more flourishing state than those of the Spaniards upon the same river. This was owing to their communication with Para; for

[page] 365

CHAP. XXXVII.

the Spaniards were not permitted to hold any intercourse with their more active neighbours: Quito therefore was their only market, itself wretchedly supplied with European commodities, and separated from the river settlements by long and mountainous ways. While, therefore, in the Spanish villages the churches, as well as dwellings, were mere hovels, constructed of stakes and reeds, and the people not only destitute of all comforts, but even of the decent conveniencies of life; in the Aldeas the churches and the missionaries' houses were built of masonry; the women wore shifts of Bretagne cloth; the Indians possessed property of their own, not living in community like the Guaranies; .. and as they had chests with locks and keys for the security of their goods, it appears also that they had acquired some of the vices as well as the wants of an advanced society. Knives, needles, and scissars, were found in these Missions, more than two thousand miles up the river, and combs and looking-glasses, .. things which are at once symptoms, and instruments of civilization. The principal article which they gave in exchange was cacao. In the Spanish villages they continued to use the Indian canoe, formed of the trunk of a single tree. The Portugueze converted this into a keel for their boats, built sides to it, which they fastened on with knee-timbers, made a small cabin at the poop, and constructed the helm so as not to interfere with it. Some of these boats were threescore feet in length, seven in width, and about three and a half deep. There were others large enough to require forty rowers. Most of them carried two masts, which were of great use in ascending the river, because easterly winds prevail there from October till May.

Condamine. 88. 89.

All the Aldeas above the Rio Negro were upon the right bank, which lay higher than the opposite shore, and was not subject to the inundation. These were under the Carmelites, as were those also which had been formed upon the Rio Negro. Below

[page] 366

CHAP. XXXVII.

Disputes between the Jesuits and Carmelites. 1751.

Apologia da Companhia. MS. p. 162.

the mouth of the Negro the Missions of the Jesuits began. These Religioners received orders from the Governor, Luiz de Vasconcellos Lobo, to establish two Aldeas above this point, one on the right bank of the Orellana, between the eastern mouth of the Javari and the Carmelite Aldea of S. Pedro; the other at the western mouth of the great river Jupura. The Carmelites were offended, more especially with regard to the settlement on the right bank, which they considered to be within their allotment; and they presented a memorial, stating that they were near the spot, and could execute the Governor's orders more easily than the Jesuits. Their representations were disregarded. Among the savages whom the Jesuits collected at the new establishment were many who had deserted from the Carmelite Missions; and this circumstance aggravated the ill will, which the preference given to a rival Order had naturally excited. The Carmelites reclaimed these persons as stray sheep belonging to their flock and fold; but the Jesuits replied, that by the laws of the Kings of Portugal the Indians were free, and therefore had a full right to chuse their place of residence. Such reasoning was by no means satisfactory to the offended party; and a troop of their Indians, under two white men, were sent by night to lay waste the plantations of the new settlement. It could not be doubted that this injury came from the Carmelites; and one of their number, F. Joam de S. Jeronymo, is accused of having given the orders for it. In return, the Jesuits' people would have set fire to S. Pedro, and put their enemies to death; but the Fathers had sufficient authority to restrain them, and no farther ill consequences ensued.

Unpopularity of the Jesuits.

The scandal however was notorious, and gave occasion for the people of Para to call this affair, the war between the Carmelites and Jesuits. The public odium against this latter body of men, the most active of all the Religious Orders, and in later

[page] 367

CHAP XXXVII.

1734.

Apologia da Companhia. MS.

times far the most meritorious, had been lessened by the edict of Pedro II, which admitted other Religioners to share with them in the administration of the Indians. After that time there were no tumults excited against them in Maranham and Para; but complaints were still made that they were unnecessarily zealous for the liberty of the natives, and consulted their interest rather than the advantage of the Portugueze, to the great detriment of the State. The planters therefore still wished to eject them entirely, and turn over their Aldeas to the more accommodating Orders, with whose conduct they were satisfied. Not a fleet sailed for Lisbon without complaints from the two Senados, and from the inhabitants, that the State was ruined for want of slaves, and that the effect of the Jesuits' overscrupulous religion was, to deprive the people of bread. The Senate of Maranham even sent over a Deputy, to repeat the old accusations. Joam V. was by no means disposed to credit these often confuted calumnies; nevertheless, the Dezembargador, Francisco Duarte dos Santos, was empowered to enquire into the matter. This judge pronounced the charges to be most false; and it was only through the intercession of the Jesuits themselves that the calumniators escaped the punishment which the King gave orders to inflict upon them. No fear, indeed, of obloquy or of odium, seems ever to have deterred the Jesuits in Maranham from faithfully discharging their duty. They perseveringly represented to the Court, that the only remedy for the evils of the State was the total abolition of Indian slavery: .. because of the tyranny of the Portugueze, the Indians, they said, were emigrating in great numbers into the Spanish territories; they were also emigrating toward the possessions of the French; but if slavery were abolished all these tribes would remain within the Portugueze limits, and become the children of the King, .. the term by which the Indians always used to denote submission.

[page] 368

CHAP. XXXVII.

System of the Aldeas.

Apologia. MS.

The system of the Jesuits in Maranham and Para differed essentially from that of their brethren in Paraguay, and in the heart of the continent. In Paraguay they had secured the land to themselves, and were enabled to legislate within the Forbidden District, according to their own notions of Christian polity; and in the Chiquito and Moxo Missions, though they had not adopted the principle of living in community, they were equally unrestrained. But in Maranham, the principle upon which they were compelled to model their institutions was that of rendering the Indians serviceable to the Portugueze settlers. Registers of the Indians in their Aldeas were kept at S. Luiz and at Para, containing the names of all who were capable of service from the age of thirteen to that of fifty. These registers were renewed every two years, and attested upon oath by the respective Missionaries; and from these lists the Governor allotted the poor Indians, who with impudent hypocrisy were called free, for terms of six months, and issued written orders to the Missionary to deliver so many Indians for the service of the Portugueze settler named in the dispatch. During the other half year the Indians might serve if they pleased and there were many who preferred this service to the course of life in the Aldeas, which imposed upon them less labour, but more restraint.

At a proper season the Mayoral, by which Portugueze appellation the chief person of the Aldea was designated, went out with other Indians, to determine what part of the land belonging to the settlement should be cultivated for the ensuing year, .. it being easier to open new soil than to fertilize that from which a crop had been taken. The ground was then apportioned among the Indians, to each according to the number of his family: but the Missionaries had great difficulty in inducing them to cultivate their portions, and were sometimes obliged to use compulsory means. When the produce was gathered in, the master of

[page] 369

CHAP. XXXVII.

every family was compelled to reserve an ample allowance for the whole household; otherwise, with that want of foresight by which savages are characterized, he would sell the whole; and in that case, the Missionaries must either have taken upon themselves the support of these persons, or allowed them in search of subsistence to go into the woods, from whence they would probably never return. Whatever they raised beyond this necessary provision was their own free property, and chapmen enough came to the Aldeas to receive it in exchange for tools and other European commodities: but so little were they supposed capable of transacting a bargain, that a Missionary, or some person by him appointed, was required by law to be present at all their sales. It was a common saying in Para, that an Indian had his heart in the woods and his body in the Aldea. If an Indian fled from his task-work, he usually came to the Aldea by night, and got away his family, and perhaps his kinsmen also. Sometimes it happened that a Missionary awoke in the morning, and found himself the only remaining person in the fold, his whole flock having run wild while he was asleep. Among the Guaranies, absolute power in the Jesuits, directed as it always was, to what was believed to be the interest of the people, produced the most absolute dependence of heart and will; so that the Neophytes often laid down their lives in defence of their teachers, with the zeal and alacrity of willing martyrs. But it was far otherwise here, where the Missionary had no power to protect his people, and was even made the unwilling instrument of consigning them to their task-masters during the term of servitude. When they were upon a river expedition, the boatmen would forsake them upon the first alarm, or the slightest displeasure.

Apologia. MS.

Manner in which the Aldeas were supported.

The Kings of Spain allowed the Jesuits in their colonies an annual salary. This was not done by the Kings of Portugal;

VOL. III. 3 B

[page] 370

CHAP. XXXVII.

and the Colleges in Maranham were too poor to support the expence of the Missions. Every Jesuit in the Aldeas, therefore, was allowed to employ five and twenty Indians, for the same time, and at the same rate of wages, as any other Portugueze, in collecting cacao, sarsaparilha, the indigenous spices, and other wild produce. There was a large canoe in each of their Aldeas for this service, twenty-eight in all. The white man who commanded in each canoe received a fifth of the adventure for his share; the four fifths defrayed the expences of the Mission in the expeditions for reducing Indians, in medicines, which were a considerable cost, and in Church ornaments, .. for the Churches were ambitiously adorned. As yet there was no money in Maranham, and therefore the Jesuits sent home produce to pay for what they wanted from Portugal; and upon this foundation the calumny was raised, which represented them as monopolizing the trade of Maranham and Para. These expeditions were of six months duration. The Carmelite Aldeas were near the cacao country, and so remote from Para and the other Portugueze towns, that few or none of their Indians were called upon for service: they could therefore employ as many of them as they thought proper in collecting produce. The Franciscans sent no canoes from their Missions, but furnished boatmen for one or two barks which were fitted out by their Superiors; and the Capuchins of S. Antonio supplied the Portugueze freely with Indians for such expeditions.

Apologia. MS.

Exemptions from servitude.

According to law, the Indians, when brought from the Sertam, were not obliged to serve the Portugueze during the first two years, that they might have time to be well instructed in the faith, which it was said was the chief motive for reducing them, and also to make their own plantations. The law also allowed the Indians to stipulate, that they should not at any time be required to perform personal service, .. if it was not found possible

[page] 371

CHAP. XXXVII.

to persuade them to settle in the Aldeas upon any other terms. The Goajajaras insisted upon the stipulation, and it seems to have been faithfully observed. But when the Amanagos treated for the same conditions, the Jesuits hesitated at receiving them; because these people were far more numerous, and esteemed for their strength, stature, and comeliness, above any other tribe: the Missionaries therefore apprehended, that the laws would not be strong enough to protect them; and perhaps for that reason, were not sorry that the negociation was broken off in consequence of some wrongs having been offered to these high-spirited savages by the colonists on the Meary.

Apologia. MS.

Intercourse of the Portugueze with the Aldeas.

By the laws of Pedro II, no Portugueze was permitted to dwell in the Aldeas, because of the ill effects which their conduct and their example would produce among the Neophytes. The penalty for a breach of this edict was, banishment for a noble, and stripes for one of inferior rank. Neither might any person go there for the purpose of hiring Indians, unless he were provided with a special license in writing from the Governor: this was never refused; and upon this business the Portugueze frequented the Missions, and paid half the stipulated wages in advance. So far, indeed, were the Jesuits from attempting to establish any system of exclusion here (however much they might have desired it had it been practicable), that their houses served as inns, where the Portugueze upon their expeditions were hospitably and gratuitously entertained. The inhabitants of the nearest plantations used to attend mass in the Aldeas; and the Jesuits boasted that their Indians, of both sexes, were as well dressed on such occasions as these white neighbours. They regularly prepared clothing for as many as they expected to collect in the interior; and it was not one of the least diffi-

[page] 372

CHAP. XXXVII.

culties in their negociations with the Indians, to make them consent to wear it. The same regard to decency was not always found in the plantations.

Apologia. MS.

Prevalence of the Tupi language.

The enemies of the Jesuits reproached them, in Europe, for prohibiting the Portugueze language in their Missions. Malice has seldom been more stupid in its calumnies: for, desirable as it undoubtedly was to introduce an European and cultivated language in place of a barbarous one, it was found much easier to acquire the Tupi, than to communicate the Portugueze to the natives. Traders found the Tupi necessary upon their expeditions; the children learnt it from their Indian nurses, or their Indian mothers; and in the Aldeas, the Indians of various tribes easily acquired the general language, because, however radically different in its vocabulary, the construction and principles were analogous to their own; whereas the Portugueze, in all its characteristics, was entirely foreign to their habits of expression and of thought, and therefore infinitely difficult. The Tupi, for this reason, had so compleatly gained the ascendancy throughout Para, that it was used exclusively in the pulpits.

Humboldt's Travels. English translation, vol. 3. p. 243—8. Corografia Brazilica. 2. 277.

Chain of Missions throughout Brazil and the adjoining countries.

A chain of Missions had now been established in all parts of this great continent. Those of the Spaniards from Quito met those of the Portugueze from Para. The Missions on the Orinoco communicated with those of the Negro and the Orellana. The intercourse between the Moxo and the Madeira settlements was prevented by political considerations, not by distance, or any natural impediments. The Moxo Missions communicated with the Chiquito, the Chiquito with the Reductions in Paraguay, and from Paraguay the indefatigable Jesuits sent their labourers into the Chaco, and among the tribes who possessed the wide plains to the South and West of Buenos Ayres. Had they not been interrupted in their exemplary career, by measures equally

[page] 373

CHAP. XXXVII.

impolitic and iniquitous, it is possible, that ere this they might have compleated the conversion and civilization of all the native tribes; and probable, that they would have saved the Spanish colonies from the immediate horrors and barbarizing consequences of a civil war.

[page 374]

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Effects of the Introduction of European cattle. The Equestrian Tribes.

CHAP. XXXVIII.

A change, meantime, not less remarkable than that which the discovery of the mines had brought about in one part of Brazil, was produced more gradually in other quarters. New animals had been introduced into the country by the first colonists; and new habits of life, both in the Indian and Creole inhabitants, were induced by their prodigious increase.

First cattle introduced in Paraguay.

1556.

Azara. Quadrupedes du Paraguay. 2. 352.

During Yrala's government, Captain Juan de Salazar brought seven cows and one bull from Andalusia to Brazil, and drove them overland, probably by the same track which Cabeza de Vaca had taken, to the Parana, opposite the place where it receives the Mondai. There he constructed a raft for the cattle, and left a certain Gaeta to transport them by water to Asumpcion, while he proceeded to that city by land. The raft was several months upon the voyage; and the man who navigated it received one of the cows for his reward. Gaeta's cow serves, at this day, as a proverbial simile among the Spaniards of Paraguay for any thing of great value: but though this use implies that the payment is now thought to have been ridiculously disproportionate to the service, it had probably a different meaning in

[page] 375

CHAP. XXXVIII.

its origin. When there were only seven cows in the country, nothing in Paraguay could have been so ¹ valuable as one of them.

In the year 1580, the first ² cargo of hides was shipped from

1 Piedra-hita says, that the first cattle which were introduced into the Nuevo Reyno, sold for an excessive price, and these were twenty-five cows con sus toros. (p. 370.) Montoya brought the first cattle into Guayra from Paraguay, about the year 1612, .. an undertaking which the Spaniards thought utterly hopeless, because of the distance, and the nature of the intermediate country.

Lozano. 6. 17. § 17.

2 Azara says, that the second founders of Buenos Ayres carried cattle there in 1580, and that some of these cattle became wild, and multiplied greatly in the country toward the Rio Negro. But the second foundation of Buenos Ayres was in 1546, (vol 1, p. 116); and in the very year of the third foundation, the first cargo of hides was exported. A more remarkable oversight occurs in the same chapter of Azara's Essais sur l'histoire naturelle des Quadrupedes de la Province du Paraguay. He refers the origin of the wild cattle on the North shore of the Plata to some which he supposes to have been left there by the Spaniards from Paraguay, when they were driven away in 1552 from the city of S. Juan Bautista, which they had attempted to found opposite the site of Buenos Ayres: Il est à croire que la hâte et le danger avec lesquels ils s'enfuirent, ne leur permirent pas d'enlever quelques V aches, que sans doute ils avoient, et qu'ils abandonnerent. En P année 1580, cinquante soldats partirent du Paraguay, et fonderent Buenos Ayres; et il est presumable, que parmi eux se trouvoient quelques-uns de ceux qui avoient été à Saint-Jean-Baptiste, ou de leur heretiers ou descendans qui, pour cela, avoient droit aux Troupeaux existans dans les champs de la Cité du meme nom, et qu'ils s'appellèrent Actionnaires, pour se distinguer de ceux qui, ne descendant pas des fondateurs de Saint-Jean-Baptiste, n'avoient point un pareil droit. (T. 2, p. 355.) He forgets that this attempt to establish themselves on the left bank, (perhaps upon the site of Colonia,) was four years, according to his own account, before the first cattle were brought into the country.

Long before this time they must have existed in Brazil: and the wild cattle unto which he alludes are more likely to have proceeded from the Captaincy of S. Vicente, than from Paraguay; on which side, indeed, the Parana and the Uruguay seem to have presented insuperable obstacles to their migration. .. They would not take the water willingly, and are not compelled to do it without loss. Dobrizhoffer observes, (1. 262.) that, when large herds are driven across a river, there are always more bulls drowned than cows.

[page] 376

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 246.

Azara. 1. 101.

Buenos Ayres for Spain; and about thirty years later, not less than a million of cattle, it is said, were driven from the country about S. Fe into Peru, .. so rapidly had they multiplied upon the endless plains of Tucuman and the Plata. Individuals soon numbered their stock by thousands and ten thousands, in a country where grazing farms were as large as an English parish, and the area of a single estate not unfrequently exceeded that of a county. There were many persons who possessed one hundred thousand head; and some of the Reductions had more than half a million, .. a stock not too large, when more than forty beasts were slaughtered every day for the use of the inhabitants; great numbers were stolen, still more carried off by hostile Indians, jaguars, and wild dogs, and a great proportion of the calves miserably destroyed by the fly, which, more than any other plague, may be called the curse of Paraguay. The wild cattle far exceeded in number those who were in this state of semi-domestication. Horses had multiplied with equal rapidity. The great increase of these animals, in a land where none of the same genus had existed before the discovery, altered even the physical features of the country. The bulbous plants and the numerous kinds of aloes (pitas or caraguatas) with which the plains were formerly overspread, disappeared; and in their place the ground was covered with fine pasturage, and with a species of creeping thistle ³ hardy enough to endure the trampling by which the former herbage had been destroyed. The insect as

3 To explain this fact, which is so easily explicable, Azara has recourse to his favourite theory of the creation of new species.

[page] 377

CHAP. XXXVIII.

well as the vegetable world was affected, and the indigenous animals of the country, birds, as well as beasts of prey, acquired new habits.

The natives become beef-eaters.

When the wild cattle spread into the Cordillera of Chili, the Indians of that country discovered them, and drove whole herds across the mountains into their own territory, where they were purchased by the Audience. Other tribes, to improve their means of subsistence, descended into the plains that they might be near this numerous game; and there they allied themselves with the hordes of the Pampas. The war which they carried on upon these innumerable cattle would not have produced any perceptible diminution, had not a far more destructive chase been kept up by the Spaniards of Tucuman and of La Plata, for the sake of the hides. This was so excessive that the animals became scarce, growing wilder as they were continually persecuted. The Indians, who from habit and necessity had become a beef-eating people, were now driven by want to attack the tame cattle in their estancias, or grazing farms; and for this cause they began a predatory war upon the Spaniards, compelling them in their turn to defend their lands and possessions against a hungry and adventurous enemy. The conquerors of America had been as much indebted to their horses as to their fire-arms; and from a foresight of the evils which would arise if the natives should become horsemen, it was forbidden to sell one of these animals to an Indian, on pain of death. The law soon became futile: horses, having once become wild, multiplied so rapidly that they herded together by thousands: the Indians were not slow in availing themselves of the opportunity which was thus afforded them; and when it was once understood that this noble creature was as docile to an Indian as to a Spanish rider, whole tribes became equestrian.

Azara. Quadrupedes. 2. 354.

Herrera. 4. 3. 9.

The Mbayas obtain horses.

Among the most formidable of these tribes were the Mbayas,

VOL. III. 3 C

[page] 378

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Almanach de Lima.

1661.

Dobrizhoffer, 2. 422.

Azara. 2. 100—103.

a name, of which the orthography expresses a mode of labial pronunciation unknown in any European language. Their country in the Chaco afforded them protection when the Spaniards were a bold and enterprizing people: great part of it was swamp, or subject to inundations; and during the dry season, the soil was so parched and cleft by the heat, that none but the natives could traverse it. When the Spaniards had lost that adventurous spirit which led them into the land, and were spending their strength in domestic factions, this nation crossed to the eastern side of the Paraguay, attacked the settlement of S. Maria de la Fe, and killing many of the Guarani inhabitants, compelled the rest to emigrate; then continuing their ravages eastward, they destroyed the Spanish town of Xeres, and established themselves on that side of the river. The Mbayas were the more to be feared, because, contrary to the custom of all the other natives, they made their attacks by night. Under the cover of darkness they attacked the town of Petun, or Ypane, as it was likewise called: they laid their long lances across the ditch by which it was surrounded, and crossed upon them as by a bridge; but perceiving that they were discovered, and that the inhabitants were prepared for defence, they retreated, and carried off with them some horses which they found pasturing on the plain. These were the first horses which came into their possession; .. and the Romans did not profit more wisely by the Carthaginian galley which was driven upon their shores. They learnt the use of the animal, made it their first object to get possession of more, and presently became a nation of horsemen. In the ensuing year they compelled the settlers to desert Ypane, Guaranbire, and Atera; the fugitives removed toward Asumpcion, and the Mbayas were left undisputed masters of the province of Ytati, extending northward from the Jesuy, in latitude 24° 7', to the Lake of Xarayes. Toward the South, they drove the inhabitants from Toba-

[page] 379

ty and commenced a war in that direction, wherein they nearly extirpated the Spaniards from Paraguay: for the Spaniards were neither wary enough to escape their stratagems, nor courageous enough to cope with them in the field, nor swift enough to escape from them in flight. Every where about Asumpcion monumental crosses marked some spot where Christian blood had been shed by these tremendous enemies: and the inhabitants of that city, who never from the hour of its foundation had been masters of the opposite shore, were no longer safe on their own side of the river, and trembled even at their own doors.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 106. Lozano. 5. 23. § 2.

Their mode of fighting.

They used the bow and arrow for hunting and fishing, not in war; their arms being the macana, and a spear of great length (from fifteen to twenty feet), pointed at both ends: it was secured to the wrist by a thong; and thus, when the savage had thrown it, which was often done with such force as to pierce an enemy through and through, he instantly recovered the weapon. They endeavoured in battle to frighten the Spaniards' horses; for which purpose some of them would alight, and with fantastic gesticulations display skins of the jaguar, in hope that the creatures might be rendered ungovernable by their instinctive fear at the sight and scent. If they could break the ranks, or provoke the Spaniards incautiously to expose themselves by firing a volley, they were then sure of compleat victory, .. so dreadful was their assault; and scarcely a man escaped from the rage with which they pursued their advantage. They gave no quarter, carried away the heads of the slain, and preserved the scalps as their proudest spoil. But if the Spaniards at first made some of their steadiest marksmen alight, and could shoot a single Mbaya, the rest would immediately quit the field, provided they were permitted to carry off the body of the dead: if the enemy attempted to harrass them when they were thus employed, or even to seize the horses from which they had alighted,

[page] 380

CHAP. XXXVIII.

they would return with fresh impetuosity to the charge. Like the Arab, the Mbaya was passionately fond of his horse; he would on no account part with it, nor even lend it to another. They rode without any kind of saddle, but with a degree of skill and agility which they who exhibit feats of horsemanship in European theatres have never surpassed. If they were flying before the Spaniards, they never remained a moment in the same posture on the seat: sometimes they were extended upon the horse's back; sometimes at length along his side, and even under the belly, keeping the rein fastened to the great toe. These practices they acquired because they stood in great fear of fire-arms: against matchlocks they were found effectual; and trusting to this security in case of defeat, they learned to meet equal numbers upon equal terms. They had the wisdom generally to keep on the skirts of the woodland, where, being naked and case-hardened, it is said, they could glide through briars which were impervious to their pursuers. More than once they attempted to surprize Santa Fe; and had it not been their custom, when they had gained one advantage in an expedition, to return satisfied with the glory, Azara affirms that there would not at this day have been a single Spaniard in Paraguay, or Portugueze in Cuyaba. He knew the people of Paraguay, but he did not know the Brazilians; and perhaps the Spaniards owed their preservation in some degree to their braver and more adventurous neighbours.

Azara. 2. 100—103. 111—113. Chomé. Lett. Edifiantes. 8. 228.

Alliance between the Guaycurus and Payaguas.

At the time when the Portugueze began to establish themselves in Cuyaba, the Guaycurus, who were the chief branch of the Mbaya nation, had entered into a strict alliance with the Payaguas; and such was their expertness at acquiring any new habits which increased their power, that they became an aquatic, as easily as they had become an equestrian people; and thus made themselves equally formidable upon the water and upon the

[page] 381

CHAP. XXXVIII.

They fall upon the Portugueze. 1725.

Corografia Braz. 1. 252.

land. The weight of this alliance fell upon the Portugueze. Its first effect was the destruction of a flotilla from S. Paulo, of more than twenty canoes and above three hundred persons. The allied natives encountered them on the Paraguay, and two white men and three negroes were all who escaped. The report of the survivors excited great astonishment. So severe a loss had probably never before been sustained from the Indians in any single action since the discovery of Brazil. Formidable as they knew the Payaguas to be, they had never supposed them capable of bringing together such an armament: the alliance, which would have explained the mystery, was not suspected; but of the whole extent of the evil they received severe and repeated proofs. Five years after the first great loss, the Ouvidor, Antonio Alves Peixoto, departed for S. Paulo with the royal fifths, which that year amounted to sixty arrobas (about 80,000 l.) in a fleet of thirty canoes. They had reached the Bahia de Ingaiba, a large bay formed where the Cuyaba joins the Paraguay; and there, as the men were carelessly taking their meal, and suffering the boats to glide with the stream, they were awakened from their security by the dreadful huru of the combined Indians. The Portugueze sold their lives dearly, and it is believed that more than four hundred of the natives perished in the action; but only seventeen of the Portugueze escaped, who got to shore by swimming, and concealed themselves in the woods. The people of Asumpcion, who were then at peace with the Payaguas, derived some profit from this deplorable event; .. part of the gold was carried there, and disposed of as a thing of no value. One of the savages gave six pounds of gold for a pewter plate.

Manoel Felix. MS.

Cor. Braz. 1. 254.

The Portugueze fit out flotillas against them.

The Portugueze were not disposed to sit down tamely and bewail their loss. An expedition of six hundred men, in thirty war-canoes, and with fifty baggage boats, was fitted out to cruise for their enemies and give them battle. They came in sight of a

[page] 382

CHAP. XXXVIII.

1732.

1734.

flotilla at the mouth of the Embotatiu, or Mondego, as the Portugueze have named it, after the favourite river of their poets. The Indians defied them with whoops and gestures, but were too wise to engage an enemy who came to seek an action. Availing themselves therefore of the shape of their canoes, and their skill in managing them, they were presently far out of sight. The Portugueze followed perseveringly, and after many days came upon an Indian fleet suddenly at daybreak: their guns and musquets put them to flight; and pursuing them to one of their villages, called Tavatim, they destroyed all the canoes in the port. After this the flotillas passed safely for two succeeding years; but on the third, one which consisted of fifty canoes was intercepted, and very few of the people escaped. Upon this a more formidable armament was prepared, of thirty war canoes, seventy baggage boats, and two armed balsas. The Lieutenant General Manoel Rodriguez de Carvalho was appointed to the command. After a month's search he descried, just at the dawn of day, some fires in the bottom of a bay; and approaching as secretly as possible, came almost within musquet-shot of the Indians before he was perceived. A great carnage was made among them, and of the wounded and children who were not able to escape into the woods, about three hundred were taken, carried into captivity, and baptized.

Cor. Braz. 1. 256.

1736.

The second year after this surprize, the water-caravan from S. Paulo, though of considerable force, was attacked by superior numbers. The continuance of war with the Portugueze seems to have given the river-savages a feeling of pride and honour, like that of their enemies, and to have made them careless of their own loss so they could win the victory. A battle of several hours ensued. The Portugueze commander, Pedro de Moraes, fell,.. a man distinguished for his courage. Frey Antonio Nascentes also was killed,..a Franciscan, who was known by the appella-

[page] 383

CHAP. XXXVIII.

tion of the Tyger: it may reasonably be inferred, from such a title, that the life and virtues of Frey Tigre, if faithfully recorded, would form as curious a chapter as any which is to be found in the Seraphic Chronicles. In this action a huge Mulatto, by name Manoel Rodriguez, but called Mandu-assu, or Big Manoel, distinguished himself by his uncommon activity and strength. He was in his canoe, with a wife of his own complection, and his slaves: two boats attacked him, and he beat them both off, plying a pole with such force in the intervals while the virago was charging his musquet, that every stroke proved fatal to the savage upon whom it descended. He contributed more than any other individual to the victory which the Portugueze obtained, and was rewarded with a Captain's commission.

Cor. Braz. 1. 257.

The Portugueze seek for peace.

1743.

Treachery of the savages.

But these losses did not dispirit the allied Indians. On one occasion, being disappointed in an attempt to intercept the annual caravan, they ascended the Cuyaba in pursuit of it, and killed some fishermen near the town. This alarmed the people: a meeting of the Senado was called, at which the Ouvidor and the chief persons of the place assisted; and the effect of a council held thus, while their fears were fresh, was a resolution to seek for peace. The alliance of the Guaycurus with the Payaguas was not suspected: they were believed to be friendly to both parties, and it was determined to solicit their mediation. Antonio de Medeiros was sent upon this embassy, with twelve canoes, half which were laden with presents, and with goods to be exchanged for horses with the savages. Medeiros took up his quarters upon an island near one of their villages; the Guaycuru Chief came with his people to the nearest shore; a conference was held, the presents were accepted, the mediation was promised, and it was agreed that on the following day the trade should begin. Unsuspicious of any treachery in these fair appearances, a great number of the Portugueze landed on the

[page] 384

CHAP. XXXVIII.

morrow to transact the exchange: they were incautious enough to go without arms, and they who remained in the boats saw the savages fall upon them: immediately they fired their cannon, and put the murderers to flight; but not before fifty of their comrades had been butchered. Here ended the vain hope of peace. But about this time roads were opened to Bahia and to the Rio; and owing to these communications, and to the intercourse which was soon established with Para, the route of Camapuan was less frequented. They who still used it associated in strong bodies: their canoes were well armed, and manned with picked men; and a convoy usually accompanied them from Cuyaba to the Taquary, where they were met by another. The allied Indians, by this system, were frequently deterred from attacking them; and when they ventured upon battle, suffered severe defeat, or purchased an unimportant success with a heavy loss of lives. Such losses were not repaired among them as they were among the Portugueze: for savage life is always unfavourable to population; and among these savages, a flagitious custom had arisen, which was destroying them more rapidly than pestilence or war.

Cor. Braz. 1. 260—2.

Practice of abortion among the Mbayas and Guaycurus.

This custom, which was not known when the Spaniards entered the country, was, that a woman never reared more than one child: it was not universal among the Mbayas and Guaycurus, but it was very general; for it had become the fashion. Azara once remonstrated with a woman who was then pregnant, upon the wickedness of such a practice. She replied, that an infant was a great incumbrance; that parturition injured a woman's figure, and rendered her less agreeable to the men; and moreover, that abortion was the easier thing of the two. He asked her how it was procured: upon which she coolly made answer, that he should see; then lay down upon her back, and in that posture was beaten by two old women till the effect was produced! It necessa-

[page] 385

CHAP. XXXVIII.

rily happens, that some lose their lives in consequence of the crime; and others, who escape death, contract diseases which render life burthensome. Still it is the fashion; and they adhere to it obstinately. The Spaniards have offered to purchase the childen whom they do not chuse to rear, if they will only suffer them to be born; and they have often endeavoured to induce a pregnant woman, by large gifts, to spare her unborn child: but it is averred that they have never succeeded in any one instance. This practice, in its consequence, has entirely destroyed that part of the Guaycurus, who were for so many years the most formidable enemies of the Spaniards of Asumpcion. When Azara left Paraguay in the year 1801, there remained only one individual of this stock, .. a person remarkable in other respects as well as for being the last survivor of his nation: he was six feet seven inches in stature, beautifully proportioned in all his limbs, and altogether, it is said, one of the finest specimens of the human animal that had ever been seen. Being thus left alone, he had joined the Tobas, and adopted their dress and fashion of painting. But that branch of the Guaycurus with whom the Portugueze of Cuyaba were engaged in war, still exists: among them the women begin to rear their children after they reach the age of thirty; and they are a numerous people.

Azara. 2. 114—116.

Cor. Braz. 1. 282.

Their fashions and habitations.

The average stature of the Mbayas, is said to be five feet eight; they are well proportioned, well made, hale, and ⁴ long-lived.

4 In 1794, a Cacique called Nabidrigui, or Camba, who was six feet two, replied to one who enquired his age, that he did not know how old he was, but that when they began to build the Cathedral at Asumpcion, he was married and father of one child. That Cathedral was built in 1689, .. he must, therefore, certainly have been at least one hundred and twenty years of age. He was half grey, and his sight a little weaker than that of other Indians; but he had neither lost a tooth nor a hair, and went to war like his countrymen. Azara 2. 104.

VOL. III. 3 D

[page] 386

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Azara. 2. 135. Dobrizhoffer. 2. 27. Almeida Serra. Patriota. T. 2. N. 5. 39.

Lozano. 5. 23. § 7.

But they disfigured themselves strangely, by eradicating the hair from the head, as well as from every part of the body; the reason which they assigned for this custom was, that they were not horses to have hairy skins, .. probably therefore it may have arisen since they became an equestrian people. The women of some hordes leave a stripe about an inch wide and an inch high from the forehead to the crown, like a bristled mane, or the ridge of a helmet; in others, like the men, they render the whole head bald. The hordes who wear any clothing, wear it only where it is not required for concealment, and are naked as to all purposes of decency. The Abipones, who are a chaste people, and in all things remarkably observant of decency, say, that the Mbayas resemble dogs in shamelessness; and the reproach is well founded: for jealousy is not known among the men, and the women are the most debauched of all the Indians. This may, doubtless, be partly occasioned by the obvious effects of gregarious domestication; but though many tribes lived in the same manner, there were none who were so thoroughly profligate and shameless. It is curious, that though the men were thus indifferent as to the conduct of their wives, they set some value upon them as their goods, and marked them upon the leg or breast with a hot iron, just as they did their horses. Their habitations were of the rudest kind, and had no other convenience than that of being easily removed. They were formed of mats about nine feet high, extended upon poles, and divided by stakes into three apartments; the middle of which was reserved for the Chief of the horde and his family: in this part all the weapons were deposited at night, and no other implements of any kind, that in case of an attack, all might know where to find arms without embarrassment. Hammocks were not used by them: they slept upon the ground, or sometimes upon a hide, and they covered themselves with a hide when the rain made way through the

[page] 387

CHAP. XXXVIII.

matting above. In the wet season they removed to the woods for shelter.

Their degrees of rank.

The Guaycuru branch of the Mbaya nation had degrees of rank among them, which depended partly upon age, and were curiously distinguished. The first was that of the boys, who were called Nabbidagan, or Blacks, because black was the only colour with which they were allowed to adorn themselves, and a coating of that colour was laid on every morning. Among these people, as indeed among most or perhaps all savages, children paid little respect and no obedience to their parents: but here a custom prevailed which in some degree served, and may perhaps have been designed, to correct those unruly habits which grow up where there is no domestic discipline. The Black, though he was not taught to honour his father and mother, was taught to honour and obey all other adults. They inured themselves to pain, with that proud spirit which is so easily excited in boyhood, and which ripens into courage: to pain indeed they were early accustomed; the first ceremony performed upon a new-born infant was that of boring the ears; .. and they underwent in childhood the severe operation of slitting the under lip to admit the barbote, or mouth-piece. It was a bravado among them to pierce their arms with the sting of the ray; .. children of three or four years would hold out their little arms and intreat others to pierce them, overpaid for the suffering by the delight of being called brave boys. At the age of fourteen the Black was promoted, allowed to paint himself red, and addressed by his elders by the title of Figen, which was a salutation of honour. He now wore a net upon his head, a girdle of horse or of human hair, and bracelets: that upon the left arm was never laid aside; it was a long string of horse-hair wound round and round, and serving various uses. It was a protection against the string of the bow; it formed a sheath or place for carrying their last and

[page] 388

CHAP. XXXVIII.

trusted weapon, the saw of palometa's teeth, with which they decapitated their enemies; and if they spared a prisoner, it served to tie his hands. The third degree, which was that of an approved soldier, could not be taken before the age of twenty, and for this there was a formidable initiation. The aspirant passed the eve of the ceremony in adorning himself; his hair, which hitherto had been allowed to grow, in those hordes where any was left, was sheared to the fashion of the veterans, and matted down with a mixture of wax and oil over the forehead. He painted himself to what pattern he pleased, and with whatever colours; fastened upon his head a sort of red cap or coronet, and had his whole body elaborately ornamented with feathers, and little pieces of wood like quills, from which little balls of feathers were suspended. In this full dress he began before daybreak to beat a sort of drum, .. an earthen vessel with a little water in it, and closely covered, was the instrument; at the same time he began to sing, and thus he continued drumming and singing till about four in the afternoon. Then he called upon the veterans, seven in number, whom he had chosen to officiate, and to each of whom he had given a sharp bone, and a sting of the ray-fish. With these each wounded him four or five times, while he stood without flinching, or betraying the slightest sense of pain. They then wetted his head and his whole body with the blood that ran from these wounds, .. and thus the initiation was compleated.

Lozano. 5. 23. § 4. 11—13.

Female boxing matches.

The women had a ceremony of going round their huts in procession, carrying their husbands' spears, and the scalps, bones, and weapons of the enemies whom they had slain, and celebrating the exploits of their warriors. Afterwards, to show that they in their vocation were not inferior in spirit, they engaged with fists in battle-royal, and did not desist till they had bled plentifully from nose and mouth, nor sometimes till a few teeth had

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

Azara. 2. 115.

Different language for the married and the single.

been lost. The men, who decided their own quarrels always by a boxing-match, looked on, complimented their wives upon the courage which they displayed, and concluded the day by getting drunk, .. a part of the entertainment in which the women did not participate, for they were not allowed to drink fermented liquors. Girls were prohibited from eating meat, or any fish above a certain size; after marriage they were restricted from nothing except beef, monkey, and capibari. A more curious custom than this was connected with marriage. The married and the single spoke different dialects, or forms of language, distinguished partly by the terminations of words, and so far therefore easily acquired; but in part the vocabulary also was different: .. one of the many remarkable facts relating to language which are found in savage life. Azara says that all the South American languages were difficultly to be learnt, and still more difficultly to be spoken, because the natives articulate indistinctly, moving the lips but little, and speaking much in the throat and nose, whereby they produce sounds not to be denoted by any letters of the European alphabet. He knew only one Spaniard who could speak the Mbaya: but this was after the expulsion of the Jesuits, whose unweariable zeal enabled them to overcome all difficulties of this kind. F. Joseph Sanchez Labrador, by whose means a peace was made with this nation about the year 1760, and the Spaniards, more particularly those of Asumpcion, were delivered from the most tremendous enemy with whom they were ever engaged, settled among them, and formed a grammar of their tongue. The Mbaya and Guaycuru dialects were very different from each other; and besides this broad distinction, great varieties, both in the vocabulary and pronunciation, are found in every horde. Such differences are found in the provinces of civilized countries; much more are they to be expected in unwritten tongues, which, because they

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

are unwritten, are more liable to perpetual mutation. They have many words in common with the Mocobis and the Abipones; but from their structure Hervas judged them to be radically different. Dobrizhoffer, who was conversant in all, thought the Mbaya softer than any of its cognate or connected languages.

Azara. 2.5. 2. 106. Hervas. 1. 2. § 31. Dobrizhoffer. 2. 205.

Haughtiness of their nation.

Techo. 38.

Noticias de Paraguay. MSS.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 471.

They were regarded as peculiarly unconvertible, the common difficulty being increased by a notion which they had conceived, that baptism was mortal to all of their nation who received it. This notion, indeed, frequently prevailed among other Indians, because the Missionaries, as a consequence of their own superstition, were eager to baptize all who were at the point of death; and they who regarded it as an act of sorcery and expected to see the patient healed, when they perceived it fail as a remedy, in their disappointment supposed its effects to be fatal. It is also said, that among the Guaycurus, baptism, by reason of their many vices, was seldom performed till they were in the last extremity. Perhaps the haughtiness of the tribe was a stronger obstacle than any superstitious persuasion. They believed that the soul of a Guaycuru, armed with his bow and arrows, made the Land of the Departed tremble, and that the souls of all other people fled at his approach. The Abipones, who despised all other tribes, respected these, and acknowledged their own inferiority; but they attributed it to the greater skill of the Guaycuru conjurors. Their tradition of their own origin is, that in the beginning God created all other nations as numerous as they are at present, and divided the earth among them. Afterwards he created two Mbayas, male and female; and he commissioned the Caracara (Falco Brasiliensis) to tell them, he was very sorry that there was no part of the world left for their portion, and therefore he had only made two of them; but they were to wander about the inheritance of others, make eternal war upon all other people, kill the adult males, and in-

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

crease their own numbers by adopting the women and children. Never, says Azara, were divine precepts more faithfully observed! The Guanas were the only tribe whom they exempted from their universal hostility, and the Guanas purchased this exemption by performing personal services to them as their masters and protectors. The poorest Mbaya had three or four slaves taken in war, who did for him every kind of work except hunting and fishing, for these were lordly pastimes. But this slavery was so easy, and the Mbayas, ferocious as they were in war, were so kind to those whom they had thus adopted, that none of the captives wished to leave their state of servitude; not even Spanish women, it is said, who were adults at the time of their capture, and had even left children in their husbands' house. If however this, as Azara asserts, be generally true, it proves that the women, must have been far from happy in their former state, or that they were devoid of all natural affection, and all principles of duty.

See vol. 2, p. 376.

Azara. 2. 108.

Their funerals.

Romero had collected some of this nation, and baptized the daughter of Pauru, one of their Chiefs, when she was expiring. Now that you have done this after your fashion, said the father, I will bury her after ours. But the Jesuit replied, that she had been made a child of God, and must therefore be buried in the Church; and this being considered as an honour, the Chief consented. An old woman who was very much grieved at perceiving that none of the usual sacrifices were performed upon this occasion, took one of her countrymen aside, and intreated him to knock her on the head, that she might go and serve the Damsel in the Land of the Departed. The Savage performed this request without hesitation, and then the whole horde requested Romero to inter the body with that of the Neophyte. The Jesuit said this was impossible: .. Pauru's daughter was received among the Angels, where she needed no such attendant; and as for the old woman, she was gone to a very different place, and a very

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

different society, among whom she would be punished for her unbelief. He was permitted to act as he pleased; but it required great vigilance to prevent them from stealing the damsel's body, that they might deposit it with the remains of this faithful and voluntary victim.

Noticias de Paraguay. MSS.

Techo 38.

They held, that the souls of evil persons transmigrated into wild beasts, and acquired powers of mischief proportionate to the wickedness of their human disposition. A Jesuit being about to baptize an old sorceress at her death, the people flocked about him, beseeching him not to make her a Christian, for if he should bury her according to the custom in such cases, in the Church, she would turn into a jaguar, and destroy all about her. It was better, they said, to carry her carcase to some remote and solitary place, lest she should do more havoc when dead than she had done while living. They interred the dead with all his weapons, ornaments, and goods of every kind, and slew several of his horses on the grave. If the death happened at some distance from the burial place of the horde, they wrapt the body in a mat, and hung it in a tree for some three months, in which time it became dry as parchment; then they removed it to the cemetery. During the mourning, which was from three to four months, the women and slaves of the deceased abstained from meat, and kept an unbroken silence.

Azara. 2. 117—119.

The Lenguas.

While the Mbayas, not content with infesting Tucuman and possessing the Chaco crossed the river and attacked the Spaniards of Paraguay from the West and North, they were not the only enemies by whom these degenerate people were assailed in that direction. One formidable nation, which in its turn inflicted upon them some of the calamities which their fathers had so unsparingly brought upon the natives of the land, were the Jaadgé, as they called themselves: .. by the Spaniards they were called Lenguas, because of their mouth-piece, which resembled the end

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

Hervas. 1.3. § 33.

Juan Patricio Fernandez. 422.

T. 4. p. 122.

of the tongue, protruded through artificial lips. They possessed the country between the Paraguay and the Pilcomayo, from the twenty second degree to the junction of these great rivers The Chiquitos are said to have considered them as a kindred nation; but no affinity could be traced in their language, either to the Chiquitos, or to any other people, nor did they understand any speech but their own. As they had no kindred with other tribes, so had they no friends or allies among them; they were incessantly at war with all. Neither did they ever seek for Missionaries, which at some time or other was done by every other people, nor ever relax in their hostility against the Spaniards, who were indeed commonly known among all the nations of the Chaco by the name of the Enemies. They were a finely proportioned race, but they disfigured themselves by elongating the ears, as well as by the hideous mouth-bit. It is one of the shallow remarks of the Abbé Raynal, concerning the American Indians, that the manners of all these tribes must have been the same, or distinguished only by shades of difference, which the conquerors would be too dull to discriminate; .. this remark alone would show how little he had read, and how little he had thought on the subject. The most singular custom of the Lenguas related to sickness and death. When any one appeared to be near his end, they dragged him by the legs out of his hut, lest he should die there, and haled him some fifty paces off; made a hole there for the sake of decent cleanliness, laid him on his back, kindled a fire on one side, placed a pot of water on the other, and left him to expire. Nothing more was given him: frequently they came to look at him from a distance, .. not to administer assistance, not to perform any office of human charity, not to express any sense of human sympathy, .. but to see whether he had breathed his last. As soon as that was ascertained, some hired persons, or more usually some old women, wrapt up the body with all that had belonged

VOL. III. 3 E

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to it, dragged it as far as they were able for weariness, then scratched a shallow grave, and heaped the mould over it in haste. The relations mourned for three days, but the name of the deceased was never again pronounced; and because they believed that Death, when he was among them, had learnt the names of all whom he left alive, that he might look for them another time, every one in the tribe took a new name, hoping that when Death returned and did not recognize these appellations, he would proceed farther upon a vain search. These people, who were once among the most formidable nations of the interior, and a sore scourge to the Spaniards, have perished by their own accursed customs. Like the Mbayas, they fell into the practice of rearing only one child in a family; and in the year 1794, fourteen males and eight females were all that remained of the race. Two of these were settled with a Spaniard; the others had joined company with other savages, so that the Lenguas have disappeared from the earth. Thus it is with savages; .. through sin they have originally lapsed into the savage state; and they who reject civilization when it is placed within their reach, if they escape from other agents of destruction, perish by the devices of their own hearts, to which they are abandoned.

Azara. 2. 148—154.

The Calchaquis.

On this side also were the fierce tribes comprehended under the general name of Calchaquis, from the country they inhabited, .. a long valley between mountains, which afforded them safe places of retreat. Their language was a dialect of the Quichua, and their origin has been variously referred to some Peruvians flying from the despotism of the Incas; to those who escaped from Almagro on his miserable expedition into Chili; and to the adherents of the last princes of the Inca blood. Early writers, fond of theory, and looking every where for the lost tribes of Israel, supposed these people to be of Jewish origin, because names were found among them resembling David and Solomon;

[page] 395

CHAP. XXXVIII.

because it was their custom, that a survivor should raise up seed to his deceased brother; and because their garments, which were long enough to reach the ground, were gathered up with a girdle. This garment was made of vicuna wool, and was girt about them with great dexterity, when they wished to have their limbs at full liberty, for labour or for battle. They wore their hair long, and divided into tresses; their arms were covered to the elbow with silver or copper plates, worn on the one as a guard against the bow-string, and on the other for uniformity, or ornament. Wives were dressed in only one colour, maidens in many; and no sexual intercourse was tolerated till the youth had undergone certain religious ceremonies. Other vestiges of a civilization from which they had degraded, were found among them. They had little idols wrought in copper, which they carried about them as their most precious things: and amid the internal disputes in which their strength was consumed, they frequently listened to the mediation of the; women,.. for barbarous as they were, says Techo, they easily granted any thing at the request of those who bore and suckled them. The Sun was the chief object of their worship: they also worshipped Thunder and Lightning, and erected to their honour huts as temples, upon which wands were placed adorned with feathers and sprinkled with vicuna blood. The earthly objects to which a religious reverence was shown were certain trees, which were trimmed with feathers; and the stones which were heaped over the graves of their ancestors. Old feuds were often revived in their cups, and in the frays which ensued it was a whimsical point of honour never to shrink from a blow, nor to ward it off. The bow was the weapon which they then used for striking,.. a clumsy substitute for a club, and therefore perhaps prescribed for such occasions as less dangerous. At their banquets, the Priest consecrated to the Sun the skull of a hind, stuck with arrows, and

[page] 396

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prayed for a good harvest: the person to whom he delivered it was to be master of the next revels. All the friends and kinsmen of a sick man repaired to his hut, and continued there drinking as long as his disease lasted. They planted arrows in the ground round the place where he lay, that Death might be deterred from approaching: they buried with him his dogs, his horses, and his weapons, and abundance of garments which were presented as funeral offerings; and they burnt the house in which he died, as being a place to which Death knew the way, and might be likely to return. They interred him with his eyes open, that he might see his way to the other world. The mourning was continued a whole year, during which the mourners painted themselves black. It was their notion, that death was not in the course of nature, but was always the effect of some malignant interference: .. they were not the only people by whom this extraordinary notion was entertained; and it necessarily produced heart-burnings, enmity, and hatred. Souls, they thought, were converted into stars, which were bright in proportion to the rank of the deceased, and to the brave actions which they had performed. These people behaved with the utmost intrepidity against the Spaniards, whom they detested with their whole hearts: the women, who in other wars were so often the ministers of peace, would, if they saw their husbands give way before these execrated enemies, drive them back to the battle with fire-brands; and rather than be made prisoners, they would rush upon the swords of their oppressors, or throw themselves from the precipices. The invaders had formed their country into a province, which they called by the name of Nueva Inglaterra, Philip II having just at that time married the bloody Mary: and in farther honour of the marriage, one of the four cities which they founded was called London. These settlements were all destroyed, and the Calchaquis long baffled

[page] 397

CHAP. XXXVIII.

both the power of the Spaniards and the zeal of the Jesuits. At length a great and persevering effort was made from Tucuman, with the assistance of a Guarani force from the Reductions, and they were subdued. The small pox followed, and compleated their destruction. The miserable remnant of the tribe was transported to the river Carcarañal; and when the Jesuits were expelled, only twenty were left. But the country from whence they were driven was speedily occupied by a more formidable race of ruder savages, the Mocobis, Tobas, and Abipones, .. kindred equestrian tribes. They themselves, perhaps, have now nearly disappeared from the land which was the scene of their exploits; but the Abipones have been in one thing fortunate above all other savages, .. for the history of their manners and fortunes by Martin Dobrizhoffer, a German Jesuit, who devoted the prime of his years to the task of converting them, and in old age, after the extinction of his Order, found consolation in recording the knowledge which he had so painfully acquired, and the labours which had so miserably been frustrated, is of all books relating to savage life the most curious, and in every respect the most interesting.

The Mocobis, Tobas, and Abipones.

Jolis. 428. Hervas. 1.4. § 62. Lozano. 3. 17. § 5—8. Dobrizhoffer.3. 12.

Language of the Abipones.

The dialects of these three tribes, are as much alike as Spanish and Portugueze, which differ less in their vocabulary, and more in their grammar, than Scotch and English. Their articulation partook so much of singing, that Dobrizhoffer says, the pronunciation of a syllable, unless it were taught orally, might best be expressed to a stranger by the help of musical notation. The language ⁵ is at once singularly rude and complicated. If they

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 165.

5 Barzena used to say, that they who studied the languages of the Rio Bermejo would think those of Peru only an A B C in comparison with them, even though the difficult Pesquin were included among the Peruvian, .. pues para congeminar un verbo con otro, era forzoso saber mas que las concordancias de Laurencio Valla. (Lozano, 1, 20. 5.) According to Lozano, Barzena, among his other labours of this kind, composed a grammar, a catechism, and certain sermons upon the principal mysteries of the faith, in the Abipone tongue. But Dobrizhoffer, who is better authority, affirms that Joseph Briguiel, a German Jesuit, formed the first vocabulary and grammar. Dobrizhoffer studied under him two years, and made a vocabulary himself, upon the plan of the well known Janna Linguarum of Comenius, the Moravian Bishop. (2. 197.)

Dobrizhoffer gives some specimens of the copiousness and difficulty of the language: Lalaglet simply means a wound; if it be inflicted by the teeth either of man or beast, then it is. Naagek; by a knife or sword, Nicharhek; by a lance, Noarek; by an arrow, Nainek. Roelakitapegeta, they are fighting; Nahamreta, they are fighting with spears; Natenetapegeta, they are fighting with arrows; Nemarketapegeta, they are fighting with fists; Ycherikaleretaa, they are fighting only with words; Nejerenta, two women are fighting about their husbands.

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have any simple numerals, (which is doubtful) they do not get beyond two: for three, they say two and one; four, is the emu's foot, which has four claws; for five, they name a certain skin which has five spots; from thence up to the score, the fingers and toes supply the want of words; any number beyond these natural digits, is many, or innumerable. Instead of enquiring how many horses were brought home, the question would be, What space did the troop occupy? and the reply, This open place, .. from yonder trees to the river; .. or some such reference to visible objects. The Moon serves to denote a month; the blossom of the carob-tree, a year; an egg is called the hen's work. They have neither the personal nor the possessive verb. This is language in its rudest state: yet their synonimes are said to have been numerous, their distinctive words remarkably nice, and they delighted in diminutives of endearment. It was a point of pride among them, not to adopt any word from the Spaniards, as the Guaranies did: therefore they invented new words to

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 172—3.

Do. 2. 183—4.

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

denote new objects, or expressed them by some circumlocution. Thus, they called a Church by the apt name of an Image House: for a musquet, with less propriety, they used the same appellation as for a bow; and they called gunpowder the flour of the musquet. The word Loakal signified an image, a shadow, the echo, and the soul.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 191.

Its capricious mutations.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 199. 200. 477.

Do. 3. 395.

This language, rude as it was, was rendered still more so, by a custom which subjected it to continual alteration. Such was the desire of these tribes to rid themselves as far as possible of all remembrance of the dead, that when any person died, every word in the language which bore any relation to his name was abolished; the old women assembled to invent others in their stead; and new words circulated as fast through every horde in the nation, and were adopted as solicitously, as new fashions in England. Hence their language was in the most barbarous imaginable state; for these new words were formed by mere caprice, without rule, reason, or analogy; and as proper names there, as every where, were derived from natural objects, it was the substantives, .. the roots of speech, .. the main beams and foundations of language, which were thus altered. During one year the word for the jaguar was changed three times. Another cause of difficulty was, that the nobles and the plebeians, that is to say, they who were not of pure Abipone blood, used different forms of speech, by which they were as much distinguished as the different ranks in Europe are by their dress. And this was not, as might be supposed, because the lower classes spake a corrupt dialect, for both spake with equal correctness; but there was an aristocratic and a plebeian syntax. It is worthy of remark, that neither the Abipones nor the Guaranies have any word in their language to express thanks; and Dobrizhoffer suspects that the same deficiency exists among all other tribes. If any thing be given them when they ask for it (and they are

[page] 400

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invincible askers), This is it, is the reply: or if they mean ot be particularly civil, the phrase is, How useful it will be to me.

Their worship and their jugglers.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 76—8.

Do. 2. 79. 80. 87.

The object of their worship was called Aharaigichi, or Keebet; the Jesuits supposed this to be the Devil; but the Abipones did not consider him as a malignant being, nor was their adoration founded upon fear. They called him their Grandfather, and fancied that he was to be seen in the Pleiades: when those stars disappeared they believed that he was sick, and were alarmed lest he should die; therefore, the re-appearance was a cause of great exultation, and the people went out with sound of pipe and horn, and cries of joy, to congratulate him on his recovery and return, .. an event which they never failed to celebrate by a drinking feast. While this was going on, a female juggler danced round them, shaking a maraca, with which she rubbed the legs of the warriors, telling them in their Grandfather's name it would make them swift in the chace and in the pursuit. Keebet was the name of the juggler here, as well as of the divinity. These rogues (like others of the same fraternity in Africa) pretended to have the power of transforming themselves into jaguars; and when one of them threatened to make this metamorphosis, the whole horde was in consternation. The boldest hunters of the jaguar would then take flight; they were not afraid, they said, of a beast which they could see and attack, but they dared not stand in the way of an invisible one. There were more female than male Keebets. When an expedition was to be undertaken, they were desired to consult their Grandfather; and accordingly they assembled in a tent for that purpose. One of the oldest witches presided, beating two huge drums, which were in fourths, and singing to this dismal music in a deep doleful tone; the rest stood round and howled in concert, and jumped incessantly and tossed about their arms, some shaking the maraca, others beating a tambour in a higher key. At day-break they issued

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out and gave their responses. Different parties were employed in different tents upon the same service: it often happened that their answers did not agree; and then they fought about it like wild beasts, literally with tooth and nail. To ascertain the point, one of them was then ordered to raise the spirit of a dead person. A crowd assembled in the tent, where the witch retired behind a skin which was extended like a curtain. After various incantations and commands, she pretended that the Spirit was come in obedience to her adjurations; questions were then asked in one voice and answered in another, and no one doubted but that all this was real.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 83.

Their superstition and longevity.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 86. 92—3.

Do. 2. 51—2.

Do. 2.45.

Every natural calamity, or portentous appearance, was attributed to witchcraft, .. storms and meteors, rain or drought, sickness and death. Like the Calchaquis, they would not believe that death was in the order of nature, but maintained, that were it not for war and witchcraft, .. if they could get rid of all witches, and of the Spaniards with their fire-arms, .. they should live for ever. It would appear almost incredible that such an opinion should have prevailed among any people however ignorant and superstitious, if we did not know that a doctrine not very dissimilar, and equally extravagant, has been seriously maintained in our own days, by Philosophers, as they called themselves, of the newest school. The extreme longevity of the Abipones, and the vigour of their old age, may have occasioned the notion, and must certainly have strengthened it. A man who only attained to fourscore was bewailed as having been cut off in the flower of his years. The women, as is usual every where, were generally the longer lived: they frequently outlived a century. The absence of all anxiety, and the frequent change of air, were two causes of this length of life: early chastity was not less certainly a third, .. for they were eminently a chaste people. The men seldom married before the age of thirty, nor the

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[page] 402

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women before twenty. It was observed also, that the equestrian tribes were strikingly distinguished from all others by their greater health, strength, stature, and longevity.

Customs at marriage.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 217.

Infanticide and abortion.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 54.

Lozano. 1. 18. § 25.

A wife was to be purchased from her parents. It happened not unfrequently, that the maiden would refuse the husband who bargained for her, and run away. When the marriage was accepted, the ceremony was not without some beauty. Eight maidens carried a cloak of their finest texture, like a canopy, over the bride, while she walked to her husband's tent silently, with downcast looks; having been lovingly received there, she returned in the same manner to her parents, and carried the few utensils which were required for their rude establishment, and the light loom in a second and third procession; after which she went back to her paternal tent, .. for mothers would not be separated from their daughters, till a child was born, or till they were assured that the husband would treat his wife kindly: then they had their separate household; but till then the son-in-law was part of his wife's family. The term of lactation was three years: and this gave rise to the frequent crime of preventing the birth, or murdering the babe, .. for during this time no connubial intercourse was permitted, and women had recourse to these abominable means lest their husbands should put them away, and take other wives. A practice which tended so rapidly and surely to destroy the wicked people among whom it prevailed, could not possibly have been of long continuance. At the end of the sixteenth century the Abipones were a populous nation. The first Jesuits who visited them, found more than eight thousand inhabitants in one of their settlements. They had not at that time obtained the horse, and their habits were less migratory. A century and half afterwards, the whole nation did not exceed five thousand persons: and to this deadly custom the depopulation was traced; .. for those who had been converted

[page] 403

CHAP. XXXVIII.

were increasing in numbers, notwithstanding the unfavourable effect which was always produced upon the health of new converts, by the great and sudden change in their habits of life. Contrary to the practice of most nations among whom infanticide is suffered, girls were preserved here rather than boys, because the suitor always purchased his wife, and because the condition of women was not unhappy among the Abipones. A boy's earliest plaything was the bow and arrow: with this he learnt to shoot flies, insects, and small birds, and thus became an expert archer. They also accustomed themselves from childhood to endure pain, and were proud to show the scars of voluntary wounds.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 106—9.

Do. 2. 107.

Do. 2. 56. 48.

Their dread of death.

Few nations ever regarded death with so much horror, .. resembling the Lenguas both in this, and in the unfeeling treatment of the sufferers. The moment it was thought that any one was about to die, the old women drove out all other persons from the tent, lest the spectacle of death might make them afraid of it in battle. All the famous witches flocked to the patient, rattled their maracas, and lamented over him, while one of the party beat a huge drum close at his head. They covered him with a hide, and from time to time one of these wretches lifted it to see if he were dead: if there were any signs of life, she wetted the face with cold water, then covered it to hide the sight of dissolution, and stifle its sounds. As soon as the sufferer had expired the matrons of the horde assembled, and went in procession, striking maracas, and beating certain earthen drums covered with doe-skin. The first business was a strange and horrible act of superstition, to revenge the deceased upon the person who had occasioned his death by witchcraft: for this purpose they cut out the heart and tongue of the corpse, boiled them, and gave them to the dogs, .. in full faith that if this were done it would infallibly destroy the guilty person: nor was this

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strange fancy in the slightest degree shaken by the plain and obvious fact, that no person was ever known to be in any way affected by the ceremony. After this had been performed they drest the body, swathed it in a skin which they fastened round with straps, and bound up the head. Each family had its own place of burial in the woods, and at some distance from their usual haunts,.. out of sight, that it might be out of mind. The grave was not deep, lest the earth should lie heavy upon the dead; and it was covered with thorns as a defence against the jaguars, who prefer carrion to any other food. What became of the Loakal they knew not, but they feared it, and believed that the echo was its voice, till Dobrizhoffer relieved them from this imagination, by explaining the echo so as to make them perfectly comprehend its nature. An earthen pot was placed upon the grave, that if the Spirit should want water, a vessel might be at hand: they suspended a garment from the nearest tree, that he might find clothing if he should rise; and fixed his spear in the ground beside, that it might be ready either for hunting or for war. They killed at the grave the horses, dogs, and domestic animals of any kind which had belonged to the deceased; they burnt all his instruments; they pulled down his dwelling, and erased all vestiges of it, that nothing might be left to remind them of the departed. It was a crime ever to utter his name; if it were necessary to allude to him, they called him the man who now is not.

Funeral customs.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 289—296.

Their mourning.

Like the Greeks of the Homeric age, they held it the greatest of all evils to be unburied; and therefore they delighted in making flutes and trumpets of their enemies' bones, and drinkingcups of their skulls. Hence the Greeks themselves were not more solicitous about bringing off the bodies of their dead. They were desirous also of being interred among their ancestors: for this reason, if any person died far away, they dissected the

[page] 405

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 213. 297.

Do. 3. 149. 336.

Do. 305—7.

bones, brought them home in a skin, and buried them with the accustomed forms: and knowing the way to the family place of burial by marks cut in the trees, and by unerring tradition, however distant it might be, they would with infinite labour bear the bones of their kinsmen and lay them in the same sacred spot. The thought of a dungeon was not so dreadful to them, as that of interment in a church, or church-yard: they made this a main objection to the religion of the Missionaries; and many would not submit to be baptized, unless it were promised that they should be buried in the woods under the open sky. A lamentation for the dead was made during nine days, by all the matrons of the horde: .. they had their faces spotted, their long hair loose, the breast and shoulders bare, and a skin hanging at the back; and in this trim they went through the public place, one by one, leaping like frogs, and throwing out their arms as they leaped: some rattled the maraca, and after three or four of these performers came one with a tambour. Suddenly they ceased their wailing, and all at once screamed to the highest pitch of the human voice, .. a horrid yell, which was intended to denounce vengeance upon the author of the death. The evening rites were held within a hut, and none but bidden guests were allowed to be present: the presiding Keebet then directed the ceremony, which consisted in mournfully howling to the clatter of maracas, and the sound of two immense drums, which she beat as leader of the band. On the ninth night the witch exhorted them to lay aside sorrow, and be merry once more; and then a chearful tone was set up. Only the women were concerned in these rites; the men, accustomed to such outcries from their infancy, slept through them, like ⁶ jackdaws in

6 Scilicet ut columbæ turrium incolæ æris campani tinnitu quantocunque nil terrentur, sic Abipones a pueris fæminarum planctibus assueti ad nocturnos strepitus dudum obsurduere. In Dobrizhoffer's country, therefore, it appears that pigeons build in the church towers, as jackdaws in ours.

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a belfrey. If the person for whom this mourning was made, died at a distance, the bones were kept in a tent during the nine days. When the remains of seven warriors whom the Spaniards had slain, were brought home, the bones were put together, and the skeletons dressed and fixed upright, with a hat upon each skull, while the customary lamentation lasted. The widow, during her widowhood, wore a hood of black and red, shaped like that of the Capuchines, and covering both the shoulders and breast: her hair was shorn. A widower also was shorn, and received from the presiding Keebet a net for his head, which he wore till the hair had grown again. It is remarkable, that although so many precautions were enacted to prevent the recollection of the dead, yet whenever the thought of a deceased friend came upon a woman, she was allowed to unbind her hair, and collect her acquaintance to assist her in making a lamentation. On these occasions they ran about the public place, filling the air with their cries; and few nights passed without some such disturbance, for the women seemed to delight in exercising their privilege.

Dobrizhoffer. 3. 312.

Do. 302.

Do. 308.

Mode of travelling.

When an Abipone was about to mount his horse, he held the reins in his right hand, leant with the left on his long spear, and vaulted into the seat. An iron bit was considered a valuable possession; its place was commonly supplied by horn: the saddle was of crude cow's hide stuffed with rushes: stirrups were seldom used, and spurs never; and though the rider carried a whip of thongs, he excited the horse rather by the sound than the smart. The women rode astride; and this practice is

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said to have made them subject to long, difficult, and dangerous parturition. When they travelled the wife carried her husband's bow and quiver, her loom, her stock of cotton, all the chattels of the tent, and the mats which were to compose the tent when it should again be set up: she had also their leathern boat, and her child and her puppies swinging on each side in leathern bags. Besides these things she carried an instrument of all work, in shape resembling a macana, which served for digging roots, striking down fruit from the trees, breaking boughs for fuel, and if need were, for braining an enemy upon the way. All this, says Dobrizhoffer, though it might seem a load for a camel, is not sufficient; but two or three women or girls will get upon the same beast, not for want of horses, all having plenty, but for the pleasure of gossipping; if the animal resented this intolerable cargo and kicked them off, they were used to falling, and presently mounted again amid the laughter of their companions. Thus they travelled, carrying with them dogs out of number, who hunted as they went. If no game could be found, they set fire to the grass, and thus forced the lurking animals to start. In default of any other food, the plains abounded with rabbits. At night they pitched their stakes, and covered them with matting, which was doubled, or trebled, as the wind and weather might require: a trench was dug along the side of the tent, to provide against sudden showers; and they slept upon the ground. The horses were turned loose, and with them a mare carrying a bell, at the sound of which, should they be scattered by wild beasts during the night, they return when the danger is over: a few were shackled, to prevent their straying far from the encampment, in case they should be needed upon any sudden alarm.

Dobrizhoffer. 3. 120.

Do. 125—7.

Their weapons

Their spears were planted at night in the ground before the tent: the number of spears indicated the number of warriors

[page] 408

CHAP. XXXVIII.

within; and by making a show of weapons in this manner, the Missionary who laboured with most success among them often deluded his enemies, and saved himself from an attack. These weapons were from fifteen to twenty feet long, made of a wood peculiar to their country, which they called netergo; it is exceedingly hard, and of a purple colour when newly cut: they straightened the shaft by means of fire, and pointed it at both ends, formerly with wood or bone, but in later times with iron, which they kept beautifully polished, and greased it before battle that it might slide into the body the more glibly. Their bows were of the same wood, straight as a staff when unstrung, and tall as the archer himself; the strings were made of fox-gut, or of the fibres of a certain palm; the arrows were headed with wood, or bone, or iron; the iron were the least dangerous, the bone the most so, because they always broke in the wound: before they went to battle they selected the best ⁷ arrows for especial service. They used also the three-balled thong, which was found so formidable a weapon by the first Spaniards on the shores of the Plata. They had no shields, though in their own wars some of them wore a leathern cuirass which was proof against arrows, but not against the spear or the musquet: this armour impeded their agility so much, that many did not chuse to be encumbered with it. Sometimes the head of a warrior was ornamented with the wing of a large bird; all, indeed, except those of the most acknowledged courage, strove to make themselves terrible in appearance; .. for this purpose one warrior wore upon his head the skin of a stag with the horns, and another put the beak

7 Dobrizhoffer observes that a similar practice is alluded to by the prophet Isaiah, xlix. 2. posuit me sicut sagittam electam; in pharetrâ suâ abscondit me: this appears a more probable interpretation than that of our version.

[page] 409

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of a toucan over his nose. They used all kinds of noisy instruments in war; the most sonorous was a trumpet made of an armadillo's tail fastened to the end of a reed. In battle they were incessantly in motion; for it was absurd, they said, to stand still, like the Spaniards, and be shot at. The best security against them therefore was to present a musquet, but never to discharge it; as long as they supposed it to be loaded the bearer was perfectly safe from any attack at close quarters, for they were not so ambitious of victory as they were solicitous to escape death.

Dobrizhoffer. 397—431.

Distinctions of rank.

Do. 3. 140.

The Chiefs were called Hocheri; and when any person was admitted to this rank, he took a new name, which always ended in in, that termination being proper to the nobles. Birth made a distinction, but was not of itself a sufficient qualification. They who were elected, being noble by descent also, were called Nelareykate, a word which they used for captain: they who were chosen, leaders for their courage and conduct, without any hereditary claim, were denominated Yapochi, which signifies courageous. The probation was not severe; something was put upon the aspirant's tongue, and he fasted and kept silence for three days, during which time the women came to the door of his tent, and lamented over his ancestors. On the fourth morning, being splendidly apparelled after their fashion, he was set upon a horse which was adorned with plumes, and burthened with bells and trappings: he then galloped as fast as he could in a northerly direction, with a long train following him, and presently galloped back: the old Keebet who was mistress of the ceremonies received him as he alighted; the noblest of the women took his spear; the rest surrounded him and greeted him by a sound made with the lips in sharp percussion, and the mistress addressed him in a short harangue. He galloped afterwards to the South and East and West in the same manner,

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and the same forms were repeated. The inauguration was then performed; .. first the Keebet sheared and shaved a line from the forehead to the occiput, three fingers broad; secondly, she harangued him upon the honour of the Hocheri order; and lastly, proclaimed his new and noble name. The ceremony was concluded by a drinking feast. There were Hocheri women also, whose names ended in en, and it was not lawful for any person to assume these noble terminations. But the dialect which the nobles used, might be sported with by others without offence. Some of the most distinguished warriors refused this rank, because they did not chuse to change the fashion of their mother tongue. No Abipone ever pronounced his own name; and what is more remarkable, many women never had any name.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 494.—8.

Ceremonies at the birth of a chief.

When a son was born to the Chief, all the young maidens of the horde went out with palm branches, and beat the roof and sides of the hut in which the boy lay, in token that he was to be the scourge of their enemies. A sort of Saturnalia for the women ensued: the stoutest of the sex was decorated with emu plumes, and armed with a leathern club; all the girls followed her: she went into every hut and beat the men out, and the girls pursued them, lashing them with palm branches. During eight days there was wrestling and dancing by the children; but the boys and girls performed separately, and in different places, .. for the Abipones never permitted any thing which could lead to improper familiarity between the sexes. The championness also wrestled with the strongest competitor who could be found among her fellows: but the men sate drinking the while, and did not condescend to behold such sports.

Do. 2. 234.

Industry of the women.

The women were as impatient of idleness as the men were of labour. They sheared the sheep, spun the wool, and wove it; the loom was made of reeds and little pieces of wood, so light

[page] 411

CHAP. XXXVIII.

and small that it might easily be removed on horseback They were skilful weavers, and produced patterns as variegated as those of a Turkey carpet. They were the potters also; the vessels were turned by hand, and baked in the open air, by a fire which was heaped round them: they were first stained red, then varnished with a kind of gum. They prepared otter skins also, which served for blankets as well as cloaks: these they stretched so as to let them dry without wrinkling; they checquered them with lines of red paint, and sewed them into cloaks so, nicely that the keenest eye could not detect the seams: this they did by using a fine thorn as an awl, and passing threads through it which were made from the caraquata. The old women tattooed the young till their skins were covered with pattern, and they encouraged them under the painful operation by telling them how beautiful it would make them, and that they would never get husbands unless they were thus ornamented. Though they prepared the drink, they were never permitted to taste any other beverage than water: had they been allowed to join in the drinking parties, it is said that the whole nation would long since have been extirpated, .. so dreadfully did they quarrel and fight in their drunkenness; but the women, and the youth who had not yet been admitted to the privileges of manhood, interfered and prevented the worst consequences. Young women listened eagerly to the Missionaries, because the religion which they taught forbade polygamy and capricious divorce: old men also approved their doctrine, because it recommended peaceful habits, and promoted security; but young men disliked it, because they were fond of war; and it was virulently opposed by the old women, who were obstinate in retaining superstitions that rendered them objects of fear, and therefore of respect.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 139.

Do. 2. 34.

Do. 2. 490.

Do. 2. 158.

Deliberate madness.

Their ordinary garments were woollen; but whenever the

[page] 412

CHAP. XXXVIII.

South wind blew they immediately put on warm cloaks of otter skins, .. for they thought it folly to suffer any discomfort from weather which they had the power of avoiding, though they made a display of enduring self-inflicted pain. When an Abipone was very hot, he said his blood was angry, and would thrust a knife into his leg to bleed himself; for like animals, they soon recovered from simple wounds, and at their feasts they used to prick themselves for a bravado in every part of the body, with a bundle of thorns, or with some of the small sharp bones of the crocodile. They were subject to an affection which they called Nakaiketergehes, and ascribed to witchcraft; .. but it is manifestly that sort of deliberate madness which may be cured by the certainty of punishment. The person who felt a disposition to this frenzy, set off at sun-set full speed to the burial place, returned at night, and, if he could find weapons, fell without mercy upon all whom he met. Arms, therefore, were carefully hidden as soon as it was known that one had been seized with the symptoms; but the supposed madman, or energumen, was suffered to do what he pleased with a cane, and he usually got rid of his mischievous propensity to muscular exertion, by beating the roofs and sides of every tent, no person within daring to make the slightest movement: if however he could get weapons, then the danger as well as the alarm became general. A Chief, named Alaykin, effectually put a stop to the disease, by proclaiming that the first person that was seized with it should be put to death, and all the witches also at the same time.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 57. 48.

Do. 2. 249.—253.

Notions respecting food.

Do. 3. 155.

Do. 2. 60.

It was a general opinion among the Indians, that their courage was influenced by the quality of their meat, .. and this may have been one of the causes of cannibalism. For this reason, none of them would eat mutton; and the equestrian tribes preferred the jaguar to any other food: when one of these beasts was killed, a portion was given to every person in the horde,

[page] 413

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 302.

Tobacco used for the teeth.

Do. 1. 462.

Do. 2. 66.

Leathern boats.

and they liquefied the fat and drank it. Upon the same principle they ate the wild boar, but held the flesh of the tame animal for an abomination: travelling bags were made of the skin, and combs of the bristles; the women, as usual, being the artificers. They were voracious eaters, and ate at all times. They delighted in honey, and used a singular means for protecting the teeth from being injured by its daily and almost hourly use. The old women masticated tobacco leaves, and worked them up in the hand into a mass, with the salt ashes of a plant which the Spaniards call la vidriera. The boys always carried a horn full of this composition suspended from their dress, and from time to time took a small portion into the mouth; it was offered by one to another, as snuff-takers present their boxes; and the use of this filthy composition is said to be the cause why the Abipones usually preserved all their teeth perfectly sound till death. They never lay down to sleep without leaving a free entrance for the air into their tents; and they accustomed themselves to the water from their infancy. Nevertheless they stood in need of ferry-boats, which were rudely made, each of a single hide; the legs and the neck were cut off, and the four sides turned up and fastened with straps, so that the shape was that of a square tub: in this precarious vehicle the passengers sate upon some saddles, or other packages, which served as ballast: through one of the sides a thong was passed, which a swimmer held either in his teeth, or with one hand: if the river were wide, or the current strong, so as to make him distrust his strength, he held by a horse's tail with the other. One of these ⁸ boats would

8 The smugglers in the Plata used to make hide-boats, but of a larger size, sewing many skins together, and smearing them well with pitch or tallow. They preferred them to any other kind of boat, because they eould so easily take them out of the water and conceal them. Dobrizhoffer. 2. 130.

[page] 414

CHAP. XXXVIII.

remain many hours in the water, without imbibing much moisture: if it were so soaked by continual rain as to lose its shape, they stuffed it out at the bottom with wood, which rendered it buoyant. Often, after plundering the Spanish country, they swam the river below Corrientes, and drove their prey across, passing from island to island. In order to get the beasts into the water, they made a narrowing inclosure, like a funnel, to the shore, being there so contracted that not more than two or three could enter abreast, some cattle which had been trained to such passages always going first. The Abipones, some swimming, others in boats, kept by the side of the drove, and directed their course; if a beast were caught in a whirlpool, or suffered the stream to carry him down, one of the men would fearlessly bestride him, catch hold of the horns, and kicking with both feet, compel him to make fresh exertions. Sometimes they towed them by the horns. The terrified beasts were ready, as soon as they reached the land, to attack whatever stood in their way.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 108.

Do. 2. 132.

Their success against the Spaniards.

Do. 3. 12.

The Abipones became an equestrian people in the early part of the seventeenth century. In an evil hour for the Spaniards, they took possession of the country from whence the Calchaquis had been exterminated. Before that time the road between Santiago del Estero and Santa Fe, and from thence to Cordoba, was so secure that women might travel without apprehension. There were farms and settlements the whole way: now, says Dobrizhoffer, all that remain are a few ruins and monumental names in the wilderness; this is Don Gil's, this Dona Lorenza's, this the Widow's, here the Three Crosses, here the Graves, .. melancholy appellations, in a desert, where not a human habitation is to be seen for four hundred miles, such had been the devastation committed by the Abipones, and their kindred tribes the Tobas and Mocobios. The area of the country which they possessed was about equal to that of England and Wales; they

[page] 415

CHAP. XXXVIII.

had not, nor ever had, any permanent residence, village or hut, yet was there scarcely a place which they frequented in all their territory without its specific name, taken from accident or local circumstances. It was not their numbers which made them formidable. Barreda, who commanded at Santiago, and was the ablest officer ever opposed to them, used to say, that if the whole nation were cut off except ten men, still every place in Paraguay would be always in danger, such was the tremendous rapidity of their movements, and the ubiquity of their attacks. Nothing stopt them in their purpose: whether the country were inundated, or parched like a desert, it was alike passable to them, and alike impassable to their enemies.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 13.

Southern equestrian tribes.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 143.

Azara. 2. 7.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 145.

While the Abipones, the Tobas, and Mocobios, were revenging the wrongs of their forefathers; and the Mbayas, not contented with infesting Tucuman and possessing the Chaco, crossed the river, and attacked the Spaniards of Paraguay from the West and from the North; this unhappy province was assailed on the South by the Charruas, Minoanes, Costeros, Yaros, and Bohanes, different hordes of one nation, sometimes denominated from its most formidable tribe, the Quenoas, by whom the two latter have been exterminated. About the end of the seventeenth century, a body of the Yaros were reduced by the Jesuits, and settled in the town of S. Andre; but they forsook it and returned to the woods: being followed and asked the reason why they had departed, they said, we do not chuse to have any such God as yours, who can see and know every thing that we do in secret; and we are determined to enjoy our old liberty of thinking and doing as we please. When they became equestrians, they perceived the tremendous power which they had acquired; and made full use of it. They possessed the country between the Uruguay, the Plata, and the sea; and committed such havoc in the districts of Corrientes, S. Fe, and afterwards of

[page] 416

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Azara. 2. 21.

Dobrizhoffer. 3. 182. Azara. 2. 14.

Montevideo, as is said to be almost incredible; .. insomuch that they are believed to have given the Spaniards more trouble, and to have shed more Spanish blood, than the armies of Montezuma and his successor, or of the Incas. Few people have ever enjoyed such physical advantages. Their mean stature, is about an inch above that of the Spaniards; and Azara, who had the best opportunities both of observation and information, affirms, that beyond all doubt they can see as far again as any European; that their hearing also is proportionally quicker; that their teeth continue perfectly white to the extremest old age, and are never either lost or loosened by natural decay; that they never become bald, and are but half grey at fourscore. The habits of migratory life are certainly conducive in a high degree to health and vigour: the country which they possess is open and dry, a circumstance which is not less favourable to the animal æconomy; and the fact that they subsist wholly upon animal food may stagger those physiologists who attribute the greater part of our diseases to this diet. Some of these tribes live upon horse flesh, the greater part upon beef; and it is remarkable, that their meals are not social; every one eats when he likes. They dress their meat by spitting it on a stake, which is fastened in the ground before a fire till one side is done. The men seem indifferent with regard to clothing; some wear the skin of a jaguar, turning the fur inwards in winter; and some the poncho, if they can get one; otherwise they go naked: the women wear the poncho, or a sleeveless cotton garment. Their clothing is never washed, nor do they ever wash themselves, except when they bathe for pleasure in hot weather, and thus become clean as an accidental consequence of their amusement. They never cut their hair, which is thick, long, coarse, black, and glossy; women suffer it to flow loose; men more conveniently fasten it in a knot upon the top of the head, and crest it

[page] 417

CHAP. XXXVIII.

with white feathers placed upright. The men alone use the mouth-piece, which is never taken out, even when they sleep; and it is observed by Azara, that they uniformly sleep upon their backs, like all wild Indians. Those who live near the Spanish settlements on the north bank of the Plata, wear leggings of a fashion suitable to their barbarous way of life, being merely the skins flayed from the legs of horses and oxen, and transferred to their own. Branches of trees fastened together with thongs, or four stakes with mats wrought coarsely of flags, for the sides, and a roof of the same loose materials, serve for their huts; and the possession of those animals from which civilized man derives so many of his comforts, has only made these savages forget the few arts which they formerly exercised. Instead of the hammoc, a hide stretched upon four stakes, serves for their incommodious and unclean bed. Round some of their huts they raise a sort of wall for ornament, of the heads of cattle piled one upon another with the horns projecting; and the air is infected, not only with their stench, but with the swarms which are bred in them.

Azara. 2. 9—13.

Second Missionary Voyage.

Charlevoix. 2. 207.

Second Missionary Voyage.

Their mourning customs.

Azara. 2. 33.

Noticias de Paraguay. MSS.

Merciless as they are to their male enemies, they spare women and children, and adopt them; and even among these people whose manners are so loathsome, the freedom of savage life is said to fascinate those who have been thus introduced among them. An extraordinary custom respecting children prevails among the Minuanes. .. As soon as a child is weaned, the parents give it to one of their near married kinsmen, and regard it no longer as their own: the children, therefore, mourn for their foster parents, not their natural ones. Mourning among them is more than mere ceremony. The daughters and sisters of the deceased wound themselves with his knife or his spear, and, like the Polynesians in like circumstances, cut off a finger joint; this is done for any near relation, and they who live long enough to

VOL. III. 3 H

[page] 418

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lose more than ten kinsmen, begin upon the toes after all the fingers have been shortened. The men undergo a more painful custom upon the death of their fathers:.. they hide themselves two days in their cabins, quite naked, and take no other food than partridge and partridge eggs, and of these sparingly. On the third day an Indian comes with a bundle of splinters formed of a reed about four inches wide, and pierces the flesh of the arm with them, beginning at the wrist, and fixing them at inch distances up to the shoulder. In this horrible state the mourner goes out, naked, with a sharp stake in his hand, either into the woods, or to some elevated ground, without any dread of wild beasts,.. for it is believed that they stand in fear of him at such times; and he digs a pit, and burying himself therein breast-high, passes the night there. Meantime, a mourning cabin has been prepared for him, which he enters in the morning, and abides there two days, fasting. The children afterwards place water, partridges, and partridge eggs, within his reach, and immediately run away, without speaking: at the end of ten or twelve days the mourning is compleated. This ceremony is not compulsory; but every man goes through it, because it is the custom, and he who should fail to observe it would be despised. They bury upon a rising ground: the weapons and all the goods of the dead are deposited with him in the earth, and his favourite horse is sometimes killed upon the grave.

P. Sepp. Lett. Edif. 9. 369. Azara. 1. 17.

They use short arrows and a short bow, as fitter for horsemen. Their spears are about eleven feet long; iron heads for them are procured from the Portugueze when they are at peace with that people, and from the same quarter they obtain bridles. The Spaniards have repeatedly made great efforts to destroy them, and have sometimes sent more than a thousand men against an enemy who perhaps never brought half that number into the field. To pour a general volley upon them would ensure the

[page] 419

CHAP. XXXVIII.

destruction of troops who should thus expend their fire, .. so fierce and irresistible would be their instant attack: the Spaniards therefore used to keep their ranks, and discharge a few shot one after another. These natives have often suffered severely in such hostilities; but had they ever pursued their own advantages as they might have done, the territory of Colonia and Montevideo would never have been disputed between the Spaniards and Portugueze.

Azara. 2. 14—21.

Wild horses, how numerous.

Falkner. p. 39.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 231.

Do. 1. 393. Azara. 1. 373.

The tribes who had learnt to use horses were never in want of those animals. At that time, an extent of open pasture equal to the whole area of Great Britain, was full of wild cattle of all kinds, and horses herded together in thousands and ten thousands. Falkner, the English Jesuit, upon one of his missionary journies, was surrounded by them during a fortnight; thick troops sometimes passed by him in full speed for two or three hours together, and it was with much difficulty that he and the Indians in his company preserved themselves from being run over and trampled to death. They are easily captured: .. a piece of ground is burnt; when the new grass springs up they are attracted to it by the richness of the pasture, and the hunters are ready to drive them into a decoy. Mares which are kept for ⁹ breeding are sometimes lamed, to prevent them from running wild. The wild horses will surround the tame ones, caress them, and lead them away, as if they were acting rationally, and delighted in bringing them to the liberty which they themselves enjoyed; and it is found that the tame horses, if they have associated a little while with their free fellow creatures, rebel fiercely after-

9 The Spaniards had also an odd custom, of shearing the tails and manes of their breeding mares, upon a notion that they fattened the better for it. But no person, not even a slave, would ride a beast that had been docked.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 362.

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

wards against the bit and the saddle. Great numbers perish miserably in their wild state, and it is said that the greater part of the colts never grow up. The fly attacks them as soon as they are foaled, so that thousands are devoured by maggots: the jaguars take a large share, and many are trodden to death by the horses in their drove. Great numbers die during seasons of drought; they rush at such times into the lakes and marshes, where many plunge into the mud and are lost, and others are trampled down by those who from behind press on with the same painful and raging impulse. Azara, more than once, saw the carcases of many thousands which had thus been destroyed; and their skeletons are found on the edge of empty lakes, and in the dry channels of the rivers. They are of so little value that very many are killed merely for their fat, which is used in preparing deer skin: and the people go nowhere on ¹⁰ foot.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 252.

Azara. 1. 375. Dobrizhoffer. 1. 252.

10 The horses are not so strong as ours, which are fed upon more stimulating food. Even for a short journey, a led horse is always taken to relieve the other; and when the Guaranies were in the king's armies, each man took four. But this must not be imputed to any humanity in the people, which, however we may flatter ourselves by the name, is perhaps the rarest virtue to be found in brute man. They are never shod. It is often necessary to ride them for days and days through the flooded country: when they reach dry ground their feet are so miserably soaked that they cannot move, and they die for want of food, .. footfoundered. They are liable to another dreadful evil. There is usually a soft skin under the saddle, and a sheep skin, or carpet, laid upon it; these trappings necessarily heat the horse; a chill is apt to ensue when they are taken off; the back swells, the tumour suppurates, the flies, which are the curse of man and beast, oviposit in the wound, and in no very long time the poor animal is devoured alive. It is said that more horses are eaten by these loathsome insects than by the wild beasts. The only remedy is to pick them out when they first appear, lay chewed tobacco in the wound, which prevents them from breeding there, and keep the cicatrix covered with grease. There is a sort of vulture also which fixes upon the wound, and performs rude surgery with its beak, cleaning it, and thus leaving it in a state for healing, if man be at hand to protect it afterwards; otherwise they enlarge it for other worms to breed in, .. even then mercifully employed, because they expedite a miserable death.

Dobrizhoffer. 256. 267—9.

White and chesnut horses are far more common than bay or black; but these latter are esteemed the hardiest. The pie-bald are thought vicious. Much attention is paid to their paces. There are the Amblers, which are sometimes called Astereones, because the Asturians used to be famous for breaking horses to this pace. These, it is said, are born to the step, .. probably if the dam had it, certainly if the sire also: otherwise they are taught it by having the fore and hind feet linked together by straps of the length of the step desired, or by tying a muffled stone on the fore part of the hind feet, so that it shall hit the fore legs if the animal moves at any other rate. At this easy pace, which it is said would not spill water from a full cup in the rider's hand, they will perform eight miles in the hour; but it is not safe out of a beaten track. The Trotones, or trotters, are safer; and the Passitrotes, or Marchadores, who may be called Shufflers, their pace being between the walk and the trot, are preferred to either for a journey.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 253.

The horses of the country, however, are not so highly esteemed as those from Chili. In the year 1808, a black Chilese horse would sometimes sell at Buenos Ayres for a thousand dollars. They are very beautiful and very docile. Very good amblers of the country were to be had at the same time, at prices from twenty to a hundred and fifty, .. horses which would go from six to ten miles an hour in the easiest possible manner: a good trotter might be purchased for twenty. At any estancia a few leagues from the city, you might probably take your choice of the horses for a silk handkerchief, and be very likely to get an excellent one. The creole never takes the trouble of keeping up a horse for his own riding. When he wants one he goes into his corral, nooses one, and if he proves refractory ties his legs, then saddles and bridles him, and mounts; some one then cuts the cord, and away they go. He rides him two or three days without giving him any thing to eat, and when the beast can go no longer, turns him loose, and supplies himself with another in the same way! Voyage to the Plata. MS.

In Dobrizhoffer's time about eighty thousand mules were annually driven from Paraguay to Peru; and from this trade all the silver was drawn, which was used either in Churches or private houses. An unbroken mule of two years old, was worth three crowns in Paraguay, and fourteen in Peru. Many thousand salso were employed in the Caa-tea trade, and perished in great numbers, because of the badness of the roads, and of cruel usage. They breed always from the mare, not the she ass. Herds of breeding mares and asses are always near each other; and when a mare has foaled, the colt is immediately killed, skinned, and a newly dropt male ass clothed in the skin. It is said that the mare at first drives him away, seeing his ears; but at length trusts the scent rather than the sight, and suffers him to suck. Further artifices are afterwards practised: I know not whether any real advantage is gained by thus perverting the order of nature and breaking its laws; but if the end be justifiable, such means are not, and no benefit which man may derive can be commensurate to the depravation of his own moral nature which they must necessarily induce. The males must be castrated. This animal, in a certain sense, may be said to be of man's making. The body is to his purpose, hardy, and patient of labour; but there is a perverseness of nature, the cause of which is doubtless to be found in its constitution. .. Ni mula ni mulato, is a proverb, .. but the analogy does not hold, and the latter part of the adage is wholly unwarrantable. A few men conduct droves of many thousands; great losses however sometimes happen through the startlish temper of this creature. In one instance, a garment hung out to dry and caught up in the air by a puff of wind, frightened a drove so that two thousand were lost.

Dobrizkoffer. 270—5.

In the Classical Journal (No. xi, p. 34) are some remarks upon Genesis xxxvi. 24, in favour of reading mules, instead of warm springs. If the writer be (as he appears to me) right in his opinion, the text would prove that the mule was originally an accident, and not a preconceived creature of man's imagination.

[page] 421

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Manners of the Spanish herdsmen.

The great and general degradation, both of the Indians and Spaniards, has justly been attributed to the abundance of kine and horses. The pastoral life is necessarily unfavourable to civilization; but nowhere has it been found so compleatly to debase

[page] 422

CHAP. XXXVIII.

and brutalize man as in the grazing countries of South America. The number of tame cattle in Paraguay and La Plata was estimated by Azara at the close of the last century, at twelve million kine, and three million of horses. Such tame cattle would justly be deemed wild in Europe. A cow will not suffer herself to be milked unless her legs are tied, and her calf standing beside her.

[page] 423

CHAP. XXXVIII.

There is, therefore, very little use made either of milk or cheese, and of butter almost none: beef dripping supplies its use. The average extent of an estancia, or grazing estate, in Paraguay, is from sixteen to twenty square miles; and this would be thought small in the province of Buenos Ayres. In the midst of such a domain the herdsmen have their huts, .. so that there is no neighbourhood, no natural growth of villages, no possible improvement. Many details of savage life have been given in these volumes; .. a picture must now be presented of a state of society which is, if possible, more loathsome, and more disgraceful to poor human nature. Every estancia has its Capataz, or masterherdsman, and an inferior herdsman for every thousand head. The Capataz is generally a married man: the others are lads, unless they are negroes, men of colour, or runaway Indians from some Christian settlement; these are usually married, and their wives and daughters are at the service of those who are not. The women who are called Spaniards are in the same state of bestial immorality; .. the whole family commonly sleep in one room; and it is affirmed by Azara, that scarcely a girl among them remains undebauched by the time she is eight years old.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 243.

Azara. 1. 293.

Their furniture and food.

The usual furniture consists of a water-barrel, a horn for drinking, some wooden spits, and a copper chocolate pot for boiling water to make the Paraguay-tea. If they have no such vessel, and wish to make broth for a sick person, they put meat and water in a horn, and heap embers round it. The skulls of kine and horses serve for seats, if they do not sit upon the ground; and a hide is generally the only bed, .. which sometimes, but very rarely, is laid upon a rude bedstead. They ridicule Europeans for eating pulse and greens, which they say are horses' diet, .. for these wretches are merely carnivorous. Like the savages, they roast their meat upon a skewer fixed upright in the ground, and eat it without salt, each when he is hungry, not at

[page] 424

CHAP. XXXVIII.

any stated hour, nor in social meals: after eating they scrape their mouths with the back of the knife, and wipe their fingers either upon their legs or their boots. They eat only the ribs, the inner part of the thigh, and the abdominal muscles; all the rest they leave to rot about their houses, which are surrounded with bones and carcases. The carrion attracts the flesh-birds, who are incessantly screaming over their prey: it infects the air, and breeds a plague of flies and beetles, .. which is not however punishment sufficient to work any amendment in these most beastly of all savages.

Azara. 1. 297.

Their employments.

Azara. 1. 300.

Once in a week the men ride round the estancia, making a great noise and followed by their dogs, and drive the cattle into a circle, where they are kept a little while and then released; this is done to prevent them from straying, and keep them in some degree of subjection. The horses are driven into a pen. During the rest of the week they have no other business than to break in a few of the horses, or castrate others: the far greater part of their time, therefore, is passed in idleness. The Capataz dresses like a Spaniard, with a poncho. The others generally have no shirt, never either jacket or breeches, .. drawers and the poncho suffice, .. but all have hats. The herdsmen wear for boots the skin of a colt or calf, stript off whole, the bend at the joint serving for the heel! They seldom shave, and when the operation is performed it is with a knife. The women go bare-footed, and are abominably filthy; the usual dress is a shift without sleeves tied round the middle; nothing else is worn, and one such garment commonly constitutes the whole wardrobe of the wearer: she goes to the water side, strips herself, washes it, dries it in the sun, and then puts it on again. The wife of the Capataz is rather better dressed. The men have usually no second suit; if they are caught in the rain, they strip themselves and put their clothes under the skin which covers the saddle; for they say

[page] 425

CHAP. XXXVIII.

the skin gets dry again presently, which their clothes would not.

Their children, how bred up.

A boy is scarcely a week old before his father or brother takes him on horseback, and rides with him till he begins to cry: he is frequently thus mounted till he is able to sit an old and quiet beast. From his earliest childhood he is taught also to kill cattle; and this is the whole education which he receives. He grows up without restraint, without laws, without principles, without any participation of the comforts, or sense of the decencies of life; .. without hearing the sound of a church bell. His sport is to butcher animals, wild or tame; he is habituated to the sight of blood and carcases, and to the work of death, and thus his heart is hardened. Murders are very frequent, and are committed with perfect coolness. The bye-standers never interfere, and would think themselves dishonoured were they in any way to contribute toward bringing the criminal to justice, if any justice pursued him.

Azara. 1. 301. 307.

Drinking houses.

Some of the head herdsmen sell the few things which are accounted necessaries among them, but especially spirits: the pulperia, as it is called, then becomes a rallying place; … and here one solitary and singular mark of civilization is found; .. a guitarre is always kept here, and they sing to it the yarabays, or Peruvian songs: the tunes are melancholy and monotonous, and the subject is uniformly the complaints of pining lovers. The performer is treated with liquor. They have no liking for wine; this is because they can scarcely feel it; .. the sense of taste appertains not to men in so brutal a condition. Even at the pulperia they continue on horseback, these places having none of those comforts by which in other countries the lower orders are seduced into drunkenness. Every thing is done on horseback. If they fish, they throw the net and draw it on horseback: they draw water from the well on horseback: they

VOL. III. 3 I

[page] 426

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prepare the smallest quantity of mortar by riding upon it backwards and forwards; and they who are within reach of a church usually hear mass on horseback at the door. Gambling, however, makes them dismount: they are passionately addicted to cards, and sit at their game in the eastern fashion, upon their heels, holding the bridle under their feet, and generally with their knife stuck in the ground beside them, for use upon any foul play, which they are equally ready to practise and to suspect. A fellow who has nothing more to lose will stake his shirt, if he happen to have one, and it be better than his antagonist's; and if he be unsuccessful he puts on the older and filthier rag in exchange.

Azara. 1. 305—7.

State of religion.

Peramas Agullii Vita. § 39, 40.

The little sense of religion which existed among them was chiefly kept up by the Jesuits, two of whom went out every half year to itinerate among the Christian population. They pitched their tent in a convenient spot, erected a portable altar, performed mass every day as long as they were stationary, preached, baptized, married, administered the wafer, and went through the main business for which they were attended,.. that of settling the scores of conscience, and giving a discharge for all crimes. But since these instructors, such as they were, have been withdrawn, the herdsmen christen their children themselves, or leave them unbaptized till they are married, when the ceremony may no longer be delayed. They seldom or never go to mass, the places of worship being so few and distant; but they are all solicitous to be buried in consecrated ground, and the relations and friends in this instance faithfully perform the desire of the deceased. They lay the body in the field and cover it with stones, till it is reduced to a skeleton; or they reduce it to this state at once by cutting off the flesh: the flesh they bury, or perhaps cast away with other offal; and they carry the bones to receive Christian burial. But if the distance be

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not above some eighty miles, they then dress the corpse in its wonted apparel, set it on horseback, keep it upright by tying it between two sticks in the form of St. Andrew's Cross, and thus carry it to the place of interment, .. as the Cid was carried from Valencia.

Azara. 1. 295.

Freebooters.

But even these butcherly herdsmen were not the worst part of the population. In such a country a horse, a knife, and a throwing-line, were all that a man required who chose to run loose and feed upon wild cattle, or tame, as might suit his convenience. There were many such wretches, who lived like savages, in such huts as the Charruas; but being runaways from society, they retained more of its wants than the herdsmen, and therefore supplied themselves with such articles as they needed from the southern Captaincies of Brazil, in exchange for horses which they stole. Almost all of them were robbers, and it was their practice to carry away ¹¹ women by force.

Azara. 1. 311.

State of the agricultural population.

The people near the Plata held agriculture in contempt, saying that it was not necessary in a country like theirs, where they could live upon meat alone. But in Paraguay more than half the inhabitants were agriculturalists, and almost all the converted Indians. Yet even there no man would become a cultivator if he had means of becoming a grazier, nor would any

11 Azara had apprehended many of these ruffians, and recovered the women. He speaks of one Spanish woman, young and handsome, who had lived ten years among them. A fellow, by name Cuenca, had originally stolen her: she said he was the first man in the world, and that his mother must certainly have died in bringing him forth, that there might be nobody like him; and she never named him without tears. He had been killed, and she had passed from him to his murderer, and so in succession to a third and a fourth, each winning her by murdering her last possessor! Yet the woman was exceedingly loth to leave this horrible way of life, and return to her relations!

[page] 428

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Azara. 1. 287.

Do. 1. 139.

Do. 1. 154.

persons engage as agricultural labourers, if they could get employment as herdsmen. This is a remarkable instance of the force of prejudice, and the prevalence of idle and vicious habits; for the husbandman enjoyed comforts to which the herdsman was a stranger, and was raised above him in manners, morals, decency, in whatever is connected with civilization, or leads to it, .. in every thing except public estimation. His table was served with roots, fruits, pulse, and greens as well as meat; he had some knowledge of cookery, which is one of the civilizing arts; and partook, in consequence, the chearfulness of a social meal. Agriculture produced neighbourhood also. The house was in the middle of the farm, and the farm no larger than was wanted. The habitations were thatched cottages built of mud, small and low, and wretchedly furnished. There was once a time when Buenos Ayres received corn from Paraguay; but things have so degenerated, that it is said the ground never returns more than a fourfold increase: it seems marvellous therefore that the cultivation of wheat should not have been wholly abandoned. The practice of never changing the seed is assigned as a cause for this; .. it is better accounted for by the miserable implements which are used in their husbandry, and the more miserable laziness of the husbandmen. Throughout Paraguay, a pointed stake serves for a plough, which every one manages after his own fashion; and there are no other pickaxes than a large bone, either of a horse or cow, fastened to a handle! At the beginning of the seventeenth century, wines were cultivated about Asumpcion to a great extent, and with great success, so that wine was exported to Buenos Ayres: there are now only a few stocks trained on trellices for the sake of the fruit. The people attempt to excuse themselves for the decay of this important branch of husbandry by ascribing it to the ravages of beasts and insects, .. forgetful that beasts and insects must

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equally have existed in the time of their forefathers, when the vineyards flourished. The true causes are to be found in their own rooted idleness, and in the fact, that, like Indians and Negroes, losing the finer powers of taste as they become brutified, they prefer ardent spirits to wine.

Azara. 1. 141.

Schools.

Medical practice.

See vol. 2, p. 338.

There is usually a schoolmaster in agricultural districts, to whom the scholars repair daily, sometimes from a distance of six or eight miles, taking with them some boiled mandioc roots as their only food. The words Parish and Townlet, in that country, are not to be understood as implying any concentrated population. Where the Church stands there is only the Priest's house, a Farrier's perhaps, a shop for drapery and grocery, and the pulperia, or Dram-shop. If any of the parishioners have houses there, they are used only for Sundays and holydays. A Curandero, or medical practitioner, attends upon all days when mass is performed; he is provided with an assortment of three or four simples, and takes his seat at the Church-door, to examine, not the sick themselves, but their urine, which is sent for his inspection in a joint of one of the large canes. He takes it without asking any questions concerning the state of the patient, pours a little into the palm of his hand, looks at it toward the light, and tosses it into the air; he repeats this, in order to be accurate in the experiment, examines whether it falls in large or small drops, decides from this circumstance whether the disease be hot or cold, and gives one of his herbs accordingly to be taken in infusion. Urine has been sent an hundred and twenty miles to one of these men, who has prescribed without making the slightest inquiry into the nature or symptoms of the patient's malady. Some few Curanderos, who possess a copy of the Jesuit Asperger's prescriptions, or have read the work of Madame Fouquet, think it necessary to see their patients. But in the parishes within the government of Buenos Ayres the schoolmaster and the

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Curandero are not always found, and the sick either put themselves under the care of some old woman, or trust themselves to the course of nature. Among the ancient Cantabrians and Lusitanians, it was a custom to place a sick person beside the public way, in the hope that some one might pass who had seen or experienced a similar disease, and knew what remedies had been efficacious: in these provinces, where the people are in a worse state of mind and manners than their forefathers were before the Christian era, the population is too scattered, and travelling too unfrequent, for this practice to be observed; but if a stranger happen to come where there is any one suffering under any kind of disease, they ask his ¹² advice, and follow it whatever it may be.

Azara. 2. 287—290.

State of the towns.

Almanach de Lima.

The towns in the interior afford no means of improvement to the rural population, and no examples. The people of S. Cruz de la Sierra had receded so far from civilization, that no manual trades were exercised there, but every one from necessity was his own carpenter, smith, mason, and currier. Money was scarcely known in Paraguay: even at Asumpcion the public officers received their salaries in produce. Such a people were preserved from falling entirely into a savage state by nothing but the civil and ecclesiastical establishments which were main-

12 An old man consulted Azara upon a pain in the head. Azara advised him, in jest, to wash his feet and to cut his nails; observing, that as they had probably never been cut before, he might be benefited by the operation. The old man was so satisfied that this prescription had been the means of curing him, that some time afterwards he wrote to entreat that Azara would prescribe for his son also; and the account which he gave of his disease was, that some supposed it to be a hernia, and others a malignant fever! A custom like that of the Cantabrians and Lusitanians (not an irrational one) prevailed also among the Babylonians, and is mentioned by Herodotus.

[page] 431

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Techo.

T. 4, p. 124.

Guarani more spoken than Spanish.

tained there in consequence of their dependance upon Spain. No part of South America had so many men of noble family among its conquerors as Paraguay; no part of the New World, Florida perhaps excepted, so much deceived their hopes, and nowhere has so thorough a degeneracy taken place. Something must be ascribed to the situation of the capital, which, before any other settlement was made, was fixed in the very heart of the country: .. they fancied, says Raynal, that they were establishing themselves near the source of riches; but their avidity for gold was greater than their foresight. The houses at Asumpcion are built of brick or stone, and roofed with tiles, .. bearing thus far in their exterior some appearances of a civilized place; but none of them have more than a ground floor: glass is unknown; chimnies are not in use; and even the churches and convents differ little in their exterior from ordinary habitations. The streets are crooked, and cut into ravines by the rain; even the very stones are so worn by the same operation of nature, that walking is both troublesome and painful. Grass grows in the only market place. Retrograding in every thing, the Spaniards of Paraguay have almost forgotten the Spanish language. Threescore years ago all the lower classes, and the women of the higher ones, spoke Guarani as their native tongue: at that time most of them could speak Spanish also; but being familiar with the two, they mingled one with the other, and corrupted both. At the close of the century, Guarani had become the prevalent language for both sexes throughout Paraguay, and Spanish was understood by the higher ranks only. The great mixture of Indian blood has caused this. The first settlers were all males: the first generation of Creoles therefore acquired Guarani at the breast; and as the intermixture has been continued by a licentiousness of manners after the necessity ceased, and the great proportion of slaves and nurses has

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been of the same race, the native language ¹³ has unavoidably prevailed. It is otherwise in the Government of Buenos Ayres; for at the beginning the natives were less numerous in that part of the country; the influx of Spaniards had been greater and more constant; there too they had had female colonists, .. and it is the mothers who give the mother tongue.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 60. Azara. 2. 106. Do. 2. 277.

Smoking.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 136.

Language is not the only thing in which these people, calling themselves Spaniards, have approximated to their ancestors on the savage side. Throughout Paraguay, but more especially at Corrientes and Asumpcion, the women during the hot season throw off so much of their cloathing, that the exposure ¹⁴ which is thus made of their persons has been repeatedly reprobated from the pulpit. All the women are said to smoke, .. a practice into which many men of contemplative minds have fallen, because it is not unfavourable to thoughtfulness; but to which people in the savage and barbarous grades of society addict themselves, because it at once indulges their love of sensation and of indolence. Perhaps in so marshy a country it may be defended as

13 Azara says that the Paulistas also have forgotten their fathers' tongue, and only speak the Tupi; but he is certainly mistaken. The influx of Forasteiros into their Captaincy had been greater, during a whole century, than it was in Buenos Ayres and the surrounding country.

14 I am not certain that Dobrizhoffer's words do not imply total nudity! Speaking of the decency of the Abipones, he says, Ne paucorum quidem mensium infantulam nudam patiuntur. Hanc honestatis curam gens Hispani Paraguariæ, præsertim in Assumptionis et Corrientes urbibus ut imitaretur, sæpe nequidquam optavimus. Adultiores etiam fæminæ immanem solis æstum causantes, rejectis vestibus, verecundiæ quoties publico in foro obliviscuntur! 2. 136.

The thermometer is generally as high as 85° in summer, and has sometimes reached 100°. In winter it is thought very cold if it falls to 45°. But in 1786 and 1789, which were remarkably severe seasons, there was ice. Azara. 1. 32.

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contributing to the preservation of health: but Azara says, that notwithstanding its marshiness there is not a healthier part of the world than Paraguay, though the prevailing atmosphere is so laden with moisture, that it destroys all furniture.

Azara. 1. 35. 39.

Education.

The Creole infant is delivered at its birth to a mulatta, negress, or Indian nurse, and left to her entirely for six or seven years, during all which time the child can see nothing which ought to be imitated. The son of the lowest Spanish sailor would think himself degraded in America by any kind of labour. They chose to be Religioners, Priests, Lawyers, or Negociants, to use their own word, which sounds as largely for the huckster as the merchant. He who wished to obtain a wife must aspire to this title, which also rendered him eligible to honorary offices. A broken negociant usually took up the practice of medicine, and butchered and poisoned with impunity. Yet there were many who thought that trade was too troublesome. Such of them as visited Europe returned cursing every thing which they had seen there, because in Europe they had no rank to give them any adventitious claims to respect, and were estimated at their proper level; and because they considered any country as miserable in which men must work for their bread. Therefore such arts and trades only as were indispensable were exercised among them, and those only by men of colour, or by some new-comeling from Europe, who had not been long enough in the country to contract its contagious pride and laziness, and learn how to live without labour. There existed among all the Spaniards a compleat feeling of equality, which is the natural growth of colonies. Pride of family was effectually destroyed by the mixture of blood; and letters of nobility were not solicited, because they would have conferred no consequence. This feeling was so strong, that no white man would serve another; and the Viceroy himself could not get a Spanish coachman, or a Spanish

VOL. III. 3 K

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lacquey. The lowest Spaniard must be called Capitan: "You can get no service performed, nor a draught of water," says Dobrizhoffer, "nor a civil answer, if you neglect to address him by this title." In the towns on the Plata, the women even disliked to spin; though in other places this was their employment. The women of Corrientes were honourably distinguished as being by far the most industrious and ingenious in the whole country, notwithstanding that they bore the palm for beauty.

Azara. 2. 276. 283. 289. Dobrizhoffer. 1. 127. Do. 1. 10.

Decay of military spirit.

The liberal education of Paraguay and the Plata was confined to the Latin Grammar, the Philosophy of Aristotle, and the Theology of Aquinas, as far as they were understood by the teacher, and a little canon law. In this point it is true indeed that they had little cause to envy the mother country; but they had no vernacular literature, nor knowledge of any kind which might correct or compensate for the errors and deficiencies of this miserable system; and all the redeeming virtues of the Spanish character were wanting,.. the high-mindedness, the heroic sense of honour, the proud nationality, the invincible fortitude, the strength of feeling and of principle, which have resisted three centuries of oppression and misrule; which still command the respect and admiration of other countries, and which will yet restore to Spain her rank among the nations. But the total disappearance of that military spirit by which their fathers were so eminently distinguished, is the strongest proof of the compleat degeneracy of these Creoles; and it is the more remarkable, inasmuch as it was not produced by any of those causes which in other instances have destroyed the martial character, and induced national pusillanimity and weakness. Nor did it arise merely because discipline had almost ceased to exist, in consequence of the scattered state of the population; the degeneracy was in the individuals. Satisfied if their mere animal wants were easily supplied, and seeking for no other excitements

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

than those of gambling and drunkenness, they had sunk into a state of life which can neither properly be called barbarous nor savage, but which is worse than either. The knowledge of perpetual insecurity and danger could not rouse them to any combined system of defence, any active exertion, nor even to such precautions as it might have been supposed the common instinct of self-preservation would have taught them. For quarrels they were always ready with the knife; but the savage is not an enemy who comes within knife-reach till his antagonist is disabled, and with any better weapons they were almost wholly unprovided. A cane, or a stick, whether crooked or straight they cared not, with a piece of a rusty sword, or the blade of an old knife fastened at the end, served them for a lance. The richer classes were the only persons who had musquets, and of the musquets which they possessed few were serviceable, and fewer still were the men who knew how to use them when they were. If government at any time delivered out arms, the people soon suffered the musquets to be spoiled for want of care; and they ruined the bayonets by using them for ¹⁵ knives and choppers. In the hour of danger therefore they had as little confidence in their weapons as in their skill. Endurance was the only military virtue which they retained. The soldiers rode barelegged in their winter expeditions, carrying their boots suspended from the saddle; and to prevent the ill consequences of having the feet soaked with wet, they applied chewed tobacco leaves to them at night. Smoaking was thought almost necessary for the support of life at such times. The Paraguay tea was their other chief comfort, and

15 The original bayonet consisted of a two-edged blade fixed in a wooden handle, and which was thrust into the muzzle of the musquet, when in use.

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the place and manner of preparing it at night were not a little curious: .. instead of providing themselves with hammocks, like the Brazilians, they frequently roosted in the trees; and making as it were a hearth upon the boughs with that hard crust of which the termites build their nests, they kindled a fire upon it to boil the water for their favourite beverage.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 398. 448. Do. 3. 260. 255.

Defenceless state of the people.

What could be expected from the efforts of such a people against the equestrian tribes, .. against enemies who were always on the alert, swift, wily, wary, indefatigable, insatiate of blood and of vengeance! If they raised forces for an expedition, they knew not where to find men who never exposed themselves to danger if they could avoid it, and who could always baffle the Spaniards by retiring into a country where they were unable to follow the pursuit. Nor were the savages the less to be dreaded because they were so solicitous of preserving their own lives, for they were ready at any moment to fall upon their enemies whenever it could be done to advantage, and were upon the watch for every opportunity: but the Spaniards, who had acquired so many habits from the rude race with which they had so long been conversant, had caught their, pusillanimity with regard to death, without learning those qualities which made the savage so terrible a foe. The Spanish Commanders possessed so little authority themselves, and were so little supported by public feeling, that if an officer lost only two or three of his men in an expedition, the widows would insult him on his return, and probably attack him in the street with stones. Considering the insubordination of the Spaniards, and their utter improvidence, it seems wonderful that a single settlement in Paraguay should have escaped destruction. There was not a place which had either wall, moat, palisade, or fortifications of any kind. Wooden watch-posts, indeed, were erected for a considerable distance along the shore, above and below Asump-

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Ravages of the equestrian tribes.

cion, and men were stationed with a single gun in each, to give the alarm. This was a compulsory duty, which fell wholly upon the lower classes; and it was more burthensome to the individuals than useful to the community. The trade between Paraguay, La Plata, Tucuman, and Peru, was well nigh annihilated. It was almost certain destruction for travellers to attempt the journey. Even the military escort which guarded the treasure from Potosi to Buenos Ayres, was sometimes overpowered and cut off, though the treasure itself was regarded by the conquerors with perfect indifference. But the Spaniards were base enough to profit greedily by the plunder when they could, .. and happy was the town which could make its separate peace with the savages, and purchase their booty, giving them, among other things, iron ¹⁶ in exchange, to be employed against their own countrymen in another quarter. Whole settlements were destroyed by the Tobas, the Mocobios, and the Abipones. Salta was protected by its situation, being almost surrounded with water. This city, which had once been the seat of government, and still held the second rank in Tucuman, had flourished exceedingly because of the trade which was transacted there between Buenos Ayres and Peru, and the great transit of mules toward the Andes. Its trade was now reduced to nothing, its territory ravaged, and the pitiable inhabitants so panic-stricken that they could determine upon no better means of defence than taking another tutelary Saint, and associating St. Francisco Xavier as their Patron, with St. Philip and St. James: a holyday was set apart for him by reason of his new office, and the soldiers also took him for their protector! At Santa Fe it was

16 This was indeed a thriving trade. An Abipon once gave a bag containing two thousand dollars, part of the convoy from Peru, for a red cloak.

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found necessary to enact that no man should come to Church without a musquet. Here the savages frequently came into the streets, and butchered the inhabitants while they were following processions, singing misereres, and carrying crucifixes, instead of bearing arms and using them. The market-place was often reddened with blood; and the town would have been abandoned if the inhabitants had not succeeded in making a separate peace, and thus contributed to the evils which were inflicted upon other places. At Corrientes, dead bodies were brought into the town in carts, and heaped up, like piles of wood, at the Church-door: seventy were carried in in one day; so that it was not possible to prepare separate graves; .. a common trench was dug, and one service performed for all. The Indian villages which the Franciscans had established upon the Parana were all destroyed, except S. Lucia, a little settlement containing about ten families only: the Missionary there had surrounded it with a wall, and mounting a gun in a little watchbox upon the top of his house, he gave the people notice to take shelter, by firing it, and made the savages keep at a respectful distance, .. so easily were they deterred from attacking any place where there was the appearance of resistance. In this track of country the marks of devastation long continued visible, .. ruined walls, European fruits growing in what was again become a wilderness, and monumental crosses indicating the places where thirty or forty had been buried in one grave.

Peramas de Tredecem. § 267—273. Dobrizhoffer. 3. 17—41.

People of Santiago del Estero.

The only Spaniards who manfully made war against these enemies, were the people of Santiago del Estero, originally the capital and episcopal seat of Tucuman. They provided themselves for their expeditions with the meal of a species of maize mixed with honey or sugar; a little of this they stirred up with water in a horn, which was the only furniture of their campkitchen, and they required no other meat or drink: the mix-

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ture ¹⁷ was taken cold, and thus there was no need of fire, which might have betrayed them by the smoke. Their horses were as hardy as themselves; having little pasture because of cold winters, hot summers, long droughts, and a sandy soil, they used to browse upon the trees like goats. They were the best as well as the hardiest in the country, because children used to mount them before they were a year old, and thus tame them and break them in at the same time. These people alone inflicted more loss than all the other Spaniards of La Plata, Paraguay, and Tucuman, on the Mocobios, Tobas, and Abipones, and were more dreaded by them. They were as good horsemen as the savages themselves, as hardy, and as little ¹⁸ civilized in their habits of life; and their skill in detecting the track of an enemy was such, that the other Spaniards called them conjurors

17 Falkner describes a similar preparation in use among the same people, but made from a species of Alfarroba, which grows in the woods about Santiago, and is the best food which they ever give their horses. They pound the pods, and press the glutinous mass which is thus composed, into cakes or square boxes; it is called patay and esteemed medicinal as well as wholesome. If it be infused twelve hours in cold water, it ferments, and makes a strong drink. (Falkner. p. 31.) For this reason the Jesuits would not introduce the Alfarroba into their settlements, useful as it would have been, lest the Guaranies should contract habits of drunkenness. (Dobrizhoffer. 1. 402.) They chose to deprive themselves of a tree which produced food both for man and beast, and a beverage believed to be remarkably conducive to health, rather than incur this danger. It is not strange that they should have distrusted the efficacy of their moral precepts; but this fact seems to shew that they did not rely even upon their discipline, severe and vigilant as it was.

18 They went annually to collect wild honey, hunted upon the way, lived upon the venison, and brought home the honey in bags made of the skins of the beasts which they had killed. On the way out they chopt the palm trees as they went, and when they came back found in the wounded trunks the large fat grubs of the carculio palmaram, which were esteemed a dainty.

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and St. Antonios, as if it were scarcely possible for mere human sense to have attained to such unerring sagacity. Few of them had musquets; their weapon was an ill-made lance, but it was well used, with a brave will and a vigorous arm.

Falkner. 30. Dobrizhoffer. 2. 256. 3. 48. 51.

The Jesuits pacify the Abipones.

The Santiagans, as to their courage and activity, were the Paulistas of Spanish America. They resembled the Paulistas also in the worst part of their character, for they had consumed the Indians in their vicinity by oppression and cruel usage, and the few who survived among them in servitude, were in a state of filth and wretchedness which the Jesuits regarded with astonishment, when they compared it with the comforts that existed in the Reductions. But, unlike the Paulistas, they were few in number; they did not extend themselves, they never possessed the spirit of discovery, and they had not discovered the secret of increasing their own strength by making the Indians serve with them as soldiers as well as slaves. They effectually protected their own immediate district, and sometimes made successful expeditions beyond it: but these exertions were too limited and too unfrequent to afford any relief to Paraguay. That country owed its deliverance to the Jesuits. By their means, a peace was made first with the Mocobios, then with the Abipones, and the whole of the latter nation consented to put themselves under the direction of spiritual teachers, and submit to habits of settled life. A beginning was made to this good work by F. Joseph Brigniel, and by Dobrizhoffer, a man who was contented to employ, in labouring among these savages, under every imaginable circumstance of discomfort and discouragement, talents which would have raised him to distinction in the most enlightened parts of Europe. In spite of the parsimony, and the repeated errors of the Government, they succeeded so far that Paraguay was delivered from its most destructive enemies; and the civilization of this extraordinary people, a people

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capable of the greatest virtues, would have gradually been accomplished, if the schemes and labours of the Jesuits had not been first interrupted, and finally frustrated, by the unforeseen consequences of a political arrangement between the Courts of Lisbon and Madrid.

VOL. III. 3 L

[page 442]

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Treaty of Limits. The War of the Seven Reductions. Annulment of the Treaty.

CHAP. XXXIX.

Character of Ferdinand VI. and his Queen.

The intermarriages between the royal families of Spain and Portugal had not produced the slightest mitigation in those feelings of contempt and hatred which Philip V. and Isabel Farnese his wife always cherished against the Portugueze: but the effects were perceived when Ferdinand VI. succeeded to his father's throne. Mere state considerations have seldom, or never, united in marriage two persons so perfectly suited to each other, as the Prince of Asturias, and the Portugueze Infanta, D. Maria Barbara. He was a valetudinarian and a hypochondriac by inheritance. His only fault was that he was sometimes subject to violent fits of anger: the humility which arose from a deep and painful conviction of his incapacity for business, and the sense of his own unfitness for the awful situation in which he was placed, must be accounted among his virtues: he was humane, honourable, and conscientious, and desired peace and tranquillity above all things. The Queen had never any pretensions to beauty, and the gracefulness of her youthful form was soon lost, for she became excessively fat. Her understanding was

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CHAP. XXXIX.

good, her disposition affectionate, and her manners winning because of their remarkable gentleness and benignity: she was highly accomplished, and delighted in music, for which she possessed an hereditary and cultivated taste; the King also was passionately fond of the same art. So entirely had she obtained his affection and his confidence, that she might have ruled him with absolute sway; but though her superior understanding naturally gave her great influence over him, she had no such ambition, being wise enough to be warned rather than stimulated by the example of her mischievous predecessor. She too was an invalid, and could thus the better sympathize with her husband's infirmities; and he on his part loved and admired her the more for the equanimity with which she endured long and habitual sufferings.

Treaty of Limits. 1750.

The Queen was believed by the Spaniards to favour her native country more than was consistent with the interest of Spain; and to her influence they attributed a treaty which was now made for adjusting the long disputed limits in America. No such treaty would have been concluded if an amicable disposition had not existed on both sides; and that disposition had certainly been produced by this happy marriage. But that the terms were framed equitably for both parties may be presumed from the fact, that in the succeeding reign, when a friendly disposition no longer existed, both were equally ready to condemn them. By the preliminary article of this memorable treaty, all former treaties, and all pretensions founded upon the Bull of Pope Alexander, were annulled. The demarcation which was now determined, began at the mouth of a little stream which falls into the sea, and rises at the foot of Monte de Castilhos Grande; from thence it proceeded in a straight line to the mountains, following their summits to the sources of the Rio Negro, and continued, still upon the ridge, to those of the

[page] 444

CHAP. XXXIX. 1750.

Ybicuy: it then kept the course of that river to its junction with the Uruguay, traced the Uruguay upward till it reached the Pepiri, and then the Pepiri to its principal source: there, leaving the rivers, it again took the line of highest ground, till it came to the head of the first stream which flows into the Yguazu; the boundary followed this stream first, and then the Yguazu to its junction with the Parana: it went up this great river to the Igurey, and up the Igurey to its source; then once more it took the highest ground as far as the first stream that runs to the Paraguay, which it was supposed would probably be the Corrientes, .. for the negociators were proceeding here without any accurate knowledge of the country: the water then became the line, and so from its junction with the Paraguay along what in the dry season is the main stream, through the Pantanaes, which are marked in maps as the Lake of the Xarayes, to the mouth of the Jauru; and here some discretionary power was given. From the mouth of the Jauru the line was to be drawn straight for the south bank of the Guapore, opposite the mouth of the Sarare; but if the Commissioners should find between the Jauru and the Guapore, any other river, or natural boundary by which the limits might be more clearly and conveniently appointed, they might use their own discretion, reserving always to the Portugueze the exclusive navigation of the Jauru, and the road which they were accustomed to take from Cuyaba to Mato Grosso. But wherever the line reached the Guapore, it was to follow that stream to the Mamoré, and the Mamoré to the Madeira, and the Madeira to a point half way between its mouth and the mouth of the Mamoré; then it struck East and West, across unknown ground, till it touched the Javari, followed that river to the Orellana, and went down this great receiver of a thousand streams to the western mouth of the Japura: here it ascended, taking the middle of the stream; and

[page] 445

CHAP. XXXIX. 1750.

here again it entered a country of which the negociators possessed an imperfect knowledge, for their vague language is, that the line should ascend this river and the others which join it and approach nearest to the North, till it reached the summits of the Cordillera between the Orellana and the Orinoco, and then it was to go eastward along those summits, as far as the territories of the contracting powers extended. The Commissioners were to be especially careful that the demarcation took the most westerly mouth of the Japura, so that it might leave untouched the Portugueze settlements upon the shores of that river, and on the Rio Negro, and the communication or channel which they used between the two. Here the Spaniards were not to interlope; nor were the Portugueze on their part to ascend to the Orinoco, nor extend themselves toward the Spanish territory, whether peopled or waste: and the line was to be drawn as much toward the North as possible, by lakes and rivers where that could be done, without regarding whether much or little fell to one power or the other, so that the object of tracing a distinct boundary ¹ could be effected. Where the line of a river was taken, the islands in it were to belong to the nearest shore.

Tratado dos Limites. § 4—10.

Do. § 11.

The Commissioners were to design a map as they traced the limits, and jointly to impose names upon those rivers and mountains which had not yet been named: they were respectively to sign the two copies of this map, which might be appealed to as authority in any future dispute. But to prevent all disputes in future, his most Faithful Majesty ceded Colonia to Spain,

1 Ibañez calls it une ligne royale et tres visible, .. puisqu' elle seroit formée par des chaines de montagnes qui dureront autant que le monde, et par des fleuves tres profonds qui ne peuvent éprouver aucun changement. T. 2. p. 18.

[page] 446

CHAP. XXXIX. 1750.

and all the territory on the North shore of the Plata as far as the point where the line was now determined to begin, with all places, ports, and establishments therein, and renounced all right to the navigation of the Plata, which thenceforward was to belong exclusively to Spain. On the other side, his most Catholic Majesty ceded to Portugal all that was occupied by, or by any right or title appertained to Spain in any part of the lands from Monte de Castilhos Grande, its southern skirts, and the coast, to the source of the Ybicuy; and all settlements which Spain might have formed in the angle between the North bank of the Ybicuy and the East bank of the Uruguay, and all on the Eastern shore of the Pepiri; and the Pueblo de Santa Rosa (a word rendered Aldea by the Portugueze) and any other which Spain might have established upon the Eastern bank of the Guapore. And Portugal ceded the track from the Western mouth of the Japura, lying between that river and the Orellana, and the whole navigation of the Iza, and every thing from that river westward, and the Aldea ² de S. Christovam, and whatever other settlements Portugal might have made westward of the line which was now determined.

Tratado dos Limites. § 13. 14. 15.

§ 15

The artillery, arms, stores, and government vessels might be withdrawn from Colonia; the place in other respects was to be given up as it stood, and the inhabitants might either remain there, subject to the laws of Spain, or remove with their moveable property, and sell the rest. The Missionaries were to migrate from the settlements which Spain ceded on the Eastern side of the Uruguay, taking with them all their goods and

2 In the great Spanish map this place is marked upon the Ovaripana, a river the course of which seems to have been little known to the geographers; .. about half way between the Japura and the Iza.

[page] 447

CHAP. XXXIX. 1750.

effects, and their Indians, whom they were to settle within the Spanish territory; and the Indians also were to carry away their goods moveable or self-moving, and their arms, powder, and ammunition. The Reductions were then to be delivered up to the Crown of Portugal, with their houses, churches, and edifices of every kind, and the property and possession of the land. The settlements to be ceded by either party on the Pequiri, the Guapore, and the Orellana, were to be delivered under the same circumstances as Colonia, and the Indians might either migrate or remain, at their choice; but they who should migrate must lose that property which was not moveable, if they possessed any such. Portugal might fortify the Monte dos Castilhos Grande, and maintain a garrison there; but no other settlement was to be formed there, and the bar or bay which the sea made at that point, and where the limits began, was to be open to both nations. The navigation and fishery of the limitary streams were also declared common. All trade between the two nations was forbidden; nor might the subjects of one Power enter the territory of the other, without previous permission from the Governor or Superior of the district to which he was going, except on public business, and with passports, on pain of arbitary imprisonment. No fortifications were to be erected along the limitary rivers, nor on the tops of the limitary mountains, nor any settlements made there.

§ 16.

§ 17—20.

In case of any future war between the two contracting Powers, which, said the Treaty, may God forbid! the two Sovereigns desired that their respective subjects in South America might continue in peace, without committing the slightest act of hostility, either by themselves alone, or jointly with their allies. And in case this stipulation were broken, the movers of any invasion, however trifling in itself, should be punished with death, irremissibly and any plunder be fully and faithfully restored. Nor

[page] 448

CHAP. XXXIX. 1750.

should either Power permit the use of its ports to the enemy of the other; still less should it allow a passage through its dominions, though they might be at war in other parts of the world. This perpetual peace and good neighbourship was to hold good, not only on the land, but in all the rivers, ports, and upon all the coasts South of the Isle S. Antam, one of the Cape de Verds. And neither Power should admit into its ports, ships, or merchants, allied or neutral, who meant to carry on a contraband trade with the subjects of the other. .. The cession of Colonia, and the settlements East of the Uruguay were to be made within a year after the signature of the Treaty. And none of these cessions were to be considered as equivalents one for another, but as arrangements which, upon a view of the whole, had been considered and agreed to as beneficial to both parties.

§ 21.

§ 22.

§ 24.

The language and the whole tenour of this memorable treaty bear witness to the sincerity and good intentions of the two Courts; .. the two contracting Sovereigns seem indeed to have advanced beyond their age. They proceeded with an uprightness which might almost be considered new to diplomacy; and in attempting to establish a perpetual peace in their colonies, whatever disputes might occur between them in Europe, they set an example worthy of being held in remembrance as a practicable means of lessening the calamities of war. But there was a fatal fault committed in the treaty, and Spain, and Spanish America, and Brazil, feel at this day its baneful consequences.

Seven Reductions ceded in this treaty by Spain.

The portion of territory eastward of the Uruguay, which was ceded to the Portugueze, contained seven flourishing Reductions, inhabited by about thirty thousand Guaranies, not fresh from the woods, or half reclaimed, and therefore willing to revert to a savage state, and capable of enduring its exposure, hardships, and privations; but born as their fathers and grandfathers had been, in easy servitude, and bred up in the comforts of regular

[page] 449

CHAP. XXXIX. 1750.

domestic life. These persons with their wives and their children, their sick and their aged, their horses and their sheep and their oxen, were to turn out, like the children of Israel from Egypt into the wildernes, .. not to escape from bondage, but in obedience to one of the most tyrannical commands that ever were issued in the recklessness of unfeeling power.

Reasons for ordering the inhabitants to remove.

Yet Ferdinand must be acquitted of intentional injustice. His disposition was such that he would rather have suffered martyrdom than have issued so wicked an edict, had he been sensible of its inhumanity and wickedness. He perhaps, if he reflected upon the subject for a moment, thought it as easy for the Jesuits to transplant a Reduction, as for his Court to remove to Aranjuez or S. Ildefonso: and his Ministers, by whom the treaty was framed, conceived that in so wide a country there could be no difficulty in such a removal, because they were ignorant of all the local circumstances. Moreover it had often happened in Spanish America, that towns and cities had been moved from one situation to another; but this was when the former site had been found inconvenient, and while the settlement was in its infancy; .. the precedent therefore was not applicable, and yet undoubtedly it was considered to be so. But injurious as the stipulation was, it originated in a regard to the feelings of the very persons whom it affected so cruelly: for the Guaranies were proud of the services which they had rendered to Spain; they were far more inimical to the Brazilians than were the Spaniards themselves, so that the names of Portugueze and Enemy were synonimous with them; and therefore to have transferred them as subjects to the Crown of Portugal would have been ungrateful and ungenerous, and in the highest degree offensive to their spirit. Besides, that measure would have cut them off from their own countrymen, with whom, in case of a future war between the two nations, (an event too possible

VOL. III. 3 M

[page] 450

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and too likely to occur, notwithstanding the meritorious attempt in the treaty to prevent it) they would be engaged in unnatural hostility. The negociators therefore, if they perceived any hardship in the stipulation, would think it the least of two evils; but it was inexcusably aggravated by the unreflecting haste which declared that the cession was to be made within a year after the signature of the treaty.

This part of the treaty imputed to Gomes Freyre.

The Marquis of Valdelirios was sent from Spain to Buenos Ayres, to see the treaty carried into effect on that side. Gomes Freyre was intrusted with the same charge on the part of the Portugueze. This distinguished Fidalgo, who still retained his appointment as Governor of Rio Janeiro and Minas Geraes, is said to have been the first projector of the treaty. The undefined limits of his own wide government touched upon the Spanish territory along the whole line, from the Plata to the Mamore; to him therefore it was especially desirable that all causes of dispute upon that subject might be prevented by a demarcation, But it has been asserted also, that his great object was to get possession of the country in which the seven Reductions were situated, because he believed that it abounded with mines; and this assertion is both gratuitous and absurd. The Portugueze at that time were in no want of mining ground. Had they been greedier of gold than the first plunderers of Bogota or Peru, their appetite for it would have been satisfied with the treasures of Minas Geraes, Goyaz, Cuyaba, and Mato Grosso; and if they had not already found what they sought in such abundance, they were too much experienced in mines to seek for them in the low lands upon the Uruguay. The motives for the treaty lay upon the surface; they were obvious and they were just: it was concluded with good faith on both sides, and with an equitable regard to the convenience and interest of both, according to their common notions: had the same equity been observed

[page] 451

CHAP. XXXIX. 1752.

toward the Guaranies, it might have been carried happily into effect.

The Jesuits remonstrate against the stipulation.

Ibañez. 2. p. 24—7.

The cruel stipulation which regarded these people was not enforced quite so precipitately as it was made, and as the letter of the treaty required; for the Spanish Commissioners did not arrive in the Plata till two years after it had been signed. Meantime the Jesuits of Paraguay addressed a representation to the Royal Audience of Charcas, and obtained from that tribunal a memorial in their favour. They applied in like manner to the Audience of Lima, and the Viceroy, by the advice of the Audience, forwarded one copy of their representation to the Court of Spain, and another to the Governor of Buenos Ayres, that he might deliver it to the Commissioners on their arrival, and that they might take this statement into consideration, and determine, with the facts before them, how to act in conformity to the King's intentions. Perhaps the Jesuits relied too confidently upon the merits of their case, upon the influence which they formerly possessed at the Courts of Madrid and Lisbon, (not knowing that that influence had now been undermined,) upon the likelihood that any change of ministers, or of temper, might produce a change of politics in the two Courts; and upon the chances of events. Nevertheless they prepared to obey the treaty, if obedience should ultimately be required. The Provincial assembled the senior Missionaries; they declared, with one single exception, that they did not think it would be possible to do what was required of them; he however instructed the Jesuits in the seven unfortunate Reductions to use all means for persuading the people to obedience, and he wrote to the King, representing to him the injustice and cruelty of the stipulation, and the difficulty, or what might almost be called the impossibility, of enforcing it. The Superior of the Missions went through the seven Reductions, and in each, as prudently as he could,

[page] 452

CHAP. XXXIX. 1752.

made the King's pleasure known to the Chiefs of the Indians, Long accustomed to implicit submission, and never yet having been called upon to act or think for themselves, they all appeared to acquiesce except a Cacique at S. Nicolas: his apprehension was quicker than that of his countrymen, and he somewhat sullenly replied, that they had inherited from their forefathers the land which they possessed; but he added, that he knew not whether this his answer were wise or foolish. The Superior must have felt, that if a spark of this feeling were elicited it would spread like fire in the dry grass; and when he transmitted to the Provincial the promise of the Guaranies to obey, he gave it as his opinion, that because of the temper of the people the removal would be impossible.

Apologia. MS. § 39. Sullen acquiescence of the inhabitants.

Muriel. Supplement to Charlevoix. p. 338.

The country reconnoitred in search of places for the new settlements.

The intention of the Government was, that these Guaranies should occupy the country south of the Ybicuy. It was desirable that Spain should secure possession of the ceded territory; and moreover it was the nearest land, and therefore appeared to persons who were not acquainted with the localities, most convenient for the emigrants. But the Jesuits knew the country, and that it was not suitable for their establishments: indeed, whatever brought them into nearer connexion with the Spanish settlements, would have rendered it more difficult to keep their people in subordination, and in those habits which, if not examples of Christian perfection, as their encomiasts have described them, were at least decent and inoffensive, and in all respects infinitely superior to those of the Spanish population. Reconnoitring parties however were sent out from each of the Reductions, under the direction of a Jesuit; but after a painful search, having explored the wilderness for between four and five hundred miles, they returned without having found any place accommodated to their purpose. Perhaps men who were desirous of finding what they sought, might have been more successful:

[page] 453

CHAP. XXXIX. 1752.

See vol. 2. p. 316.

but situations which could have suited a common colony, consisting of a few hardy and volunteer adventurers, willing and able to depend upon the woods and waters for their first supply, would not afford subsistence for multitudes like these. Extensive pastures were indispensable for the myriads of cattle which they were to bring with them. The Jesuits had experienced the fatal consequences of a hasty emigration when they were driven from Guayra by the Paulistas; and the remembrance of that tragedy, which could not have been unknown among the Guaranies, made them the more solicitous that no avoidable evils should be incurred upon the present removal. Would it be possible to find room on the north of the Uruguay, in the land of the Reductions, between that river and the Parana? The Missionaries on that side were very desirous of receiving their brethren in this their season of distress;.. but already their pastures were fully stocked, their population was increasing upon them, and they were thinking of sending out colonies themselves. The urgent necessity of the case prevailed over such prudential considerations: other explorers were sent, and situations were discovered, which, if not desirable in themselves, at least afforded the requisites indispensable for such settlements as were intended. It was agreed that the people of S. Luiz should remove to a site between Lake Ybera, the Mirinay, and the River S. Lucia. For those of S. Lorenzo, a large island was proposed in the Parana, beginning above the Falls and extending below them; but they preferred returning to S. Maria Mayor, from whence they had gone forth as a colony. The people of S. Miguel were to occupy a situation in a different direction, to the south-east, upon the River Negro: those of S. Juan a site between the Parana, the Paraguay, and the great marsh, or Pantanal, of the Neembucu. The people of Los Angeles had ground assigned them to the north of the Reduction

[page] 454

CHAP. XXXIX. 1752.

of Corpus Christi. Land upon the Queguay, to the south, was allotted to the emigrants from S. Francisco Borja: and to those from S. Nicolas, a situation beyond the Parana, in the bend of the river, between Itapua and S. Trinidad. Five of these proposed situations seemed unobjectionable; but one was evidently an unhealthy spot, and another was exposed to the Charruas, whose depredations upon the cattle would for awhile be a greater evil than even their direct hostility.

Apologia. MS. § 42. Muriel. Supplement to Charlevoix. p. 338.

The Spanish Commissioners arrive in the Plata.

They precipitate the removal.

Thus much had been done when the Marquis de Valdelirios arrived in the Plata. F. Luiz Altamirano came out with him, having full powers from the General of the Company over all the Jesuits in South America; and as a farther precaution, F. Joseph Barreda was removed from Peru to be Provincial in Paraguay, because, being a stranger to the people and the country, he would not be influenced by any personal feelings in executing the will of the Sovereign. Valdelirios had no sooner landed than he received from the Governor, D. Joseph de Andoanegui, the representations of the Audiences of Charcas and Lima, and memorials to the same effect from the Bishop of Cordoba, the Governor of Paraguay, and from the town of S. Miguel in Tucuman. These memorials concurred in representing the stipulated cession of the seven Reductions as a measure injurious to the interests of Spain; and some of them advised that the article should be annulled. The Jesuits in whose College the Marquis took up his quarters, did not thus directly oppose the obnoxious and oppressive measure: but they pointed out what difficulties there were to be overcome; they urged the necessity of employing an armed force in behalf of the intended settlement upon the River Negro, to clear that part of the country from the Charruas, before the emigrants should remove; they represented that time should be allowed for erecting places of shelter for the multitude when they should arrive upon their allotted

[page] 455

CHAP. XXXIX. 1752.

ground, and that some accommodations also would be needful on the way for harbouring at night, if not the hale and the adult, at least women and infants, and the sick and aged. When they should have reached the end of their journey, a year must elapse before the earth would return its fruits; one year therefore was plainly necessary to prepare for this by raising a double crop; but they petitioned for a delay of three: in the course of that time houses might be erected and land brought into cultivation. Valdelirios abruptly answered ³, that he would not give them three months.

Ibañez. t. 2. p. 46—56. Apologia. MS. § 38. 42. Muriel. Supplement to Charlevoix. 338.

Insurrection at S. Nicolas.

Valdelirios however perceived that the execution of the treaty was not so easy as he had expected. He went therefore to Castilhos Grande, to confer with Gomes Freyre, and he dispatched Altamirano to the Reductions that he might exert his authority over a people who had been taught to consider implicit obedience to their spiritual teachers as the first duty. When the Father reached Yapeyu, a Reduction upon the right bank of the Uruguay a little below the spot where it receives the Ybicuy, he found that a spirit of resistance had shown itself. It began among the S. Nicolites, who were dissatisfied with the situation which had been chosen for them: it was unhealthy; .. the land, they said, which they had received from God and their fathers, was better; they had good pastures where they were, they had a good town and a fine church, and they would not leave them to make room for the Portugueze. Patient as they had at first appeared, they now turned like the trodden worm. And their resentment was inflamed by a person who happened at that time to be in the Reduction, having recently travelled in Brazil, ..

3 The author of the Supplement to Charlevoix says, "indicta nihilominus est emigratio, ut ambigas num magic cæca tunc fuerit Jesuitarum obedientia, quam præceptio. P. 338.

[page] 456

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either an Indian, or one of mixed blood, sufficiently intelligent to have been curious concerning the treaty, and to have made himself acquainted with such facts or rumours relating to it as were current among the Brazilians. It was not the Portugueze, he said, by whom they were injured; the Portugueze wished the demarcation to be drawn from behind the Jacuy to the mouth of the Plata, a line which would have given them Maldonado, and left the land of the Missions untouched: but the Spaniards had rather chosen to give up the seven Reductions, and it was by the Spaniards that they were sacrificed. The spirit which had broken forth at S. Nicolas presently assumed a character of regular resistance; they deposed their magistrates, and elected in their stead those persons who manifested the most determined resolution to maintain their rights.

Apologia. MS. § 43. Muriel. Supplement to Charlevoix. p. 339.

The emigration from S. Miguel is begun.

The people revolt and recall the emigrants.

This news occasioned a great ferment in S. Miguel. Preparations had been made there for beginning the removal, and the first division actually set out, .. four hundred families, with an hundred and fifty waggons carrying their stores and tools, under the direction of Father Joseph Garcia, an old Missionary whom they highly venerated. There was loud lamentation when they set forth, both on the part of those who went, and of those who remained behind; and voices were heard which commended the people of S. Nicolas for their resolution. A willingness to follow their example was indicated; but it proceeded as yet no farther, and the emigrants began their journey into the wilderness. Their difficulties and sufferings were increased by a continuance of heavy rain. An old man and four children died upon the way: their deaths, if not occasioned by fatigue and exposure, were imputed to this cause, and probably accelerated by it; and the people declared that if they went on they should all perish, and therefore, they said, they would advance no farther. Just at this time a messenger overtook them with intelligence that their fellow

[page] 457

CHAP. XXXIX. 1752.

townsmen had changed their minds and were determined not to orsake their birthplace. The absence of Garcia and the thought of what those who were on the way were suffering from the weather, may perhaps have hastened this resolution. Garcia's opposition was to no avail. They returned immediately, with more speed and better will than they had advanced, and the Jesuit was compelled to follow them. And here the insurrection took a more ferocious character. The people were about to kill Christoval Payré, their chief magistrate, because he attempted to oppose them: some person saved him at the critical moment, by observing that the Rector F. Miguel de Herrera was the more guilty. Herrera learnt his danger in time, got on horseback, and fled: he sent back an Indian to fetch his breviary, and the poor fellow was murdered by his furious countrymen. Herrera never dared return. F. Lorenzo Balda was sent to supply his place: the Guaranies received him; but he found himself in more danger among them than he had ever been in all his expeditions among the savages.

Apologia. Ms. § 43.

The people of the other Reductions determine not to give up their towns.

The S. Borjans set out under F. Miguel de Soto, reached their appointed place upon the Queguay, began to build, and continued there six months: wearied with the unaccustomed labour then, and discouraged by the frequent attacks of the wild Indians, they returned in spite of all Soto's efforts to detain them. The people of S. Juan advanced as far as the Uruguay; then their suspicions and their temper broke out. They told the Jesuit that they understood his designs; .. he had sold their town and their fields to the Portugueze, and now he meant to deliver them up as slaves to the Spaniards, who were waiting with boats in the Parana to carry them off. The Jesuit endeavoured to laugh them out of this notion; but when he retired among the trees to his devotions, they moved in silence over a little rising ground, and having thus got out of sight, hastened back

VOL. III. 3 N

[page] 458

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with all speed. Before he reached the Reduction they had chosen new magistrates, and were in a state of organized insurrection. The people of Los Angeles also went as far as the Uruguay; a journey of sixty leagues exhausted their patience, and, telling the Jesuit that they had done enough to show their obedience to the King, they returned, and were welcomed by their fellows with the loudest demonstrations of joy. The division from S. Luiz crossed the Uruguay; they met the Charruas, whom the Jesuits conciliated by means of gifts; but when they had passed the Yapeyu, others, of these savages appeared ready to attack them: their perseverance then failed; they set out on their return, and on their way passed by S. Thomas, where Altamirano saw them pass, and was then convinced that the authority of the Jesuits was at an end. The party from S. Lorenzo were the only Indians who gave proof of a constant obedience. They reached the island which had been allotted them, .. for they could not be received at S. Maria Mayor; .. they built a church, and went on steadily with their new town; but the Lorenzites who remained behind followed the example of the other Reductions, and sent them notice that if they wanted food they must come for it, for none should be sent them. Desertion then began; till the Jesuit, finding that only fifty persons were left in his company, retired with them to the Reduction of S. Cosme, on the right bank of the branch which forms the island.

Apologia. MS. § 44.

Appeal of the Guaranies to the Spanish Governor.

These unsuccessful attempts proved the obedience of the Jesuits; they proved also that, injurious as the removal was, it might possibly have been effected had there been sufficient time allowed and due precautions taken; .. if the Charruas had first been pacified, and houses built, and land brought into cultivation upon the new ground, before any migration was attempted. Valdelirios was chiefly culpable for this precipitance. Had the

[page] 459

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necessity for delay been fairly represented to the Spanish Government, that Government, inveterately prone as it was to dilatory measures, would hardly have issued peremptory orders for the immediate evacuation. And if the appeal which the Guaranies made to Andoanegui had found its way to Ferdinand, even the reasonable suspicion that its form and arguments had proceeded from the Jesuits would not have rendered so good and humane a man insensible to its force. "Neither we nor our forefathers," said they, "have ever offended the King, or ever attacked the Spanish settlements. How then, innocent as we are, can we believe that the best of Princes would condemn us to banishment? Our fathers, our forefathers, our brethren, have fought under the King's banner, often against the Portugueze, often against the savages: who can tell how many of them have fallen in battle, or before the walls of Nova Colonia, so often besieged! We ourselves can show in our scars the proofs of our fidelity and our courage. We have ever had it at heart to extend the limits of the Spanish empire, and to defend it against all enemies; nor have we ever been sparing of our blood, or of our lives. Will then the Catholic King requite these services by the bitter punishment of expelling us from our native land, our churches, our homes and fields and fair inheritance? This is beyond all belief! By the royal letters of Philip V. which, according to his own injunctions, were read to us from the pulpits, we were exhorted never to suffer the Portugueze to approach our borders, because they were his enemies and ours. Now, we are told that the King will have us yield up to these very Portugueze, this wide and fertile territory, which the Kings of Spain, and God, and Nature have given us, and which for a whole century we have tilled with the sweat of our brows. Can any one be persuaded that Ferdinand the son should enjoin us to do that which was so frequently forbidden

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by his father Philip? But if time and change have indeed brought about such friendship between old enemies that the Spaniards are desirous to gratify the Portugueze, there are ample tracts of country to spare, and let those be given them. What, .. shall we resign our towns to the Portugueze, .. the Portugueze, .. by whose ancestors so many hundred thousand of ours have been slaughtered, or carried away into cruel slavery in Brazil? This is as intolerable to us, as it is incredible that it should be required. When, with the Holy Gospels in our hand, we promised and vowed fidelity to God and the King of Spain, his Priests and Governors promised to us on his part, friendship and perpetual protection; .. and now we are commanded to give up our country! Is it to be believed that the promises, and faith, and friendship of the Spaniards, can be of so little stability!"

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 19.

Perilous situation of the Jesuits.

Apologia. MS. § 45.

Andoanegui felt the iniquity of the measure, and was well disposed to second these remonstrances, if he had been permitted; but Valdelirios would suffer no delay. Altamirano also is blamed by his brethren for using his power with similar indiscretion; and the Bishop of Buenos Ayres increased the evil by fulminating an interdict against the contumacious Reductions, and forbidding the Jesuits to administer any of the Sacraments, .. not even baptism, .. not even extreme unction; .. orders, says the Apologist of the Paraguay Missionaries, which F. Altamirano and the Bishop ought, as ecclesiastics, to have known were impieties, neither lawful for them to impose, nor for the Jesuits to obey, and which in their effect were like pouring oil upon the fire. The seven Reductions were now in a state of declared resistance to the treaty, and there appeared a disposition in the other twenty-four, not merely to sympathize with them, and approve their resolution, but to support them in it. It was publicly proclaimed that the Jesuits, forgetful of the love which was due to the Guaranies as their children, had sold their towns

[page] 461

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and possessions to the Portugueze: the newly-elected magistrates forbade all persons, on pain of death, from even talking of obedience, and from listening to the Jesuits upon that subject, .. for the Fathers were not to be suffered to address them upon any other matter than the laws of God. The Jesuits were now little better than prisoners where they had lately enjoyed such absolute authority, .. that authority too founded upon the love and devotion of the people, .. so great a change had been produced by the strong resentment of injustice. An opinion arose, that Altamirano was not one of the Company, but a Portugueze who had assumed that character and came to take possession of the country. Three hundred men set out from S. Miguels for the purpose of putting him to death: a messenger whom F. Lorenzo Balda dispatched with information of the danger outstript them on their march, and Altamirano escaped to Buenos Ayres.

Apologia. MS. § 46.

Do. § 48.

The Guaranies compel a party of the Commissioners to retire.

At this time fifty Portugueze troops and as many Spanish, with a full complement of officers, chaplains, surgeons, and men of science attached to the Commission, and with a convoy of waggons and beasts of burden conveying stores for a six months' expedition, arrived upon the frontier of the land of the Missions, to make the demarcation. The part assigned to them was from Castilhos on the coast, to the mouth of the Ybicuy; and in the execution of their charge they came to S. Thecla, an Estancia belonging to the Reduction of S. Miguel, where there were a few herdsmen, and a Chapel which was visited by one of the Missionaries from time to time. The S. Miguelites who were in pursuit of Altamirano heard of this party, and forsaking their first object as being of less importance, they hastened toward S. Thecla. Sepé Tyarayu, the Alferez of the Reduction and leader of the detachment, happened to know the Captain of the Spaniards, having once been his fellow traveller. He sent a messenger to this officer, desiring that he would meet him in the

[page] 462

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Chapel. They had an interview there: and according to the statement which the enemies of the Jesuits published, when he was exhorted not to oppose the King's orders, he replied, that King was a long way off, and the Guaranies acknowledged no other authority than that of their holy Fathers; they were acting in obedience to the instructions of the Superior and the Rector; God and St. Michael had given them the lands which they possessed; if the Spanish Commission and the Spanish troops chose to proceed, they were welcome and should receive every assistance; but the Portugueze should not be permitted to enter the country, for such were the Superior's orders. If this language were really held by Sepé Tyarayu, proof would yet be required that it had been authorized by the Jesuits: but the calumny, that they designed to keep the land for themselves, is confuted in this very instance by the conduct of the Guaranies; for they would have admitted the Spaniards, and the resolution which they expressed was, that they would not surrender their country to the Portugueze.

Muriel. Supp. to Charlevoix. p. 339. Reluçam Abbreviada. p. 5. Ibañez. 3. 109—38.

War is declared against the seven Reductions.

The Captain of this detachment and Altamirano arrived about the Same time at Buenos Ayres. Valdelirios had returned thither from a conference with Gomes Freyre. It was manifest that the Guaranies would not yield up their country to their old hereditary enemies, unless force were employed against them; and the Commissioners, instead of endeavouring to prevent farther ill by representing to their respective Courts the inconveniences and injustice of the measure, and the difficulty which there would be in effecting it, issued a formal declaration of war against the people of the seven Reductions. Altamirano then addressed a circular letter to the Jesuits in this disturbed country, enjoining them without delay to destroy the gunpowder in their respective towns, to prevent the making of spear or arrowheads, or weapons of any kind at their forges: and if by a cer-

[page] 463

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tain day they could not persuade the people to conform to the treaty, they were in that case commanded to consume the wafers, destroy the sacred vessels lest they should be subject to profanation, take up their breviaries, and profanation, take up their breviaries, and forthwith repair to Buenos Ayres, that it might not be said that the Jesuits had fomented the rebellion.

Ibañez. 2. 151—65

The Jesuits offer to resign their authority in the Reductions.

Valdelirios came from Europe strongly prejudiced against the Jesuits; so much so, that on his arrival he had proposed to the Bishop and the Superiors of the other Religious Orders at Buenos Ayres, that they should send Secular Priests and Friars to supersede them in these Missions till the treaty should be executed. They however well knew how invidious and how dangerous this substitution would be, and refused to take upon themselves the charge. But now, when the Guaranies were in open rebellion, and war had been declared against them, the Provincial of the Jesuits, knowing in how painful and perilous a situation the Missionaries were placed, how unavailing their efforts for persuading the people to submission had proved, and if the individuals should happily escape with life, how certainly advantage would be taken of that circumstance to calumniate the Order, addressed in the name of the Company a resignation of their charge, not in the proclaimed district alone, but in all the Guarani Reductions, to the Governor Andoanegui, and to the Bishop, as the chief civil and ecclesiastical authorities upon the spot, .. thus giving up their power to the Crown of Spain, from which they had received, and under which they had held it. But the Governor and the Bishop refused to accept the resignation, and Valdelirios at this time insisted that the Jesuits should not be ordered to withdraw. Perhaps he did not chuse to render himself responsible for the consequences of removing them: perhaps he hoped that they might still produce some good by remaining upon the spot: perhaps, prejudiced as he

Apologia. MS. § 49.

[page] 464

CHAP. XXXIX. 1753.

was against them, he was determined that they should take their lot with the Guaranies, supposing that by this means they would be driven to act openly instead of covertly, and thus to afford unequivocal proofs of their participation in the insurrection.

Commencement of hostilities upon the Rio Pardo.

The first hostilities occurred upon the Rio Pardo. A detachment of Portugueze had fortified themselves there with an estacade, and the Guaranies of S. Luiz, to whose territory the place appertained, set out to dislodge them. The Portugueze sallied to disperse them, but were fain to retire within their works from a shower of arrows, by which they lost some men: the discharge of the cannon soon made the Guaranies desist from their enterprize; but after awhile they returned in greater force, having obtained assistance from S. Miguel, S. Lorenzo, and S. Juan: they brought with them four pieces of cane artillery, and approached near enough to feel the effect of better guns more skilfully served. Their leader, among others, was killed, and about fifty of them fell into the ⁴ hands of the Portugueze. The prisoners were terrified, and answered in the affirmative to any questions that were asked: they said there were Jesuits in their

4 In this war, as in the affair of Cardenas, the statements of both parties are to be received with extreme suspicion, for neither the Jesuits nor their enemies scrupled at any falsehood which might give a better appearance to their case. The Apologist says, that these Guaranies were retiring after their repulse, when a white flag was hoisted on the fort, and about fifty of them were persuaded to enter; wine was given them, which being the first fermented liquor they had ever tasted, presently intoxicated them, and they were bound in their sleep, .. like so many Samsons. An improbable story in all its parts: .. there was no occasion for treachery in the first instance, when prisoners might so easily have been taken among a routed and cowardly enemy: .. if the Guaranies had been decoyed within the estacade, it would have been just as easy to seize them when sober as when drunk; for they were compleatly in the power of the Portugueze, and too much in fear of musquets to have made much resistance: but the mention of wine is sufficient proof against the truth of the story. Wine is not the growth, therefore not the liquor, of Brazil. It may reasonably be doubted whether a single bottle ever found its way to the Rid Pardo; .. but that the soldiers there should have had it in sufficient quantities to make fifty Guaranies drunk, is plainly impossible.

[page] 465

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company; and being asked, wherefore when they killed a Portugueze they always cut off his head, they are said to have replied, that the Jesuits directed them so to do, because however grievously wounded the Portugueze might be, many of them would recover unless the Guaranies in this manner made sure work ⁵. These men were sent to ⁶ Rio Grande de S. Pedro,

Apologia. MS. § 52—54. Relaçam Abbreviada. 6.

5 José Basilio da Gama, in the notes to his Poem, improves upon this story: he says they were taught to believe that all the Portugueze were sorcerers; that each had a devil within him, and that the only means of preventing them from returning to life after they were killed, was to cut off the head and deposit it at a certain distance from the body. (O Uraguay, p. 13.) Even such calumnies against the Jesuits as this, were not too gross to pass current! I possess a minute and faithful journal of the campaign of 1756; and it happens, that though that journal notices some abominable barbarities on the part of the Guaranies, in not a single instance did they decapitate the dead.

6 Their guards are said to have treated them with great barbarity, and murdered more than two thirds by the way; .. to have brought only fourteen of the prisoners alive, and presented the heads of the rest to Gomes Freyre, for which they were severely reproved, but not punished. (Apologia. § 53.) There is a very different account in the Ephemerides, published by Ibañez as the work of F. Thaddeus Ennes (T. 3. 290—293). There it is said that the prisoners attempted to escape on their way, when they were ascending the Rio Pardo, and killed the Captain of their escort and two of his men; but they were finally overpowered, and about forty perished, some in the conflict, others in the water. Gomes Freyre liberated the survivors, and entrusted them with letters to the Reductions, with the answers to which they were to return. There is a story in the Apologia, of a theatrical scheme for intimidating them so as to make them confess whatever was desired; .. but notwithstanding this silly fabrication, the Apologist admits that the Portugueze Commander treated them with humanity.

VOL. III. 3 O

[page] 466

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there to be questioned by Gomes Freyre himself; and there, being still under the same impression of fear, they confirmed all that they had said upon their first examination.

Capture and escape of Sepé Tyarayu.

The Guaranies made another expedition to the Rio Pardo, and carried off some horses belonging to the Portugueze, .. the kind of hostility for which they were best adapted when not under the direction of European leaders. Sepé Tyarayu, who was their Chief, was persuaded to enter the enemy's quarters and treat concerning a ransom: about thirty of his men followed him. They were seized, and the Portugueze then sent to let the Guaranies know that they would exchange their countrymen for the horses. The loss of Sepé, who was commander of the artillery, and a man of more than common courage and capacity, was severely felt; and yet it was not easy for the Guaranies to effect the proposed exchange. Their party consisted of adventurers from various Reductions, and the sense of their common danger was not sufficient to make them give up the consideration of particular interests: some refused to give up their share of the booty; and if this difficulty could have been overcome, no person would so far trust the Portugueze as to conduct the cattle and transact the exchange, with so recent an example of their bad faith before his eyes. The Portugueze, thinking to expedite the business, sent Sepé himself, under a guard of twelve horsemen; he was on horseback also, but naked and without arms or spurs. A river was between them and the Guaranies: Sepé desired that he might cross it to confer with his countrymen; when this was refused, he asked how it was possible for him to settle the affair unless he were allowed to communicate with the persons concerned? But with that cunning which is part of the savage character he told them, as though in a sportive bravado, that if he chose he could go to his countrymen in spite of any efforts to prevent him. They laughed, and asked him in mockery how it

[page] 467

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was to be done. In this manner! replied Sepé and exciting his horse at once by the scourge and the voice, he set off at full speed. Before they thought of pursuit, it was too late; they fired, and missed him; he got into the woods, dismounted, swam the river, and just at night-fall entered the Guarani camp, shivering and almost exhausted with cold. Rather than leave his followers in captivity, he proposed to make up the number of horses from those which belonged to his own Reduction. The difficulty of transacting the exchange still occurred; and this disorderly army could agree upon nothing but to break up, and retire every man to his home.

Ephemerides. 254—270.

The Spaniards enter the country, and soon retreat.

More serious operations were now to commence. It had been concerted between Gomes Freyre and Valdelirios, that the Spaniards should advance against the rebellious Guaranies (as they were termed) from Buenos Ayres, and the Portugueze from Rio Grande de S. Pedro. The Spaniards under Andoanegui set forth in May, at the commencement of the winter season. They proceeded by land upon the left bank of the Uruguay, while a flotilla under D. Juan de Echavarria kept pace with their movements. But when they had advanced as far as the river Y garapuy, the want ⁷ of pasture and the failure of stores induced the Commander to retire from an expedition which he was supposed to have undertaken with no good will. Echavarria is said to have

7 The Apologist (§ 58,) says a plague of insects had poisoned the country, so that the cattle could neither eat the grass nor browse upon the trees. According to the Continuator of Charlevoix's history (p. 340), a long drought had parched the land, and it was impossible to find food for thirty thousand horses and head of cattle, which were in the train of the Spaniards. Ibañez says, there would have been no difficulty if they had gone on the other side the river; and he charges the General with treachery. But this man's testimony is always invalidated by his virulent malice.

[page] 468

CHAP. XXXIX. 1754.

Proceedings at Yapeyu.

Ibañez. 2. 186—200. Ephemerides. 311. 319. Muriel. Supp. to Charlevoix. 340.

remonstrated against this retreat, and the Spanish General has been accused of acting in collusion with the Jesuits. The charge is as false as is the fable that the Jesuits were attempting to establish an independent Republic of their own. But it is likely that Andoanegui believed this part of the treaty would be annulled, whenever its inconvenience should be understood by the Court, and therefore was desirous of doing as little evil as possible in the attempt to enforce it. Yapeyu, the nearest Reduction to which he approached in his march, was not within the limits of the ceded territory, and the inhabitants, though they warmly sympathized with their countrymen, had hitherto taken no part in the insurrection. But the soldiers carried off some of their cattle, and then their indignation burst forth. The Jesuits, being unable to repress this spirit, would have left the place and gone to the Spanish Camp. The people would not permit this; and when the Rector, under pretence of visiting the sick in one of their estancias attempted to escape down the river, he was intercepted and brought back with a rope round his neck. The boatmen in his company were fastened all night upon the ground, with their heads and feet tied to four stakes, and flogged with stirrup leathers in the morning. They contented themselves with frightening the Father, by firing at him without shot; but when the Chief of the Guaranies for the time being, heard of what had past, he sent to deliver him from his perilous situation, and apologized for the indignities to which he had been exposed. This new Commander was a certain Nicolas Neenguiru, a good, humble, inoffensive man, and an excellent fiddler, who was no more desirous of the appointment to which he was chosen than he was fit for it, and who little imagined that he was ever to become notorious in European gazettes by the title of King Nicolas of Paraguay! The people of Yapeyu ventured to attack a party of Spaniards who were left near the

[page] 469

CHAP. XXXIX. 1754.

falls of the Uruguay: they drove away some of their horses, but they were pursued and overtaken; and the Commander, D. Thomas Hilson, with less forbearance than his General would have shown, put two or three hundred to the sword.

This severe execution seems to have exasperated their countrymen. There were still Jesuits in the Reduction endeavouring to allay their personal resentment, and persuade them to submission: instead of attending to these admonitions, they took from them their keys, and divided among themselves the stores of the magazines, cotton and wool, linen and calico, tobacco, knives, spurs, bridles, and Paraguay-tea. These Jesuits were recalled from their state of durance as soon as their situation ⁸ was known; and the Rector of Concepcion, F. Joseph Cardiel, came with one companion to succeed them. Cardiel was received with every mark of honour; the bells were rung, the guns fired, the banners displayed, the keys and all the other symbols of authority laid at his feet. They promised to obey him in every thing, .. except the single point of submitting to the treaty; and he remained among them to perform the ceremonies of religion, and keep up as far as he could the appearance and the habit of subordination. At S. Nicolas, F. Carlos Tux attempted to read from the pulpit a letter exhorting the people to obedience: as soon as its purport was apprehended they compelled him to break off; and when he came down, the obnoxious paper was taken from his bosom and burnt in the market place.

Ephemerides. 321. 325. Muriel. Supp. to Charlevoix. 240.

Advance of the Portugueze to the Jacuy.

Meantime Gomes Freyre advanced from the coast. When

8 In the Ephemerides it is said that they made them fast four days, allowing them only a single dish of bouillé every day. Ibañez, in the malignity of his feelings toward the Jesuits, did not perceive that this foolish interpolation betrayed itself.

[page] 470

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he came to the Ybicuy a party of Guaranies appeared on the opposite bank; they fell back at the first discharge of the enemy's artillery to the main body, which was encamped not far distant, .. for it was on this side that they were most apprehensive of danger, and hither they had brought their chief force. Yet, as it appears, under a persuasion that the stipulation which so injuriously affected them, would be annulled by the two Courts when its injustice and cruelty should have been fairly represented, they readily communicated with the Portugueze, and even assisted ⁹ them in their passage of the river. As the Portugueze General advanced, they moved in a parallel direction till he reached the woods upon the Jacuy, where he resolved to wait till he should receive advice of the movements of the Spaniards. The Guaranies encamped also: they were in a state of wretched insubordination and disunion, .. the state of perpetual pupilage in which they had been held by the Jesuits rendering them miserably incapable of acting for themselves in cases where decision and promptitude were required. The people of one community were for breaking up and going to their homes; those of another were for keeping their station; and they were many times in danger of turning their arms against each other. Amid these dissensions they frequently challenged the Portugueze to give them battle: and if Gomes Freyre had accepted this repeated defiance, he might have slaughtered them like sheep; but there is some reason for supposing that he gave them credit for more ability and more courage than they possessed. The skill and vigilance

9 According to the Ephemerides this was done with a treacherous intention. But if the Guaranies were politic enough to have formed any scheme for entrapping the Portugueze, they made no attempt to execute it. This insinuation therefore seems to be one of the falsehoods which Ibañez has interpolated.

[page] 471

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O Uraguay. pp. 15. 16.

Gomes Freyre makes a truce and retires.

of their archers might have produced such an impression, .. they suffered no man to expose himself beyond the lines with impunity; and by this activity they rendered an unintended service to the Portugueze General, for they effectually prevented his men from deserting, to which a great proportion of them were inclined because of the excessive hardships which they endured. The rainy season commenced; and in spite of floods and scarcity Gomes Freyre kept his station, unwilling that the expedition should be frustrated after so much fatigue and cost. It is said, that as the waters rose he made his troops encamp in the trees, after the manner of the roosting tribes, making huts or tents among the branches, and forming floating lines of communication with their canoes: and thus they were quartered for two months out of the three of their continuance. At the expiration of that time three boats were perceived coming up the Yacuy: the Guaranies brought their cane-cannon to bear upon the river, and sunk them; but the Portugueze dispatched assistance, and saved most of the crew. They proved to be the bearers of dispatches, by which Andoanegui advised the Portugueze Commander of his retreat. Gomes Freyre then thought it expedient to ¹⁰ treat with the Guaranies. They readily consented to let him retire without molestation; and knew so little how to profit by

10 It is admitted, in the Relaçam Abbreviada, that Gomes Freyre was compelled to solicit this treaty: but the treaty itself is worded as if it were an act of condescension and compassion on his part toward the Guarnaies. This may easily be understood. The poor Guaranies were desirous that the Portugueze should retreat, and heartily glad to retire themselves. The treaty gratified them in both points; they knew this, and this was all they knew. The Portugueze therefore drew up the agreement just as they pleased, and represented the Caciques as imploring Gomes Freyre that he would suffer them to retreat without molestation, .. the object being in reality precisely the reverse.

[page] 472

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the fair occasion which had been offered them, that they sold cattle and other provisions to their enemies for buttons and such trifles. The Portugueze were thus enabled to return in safety, and the Guaranies separated, each to his own Reduction, where they gave thanks to S. Francisco Xavier, and betook themselves to their wonted occupations, as if all danger had been at an end.

Apologia. MS. § 56. Ephemerides. 304—310. 315—319. 325—335.

Hopes of the Jesuits.

Ephemerides. 340. 352.

The Guaranies in this campaign, if so it may be called, had shown neither skill, nor enterprize, nor unanimity. But the mere difficulties of the country had baffled both the invading armies; time had been gained, and the Jesuits hoped yet to procure a revocation of the treaty by their influence at Madrid. Their hopes were strengthened by news that Carvajal the Spanish Minister was dead, an event which might easily draw after it a change of measures. Some of their enemies at Lisbon too had been removed by death, judicially, as they according to their customary spirit believed, by the interposition of Providence. While they exerted every means to interest earthly powers in their favour, they acted upon the feelings of the Spaniards in Tucuman and La Plata, and of the Guaranies, by calling loudly upon the Saints to intercede for them and protect them against their calumniators. The festival of the Bohemian St. John of Nepomuc was celebrated by them at S. Fe with greater magnificence than had ever before been displayed in that country, the ladies of the place lending all their jewels and precious stones to adorn his image: and favourite Saints in the Reductions were supplicated with processions and festivals in their honour, .. ceremonies which tended to excite and animate the people, and in some degree to keep up the authority of the Fathers. They were too cautious and too wise to encourage them by any overt act, or even to express the secret wish for their success, which it is scarcely possible that they should not have entertained, and which if it had

[page] 473

CHAP. XXXIX. 1755.

Efforts of their enemies.

Fable of King Nicolas.

not arisen from a laudable indignation at the cruelty of the intended expulsion, would have had its root in a desire that the impolicy of the measure might be demonstrated, and the accuracy of their own judgement approved. But the hope that in the interval which had been won, a change might take place in the Spanish counsels, was delusive; and not less fallacious was the dependance which they had placed upon their habitual influence in the Courts of the Peninsula. That influence had received its mortal wound. The enemies of the Company were more active than they had ever been, having now a likely prospect of accomplishing their end; for the progress of reason and of irreligion (then unhappily inseparable from each other in Catholic countries) had given them a host of efficient allies. All forepast crimes, errors, and offences of the Jesuits were recapitulated against them with terrible effect. Old calumnies were impudently revived, and new ones more impudently invented. They were accused of having established an empire in Paraguay, as their own exclusive dominion, from which they derived enormous riches. It was affirmed that they were defending this empire by force of arms, and that, renouncing all allegiance to the Kings of Spain, they had set up a King of their own, Nicolas by name. Histories of King Nicolas were fabricated and published. And with such zealous malignity was the falsehood propagated, that money ¹¹ was actually struck in his name, and handed about in Europe as an irrefragable proof of the accusa-

11 In the Apologia (§ 11) it is said, that many of these coins, bearing the head of Nicolas, are preserved in European collections. Dobrizhoffer says, they were struck in Quito, and that no person who saw them could doubt the existence of the King whose superscription they bore. "verum patuit fraus denique. Ipse harum monetarum cusor I. C. 1760 anno, 20 Martii, literas ad Regem dedit, quibus fatetur occultis mordacis conscientiæ stimulis compelli se ad detegendum flagitium." "Me veo forzado (verba sunt Hispani) por unos secretos remordimientos de conciencia a descubrir esta iniquedad." Hoc scripto detegitur venalis fidei et profligateæ conscientiæ vir, a quo ad cudendos Nicolai Regis nummos fuerat instigatus. Nomen hujus, et cognomen, totâ licet Hispaniâ pervulgatum, P. F. M. M. reticendum putavi, ne illi hominum classi, ad quam pertinet, maculam adspergerem. Gaditaná in urbe versabatur anno 1768. .. The initials certainly indicate a Priest, and apparently a Friar. In the Italian Life of Pombal (T. 1, P. 127), the coins are said to have been forged by D. N. Lac —, a Cavalier, and Fr. N. Mag —, a Dominican.

A History of Nicolas I. speaks of medals instead of money. "On frappa même à cette occasion plusieurs Medailles, qu'on a vues avec indignation en Europe. La premiere de ces Medailles représenta d'un côté Jupiter foudroyant les Geans, et de l'autre on voit le buste de Nicolas I. avec ces mots, Nicolas I. Roi du Paraguai. La seconde Medaille représenta un combat sanglant, avec les attributs qui caracterisent la fureur et la vengeance. Sur l' exergue on lit ces mots; La vengeance appartient à Dieu, et à ceux qu'il envoye." I do not suppose that any such medals ever existed: the book in which they are described does not contain a single syllable of truth in any other point, and may therefore be presumed to be consistently false in this. Its title is, Histoire de Nicolas I. Roi du Paraguai, et Empereur des Mamelus. A Saint Paul. 1756. It appears to have been printed in * Germany, and is the fabrication of some needy and ignorant impostor, who wrote, not for the purpose of injuring the Jesuits, but in the hope of making money by duping the curiosity of the public. He makes Nicolas Roubiouni a Spaniard by birth, a rogue by breeding, and a Jesuit by profession, who raises a rebellion among the Indians at Nova Colonia, storms the citadel, proclaims himself King of Paraguay, marches into that country at the head of an army, deposes and murders the Missionaries, is invited to S. Paulo by the Mamalucos, and there fixes the seat of his Government and takes the title of Emperor. This is set forth as a true history, and the Bookseller asserts in a Prefatory Advertisement, that all which the Gazettes have published upon the subject is false.

* The copy which I possess was procured, in sheets, at Geneva, in 1817.

Dobrizhoffer imputes the fable of this King either to Gomes Freyre or Pombal, I know not which: "Nicolaus Rex illius tantum in cerebro fuit natus, qui totâ nos Paraguariâ exturbatos dudum peroptavit; ut nobis Hispanicæ dominationis illâ in provinciâ acerrimis defensoribus amotis, Uruguayensem, quanta est, regionem Brasiliæ adjiciat finitimis." But this is merely gratuitous. The man himself was of so little importance that his name occurs but once in the history of the war, which is when he interfered in behalf of the poor Jesuit at Yapeyu. In that circumstance, perhaps, the whole fable originated. He held some military rank at Concepcion, and Dobrizhoffer says that the Guaranies have but one word for King, Captain, or any Commander (Mburubicha) which gave some colour for the tale. The proof of his insignificance is conclusive. When the insurrection was suppressed, he went voluntarily to Andoanegui in the Spanish camp to answer for himself, was patiently heard, and not only dismissed without any punishment, but restored to his former office in the Reduction. Dobrizhoffer knew him well, and had often seen him driving cattle to the shambles, and clearing wood in the market-place. And many a time had Nicolas kissed his hand, and begged him to lend him some new music which he might copy for his fiddle.

Dobrizhoffer says that the whole story of this King was officially declared to be a fiction in the Madrid Gazette; he had seen the paper, and unless he was greatly deceived, its date was in October 1768. I do not doubt his veracity, but his memory deceived him concerning the date. The Gazettes for that month, and for some time before and after, were examined for me, through the kindness of D. Manuel Abella, and no such notification could be found.

VOL. III. 3 P

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Dobrizhoffer. 1. 27. Peramas. Escandonii Vita. § 40.

tion. The contrivers of this nefarious scheme were ignorant that money was not in use in Paraguay, and that there was no mint in the country. But they succeeded in prejudicing the Courts of Madrid and Lisbon against all representations in behalf of the seven unfortunate Reductions; and the Jesuits were now the victims of falsehoods and impostures scarcely less audacious than those whereby they had obtained so much of the authority and influence which they once possessed. Dispatches were for-

[page] 475

CHAP. XXXIX. 1755.

warded to Valdelirios, saying, it had been ascertained that the Jesuits were the sole cause of the rebellion of the Indians; that for this reason the King had dismissed his Confessor, who was one of the Company; and that if the Fathers did not deliver up the Reductions without farther resistance, they should be held responsible to God for all the lives which might be lost, and to the laws civil and ecclesiastical for the crime of high treason.

Relaçam Ab. 7.

Second campaign.

It had been concerted between the two Generals, that they should form a junction at S. Antonio o Velho, and enter the Guarani country by way of S. Thecla. Early in December Gomes

[page] 476

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Freyre began his march from Rio Grande, thirteen months after his retreat. His force consisted of fifteen hundred ¹² men: and for this force, besides sixteen hundred draught oxen, three thousand head of cattle were taken for slaughter. An oriental army has scarcely more incumbrances. The Jesuits could have little expectation either from the vigilance or the courage of the Guaranies; but if they really desired to see this second expedition frustrated, they might have relied with apparent reason upon the difficulty of bringing artillery, baggage-train, and herds of cattle, through a country without roads, where there were rivers and mountains to cross, and woods through which a way must be opened by the axe. No cost had been spared in the equipment of the Brazilian force: the troops were in good order, and in a state of better discipline than was usual in Portugueze armies: Gomes Freyre had succeeded in giving some of his officers a proper military feeling and sense of duty. Orders were issued that mass should be performed every morning at two o'clock, and the camp in motion at four. Before they

12 A manuscript journal of the expedition, by an officer, gives the detail. There were two regiments, or divisions of foot, one consisting of three hundred and eighteen men, the other of two hundred and ninety-two: three hundred and twenty-five dragoons, one hundred and thirteen horse volunteers, sixty-two foot volunteers que serviam como de gastadores, .. men for any service, .. pioneering, &c. two hundred and forty men attached to the baggage, and one hundred and fortynine other persons, including officers, serjeants, drummers, commissariat, and carpenters; in all fourteen hundred and ninety-nine persons, drawing rations; three thousand head of cattle, sixteen hundred draught oxen, three thousand seven hundred and fifty horses, one hundred and six baggage mules, one hundred and forty-five waggons with provisions. Besides these there were fifty-nine private baggage waggons, and two hundred and eighty followers of the camp, including slaves; and these persons had their cattle, horses, and beasts of burden. The artillery consisted of seven brass two pounders, three one pounders, twelve artillery carts, and three powder waggons.

[page] 477

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Danger of the Portugueze army from fire.

Junction of the Spaniards and Portugueze.

Diario. MS.

reached the place appointed for meeting the Spaniards, they were in imminent danger; .. the grass in their rear took fire by some act of criminal carelessness when they were encamped upon a wide plain; men and officers were roused to the greatest efforts by the imminent peril in which they saw themselves, and they extinguished the blazing grass (says one who was present) more by their bodies than by the green boughs with which they beat it down. It burst out a second time; and had the wind risen, the whole country would presently have been covered with flames, and every creature would probably have perished. Once, when the wind favoured them, they employed fire to open their way through a thick wood; but no sooner had the flames begun to spread, than so many wild beasts and venomous reptiles were dislodged, that they were obliged to break up the camp and retire in all ¹³ haste. In the middle of January the junction was effected. Orders were given that the soldiers of one army should not game with those of the other, that being a sure cause of quarrels and bloodshed. The armies were equal in number, and the Spaniards brought with them a proportionate train of cattle. There was the utmost courtesy and cordiality between the two Commanders, and the troops agreed well; but the Portugueze regarded their allies with great ¹⁴ contempt: they prided themselves upon their superior discipline and equipment; and their national feeling was not a little gratified by comparing the two Generals, .. for Gomes Freyre was a man of military appear-

13 This curious incident is related upon oral authority, on which I can with perfect confidence rely.

14 The troops from Corrientes, they said, resembled the Tapes in every thing, .. and those of Paraguay, Santa Fe, and the Belendangues were worse: the Portugueze officer adds, "com aquella vulgaridad veyo o General Espanhol ao nosso campo." Ibañez mentions the Blandengues, .. gens formidables a cheval, et originaires des villes Espagnoles. I do not know the origin of the name.

[page] 478

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ance and activity, always on horseback and on the alert, ready to gallop wherever his presence might be required; but Andoanegui performed the journey in a coach.

Inactivity of the Guaranies.

S. Antonio o Velho, where the two expeditions were united, was in the territory of S. Miguel's, and perhaps the most remote of all its Estancias, being about ninety leagues from the Reductions. Under the most favourable circumstances, the troops could never advance faster than the cattle were able to accompany them; but there were so many difficult passes of woods, waters, and mountains, that more than four months were consumed in performing a march of less than four hundred miles. It would almost have been impossible for them to have accomplished it, if they had been engaged against vigilant and enterprizing enemies. The country might have been burnt before them, so that the cattle upon which they depended for support must have perished: or if opportunity had been duly watched for setting the grass or the reeds on fire in favourable situations, they might have been enveloped in flames without the possibility of escaping. It is not to be believed that these obvious ¹⁵ means of distressing the invaders would have been neglected, if the Jesuits had directed, or interfered in the defence of the country. But the Guaranies relied blindly upon their numbers and their Saints; and the only persons who felt their animosity were the miserable stragglers who fell into their hands, and experienced that the discipline which had deprived them of savage courage had not eradicated their savage cruelty.

Death of Tyarayu.

Sepé Tyarayu was the only leader who displayed any kind

15 Jose Basilio da Gama, in his poem, represents the Guaranies as using both these means of annoyance; but it is certain that they did not avail themselves of either.

[page] 479

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Feb. 7.

Diario. MS.

of military talent. This man was both crafty and courageous. By showing a white flag and pretending friendship, he decoyed an officer ¹⁶ with a foraging party of sixteen men into his power, and massacred them when they were in a situation where they could make no resistance. The treachery which he himself had experienced would have justified him for this baseness in his own mind, if he had suspected that it required a justification. He cut off a few others in fair warfare at different times, but his career was soon terminated. The troops were encamped upon the Vacacay, a river which runs into the Yacuy, and so into the great Lagoa dos Patos. Two of the Portugueze foot soldiers venturing incautiously to some little distance from the advanced guard, were seized by the Guaranies in sight of their companions, and pierced with wounds wherever there was space enough to thrust a spear into their bodies. Upon this the Governor of Monte Video, D. Joseph Joaquin Viana, was dispatched with three hundred troops to chastise the enemy: it was perceived that they were in great force, and therefore a second detachment of five hundred was ordered to support him; but before the reinforcement arrived a skirmish had taken place, in which Sepé fell. He fell like a brave man;.. a Portugueze dragoon overthrew him man and horse, and wounded him with a spear, but not without receiving a hurt himself; and Sepé¹⁷ might per-

16 The author of the Apologia, (§ 60) asks triumphantly,.. if they were all massacred, how the circumstance of the white flag could be known by the Portugueze; and he proceeds in a sarcastic strain, as if he had demonstrated the ab surdity of the relation. The facts were learnt from some prisoners who were taken a few days afterwards. (Diario. MS.) When will men learn, that a dishonest argument can never be used without eventually disgracing its author, and injuring the cause which it was intended to serve?

17 The Apologist endeavours to prove that the Guaranies never acted on the offensive; and for the sake of supporting this absurd position, he says, Sepé was killed in the woods by a chance cannon ball. (Jose Diarariui, he calls him, but beyond all doubt it is the same person, Sepe appears to be the Guarani, as Pepe is the Spanish, abbreviation of Joseph; and Diarariui, and Tyarayu, different modes of writing the same Indian name.) Echavarri (2. 235.) makes his hero Viana encounter him, and kill him in single combat, by a pistol shot. The Ephemerides, say that his horse fell in one of those holes which the wild cattle make in the ground, and that being thus thrown he received several spear wounds, and was dispatched by a pistol, .. an account which sufficiently verifies that of the Journalist, in the text.

[page] 480

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haps have escaped if Viana had not come up and pistoled him before he could rise. Night was coming on, and by favour of the darkness the Indians escaped farther loss.

Letter found after his death.

Two letters, both in Guarani, were found upon the slain Chieftain: one was from an officer of the Estancia of S. Xavier. .. For the love of God, said this writer, I beseech you do not suffer yourself to be deceived by these people, who hate us. If you write to them, express how greatly you resent their coming, and let them know how little we stand in fear of them, and what a multitude we are; and that even if we were not so numerous we should not fear them, because the Most Holy Virgin and the Holy Angels are in our company. I send you a banner with the Image of Our Lady of Loretto. You may place great confidence in the prayers of all in this place, and especially in those of the innocent children, who are all employed in supplicating God in your behalf. It was farther said, that the Rector had received his letters, and that he said mass for the troops every day before the Image of Our Lady of Loretto; and that the good Father Thaddeus and the good Father Miguel did the same, and that the Rector charged them frequently to pay their devotions to Mary the Most Holy, and to their patron S. Michael, and immediately to let him know if they wanted anything. .. The passages wherein the Jesuits are thus distinctly

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CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

inculpated may have been interpolated in the translation, to serve the purpose of the Portugueze Minister, by whom they were published: or they may have actually formed part of the original, as an artifice intended to encourage the Gùaranies: but if the Jesuits had taken the decided part which is here ascribed to them, it is scarcely possible that the Spanish Government should have forborne from punishing them, when the facts, if facts they were, might so easily have been proved.

Relaçam Abbreviada. Documentos. No. 2.

The second letter was without a signature. Like the other, it exhorted the soldiers to the frequent use of prayer and of their beads. "As soon as these people who abhor us approach," it said, "we must invoke the protection of Our Lady, and of St. Michael and St. Joseph, and all our Saints, and if our prayers be hearty they will attend to them. We must avoid all conference with the Spaniards, and still more with the Portugueze, who are the cause of this evil. Remember how, in old times, they slaughtered many thousands of our fathers, and how they did not even spare the innocent children, and how in our Churches they defiled the holy Images which adorn the altars dedicated to our Lord God! And now they would again do this to us and to ours. We do not want this Gomes Freyre and his men here, who by the instigation of the Devil bear such hatred against us. It is he who has deceived his King and our good King, and therefore we will not receive him. We have fallen in the King's, service, fighting for him at Colonia and in Paraguay, and yet he tells us that we are to forsake our houses and our country! This command is not from God, it is from the Devil; but our King always walks in the ways of the Lord, not of the Devil: this we have always been told. He has ever loved us as his poor vassals, and never sought to oppress us, nor to do us wrong; and when he knows these things we cannot believe that he will order us to abandon all that we have and give it to the Portu-

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gueze; .. we will never believe it. Why does he not give them Buenos Ayres, S. Fe, Corrientes, and Paraguay? Why must the command fall only upon us poor Indians, that we should leave our houses, our churches, all that we have and that God has given us? If they want to confer, let no more than five Spaniards come: the Father who is for the Indians will interpret. In this manner things may be done as God pleases; and if not, they must go as the Devil will." The ablest memorial could not have expressed their sense of the injustice with which they were treated, more livelily than this genuine epistle.

Relaçam Abbreviada. Documentos. No. 2.

Slaughter of the Guaranies at Caaibata.

Feb. 10.

The death of Tyarayu was a severe loss to the Guaranies; for though he had not taken all the advantages which were offered, he had never exposed his people. Cunhata of S. Nicolas, who succeeded him in the command, was not equally cautious; and on the third day after the skirmish the allies came in sight of the Guarani force, in the country between the sources of the Caziquay and of the Vaccacay Guazu. They were posted upon a hill called Caaibata, in respectable order. The allies drew up upon an eminence, at the distance of about musquet shot; nor, as they were engaged with such unskilful adversaries, did they regard that the ground which they took up was commanded by the enemy's position. The Guaranies sent a messenger, proposing that the General should write to the Fathers and Caciques, and suspend hostilities till their answers should arrive, which might be on the following day. It is affirmed that they made this proposal in order to gain time for their reinforcements to come up, and also with the hope that an opportunity might be afforded for falling upon the invaders by night: .. the latter motive is not likely to have influenced men so destitute of all military spirit. Andoanegui replied, he would allow them one hour for deliberation; and if they retreated before that hour was elapsed, no injury should be offered. Orders were now

[page] 483

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

issued that every Chaplain should absolve his regiment, as if a severe action had been expected. The hour elapsed: the Guaranies still kept their ground, .. certainly not from courage, but from irresolution, or stupidity, or a blind confidence in the strength of their position. The first discharge of the enemy's cannon frightened them; they threw down their weapons, took flight, and were slaughtered like sheep by their merciless pursuers. The poor wretches, who to escape from the sword or the lance took shelter in the trees, were brought down like birds or squirrels, by the musquet. Fifteen hundred were put to death, and only one hundred and twenty-seven prisoners taken. It appeared from the account which they gave, that not five hundred could have escaped; but when this massacre was represented as a victory, their ¹⁸ numbers were magnified to twelve thousand. It was published also, that the artillery of the rebels was taken; and the kind of artillery was not describ-

18 An eye witness, as the author of the Diario was, could make no such mistake as to estimate the enemy at only about two thousand, if they had in reality been twelve: and he speaks also upon the report which the prisoners gave of their numbers. Concerning the slain, he agrees with the Relaçam Abbreviada, in stating them at twelve hundred. The Apologist says that there were only six hundred Guaranies upon the spot, who were without any preparation for defence, not having taken up a position, but being without any kind of order or array, on the high road; and that by the rolls of the Jesuits it was proved that only four hundred were missing after that day's action. Unluckily for his credit, the Commissioners, in 1759, found a wooden cross with an inscription in Guarani, which the Jesuits had erected as a monument for those who fell in this war. That inscription is printed in Cazal's Corografia Brazilica, and is sufficiently intelligible to show that the men killed on the 10th of February are reckoned at fifteen hundred. (Vol. 1. p. 123.) In the brief account which Cazal gives of these transactions, he supposes Andoanegui and Valdelirios to be the same person.

This action is called an obstinate combat, in the Relaçam Abbreviada. The Journalist in his honest narrative equally disproves this, and the impudent statement of the Apologist. He describes the Guaranies as entrenched after their manner, and having a second line of works, to which they fled, but without finding security there: and he confesses the cruelty with which, the pursuit was carried on. He says that letters were found upon the slain, proving that the Jesuits fomented and directed the insurrection, and deceived the people by promising to maintain them in their republican condition. They who invented these charges against the Jesuits must have had great confidence in the ignorance as well as the credulity of those whom it was intended to deceive, or they never could have hoped to make them believe that any notion of Republicanism had ever entered the head of a Guarani!

[page] 484

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

ed, lest the effect should be weakened which there was an intention to produce. The guns were made of a large cane, called taquara by the natives: it grows beside the brooks, and exceeds all the trees of the country in height: it is seven years only in attaining its full growth, and in the second year the root pushes out suckers. These canes, covered with crude hides, and hooped with iron, carried ¹⁹ a pound ball, and if well served were capable of doing considerable execution.

Diario. MS. Relaçam. Abbrev. 8. Apologia. MS. § 8. Azara. 1. 108.

They continue still in arms.

Only twenty-eight of the allies were wounded, and three killed. Cunhata was among the slain: but the Guaranies, notwithstanding the slaughter which had been made among them, evinced no disposition to submit, and the enemy began to feel the inconveniences which it is always in the power of a people to inflict upon an invading army: their dispatches were interrupted, and it was necessary to take measures for securing a

19 The Apologist, with his usual indiscretion, (perhaps I might say, his usual insincerity,) says that these guns were only intended to frighten savages, and to be fired upon holy days; and that they would carry no balls but such as were made of cotton. Perhaps they had not been intended to carry any other; but in this real war, the Guaranies, stupid as they were, had sense enough to try whether they would not carry something of greater weight and solidity Wooden cannon were used by the Catalans in the late war against Buonaparte.

[page] 485

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

supply of provisions, which were not to be obtained in the country while the Guaranies kept the field. It was determined, therefore, to fortify a position upon the Jacuy, by which stores might be received from the Rio Pardo. This being effected, they continued their march. In the plain of the Vacacay Mirim, near the Serra, they found a notice written upon a post, that eight thousand ²⁰ Indians were awaiting them; they however continued their advance for many days without meeting even an appearance of resistance. Toward the end of March they approached the foot of a lofty Serra, which they had to cross. The Guaranies had thrown up entrenchments, and seemed determined to defend the pass; but after a few shot had been fired at them, and they saw the troops, under guidance of a prisoner, issuing from the woods and ready to begin the attack, they fled as usual, and so immediately upon the first appearance of danger, that they escaped without losing a man. Two more of their guns were abandoned in this position, and lances were left in their flight, very few of which were headed with iron. The body of a Negro who had deserted from the army was found here, and it was evident that he had been horribly tortured by the wretches into whose hands he had fallen.

Diario. MS.

Pass of Monte Grande.

The troops had now to attempt the passage of Monte Grande, the range of mountains from whence the eastern waters flow into the Lagoa dos Patos, and the Lagoa Miri; and those of the western side by the Ybicuy and Uruguay into the Plata. There

20 That night the Portugueze were roused at midnight by a call to arms. The cause of the alarm proved to be, that one of the Spanish centinels had fired his piece, to light the agaric which he used for kindling his cigarr. The Portugueze Journalist observes on this occasion, e esta he a gente com quem estamos fazendo huma campanha com o inimigo a vista todos os dias!

[page] 486

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Ibañez. 2. 245.

is an easy pass called Santiago, but no person in the expedition knew this; and in that of S. Martin, which they took, the difficulties were so great, and the labour so excessive, that the horses perished, and most of the ²¹ volunteers deserted. The troops also began to suffer severely from cold ²², against which they were ill prepared with clothing. While they were employed in this arduous passage, letters came from F. Innocencio Herbas, Rector of S. Luis, saying, that at length he had succeeded in persuading the people of his Reduction to obedience; they confessed, and lamented how fatally they had erred, requested pardon for their offence, intreated that their countrymen who had been taken prisoners might be released, and petitioned that some assistance might be given them for their ²³ removal. An-

21 The Portugueze officer seems to consider their loss as no evil to the army: he says, "E assim hira toda esta casta de gente, que nam conhece honra, nem sabe mais que obrar vilezas." Many of these deserters were cut off by the savages.

22 Que he a peyor cousa que pode haver para os pobres soldados, que sam homens em quem ha pouca ropa, e muito trabalho.

23 At the same time another Indian brought a curious epistle from Miguel Arayechi, a Guarani of S. Miguel, who held the rank of Lieutenant-General, to the Governor of Corrientes. It is inserted in the manuscript journal. "Sir Corrientine Lieut.-General! Praise be to the most holy Sacrament! God Our Lord give you his manifold blessings, and deliver you from the Devil, who desires to cast us into Hell. Sir Lieut.-General, we wish the same to all the men in your company. Sir Lieut.-General, this which we say is true. Sir, look well, it is a well known thing that since our Lord God in his infinite wisdom created the Heavens, and the Earth with all which beautifies it, which is to endure till the day of judgement, we have not known that God, who is the Lord of these lands, gave them to the Spaniards before he came into the world. Three parts of the earth are for them, namely Europe, Africa, and Asia, which are to the East; and this remaining part, in which we dwell, our Lord Jesus Christ, as soon as he died, set apart for us. We poor Indians have fairly possessed this country during all these years, as children of God, according to his will, not by the will of any other living being. Our Lord God permitted all this that it might be so. We of this country remember our unbelieving grandfathers, and we are greatly amazed when we think that God should have pardoned so many sins as we ourselves have committed. Sir, consider that this which you are about is a thing which we poor Indians have never seen done among Christians. Sir Lieut.-General, we live in the lands which God has given us: and we have stolen nothing from him who is in His place, which is King Ferdinand VI; neither from him who is in the place of the King, which is the Governor. Sir Lieut.-General, if the Governor has brought you here it is only to deliver you into the hands of the Devil; and though he be Governor, he has no power to deliver you out of Hell: and when the miserable case shall come that you find yourselves there, he it is who will have the greatest torment by reason of his authority, and because of the things which were done during his government. Sir, look what a great error you have committed against God! There are no riches that can be compared with Christianity, which is the fruit of the redemption by Jesus Christ. And look, Sir; as we shall deserve God's forgiveness, we are speaking here for the lives of our children. If he pleases I would confer with the Governor upon this matter; and if not, .. there will be a reward in Hell for this great wrong. We pray to God in his great power to favour us all, and to the Most Holy Virgin to deliver us from the hands of the Devil. You see that the Governor has his people at the gate of Hell, and many are already within it. I never thought that you would have come here. In the days past, Gomes Freyre said to us upon the Jacuy, with an oath, that the business was at an end; and now we know that he mocked our Lord God when he made peace in that manner; and God will not turn away his anger from you, since he forgives them only who know how to forgive. Sir, if there be any child of God among you who is like me, and knows in what manner we ought to love our neighbours, let him come and talk with me upon this matter. Sir Lieutenant-General, I am a poor Indian of this country, and a child of the holy Church, chosen by God to be Lieutenant-General in my own land. I have travelled through all these towns, and am lately arrived from them. Come and confer with me; and if not, we shall soon see ourselves all in Hell. Sir, this letter is all that I write. Sir Lieut.-General, I Lieut.-General of S. Miguel, Miguel Arayechi, 28 March, 1756. Our Lord bless us all, Amen."

This letter is genuine beyond all doubt. In some of the parts which I have omitted, there is an obscurity, as if the translator had not understood the original. The reason why it was not published in the Relaçam Abbreviada is obvious, .. it spoke too forcibly the just feelings of the Guaranies. The suspicion expressed in a former note, that the Guaranies had not understood the treaty of the Jacuy, is more than confirmed by this indisputable document. Here it appears that they supposed peace had actually been made, and the intention of dispossessing them abandoned.

The writer's apprehensions that he and his poor countrymen, who were the injured party, would go to the Devil in consequence of this war, as well as their oppressors, must be explained (if the Portugueze interpreter has not mistaken the meaning) by a dread of dying in the field, and going into the other world without a proper clearance from the confessor.

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CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

doanegui replied, that the King's indignation was not to be appeased by mere words; there was no other way to the royal clemency than by sincere submission. It became his Reverence, with the Cabildo of his town, to set an example. His Majesty's pleasure must already have been well understood from the various

[page] 488

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Letter from the Reductions to the Spanish General.

dispatches which had been conveyed to them; and for himself, he had manifested his disposition by the slowness with which he prosecuted his march.

The Spanish General had from the beginning heartily disapproved the cession of this province; he is said to have shed tears at beholding the carnage at Caaibata, which it was not in his power to prevent: he foresaw that the arrangement with Portugal would not be permanent, and would certainly have rejoiced if, by the dilatoriness of his movements, he could have protracted the time till the Court should understand the cruelty of its orders, or the poor Guaranies discover the danger and inutility of resisting them. But in passing the Serra his progress was necessarily slow. All the cattle sunk under their excessive labour, and the waggons were drawn up by windlasses. While they were thus employed, a messenger brought a letter in reply

[page] 489

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

to some of Andoanegui's dispatches; it was written in the name of the thirty Reductions, an artifice whereby the writer wished to make it appear that all the Christian Indians had engaged in the cause of their oppressed brethren. The Spanish General had exhorted them in his dispatches not to believe the Jesuits, but to listen to him; promised them other lands better than their own; and offered them, on the part of the King, four thousand pesos, for the property which they could not remove. This, they said, the Fathers had assured them was the purport of his letter, but notwithstanding that assurance they did not believe it. Why, said they, did you not from the beginning address us the Caciques and Cabildos, instead of the Fathers? Upon this business you ought to have addressed us only, for our Lord God gave us these lands, and the good King Philip V. gave them to us also. The Fathers have been four years persuading us to obey this command, and we have not chosen to obey, neither will we. In all things else we have obeyed what the Fathers enjoin us, and with good will; and for their love we have sacrificed our lives in obedience to our good King; and our good King has commended us to you yourself, charging you that you should regard us like the apples of his eyes, and telling you that those accursed Portugueze must not be suffered to enter our country. And you would gratify these Portugueze, who have always hated us and our good King! Why do you not give them Buenos Ayres, Santa Fe, and Corrientes? Why must you turn us poor Indians out of our possessions? All our good Kings have cherished us, and would not thus expel their beloved people; and knowing this, we do not believe that what we have been troubled with for the last four years is the King's command. Why was it not told to the Caciques and Cabildos; .. why was it told to the Fathers? This land is not theirs; God gave it to us, and therefore we will not obey you in what you

VOL. III. 3 R

[page] 490

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Diario. MS.

require. Your actions, which are so different from your words, have amazed us more than if we were to see two suns in the firmament. An hundred and twenty and four years have we been the King's vassals, and in all that time no fault has been found in us. Likewise the Fathers-Papas have found us in nothing wanting towards God or the King; and for this we thank God, and our good King who is in his place, and every month we pray to God for him that he would deliver him from his enemies. Our Lord God commands us in his holy commandments, that we should love Him above all things, above our neighbours, our lives, and our own souls; and next, that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. What will God say to you after your death upon this account? What answer will you make in the Day of Judgement, when we shall all be gathered together? Then you will see whether these your works will bring you good or evil! So strict is the account which God will demand of us, that for the lightest sin, He will cast us into Purgatory, where his justice will keep us for many ages: this being so, for such sins He casts us into Hell, and thither it is, Sir Governor, that your works are carrying you!" In this strain the letter proceeded, not without that eloquence wherewith the strong sense of injustice will sometimes inspire the rudest speaker. It noticed with indignation the sum which he had offered as a compensation for the churches and towns which they had built, and the fields which they had cultivated. If they were to remove now, they said, peradventure the next King would blame them for giving up the land, and order them to remove again. They told him he had made the Fathers deal falsely by them, and that he must not expect to receive letters from the Fathers, for they should not be allowed to write; and were the Provincial himself to come and seek to persuade them upon this matter, he would only still more inflame their abhorrence.

[page] 491

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Passage of the Chiriaby abandoned.

After three weeks of excessive exertions the troops effected the passage of Monte Grande. They were still about two hundred miles from the Reductions, but the main obstacle was overcome. On the third of May a considerable Guarani force, well mounted, made a fair show of bravery, and gallopped upon both wings of the allies, as if they meant to wheel round and charge them in flank. Two or three cannon-shot so terrified them, notwithstanding this bold demonstration, that being near a swampy thicket, they threw themselves from their horses and took shelter where the enemy could not pursue them. The armies were kept upon the alert all night ²⁴; they advanced however with little molestation, and no loss, till the tenth, when they reached the little river Chiriaby. Here the Guaranies had so skilfully entrenched themselves that it was supposed some European hand had directed their operations; .. but they were remarkable for imitative talent, and there were many persons among them who had been employed both in fortifying Monte Video and in besieging Colonia. They had impeded the difficult pass to the river by cutting down trees; they had erected a fort which commanded it; they had thrown up on the opposite shore well-constructed works of stone and earth; and they had so judiciously planted a masked battery of their wooden guns,

24 A Guarani Corregidor was killed the next day, and it is said, a letter from one of the Jesuits was found in his pockets, saying, that if the armies succeeded in crossing Monte Grande, the Reductions were lost. A party who conversed with some Corrientines a few days afterwards affirmed, that this Corregidor had risen from the dead, to tell them that both God and the King would be offended if they gave up their country, and that the Enemy would soon see this. The Indians, they said, were the white people, because they stole nothing; but they who sought to rob them of their country were worse than Negroes. Diario. MS.

[page] 492

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

that it would be impossible for the enemy to discover it till they should be completely exposed to its fire. And here, the Portugueze officer says, the army must have suffered a severe loss, if God had not been pleased to work a miracle in their favour, perhaps through the intercession of St. Teresa, to whom Gomes Freyre was particularly devoted. The miracle was, that the Guaranies who had made these works, being too cowardly to defend them, took flight as soon as they saw the enemy come resolutely forward, ran away, abandoned every thing, and when they were at safe distance stood chattering at the troops, and defying them with grimaces, like children or monkeys. Only two men were killed and one wounded in this pass.

Diario. MS.

The armies come in sight of S. Miguel's.

On the second day after this last defence of the Guaranies had been deserted, the army came in sight of S. Miguel's, from a hill-top about seven or eight miles distant. No man in this expedition was more inimical to the Jesuits than Viana, the Governor of Monte Video: but now, looking at the Reduction through a telescope, and perceiving its size, (for it contained seven thousand inhabitants) the regularity and neatness of the buildings, and the imposing appearance of the Church, he could not refrain from saying that the people at Madrid must be mad, to think of delivering up to the Portugueze a town which was second to no place in Paraguay. As the troops advanced they descried a considerable number of Guaranies, both in front and on their flanks; upon which they formed in order of battle, and marched against them. The Guaranies then fell back, keeping carefully out of gun-shot. The General was desirous of coming up with them, because he hoped now to put an end to their resistance: he made the men quicken their pace and advance before the baggage; but the enemy perceived this, and detached about six hundred horsemen, who wheeled round at full gallop, and fell upon it in full expectation of cutting it off.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 23.

[page] 493

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Sufficient guard had been left, .. indeed the slightest resistance sufficed against a people who were so easily intimidated; and they had only time to maim a few of the cattle. But it was thought advisable to halt rather than expose the baggage to another attack; and the troops therefore encamped about a league from the town. Parties were sent out to disperse the enemy and keep them at a distance; and during the two succeeding days the troops did not advance, because of incessant rain. In the afternoon of the second day, a herd of milch cows belonging to the army strayed from the encampment, and the Guaranies, who were alert enough in such a vocation, drove them off. Their boldness provoked the soldiers; .. and the loss also was deemed serious, because the milk was for the use of the invalids. Some Paulistas were sent to take vengeance: they returned with a wounded Indian, who entreated that they would not kill him, but that he might be allowed to see a Confessor before he died. He was brought before the General, and gave him information that the Jesuits, with all the women and children, and many of the men, had forsaken the town: they had carried away whatever was of most value, and those who remained were instructed to set the place on fire. Andoanegui gave orders that the man's wounds should be dressed, and that he should be treated with proper kindness; but he died in the course of a few hours.

Diario. MS.

Tardiness of Andoanegui, and destruction of the town.

On the following day the troops advanced little more than a mile; for they had to cross a hill and some streams which impeded the baggage, and moreover, they began their march late and concluded it early. They were now among the Miguelites' plantations, where they found grain of various kinds, roots, pulse, and other vegetables, to the great refreshment of the Portugueze, who, not being merely carnivorous, like some of their allies, had felt the discomfort of subsisting for some time

[page] 494

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

upon meat alone. After they were encamped a letter was brought in, which an Indian had held up at a distance and then placed upon a post. It was addressed to the Spanish General, assuring him that the people were ready to welcome him and his men as friends, but that he must separate from the Portugueze, whom they were determined to destroy. There came a second note in the evening, soliciting an answer to the first, that they might know how they were to act. Another day was past in inactivity, because of the rain; and on the next, which was the sixth since the army had been within sight of the town, a prisoner was dispatched with a letter, saying, that if the people did not immediately return to their allegiance, and render up the seven Reductions, they should presently be put to the sword. About noon the troops advanced, with as many precautions as if all their movements had been observed by an enemy equal to them in force and in military science. When they were within half a mile of the place, they saw many Guaranies throwing away their arms, and messengers came asking for peace; especially, they said, it was desired by the people of S. Luis, and S. Francisco Borja, and they presented a letter to the same purport in the name of their Patron, S. Michael. They were told that the Fathers and the Cabildos must come and make their submission. The army encamped on the Campo ²⁵ de N. Señora de Loretto, and a detachment was sent to occupy the town, and prevent the

25 Close to a Chapel of lime and stone, "built in the same form and of the same proportions as that which the Angels transported into Italy." When the Church of Rome shall have acknowledged the falsehood of such impudent fables as this, suppressed by its authority the superstitions which have been grafted upon those fables, and expunged nine-tenths of its Saints from the Kalendar then we may believe that the character of that Church is not indelible, .. that it is ashamed of the past, and may safely be trusted for the future.

[page] 495

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Negroes and followers of the camp from doing any mischief to the Church; .. other mischief they could have no opportunity of doing: for when the injured inhabitants, being hopeless of preserving the town, had sent away their wives and children, and the Jesuits and the church vessels, they set fire every man to his own house. They also burnt the public stores, the Jesuits' houses, and the public buildings, leaving nothing except the Church. The place had been burning many days notwithstanding the heavy rain which had fallen, and it was found burning still. The characteristic tardiness of the Spaniards in their military operations had never been more manifested than in Andoanegui's conduct since he came in sight of S. Miguel's; had he pushed forward a single troop of horse, he would have prevented this ²⁶ destruction.

Diario. MS. Rel. Abbreviada. 9. Apologia. MS. § 66. Ibañez. 250. Ephemerides. 425.

The Guaranies submit.

Andoanegui seems to have perceived the error which he had committed, and on that same night he dispatched Viana with eight hundred horse to take possession of S. Lorenzo, which was only two leagues distant. They entered it before day-break; many of the inhabitants were ²⁷ surprized, and three Jesuits were

26 The author of the Diario excuses himself for not giving a full description of this place, for want of time and scarcity of paper; .. nobody in the camp would give him any, and they who had any to sell demanded four hundred reis for a sheet.

27 The Dean of Cordoba (in Tucuman), D. Gregorio Funes (whose work I have fortunately obtained while this chapter is in the press) says that the Guaranies here resisted, and were beaten: but the Portugueze officer expressly says that they were surprized, and had no time for resistance. It is a great satisfaction to me to find that the view which I have taken of these transactions, and indeed of the whole history of the Paraguay Jesuits, entirely accords with the opinions expressed by this Author, whose authority is of the greatest weight both from his personal character, and his opportunities of information.

[page] 496

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

The greater number take to the woods.

arrested there. Father Thaddeus Ennis was one: he was believed to have been more active than any of his brethren in the rebellion; and as his papers were seized, it was expected that full proof would now be found against him and his colleagues: but when the papers were examined so little appeared to inculpate any person, that he was soon discharged. On the ensuing day there came a letter from the Rector of S. Juan, saying he had now succeeded in persuading the people to submit; age and infirmity rendered him incapable of the journey, but his colleagues would come, with all the chief persons of the Reduction, to solicit the General's forgiveness; and he added, that S. Juan would be a convenient place for the General to winter in. The other Reductions lost no time in following their example; but the greater part of the inhabitants, though they wanted conduct and courage to defend their country, had too deep a sense of their wrongs to submit, and they fled into the woods, notwithstanding the inclemency ²⁸ of the season. All the people of S. Nicolas are said to have taken this course, without one exception. There was no danger of wanting food in a country which was full of cattle, and when the Guaranies were compelled to run wild as their fathers had done, those among them who were young and vigorous soon acquired appetite for the freedom and activity of a predatory life.

Apologia. MS. § 43.

Expulsion of those who submit.

The Spanish General readily released his prisoners at the solicitation of their relations; but such of the Miguelites as had

28 It froze at the time, which is very unusual in Paraguay. The Portugueze bivouacked one night without their baggage, which stuck fast behind them in a difficult pass. Their capotes were in the waggons; and the author of the Diario says he was astonished that any one of them survived through the night, the cold being so severe, all being without shoes, and most of them almost naked and in a miserable condition.

[page] 497

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

Muriel. Supp. to Charlevoix. p. 341.

been taken during the few last days, were considered as more criminal than the rest, and were punished each with five and twenty stripes. This was all the punishment which was inflicted. F. Lorenzo Balda, who went with his flock to the woods, whether willingly or by compulsion, when S. Miguel's was set on fire, came now and presented himself before the Commander. He was received with reproaches, and for a little while detained in custody: the disposition to criminate him certainly was not wanting, and it is not less certain that he cleared himself satisfactorily, and was employed with Ennis to superintend the migration. This was no difficult task when so great a part of the people had provided for themselves. The unhappy ²⁹ remainder were admitted into the Reductions on the Parana, and hutted in such hovels as could hastily be prepared for their reception.

Diario. MS. Dobrizhoffer. 29.

Gomes Freyre refuses to take possession of the ceded country.

Gomes Freyre arrived at the Reductions with so strong a prepossession against the Jesuits, that he either feared, or affected to fear, an intention of poisoning him; and when those of S. Juan invited him and Andoanegui to dinner, he refused to eat under pretence of indisposition, and upon their drinking his health pledged them in return in his own wine. He did not long continue in this unworthy feeling: and although his authority was afterwards brought forward against the Jesuits when the Portugueze Minister had determined to extirpate the Society, his opinions concerning them seem to have been entirely

Diario. MS.

29 The author of the Diario says that they had grown fond of the Portugueze, who, they said, were good fellows and rich ones. The Jesuits say they had sufficient reason for wishing that they had suffered all the people to fly into the woods, when they saw the consequences of having an army quartered among them, of which both men and officers were alike licentious. These statements are quite consistent with each other.

VOL. III. 3 S

[page] 498

CHAP. XXXIX. 1756.

changed, now that he was upon the spot and saw the men themselves, and the nature of the extraordinary system which they had established. He became sensible also, whatever part he may have taken in originally determining the line of demarcation, that the arrangement, all circumstances being considered, was not advantageous for Portugal. The situation of the country gave him a fair pretext for refusing to accept possession: it could not be delivered to him in peace, as had been contemplated by those who framed the treaty; nor could it safely be possessed by Portugal while so great a number of its former possessors remained in the woods, from whence they sallied out to drive away cattle, and take every opportunity of revenging themselves upon the invaders for the losses and injuries which they had sustained. This was in truth a valid objection for those who were to inhabit their houses, and settle upon their lands; and till this could be removed the Portugueze General thought it his duty to delay the cession of Colonia. Nor was Andoanegui more desirous of compleating a transfer which he from the first had heartily disapproved. Both armies therefore remained quartered in the Reductions till the Jesuits should succeed in reclaiming their scattered flocks, and bringing them once more within the fold; and both Generals made use of the interval to procure an alteration in the treaty.

Zeballos arrives at the Reductions.

Meantime the Spanish Government, alarmed at the failure of the first campaign, sent out a reinforcement of one thousand ³⁰ men, under D. Pedro Zeballos. Such was the impression which

30 They had been raised in Parma, and consisted of Italians, French, German deserters, a few Poles, and even some Russians, .. outcasts and vagabonds of all nations. When these fellows got to the place of their destination, they deserted as fast as they could, got wives, and settled peaceably in a country where food was abundant, and they were at perfect liberty. Dobrizhoffer. 1. 41.

[page] 499

CHAP. XXXIX. 1757.

He inquires into the conduct of the Jesuits.

falsehoods and exaggerated representations had produced in Europe, that when the squadron with these troops on board arrived at Buenos Ayres, it was thought necessary to inquire, before any of the men were landed, whether King Nicolas were in possession of the city. The new Commander lost no time in proceeding to the Missions, whither Valdelirios accompanied him. The Superior met them on the way, and requested that Zeballos would institute a judicial inquiry into the accusations which had been made against him and his brethren. When they arrived at S. Francisco Borja, the Caciques and officers of the Reductions on the other side the river came to pay their respects, and brought with them many of their own people, and of the emigrants also. Zeballos, for the purpose of giving both solemnity and publicity to his proceedings, ordered a sort of theatre to be prepared in the Court before the Church: it was fitted up with as many decorations as the place could afford, and the report of this brought together a greater concourse of spectators. Here, on the day appointed, Zeballos took his seat with Valdelirios, Viana, and all the chief persons in the civil or military service of the Spaniards. Joseph de Villa Nova, a Captain of Infantry, and Sebastian Casacuzio, Perpetual Corregidor of Corrientes (both well versed in the Guarani tongue), attended as interpreters; and there were present eight hundred Spanish troops, and as many Indians as the place could contain. The Caciques and Magistrates made their harangues, and were answered with corresponding courtesy. But when this was done, Zeballos with an authoritative voice gave orders to interrogate them whether they had not, from the first, been apprized of the King's commands? If so, wherefore they had not thought proper to obey till they were compelled by force of arms? If any of the Jesuits had persuaded them to rebel, had encouraged their rebellion, or directed their operations during the war; and if it were

[page] 500

CHAP. XXXIX. 1757.

Entire acquittal of the Jesuits.

Apologia. MS. § 35. Muriel. Supplement to Charlevoix. p. 341.

so, who those Jesuits were? The Caciques of the seven Reductions, to whom these interrogatories were addressed, replied, that from the beginning they had distinctly understood the King's will, as it was then and frequently afterwards clearly explained to them by the Fathers; that they had resolved to obey it and remove accordingly, and with that intention had actually sought for new situations; that they had departed from this resolution, because of the great love which they bore to their homes and their own country and their own fields; but chiefly because they found that sufficient time would not be allowed them for removing their cattle, and providing stores for their support during the first year in their new habitations; that being irritated at this, they had determined rather to die with their wives and children upon their own ground, than to emigrate and see them perish for hunger in the wilderness: that the Fathers had always urged and implored them to submit; the rebellion was their own act and deed and fault; they sincerely repented of it, and now publicly confessed that what they had suffered in consequence and were still suffering, was a just punishment inflicted on them by God for having disobeyed his Priests, and especially for having put them in durance, outraged them, and reported enormous falsehoods concerning them. When the Caciques had thus replied, the Guaranies who were present, men and women, cried out with one accord, that this was the very truth. An authenticated process of all which passed upon this public inquiry was drawn up, and attested upon oath by the two interpreters: and to this document the Jesuits and their defenders appeal as a full and decisive justification. The Guaranies might have been easily tutored for such a trial; there had been time and opportunity enough; and the innocence of the Jesuits would still be questionable if it rested upon no better evidence than this deposition in their favour. But though the opinion of their

[page] 501

CHAP. XXXIX. 1757.

guilt prevailed so strongly at Madrid that Zeballos brought out with him orders to send home eleven of the Missionaries as persons charged with high treason, if upon inquiry he should find that there were grounds for the accusation, no proceedings were instituted against any one of the Company, nor was there a single one punished, or sent out of the province, or in any way molested for his conduct during the rebellion. If they had really been guilty, proofs against them could not have been wanting; and they had enemies enough on the spot, who would have spared no exertions for convicting them. Seldom therefore as impunity can be admitted to be a sure proof of innocence, it is incontestibly so in this case. And indeed the charge against them will in itself appear incredible to those who reflect upon the character and constitution of the Company. If ever there existed a perfect unity of views and feelings in any associated body of men, it was in this extraordinary Society. The Jesuits of Paraguay, like those of every other province, were dependent upon their General: their civilized wants were supplied, and their numbers recruited, .. from Europe. But it is not to be believed, .. it is not possible, .. that their General should have encouraged, or that they without his encouragement (contrary to the vital principle of their institution) should have engaged in a scheme, which, if it had been successful, would in its inevitable consequences, have separated the province from the general system, and deprived the Jesuits there of those supplies without which their Order in that country would in one generation have been extinct. They had their root in Europe; and had the communication been cut off, it would have been barking the tree.

Delays in executing the treaty, and its final annulment.

The full acquittal of the Jesuits by Zeballos was not the only mortification which Valdelirios had to sustain. From the first he had been eager to finish his mission, that he might return to Spain without delay: four years had now elapsed, and there

[page] 502

CHAP. XXXIX. 1757.

was no prospect of bringing the business to a conclusion. Perplexities occurred concerning the intended line of demarcation: it was to have been formed by the Ybicuy, but they had discovered by the Jesuit's map, that in the upper part of its course there were two rivers of that name, the Greater and the Less. There was now so little disposition to remove difficulties on either side, that any difficulty appeared insuperable. Gomes Freyre could no longer be absent from Brazil. The Commissioners separated without effecting any thing: the expences ³¹ of the Commission and of the troops were felt at Lisbon and Madrid, and both Cabinets were mortified and disgusted at the embarrassments, vexations, and evils, resulting from an arrangement which had been so equitably intended, and appeared of such easy execution.

Farther delays were occasioned, .. in Portugal, by the earthquake, the attempted assassination of the King, and the persecution of the Jesuits, which became for awhile the great object of Pombal's administration: .. in Spain, by the miserable sufferings and slow death of Queen Maria Barbara, and the deadly decline into which the King sunk, broken-hearted for her loss. He survived her, as had been foreseen by all who were about his person, only a few months. The kindly feelings which during his reign had subsisted between the two Courts was then at an end, and was succeeded by a very different temper: for Carlos III. inherited the political prepossessions of his mother. They

31 It is stated in Lord Kinnoul's dispatches, that the expence on the part of Portugal amounted to three millions sterling, and had exhausted the finances. This appears impossible, even if the loss were taken into the account which might have arisen from suspending the trade with Colonia during the years of the dispute. But it is certain that the expences, both to Spain and Portugal, are represented as enormous.

[page] 503

CHAP. XXXIX. 1761.

12 Feb. 1761.

Walpole Papers. MSS.

agreed, however, in being heartily weary of the demarcation, and as if in despair of coming to any more satisfactory arrangement, they signed a convention whereby the Treaty of Limits was annulled; and all those previous treaties which had been superseded by it, were declared to be re-established in their full extent. The Portugueze thought themselves gainers, because they believed that Colonia was of greater importance to their interest than any extension of territory in that part of the interior; and the Spaniards were satisfied also, because they suspected that their neighbours had been unduly favoured in the negociation through the national predilections of the Queen; and because they were secretly looking forward to the shorter and surer method (as they imagined) of settling the boundary by force of arms, and determining it at their own pleasure. The Guaranies, who had been so cruelly, and as it now appeared so wantonly expelled, were instructed to return to their dilapidated towns and wasted country, where the Jesuits resumed their benignant administration, and exerted themselves to repair the evil which had been done, as far as it might be reparable.

[page 504]

CHAPTER XL.

Enmity of Pombal toward the Jesuits. His brother Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado appointed Governor of Maranham and Para, and Commissioner for the Demarcation. Accusations against the Jesuits for impeding that measure. The system of the Portugueze Missions subverted Regulations concerning the Indians. Expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil.

CHAP. XL.

The Jesuits of Paraguay, though the calumnies which had been so busily disseminated concerning their conduct in the insurrection continued to operate in Europe with great effect, obtained in their own country a compleat triumph for the time. Zeballos, who succeeded Andoanegui in the Government of Buenos Ayres, was a Spaniard of the old stamp, sagacious, brave, resolute, ambitious, unmerciful, and careless by what means he brought about his ends; but he saw far before him, and if the casuistry of the Jesuits accorded with his own rule of conduct, there was a better sympathy between them in their political views. The Missionaries in the Portugueze dominions were less fortunate; and it was on the side of Maranham and Para that that persecution now began, which was never intermitted till the extinction of the Company was effected. The Treaty of Limits afforded occasion for this persecution, but it was not the cause.

[page] 505

CHAP. XL.

Character of Pombal.

Sebastiam Joseph de Carvalho e Mello, well known by his subsequent title of Marquez de Pombal, was at that time despotic minister in Portugal. No other statesman of his age will hold so prominent a place in history; for to him the destruction of the Jesuits must be ascribed. It is no enviable celebrity: .. he will be remembered more for the evil which he did, than for the good which certainly it was his desire to have done. Some of his opinions were imbibed from D. Luiz da Cunha, the ablest Portugueze of the preceding generation; and during his residence in a diplomatic character at London and Vienna, he had caught something of the spirit which then began to infect the circles of fashionable life, and the Courts of Catholic Princes. The great and laudable object of his ambition was to benefit his country, and restore Portugal, if not to the foreign empire which she had once possessed, at least to her former state of plenty and prosperity at home. Ignorance, superstition, and intolerance, were the main obstacles to the improvement which he designed; and whosoever attempted to remove these evils in Portugal would be opposed by the Clergy. But the original jealousy between the secular and regular Clergy was still subsisting: the Regulars were divided among themselves, and the only point in which all the other Orders were agreed, was in envying and hating the Jesuits. Now the Jesuits were the only persons whom Carvalho feared. If they were removed his plans would proceed without impediment: he might crush the Friars, reform the respectable Orders, lessen the influence of the Court of Rome, and place the religious establishment of the kingdom upon a footing not inconsistent with its welfare and with the progress of knowledge. Carvalho was more than fifty years of age when he entered upon his ministry. He soon acquired the favour of the Sovereign by his superior talents: extraordinary and tremendous occurrences brought those talents into full

VOL. III. 3 T

[page] 506

CHAP. XL.

action, and the ascendancy which he then obtained over the King enabled him to carry into effect with absolute authority his schemes for the renovation of the kingdom. This was the one and worthy object upon which he was passionately bent: unhappily he scrupled at no means by which it might be promoted; and they who maligned his motives did not traduce his nature when they represented him as without conscience and without humanity. Seeing the miserable state into which every thing in Portugal had sunk, he felt the necessity of great changes: his temper led him to bold and violent measures; and though it was said of him by his enemies that he acted first and thought afterwards, when his measures were once taken he persevered in them inflexibly, whether they were right or wrong. He had a large portion of that national pride for which the Portugueze are remarkable, and he had also an overweening confidence in his own talents and strength of character: but his talents were very great; .. no man ever approached him without feeling the presence of a powerful and commanding mind. He served his King faithfully and zealously; he loved his country; and happy might it be for him if the desire of public good might be pleaded in defence of actions which are decidedly wicked and abominable. Upon that plea however he rested with perfect equanimity, like Sylla, but in a far different retirement, when disgrace and obloquy, and the grief of seeing his wisest plans overthrown, were added to the evils of old age, and infirmity, and pain.

His brother is made Governor of Para and Maranham.

However much Carvalho must have desired to lessen the power of the Jesuits, it is not probable that he had conceived even the most distant thought of extinguishing the Order when he began his administration. But when events arose which seemed to render such an attempt feasable, he pursued it with characteristic and inhuman perseverance. The insurrection of the

[page] 507

CHAP. XL. 1753.

Injudicious conduct on his arrival.

Guaranies, and the calumnies which were founded upon that basis, though they furthered his views by the effect which was produced upon the Court of Madrid, gave him no pretext for interfering with the Jesuits, because the accused parties were within the jurisdiction of Spain; but in the execution of the Treaty on the North, he found the occasion which he wanted. His brother, Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, was appointed Governor and Captain General of Maranham and Para, Principal Commissioner, and Plenipotentiary for the demarcation. As soon as this new Governor arrived at Belem, he called upon the Missionaries of the various Orders, for all the Indians of service in their respective Aldeas, to fit out his expedition to the Rio Negro, where he was to meet the Spanish Commissioners. According to the laws, only half these Indians ought to have been drafted at one time; but Mendonça Furtado, acting with the short-sightedness as well as the temper of a despot, neither regarded the law, nor the consequences of despising it. Their own fields, therefore, were left uncultivated during the twelve months that they were thus occupied; and the plantations of the settlers also, upon which half their number of men would otherwise have been employed, were left without labourers, till at the year's end, when the preparations were completed, the poor Indians were distributed among the Portugueze for their service, instead of being sent home. It might have been foreseen, that a scarcity would thus inevitably be produced; and in fact it began to be felt during the year, to the aggravation of their other injuries. Half their wages, inadequate as those wages were, ought to have been paid them in advance: the advance was withheld with the view of preventing desertion; but this breach of the law excited suspicion and resentment in the Indians, and made them more sensible to the other wrongs which they endured, already but too galling: their ratios, because of the

[page] 508

CHAP. XL. 1754.

expected dearth, were scanty, and irregularly distributed; more labour was exacted from them than they were accustomed, or willing, or perhaps well able to perform; and their overseers were unmerciful, and treated them as if they had been brute animals. They deserted therefore in great numbers, and this desertion was charged as a crime upon the Jesuits, as if it had been instigated by their intrigues.

Apologia. MS. § 117—118.

He visits the Jesuit Aldeas.

At length Mendonça Furtado set out with a numerous flotilla the ostensible object of his expedition being to meet the Spanish Commissioners on the Rio Negro, and begin the demarcation from thence. The course which those persons who went up the great river from Para always pursued, after they entered the Orellana, was to make for the mouth of the Paru, and from thence keep along the northern bank: but he recrossed to the right shore, where the Jesuits had their Aldeas upon the streams which disembogue there from the South; and with his fleet of canoes and army of attendants he went up all these streams, visiting every Aldea, as if for the double purpose of inspection and intimidation. The pretext for this visitation was, that he wanted more hands and more provisions; and fresh cause of complaint against the devoted Company was pretended, because he was not supplied with both to the extent of his demand. But it was impossible that the Jesuits should have been prepared for such a requisition, or for the reception of these devouring guests: they did not anticipate his visit, and could not have anticipated it, because it was not only unnecessary, but manifestly injurious, both to the Aldeas and to the expedition; .. to the expedition, as consuming time, and thereby creating expence in every way; to the Aldeas, by exhausting stores which had already been drawn upon too largely. The Indians, being but recently returned from the compulsory service in which they had so long been employed, were busy in the plantations of

[page] 509

CHAP. XL. 1754.

their respective Missions, when the flotilla arrived: this necessary absence was ascribed to the policy of their spiritual Lords; and the Jesuits were also accused of having forbidden them to set mandioc, or raise any kind of pulse during the preceding year, for the purpose of impeding and frustrating the expedition, though the default of cultivation had been wholly and inevitably occasioned by the requisition of labourers which the accuser himself had ordered.

Apologia. MS. § 120—121.

Relaçam Abbreviada. p. 17—19.

Accusations against the Jesuits.

1755.

At length the Governor proceeded to the Rio Negro, and took up his quarters at Maryua, one of the Carmelite Aldeas, where he waited for the Spanish Commissioners. From thence he sent home a list of heavy charges against the Jesuits, the recent intrigues which he imputed to them forming only the smallest part. He accused them of pursuing a diabolical system (such was the term) for the purpose of usurping to themselves the ultramarine possessions of Portugal. The means, he said, for carrying this purpose into effect, were those of excluding all Portugueze from the Aldeas, keeping the inhabitants in brutal ignorance, and reducing the natives to such an inhuman and miserable state of servitude, that they were almost exterminated from this unhappy country. They were charged with refusing to allow the Indians time for raising food sufficient for their families; with interdicting the use of all such food as required any preparation to render it fit for the use of man, reducing them thus, like mere animals, to feed upon raw roots and vegetables; keeping them in the woods absent from their families nine months in the year, to collect produce for the profit of the Company; concealing from them the knowledge that there was a King of Portugal, whose vassals they were, and not allowing them raiment enough even of the coarsest kind, to cover their nakedness; so that while such a tyranny was suffered to continue, there could neither be any propagation of the faith, nor social communication,

[page] 510

CHAP. XL. 1755.

nor administration of justice, nor agriculture, nor commerce, nor any thing which might be advantageous to the Catholic Religion and the Mother Country, nor conducive to the preservation of the Colony and its inhabitants. The avarice of the Jesuits was described as not less enormous than their ambition; and it was said, that by their usurpations and inhuman monopolies, they had possessed themselves of the produce and commerce of the State, insomuch that their system was equally injurious to Portugueze and Indians.

Relaçam Abbreviada. p. 13.

Seabra. Deducçam Chronologica. p. 1. § 846—7. 853.

Falsehood of these charges.

These charges were eagerly received at Lisbon, notwithstanding their falsehood and palpable inconsistency. Men who had not been predetermined to condemn the accused would have inquired, how it was possible that the Jesuits, if it was their object to make themselves Lords of the country, could expect to succeed by depopulating it, and destroying the very hands on which they were to depend, not merely for the support of their intended empire, but even for their own subsistence. They would have asked, if it were likely that these Religioners, who, whatever faults had been laid to their charge, had never been accused of fatuity, would pursue measures which tended directly to ruin the commerce which they intended to monopolize. They would have doubted whether a Society, constituted like that of the Jesuits, could be actuated by the kind of ambition whereof they were accused, or could be capable of avarice. The motives by which other men are excited to aim at accumulating riches, or establishing a temporal empire, were certainly not applicable to these. The slightest knowledge of their history in America might have shown, that they acted upon no such prescribed or premeditated scheme of aggrandizement as was presumed. This was certain, because their various establishments there differed in economy and constitution. They adapted their institutions in the New World to local circumstances, and

[page] 511

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the character of the different tribes, as they did their habit in Europe to the customs of different countries; and they became traders from necessity, because those institutions were supported by the produce which they could collect or raise. If there were any surplus of profit after the charges of the establishment were defrayed, in what manner was it expended? Had it been merely in erecting Churches, and procuring decorations for them from Europe, surely that object would not have been considered as either unworthy or unimportant, by an enlightened and a Christian government. But when it was considered that those profits were also applied to the support of Missions, in the success of which the State was intimately concerned, inasmuch as by the acquisition of every convert the number of its subjects was increased, .. to the erection of Colleges, wherein gratuitous instruction was afforded in a land where there were no other instructors, .. and to the maintenance of Priests who inculcated above all things obedience to the laws, and assisted the established Clergy in the performance of duties, for which even with that assistance, the labourers were still too few; .. when these things were duly perpended, a true statesman would assuredly have thought that the Jesuits in America were worthy of his especial favour, protection, and encouragement,. But Carvalho had formed his plan of reformation, and whoever or whatever impeded it, was to be swept away without hesitation and without compunction.

The Bull Immensa Pastorum published.

Upon the arrival of Mendonça Furtado's dispatches, three regiments were immediately ordered out to Maranham and Para, as if a military force were necessary there as well as upon the Uruguay, for effecting the demarcation. Instructions also were sent out to publish a Bull which Benedict XIV had issued in 1741, against enslaving the Indians. This Bull prohibited all persons secular or ecclesiastic, and all Religioners of whatsoever

[page] 512

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Order, specifying those who existed in Brazil, and the Jesuits of course among them, from buying, selling, giving, or receiving the natives in slavery, separating them from their families, depriving them of their goods, or in any way infringing upon their freedom. Carvalho pretended that this Bull had been fulminated against the Jesuits in particular, with the approbation of Joam V; and that when the Bishop of Para, D. Fr. Miguel de Bulhoens, attempted to publish it, an insurrection was excited, though the Bishop had not communicated that intelligence to the Court, lest it should agitate the late King, who was at that time suffering under the malady which afterwards proved mortal. But while these false representations were made in Portugal and dispersed over Europe, the enemies of the Jesuits in Maranham and Para adapted their version to the circumstances of the country, and the better knowledge of the people; and when the Bull was now published at Belem, they made it a matter of popular reproach against the Jesuits, that through their influence this decree was issued, which would so considerably injure the inhabitants by depriving them of the service of the Indians.

Collecçam dos Breves Pontificos, &c. No. 1. Seabra. Deduc. Chron. § 849.

Relaçam Ab. p. 15.

Apologia. MS. § 84.

Pombal's views with respect to the Indians.

It was however plain to the people, that with what purport soever the Bull had been issued, its publication at this time was levelled against the Jesuits; for with the same dispatches there came out a law which deprived all the Missionaries of their temporal authority, and directed the Governor to form the most flourishing Aldeas into corporate towns, and the smaller ones into lugares, or townlets. But although the colonial enemies of the Jesuits had in this point obtained their heart's desire, they were not indulged, according to their wishes, with an unrestricted power of enslaving the miserable natives. Carvalho had given ear to their petty intrigues, and furthered their desires, as far as they coincided with his own designs; but he was not a

[page] 513

CHAP. XL. 1755.

man to lend himself to the purposes of others. His general views were enlarged, upright, and humane, forming a singular contrast with the narrowness, the crookedness, and the cruelty of his particular measures, and the means whereby he accomplished them. He meant to emancipate the Indians from servitude, to reclaim them from their brutal manner of life, civilize their habits, cultivate their faculties, and blend them with the Brazilian Portugueze, so that they might become one people, enjoying equal rights. The project was worthy of his ambition, bold statesman as he was; but in destroying the Jesuits he deprived himself of the only agents by whom it could have been effected.

Law for the abolishment of Indian slavery.

The Law stated, that notwithstanding the benevolent intentions and edicts of his Majesty's predecessors, the Aldeas were in a miserable state: the Indians there were so far from multiplying, that they did not keep up their own numbers; and their condition was such, that instead of alluring others from the Sertam, it deterred them from listening to those who invited them to receive instruction. This was because the laws for protecting the Indians in the enjoyment of their liberty had not been observed. They were still reduced to slavery, under pretext of those cases which the law allowed, but in truth without any other reason than the avarice and the power of those who enslaved them, and the ignorance and weakness of those who were enslaved. Therefore all edicts whatsoever which permitted Indian slavery in any way, or under any plea, were abrogated now, and all the Indians in Para and Maranham were pronounced to be free, and exempt from any other temporal subjection except that of the laws, to which all subjects of the King of Portugal were amenable. The children of Negresses in slavery were excepted from this emancipation till further instructions, .. a clause which indicates that Carvalho contemp-

VOL. III. 3 U

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lated the gradual abolishment of slavery in Brazil as well as in the mother country. It was also decreed, that for the mutual advantage of the Indians and the people, .. the former that they might acquire habits of industry and enjoy its fruits, the latter that they might find labourers, .. the price of labour should be regulated by the Governor and the judicial authorities of Para and S. Luiz, upon the principle which was established in Lisbon, where, for example, if a labouring man could support himself for one testam per day, the wages of a common day-labourer were two, and of an artificer three: upon the same scale wages were to be regulated in these States, and paid every Saturday, either in cloth, or in iron tools, or in money, at the option of the labouring party. The lands adjacent to the towns and hamlets which were now to be chartered, should be divided among the Indian inhabitants, to be possessed by them and their heirs. Other like establishments were to be formed in the interior, as the savages might be induced to settle; and then it was thought that as they became settled, they would cultivate that produce which the inhabitants of the maritime parts could only now obtain by means of long and expensive expeditions: but when that produce in future should become a means of commerce with the newly reduced tribes, the natives who were collected about the coast might be occupied in useful labour upon the spot, instead of being consumed in distant and painful service.

Ley. 6 June, 1753.

Collecçam dos Breves Pontificios e Leys Regias. No. e.

Law for depriving the Missionaries of their temporal power.

This law was followed by the edict which deprived the Missionaries of their temporal power, premising that the Indians never could be placed in that compleat liberty which was intended, and from which such great advantages spiritual and political were looked for, unless a determinate and unvarying form of government were established. Moreover, it affirmed, according to the canon law all temporal jurisdiction was plainly incompatible with the office of the priesthood. The Company

[page] 515

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of Jesus were especially inhibited from the exercise of any such authority by their vows, and the Capuchines by the indispensable humility which they professed. How then could God be pleased while the sacred Canons and Apostolical Constitutions were disregarded? Or how could the State prosper while there existed an anomalous and impracticable confusion of spiritual and temporal jurisdictions? The Missionaries, therefore, must no longer be suffered to exercise the temporal government, being incapable of it. In the towns which were now to be constituted, the Indians, if any there were competent for such charges, should be preferred as Juizes Ordinarios, Vereadores, and Officers of Justice; and the Aldeas which were independent of the towns were to be governed by their respective Chiefs, having under them their Sargentos Mores, Captains, Ensigns, and Meirinhos of their own people. But all who considered themselves aggrieved by their decisions might appeal to the Governor, and to the Ministers of Justice at Para or S. Luiz.

Alvara. 7 June, 1755.

Collecçam. No. 3.

The Aldeas converted into Towns and Townlets.

When these edicts were passed there were within the State of Maranham and Para threescore Indian Aldeas, whereof five were administered by the Mercenarios, twelve by the Carmelites, fifteen by the Capuchines, and ¹ twenty-eight by the Je-

1 Cazal (T. 2. p. 295,) says that the Jesuits possessed nineteen. I follow the statement of the Apologist, because his account is circumstantial, and because between two contradictory witnesses, where both are prejudiced, I would always rather incline to the one who speaks with a favourable disposition, than to him who delivers his testimony in malice. It is observed by Cazal, that though all the Religioners stood forward with equal zeal in behalf of the Indians, the Jesuits were the only objects of popular hatred. The observation is malicious, and the assertion upon which it is founded is false: the Jesuits were the only unpopular Order, because they were the only Missionaries who uniformly opposed the tyranny of the Portugueze. In making this remark, Cazal calls the Jesuits "Ignacitas" and "Loyolistas": the appellations are perfectly harmless; but they betray the temper, and invalidate the testimony, of the author by whom they are used.

[page] 516

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suits. Mendonça Furtado converted these last into nine townlets, eighteen towns, and one city, by the simple operation of giving them new names, and ordering that a pelourinho should be erected in the Market-place of each. The pelourinho, which serves both as a whipping-post and place of execution, from which the criminal is suspended, and against which the sentence either of strangling or decollation is performed, is in the towns of the peninsula always a stone pillar, generally of grotesque, and sometimes of beautiful construction. A thick rough post, with two cross bars at the top, sufficed upon the banks of the Orellana and its tributary streams. Mendonça Furtado being present when one of these was erected, could not refrain from saying, See how easily an Aldea is made into a Town! A by-stander, one of the Missionaries perhaps by whose labours the settlement had been erected, or preserved, ventured to reply, that it was easy indeed when the Aldea was already formed and peopled. This operation was not so easy. The Governor endeavoured to establish one upon his own system; and after many thousand cruzados had been expended to no purpose, he found that the wealth and power of Governments may vainly be employed in attempting to conciliate and reclaim brute man, if religious zeal, and Christian charity, in the true import of the word, be wanting.

Apologia. MS. § 82.

Mutiny of the troops on the Rio Negro.

Mendonça Furtado hated the Jesuits; and in dispossessing them of that authority which they had used only as the means of beneficence, he added insult to injury, and congratulated them upon their deliverance from a charge which, he said, no-

[page] 517

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Fresh accusations against the Jesuits.

See p. 366.

thing but perfect resignation and purity of intention could have enabled them to support: henceforth they might serve God with less trial of their patience. The views of his brother, as he well understood, extended beyond the deprivation of these Missionaries; and he therefore was eager to furnish accusations against men whose condemnation had been predetermined. The troops whom he had left upon the Rio Negro were without pay, and miserably supplied either with food or raiment. He had taken no measures to provide for them, and the Carmelites did not exert themselves to remedy the evil, as a sense of their own interest should have induced them to do. The men at length mutinied, being in absolute want. They chose for their leader a certain Manoel Correa Cardozo; broke open the military chest, which Mendonça had exhausted before his departure; pillaged the magazines, plundered and burnt the adjacent Missions, and finally deserted, to seek their fortune in the Spanish province of the Omaguas. The Governor imputed this to the Jesuits, and accused them of having dispeopled their Aldeas, and destroyed their stores of provisions, for the purpose of distressing the troops on the Rio Negro, and provoking them to this conduct; .. as if the Carmelites, whose settlements were upon that river, were not the culpable persons, if any persons could be thought culpable except the Governor, whose negligence was so apparent. He denounced them also for having induced the Indians of the armament to desert, .. forgetting that men needed no instigation to escape from a compulsory and severe service; for removing those Indians who were established near the place appointed for the meeting of the Commissioners, .. not heeding, or not caring for the fact, that the Jesuits had no settlements within many hundred miles of the place, consequently no influence there, nor means of influence; and for the hostilities which had occurred between them and the Carmelites a few years back, .. as if

[page] 518

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they had been the first, or the only offenders in those transactions. Moreover here, as in Paraguay, the project of establishing an independent and exclusive dominion was imputed to them: they were accused of making treaties with the Indians in their own name, and engaging that they who acknowledged them for their rulers should be exempted from the Governor's authority. It was added, that they had prepared for resisting the King's arms, and that a German in the character of a Missionary had actually arrived at Trocano, now the town of Borba Nova, bringing with him two pieces of artillery. A German Jesuit had indeed been stationed there, and the guns in question were two small pieces for the defence of the place. It could not be pretended that they were not needed in that situation, for the Aldea, being situated on the right bank of the Madeira, about an hundred miles above its mouth, was exposed to the attacks of the fierce Muras, and of the Mundrucus, a not less ferocious tribe, who had the art of embalming the heads of their enemies, and used to suspend them as trophies in their cabins, .. ten such proofs of individual prowess being required as the qualification for a Chief.

Apologia. MS. § 126. 121.

Aneddoti di Pombal. l. 1. § 120.

Relaçam. Abbrev. 15. 23.

Cazal. 2. 317.

They send home a memorial against the Governor.

Upon these charges, of which all that are not absolutely false, are merely frivolous, the most able of the Jesuits, being for that reason the most obnoxious, were sent home as stateprisoners. The Jesuits of Maranham had been used to obloquy and persecution; and upon this, as on former occasions, they hoped to obtain justice by appealing to the throne. But there was no Vieyra now to plead for them, neither was there a Joam the Deliverer to hear their complaints. They sent home a memorial against the Governor: it was presented to the King by the hands of his Confessor; but though it thus reached the Sovereign the effect was lost, for be instantly communicated it to ² Carvalho. It contained, among other documents, a repre-

[page] 519

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sentation from the Council of Missions in favour of the Missionaries: the Superiors of all the Orders had concurred in this, for thus far they had been common sufferers; but the Minister ascribed it to the Jesuits, as the prime movers. There was no difficulty in inducing the other Ministers, who were in reality

2 There is a notable story upon this subject in an unpublished life of Pombal. There it is said, that the King received from Maranham at the same time a memorial of the Governor against the Jesuits, and a memorial of the Jesuits against the Governor. Not knowing what to think of representations so totally at variance with each other, he gave them both to the Deszembargador da Meza do Paço, Dr. Lucas de Seabra de Silva, charging him to institute an inquiry into the facts, and enjoining inviolable secresy. Seabra looked to Carvalho for the promotion of his sons, and communicated to him the orders which he had received. When the issue of the inquiry arrived, it proved to he decidedly in favour of the Jesuits, condemning the Governor in all things. Seabra carried it to the Minister and was prevailed upon, greatly against his will, to leave it in his hands. Carvalho, it is said, without hesitation fabricated a Report in its stead, to his own purpose, carried it himself to the King, without the slightest compunction at sacrificing Seabra, and said how happy he was that the King should have taken this course, by which the perfidy of the Jesuits, the justice of his brother's measures, and the accuracy of his own representations, had been so incontestably proved. It is added, that the King sent for Seabra, and demanded the Report; that the poor Dezembargador, unsuspicious of his patron's treachery, replied, he had not yet had time to open the papers; that the King then produced it, and reproached him as he deserved; and that shame, grief, and indignation, threw the old man into a fit, of which he died in a few hours. (§§ 177—182.) This statement is so grossly improbable that it needs no refutation: if any were required, the notorious fact would be sufficient, that the son of Seabra was for many years afterwards the most active instrument of Carvalho in his schemes against the Jesuits. The story may serve to show in what spirit the history of Pombal has been written by his enemies; and yet the life in which this fable is contained, is composed with far more regard both to truth and probability, than the two Italian publications; because, being the work of a Portugueze, the author knew what kind of slander would suit the taste of his countrymen, and what quantity of falsehood they would be able to swallow.

[page] 520

CHAP. XL. 1756.

Vita di Pombal. t. 1. 48.

Aneddoti di Pombal. l. 2. § 29—30.

his dependents and creatures, to concur with him in advising that men whom he represented as so active in all seditious measures, should be deprived of their spiritual as well as temporal charge, and deported from Maranham; and, contrary as this measure was to the policy and conduct of all his predecessors, from the first establishment of the Company, José would have consented to it without hesitation, if he had not been dissuaded by his mother, the Dowager Queen Maria Anna of Austria. But their condition was not bettered by this delay. The edict which deprived them of their authority took from them in its immediate consequences their means of support: in this respect it affected all the Orders alike, and therefore they united in petitioning the Governor, through their Superiors, for an allowance from the Treasury. Mendonça Furtado turned a deaf ear to the reasonable supplication. They then entreated, that at least they might be permitted to employ four men from every Aldea, at the proper wages, in hunting and fishing, for their maintenance; and it is affirmed that this also was refused. Nothing then remained for them but to take up their breviaries and depart. This was what the Bishop desired, as well as the Governor, because he wished to extend his own authority by substituting secular clergy in their stead. Some few, ³ not of the best description, were found in the country; the deficiency was made up by sending out a supply from Lisbon. No choice was allowed these persons; they were pressed into the service, .. a summary process, which was practised in Portugal whenever it

3 The author of the Aneddoti (L. 1. § 29.) writes ignorantly, when he says that most of them were unacquainted with the native language; because the Tupi at that time prevailed, almost to the exclusion of the Portugueze.

[page] 521

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was thought convenient: if any selection were made, it was likely to be, not of such men as were fittest for the charge, but of those who for their ignorance and their scandalous lives were thought most worthy of transportation.

These measures might have troubled the spirit of Vieyra in Heaven, if there had been nothing to mitigate the evil. But it should be remembered, that the great object of Carvalho's policy was the good of his country; and that the destruction of the Jesuits was pursued by him as a means which he believed indispensable to that end. Mistaken as he often was, and too frequently careless of justice and humanity, his mind was capacious, and his general views would have been worthy of a better man. The colonial system of Portugal, as it respected the people of colour, had always been happier than that of any other country; .. wiser, perhaps, it may not deserve to be called, because it arose from necessity. The mixed breed, in every shade of intermixture, were exempted from the odious disabilities by which they were debased in the Spanish colonies; and Indians and Negroes had been decorated with honours, and admitted to charges of authority and confidence. But the attempt at incorporating the Indians with the Brazilian Portugueze, so as to render them one people, was reserved for Carvalho. The scheme upon which he proceeded was in some points injudicious, and in nothing more so than in removing those persons who were best able and most willing to have laboured in educating and improving this long-injured race. It has not yet produced the effect which he anticipated; but it proves, that in some things Carvalho had advanced not only beyond his country, but beyond his age also; and in whatever light the general tenor of his ministry may be regarded, it must be acknowledged to his honour, that, more than any other person, he vindicated the rights of the Indians, promoted their emancipation, and aimed at their improvement.

See vol. 2. p. 691.

VOL. III. 3 X

[page] 522

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Regulations concerning the Indians.

Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 1.

Do. § 2.

Do. § 3—5.

The regulations which he enacted for this object were first promulgated at Para. This memorable code began by declaring that the humane intentions of the King in placing the Indians under the government of their respective Chiefs, could not be immediately accomplished, because of the deplorable ignorance in which they had grown up: therefore, till they should be capable of acting for themselves, the Captain General must appoint a Director, to reside in every Indian settlement, taking especial care that he was a man of integrity, zeal, prudence, and virtuous life, and versed in the native tongues. The temporal authority which the Law had now vested in the Magistrates of the newly erected towns, and in the Chiefs of the independent Aldeas, might in no wise be exercised by these Directors; they were to possess no coercive jurisdiction, their power being only directive: but if a Director perceived in the Magistrates any remissness in punishing public offences with that severity which the public good required, he was to admonish them to perform their duty; and if they still neglected it, he was then to complain to the Governor and the Ministers of Justice. It was however recommended, that the punishment of offences should always be the lightest which the laws would permit, and moreover be executed in mercy, lest fear might induce the Indians to fly into the woods and relapse into the evils of their heathen state. It could not be denied, that they were still destitute both of the decent comforts of civilization, and of any true knowledge of the adorable mysteries of religion; for they lived as barbarously as if they were in their native woods, and continued to practise the worst abominations of Heathenism. Now the King's chief desire was to christianize and civilize this unhappy people; and to effect this must be the chief object of the Directors. The religious part appertained to the Bishop; and the Directors would only have to set an example of respect and

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veneration for the Priests, and to see that the example was followed: but the task of civilizing them was their peculiar business.

They were charged, as one of their peculiar cares, to establish the Portugueze language, and not by any means to suffer the children to grow up in the use of the Tupi tongue, which hitherto had prevailed in spite of repeated orders from Lisbon, to the total ruin, it was affirmed, spiritual and temporal, of the State. This practice, which had originated with the first conquerors, was declared to be an abominable and diabolical invention for depriving the Indians of all means whereby they might be civilized. Two schools were to be opened in every settlement, for boys and girls, where both were to be instructed in the rudiments of the faith, and in reading and writing; the boys in arithmetic also, the girls in spinning, sewing, and other employments befitting their sex. The masters and mistresses were to be paid by the parents, or by the persons in whose employ they were engaged, at a fixed rate, in goods or money; but the payment was to be regulated with regard to the present wretchedness of the Indians. In places where no woman could be found to act as schoolmistress, the girls were to attend the boys' school till they were ten years of age, that they might the more easily acquire the Portugueze tongue.

Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 6—8.

The Directors were enjoined to shew due respect to every Indian in office, according to his post, .. the manner, it was said, in which the chief persons among them had been compelled to act as pilots, and to row in canoes, in scandalous violation of the laws, having contributed greatly to the abasement of the race. Nor might the scandalous injustice of calling them Negroes any longer be tolerated; for that appellation tended to make it be supposed that nature had designed them to be the slaves of the white men, as was believed concerning the African

[page] 524

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Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 9—15.

Blacks. Another cause of abasement was, that there was not a single Indian in the Aldeas who had a surname; but for the sake of making them understand that they were now considered upon an equal footing with the Whites, Portugueze surnames were to be given them, .. it being morally certain, said the Law, that when they shall have the same names and surnames as the white and other civilized inhabitants, they will be more disposed to imitate them, and betake themselves to useful and virtuous habits of life. Also, as it could not be doubted but that the indecent practice of herding together whole families in one hovel contributed to brutalize these people, the Directors were to take especial pains for eradicating this most pernicious custom, and persuade the Indians to build their habitations after the manner of the Portugueze, with different apartments. Drunkenness was another cause of their inferiority, .. a vice so prevalent, that scarcely a single Indian was free from it. They were to be exhorted against it by the Directors, and informed that the persons who yielded to it would incapacitate themselves for the honorary offices which it was the King's desire to confer upon them. But in all these measures of reformation, the Directors were admonished to proceed with gentleness, lest the Indians should for disgust or fear turn away from the Church, and relapse into heathenism. They were to encourage them to dress conformably to their rank, and not suffer any of them to go naked, especially ⁴ the women, as was then almost every where the custom, to the disgrace of humanity.

4 According to one of the most empty and coxcombical French writers of the age of philosophists, the Portugueze committed a great error in teaching the natives to clothe themselves. He says, 'A des hommes à qui le necessaire suffit, il ne faut pas donner un superflu, parceque celui-ci fait naitre en eux de nouveaux desirs, qui sont la source des vices. On habilla ces nations qu'il failloit laisser nues. On ne sauroit croire combien l'habillement influe sur les mœurs d'un peuple qui n'a jamais été vêtu.' L'Administration de Pombal, T. 1. 143.

This passage occurring in a life of Pombal, might be supposed to refer to his measures for civilizing the Indians: but the author, who was employed by the family of Pombal to vindicate the memory of that extraordinary man, has altogether overlooked this part of his history! The impudent ignorance of this writer is almost beyond belief! He says that Mendonça Furtado was Governor of Maranham and Paraguay (T. 2. p. 71.) .. for inconceivable as it may appear, he seems to confound Paraguay with Para; and actually says, that the Portugueze went up the river Amazons till they reached the river Plata! .. 'Les Portugais remontent la riviere des Amazones, dont le nom à donné lieu à tant de fables. Pour s'etablir, il faut faire la guerre à plusieurs nations, qu'on trouve si foibles qu'on les prend pour des Amazones, race de femmes qui n'a jamais existé que dans l'imagination des hommes, ainsi que tant d'autres choses qui n'ont pas eu une existence plus réelle. Ce fleuve conduit les Portugais à la riviere de la Plata, où ils employèrent des travaux et des peines infinies pour y parvenir.' (T. 1. 144.) Every part of this marvellous passage contains a blunder; and the whole book is written with the same utter ignorance of every subject upon which it either treats or touches.

[page] 525

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The Directors were to explain to them, that their present wretchedness was the consequence of their want of industry; and that States are populous and respected and opulent, only in proportion as the People are industrious. They who should be most industrious, therefore, were to be preferred in the distribution of honours, privileges, and offices. If lands sufficient for their support and employment had not been assigned them, the Directors were to represent it to the Governor, that a farther allotment might be made: and they were to see that all the Indians, without exception, made plantations of maniba, not for their own families alone, but for exportation to the camp on the Rio Negro, for the supply of the city of Belem, and for the use of the garrisons: for it was always to be understood, that as mandioc-meal served in that country for bread, and was

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the foundation of commerce, it must be the first and principal care of the Directors to provide it in abundance. The Indians must also be made to rear kidney-beans, maize, rice, and other esculents which that fertile land produced, and thus the high price of provisions would be remedied, which of late years had nearly ruined the important trade of the Sertam. The Directors were particularly recommended to introduce the culture of cotton, as an article of the first importance: the growth of tobacco also was to be encouraged; but as this required a more laborious cultivation, the prospect of honour as well as of profit was to be held out to the Indians, and they should be considered as having claims to preferment in proportion to the quantity which they raised. Peradventure, all the diligence of the Directors might not suffice to overcome the inveterate indolence of a people who had been so long debased and brutified: each therefore was instructed annually to send in a schedule to the Governor, containing a list of all the plantations in his jurisdiction, the names of the labourers, and an account of the crops, with a specification of those persons who had neglected their agricultural duties, that the Governor might from this document know whom to commend and whom to chastise.

Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 16—26.

All human measures, said the Law, being useless, unless they are protected by the arm of Divine Omnipotence, in order that God may bless the labour of the Indians in the cultivation of their lands, it will be necessary in all their settlements to put an end to the diabolical abuse of not paying tithes. The tenth part of every thing which they raised or acquired, without exception, was to be exacted. The Law added, that God had reserved to himself and his ministers this portion of the fruits of the earth; but it did not say, that the tithes in the Portugueze colonies had been granted by the Pope to the Crown, and that the Clergy were paid by the Government, .. an arrangement

[page] 527

CHAP. XL. 1757.

neither to the advantage of the Priest nor of the People. It was with a view to the revenue, and not to the support or furtherance of religion, as this hypocritical preamble was intended to imply, that regulations were laid down for the rigorous collection of the impost. That it might not be evaded by the Indians, who used, it was said, often to sacrifice their plantations before the proper season, for the impatient desire of indulging in drunkenness, the Directors, with the assistance of persons competent and sworn to the task, were to examine and appraise the standing crops, and enter in their books the quantity due as tithes from every plantation. The tithes in every settlement were to be deposited in a storehouse, and the Director was responsible for them, inevitable accidents of transport excepted, till they were delivered and entered at the general Custom House. As a reward for the Directors, they were to have a sixth part of whatever the Indians raised, except of the produce reared for their own consumption. This was a heavy impost, and liable to the serious objection, that as the Directors had the power of compelling the Indians to work, a motive was thus afforded for rendering them hard task-masters. If however there could have been any reasonable expectation of finding persons who would faithfully discharge the duties of such a situation, they would well have deserved a liberal payment. Part of their office was to see that the Indians should not be defrauded in their dealings; and in framing regulations for this purpose, the law stigmatized the traders of the country in the strongest terms. Pulse, grain, and mandioc-meal, had hitherto been sold in baskets, by the eye; .. weights and measures were now universally to be used; and the Indians might not make any bargain without the advice of the Directors, till a second order from the King should habilitate them so to do, when they might be thought capable of transacting business for themselves:

[page] 528

CHAP. XL. 1757.

but the Directors might not trade with them in any manner, nor under any covert, however equitable the transaction. Regular accounts of the things sold, and the things taken in payment, were annually to be transmitted to the Governor, as a security for fair dealing. The Indians might chuse whether they would receive money or goods in payment; but the Directors might not allow them to take things which would be useless to their families; still less might they allow them to be paid in ardent spirits, which were the seeds of the greatest disorders in that State. To prevent the introduction of this moral as well as physical poison, they were to search every boat which touched at their respective settlements, and if more spirits were found than might be thought necessary for the proper consumption of the crew, it was to be confiscated; and even the lawful quantity was to be deposited under the Director's care, till the boat proceeded on its voyage.

Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 27—44.

The Directors were to encourage the Indians to send their produce to the capital, as the best market. They were also to promote the trade of the Sertam, from whence not only the natural produce might be procured, but salted fish, tortoise butter, balsam of copaiba, andiroba oil, and many other valuable commodities. When the agricultural business of the season was over, the Directors were to summon the Indians; and if all should be desirous of going upon an adventure to the. Sertam, they were, with the advice of the Chiefs, to select the proper number, observing always that every man had his turn. The Chiefs, if there were not more than two, were entitled to employ in these expeditions six men each; but if there were three or upwards, only four in that case. The Capitaens Mores and Sargentos Mores might in like manner each employ four, and the other officers two: they might go themselves if they pleased; but half the officers of a settlement must always remain in it.

[page] 529

CHAP. XL. 1757.

The Camaras of the towns, and the Chiefs of the townlets, were charged to prepare canoes for these occasions, and see to their outfit. Great frauds had been committed by the Commanders of such parties; great caution therefore was to be used in appointing them, and they were to be responsible both in their persons and their property for their conduct. From the proceeds, the tenths were to be paid first; then the charges of the expedition; thirdly, the portion of the Captain of each canoe; fourthly, the Director's sixth; and the remainder was to be divided among the persons concerned in the adventure. The tenths of cacao, coffee, spice, and sarsaparilha, were to be paid by the purchaser before they were removed from the spot: the impost upon every thing else (except cultivated produce) in the capital. But if any of these latter articles were sold upon the spot, the Director was to collect the impost. Finally, as it would be neither just nor charitable to trust the Indians with their own expenditure while they were in their present state of ignorance and incapacity, the Treasurer General, when they were in the capital, should make all purchases for them, in their presence.

Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 45—58.

There remained the difficult point of compulsory service: and here Carvalho understood the character of the colonists enough to feel that, absolute as he was at home, his power in Para was limited by public opinion. After an awkward attempt to show that such service was conformable to the law of nature and the rule of reason, it was appointed, that one half the Indians of every settlement should always remain at home, for the defence of the State, and the King's service, as well as for their own affairs; and the other half be allotted among the inhabitants, to serve in expeditions to the Sertam, and to cultivate tobacco, sugar-canes, cotton, and whatever might tend to enrich the State by increasing its commerce. All Indians, from the age of

VOL. III. 3 Y

[page] 530

CHAP. XL. 1757.

Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 59—73. 94.

thirteen to that of threescore, were to be enrolled in two books, one of which was to be in possession of the Governor, the other of the Dezembargador, Juiz de Fora, as President of the Camara, and the Directors were annually to send in lists, from which these books were to be filled up, and the dead marked off. No Indian might be consigned to the service of a person who was not an inhabitant of some regular settlement, unless a written order from the-Governor were produced; nor might the Indians be detained in service beyond the term of six months, for which they were allotted. Owing to abuses of this kind, the Aldeas, it was said, were almost deserted; and therefore the Directors and Chiefs were required to present to the Governor every year a list of all transgressors. The whole wages were to be paid to the Director beforehand, and he was to give the Indian one third immediately, and reserve the remainder till the service should have been performed. If the Indian deserted his work, this remainder was to be returned to the employer; but if the desertion were occasioned by ill treatment, the remainder was then to be forfeited, and the employer fined in a sum equal to the whole. If an Indian should be disabled, or die during the course of his service, the just wages were to be paid, in the first instance, to himself, in the second to his heirs. When an Indian chose to receive his wages in goods, the Director was to see that the goods should be charged at the price which they bore in the capital, with only such an addition as was equivalent to the cost of transporting them. And as a farther check upon fraud, exact lists were to be transmitted by the Directors to the Governor every year, containing the names of the Indians who had been sent on service, the names of their employers, and the articles in which they had been paid. No Indian was subject to the requisition till he had resided two compleat years in the settlement.

[page] 531

CHAP. XL. 1757.

As soon as the Directors entered upon their functions, they were to see that a house for the Camara, and a prison, were erected, the latter as secure, and the former as handsome, as circumstances would permit. They were also to induce the Indians to improve their own habitations, as one great and indispensable means of civilization. And as the desired improvement would naturally be in proportion to the population of their settlements, no place ought to contain fewer than one hundred and fifty inhabitants: smaller societies should therefore be incorporated, care being taken not to bring together people of different tribes among whom any feeling of old enmity might be harboured. The Directors were also instructed to impress upon the Chiefs and Magistrates, that their first and main duty was to increase their settlements by reclaiming more Indians from the Sertam; and this was to be done however great the expence to the Treasury; .. for it was especially enjoined in repeated orders by the inimitable and catholic piety of the Portugueze Kings, as the best means for extending the Faith, and making the adorable name of our Redeemer known and respected in the New World. But as it was the royal intention to improve the Indians by means of commerce and social intercourse, as well as to augment the population and strength of the State, there could be no better means of promoting this virtuous end than by the introduction of White inhabitants into the Indian settlements. Such therefore as chose to settle there should enjoy all the honours and privileges which were accorded to the Indians; and when they presented a licence from the Governor, the Directors were to give them every assistance for erecting suitable habitations for themselves and their families, and allot them lands, .. always however reserving the right of the Indians as the original and natural Lords. But these persons were to be admitted on condition that they should not possess them-

[page] 532

CHAP. XL. 1757.

selves of any lands which had been assigned to the Indians, under any pretext, nor by any right, however apparently legitimate; that they should live with them upon terms of reciprocal concord and courtesy, conformable to that equality which existed between them in their generic character of vassals to his Majesty; that they were to expect no preference in appointments of office and honour, but contrariwise, that the Indians, when they were capable, should always be preferred in their own settlements; that they were not to think it beneath them to cultivate the earth with their own hands, because they were admitted into these settlements for the purpose of civilizing the Indians and amending their indolent habits by example; and if they failed in any of these conditions they were to be expelled the settlement, and forfeit whatever they possessed there. The Directors were to omit no means for extinguishing the odious and abominable distinction between Whites and Indians, which ignorance and iniquity had introduced: for this end they were to encourage intermarriages, and represent to the White women that the Indians were not inferior to them in quality, and that having now been declared capable of rank and honours, they would communicate their privileges to their wives. Thus they were to combat those most injurious opinions by which such marriages were stigmatized as infamous: and if it were found that any White wife or husband despised an Indian partner, the Governor was to be informed of it, that he might secretly punish the criminal as a fomentor of the old disunion, and a disturber of the public peace. Finally, the Directors were for awhile to consider themselves as Guardians and Tutors of the Indians, and in those characters to act toward them with the zeal and fidelity which the laws civil and natural required, on pain of such punishment as the King might think proper to inflict. They were to bear in mind, that prudence, gentleness, and kind-

[page] 533

CHAP. XL. 1757.

Directorio. May 3, 1757. § 74—95.

ness, were the most efficacious means of reforming and improving this long injured and degraded race; and they were to make the condition of the Indians under their care such that the Savages in the Sertam might be induced to join them for the sake of temporal comforts and advantages, and thus be led into the way of eternal life.

Alvara. Aug. 17, 1758.

These ordinances, which were originally promulgated by Mendonça Furtado for Maranham and Para, were ratified in Lisbon, and extended to the whole of Brazil. The measure excited no attention ⁵ at the time, and is scarcely noticed by any of Carvalho's biographers, though it is one of the most remarkable acts of his administration. It is characteristic of him, both in its good and evil parts. The end was worthy of an enlightened statesman; the means were injudicious, inconsistent, and tyrannical. In order to educate men for free agents, they were to be treated as slaves; and throughout the regulations there was the base artifice of vilifying the Indians indiscriminately, for the purpose of calumniating the Jesuits, .. as if the vices which these

5 Raynal has remarked this, with an honest feeling, not the less praiseworthy for being expressed in his usual ambitious manner. The passage is of useful application. "Un evenement si propre à attendrir les cæurs sensibles fut à peine remarqué.—Une revolution favorable à l'humanité echappe presque generalement, même au milieu du dix-huitieme siecle, de ce siecle de lumiere, de philosophie. On parle du bonheur des nations. On ne le voit pas, on ne le sent pas. On fronde avec amertume les fausses operations du gouvernement; et lorsqu'il lui arrive, par hasard, d'en faire une bonne, on garde le silence. Peuples, dites-moi, est ce donc la reconnoissance que vous devez à ceux qui s'occupent de votre bonheur? Est-ce ainsi que vous les engagerez à les remplir avec distinction? Si vous voulez qu'ils soient attentifs an murmure de votre mecontentement lorsqu'ils vous vexent, que les cries de votre joie frappent leurs oreilles avec eclat lorsque vous en êtes soulagés.—Peuples, vous êtes egalement vils, et dans la misere et dans la felicité: vous ne savez ni vous plaindre, ni vous rejouir." T. 4, p. 297.

[page] 534

CHAP. XL. 1758.

unhappy people acquired during their term of servitude were permitted and indulged in the Aldeas; and as if the Missionaries, instead of encouraging habits of industry, and labouring to improve them in every way, had endeavoured systematically to keep them in ignorance and debasement. Let it not be supposed, that the representation cannot be false because it was published at S. Luiz, and Para, where the truth must have been known: .. the people of S. Luiz and Para were prejudiced against the Jesuits; and no misrepresentations are too monstrous, no falsehoods too palpable or too absurd, to pass current among a people who are possessed by a factious spirit. It happens, that upon this subject the proofs are conclusive and incontestable. There is the testimony of Condamine to the flourishing state of the Aldeas, a few years before this change, .. an unexceptionable witness, who cannot be suspected of any bias in favour of the Jesuits; and there is the evidence of the Bishop of Para, D. Fr. Caetano Brandam, who visited the whole of his extensive diocese some five and twenty years afterward. He describes the towns and townlets as bearing marks, amid their decay and desolation, of the prosperity which had prevailed in the time of the Missionaries; .. houses falling to pieces; fields overgrown with wood; grass in the market-places; the limekilns, the potteries, the manufactories of calico (for the Jesuits had all these) in ruins.

Jornal de Coimbra. 4. p. 107—114.

Carvalho had been blinded by his contempt for superstition, and his hatred of the obnoxious Order. He wished to civilize the Indians, and place them upon an equal footing with the Portugueze; .. and he removed the only persons who would have cooperated with him for this end, .. the only persons who would have exerted themselves disinterestedly to promote the improvement and the happiness of the Indians, .. the only persons who, for the love of God, would have devoted themselves dutifully,

[page] 535

CHAP. XL. 1758.

chearfully, and zealously, to the service of their fellow-creatures. In their place, such men as would undertake the office for the love of gain, were substituted; and the immediate consequences were injurious in every way. The laws in favour of the Indians were infringed more daringly; the Directors had no means as a body to act in their behalf, and individual exertion was not to be expected from such men; they themselves also had an interest in oppressing them, because their profits were in proportion to the work performed; they had the power of compelling them to work, and they had neither authority, influence, nor inclination, to check those vices which certainly were not practised under the moral discipline of the Aldeas. Under such circumstances, it was absurd to think that the population of these settlements would be increased by the accession of more savages from the woods. That process of civilization which had been going on so rapidly, and with such excellent effect, was stopt at once and for ever: and a rapid depopulation began, because free scope was now given to drunkenness and to every other vice, and because many of the Indians fled into the wilderness, when they found that their state of filial subjection was exchanged for a servitude which had nothing either to sanctify or to soften it. But though the immediate evil preponderated heavily in this great change, the important principle of equal rights was acknowledged; and the Government of Portugal had solemnly pledged itself to perform the duty of instructing, emancipating, and elevating its Indian subjects, and incorporating them with the Brazilians as one people. What unutterable evils would have been prevented in Spanish America, if Spain had rendered the same justice to humanity! One part of Carvalho's intentions began immediately to take effect, though the difficulty of accomplishing it might have appeared as great as the importance of the object. He succeeded in changing the

[page] 536

CHAP. XL. 1758.

language of Maranham and Para, where the Tupi was then so compleatly predominant that it was used exclusively in the pulpit. The Priests who were transported from Portugal, ill as they supplied the place of their predecessors in every other respect, were in this point good Missionaries. It was easier to breed up the children in the Portugueze tongue than to acquire a barbarous speech themselves; and therefore they busied themselves to enforce the observance of a law which coincided with their own Convenience.

Charges against the Jesuits presented to the Pope.

Carvalho's aim at this time seems not to have been the suppression of the Jesuit Order, .. a project which would perhaps have appeared impracticable, even to his audacious and determined spirit, .. but rather to take away their authority abroad, and their influence at home; to deprive them of their resources, and destroy them piecemeal in the Portugueze dominions, by bringing them into distress, and odium, and contempt. For this purpose, a relation of the resistance which they were said to have opposed to the Treaty of Limits, both on the side of Paraguay and of Para, was published by the Court of Lisbon, and circulated with great diligence through the whole of Catholic Europe: it was replete with exaggerations, mistatements which had their ground in malice, and sheer falsehoods; nevertheless, it did its work. The Portugueze Embassador at Rome presented it to Benedict XIV, accompanied with formal charges against the Company, .. charges, it was said, which the King had long abstained from preferring, because of his incomparable clemency, and his pious devotion to the glorious Saints Loyola, Xavier, and Borja. But such, it was averred, was the extreme corruption into which the Jesuits in his dominions had fallen, that they now seemed to be merchants, or soldiers, or Royalets, rather than Religioners. Many were the Governors and Ministers, faithful servants of God and of his Crown, whom

[page] 537

CHAP. XL. 1758.

A Visitor and Reformer of the Company appointed.

they had ruined by their insidious artifices. They had formed establishments from the Orellana to the Uruguay, binding the two Americas, Spanish and Portugueze, with so strong a cord, that in ten years more it would be impossible to untie the knot. And now they had unmasked themselves: they had waged war against the two allied Sovereigns in Paraguay; they had promoted disorders and mutinies in Para; and they had opposed the Royal Laws and the Papal Bulls more openly than even the Knights Templars, who for their offences had been punished with such severity, and extinguished as an Order. Exploded ⁶ calumnies, and popular imputations as silly as they were false, were gravely repeated to the Pope in this Memorial; and whether his Holiness accredited them or not, he acceded to the King's wishes, and expedited a commission for the Cardinal Patriarch at Lisbon, D. Francisco de Saldanha, appointing him Visitor, and Apostolical Reformer General of the Company, in Portugal and its dependencies.

Instrucçam. Oct. 8. 1757. Collecçam. No. 5.

Mandate of the Visitor, concerning the trade of the Jesuits.

A visitation instituted under these auspices was not likely to be conducted with much regard to moderation or equity. The Cardinal Patriarch acted in compleat subservience to the Minister, and one of his first acts was to issue a Mandate, inter-

6 Even the old case of Cardenas, the half crazy Bishop of Paraguay, was quoted as a proof of their tyranny; and the productions of his lying advocates were reproduced, and printed in various works, forms, and languages, in summaries, or at full length! Thus it is that falsehoods, after the lapse of whole generations, are revived and brought into activity, .. like the plague from an old bale of goods! The charges, true and false, against the Company, have lately been heaped together, with some industry and no discrimination, in two large volumes, entitled, with little propriety, a History of the Jesuits. I agree with the Author, in deprecating what is called Catholic Emancipation, as a most unwise, impolitic, and perilous measure: but I abominate misrepresentation, and unfair arguments, .. and more especially when they are employed in a right cause.

VOL. III. 3 Z

[page] 538

CHAP. XL. 1758.

dicting the commerce which the Jesuits carried on. This was in reality, to take from them the sole means of supporting those Missions, in which they had so long and so successfully laboured, producing unequivocal, if not unmingled good. But this was a matter in which public opinion was against them, for many causes: merchants considered them as their rivals in trade, possessing an invidious advantage by means of the exemptions from certain duties, which had been granted them in the days of their favour: the suspicion of wealth excited the envy and hatred of less meritorious, and therefore less fortunate Orders, and it stimulated the cupidity of those who looked to be employed in the hopeful work of an Apostolical Reform. Against the combined force of authority and opinion, even the strongest shield of law would have proved a weak defence; but unhappily the law was against them; and no persons are more merciless in enforcing it to the letter when it suits their purpose, than they who at the same time the most unscrupulously disregard its spirit and intention. Forgetful of the perpetual interference of the Romish Church in secular affairs, the Cardinal began his virulent Mandate by asserting, that our Redeemer himself had forbidden all persons dedicated to the priesthood from interfering with any worldly concerns; and in proof of this he quoted the text, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon;" .. as if it had been intended for the Clergy alone, and as if this were its meaning! He proceeded to observe, that Christ had turned the buyers and sellers, and the money-changers, out of the Temple: that the Canon Laws, from the earliest times, inhibited all Ecclesiastics from engaging in trade, and that the inhibition applied especially to Missionaries, who ought to look upon apostolical poverty as their only inheritance. Urban VIII, Clement IX, and the then Pope, Benedict XIV, had each, he said, endeavoured by the severest censures to enforce the observance

[page] 539

CHAP XL. 1754.

of this injunction; and the law ⁷ of the land in Portugal had, in aid of the sacred Canons and Apostolical Constitutions, decreed that all merchandize belonging to such persons should be confiscated. But the Jesuits, not having the fear of God or of public scandal before their eyes, were obstinately hardened in habits of disobedience to these laws, particularly in the colonies, where, such was the corruption into which they had sunk, they sent expeditions to collect produce in the Sertam, and were in the practice of curing hides, and salting meat and fish, for public sale; and they even had shops of moist goods and eatables under their own roofs. Thus, while the Jesuits were accused in one state paper of endeavouring to destroy trade, for the purpose of keeping their Indians in a state of savage ignorance, it was made a charge against them, in another, that they carried on these branches of trade, which were in the highest degree

7 A suspicion that the Cardinal might not have been more correct in his knowledge of law than in his application of gospel, induced me to follow him to his reference, .. and that suspicion was confirmed. "Os Clerigos de Ordens Sacras, ou Beneficiados, e os Fidalgos, e os Cavalleiros que stiverem em acto militar, nam compraram cousa alguma para revender, nem usaram publicamente da regatiâ, porque nam convem a suas dignidades, e stado militar, entremeterem-se em acto de mercadejar, antes lhes he por direito defeso. E por tanto mandamos ás nossas Justiças, que lhes nam consintam negocear em semelhantes negocios. E aos ditos Clerigos e Beneficiados soquestraram as mesmas mercadorîas, e faram autos que remeteram com as mercadorîas aos Juizes Ecclesiasticos seus Ordinarios."

Ordenaçoens. 1603. L. 4. Tit. 16.

This law prohibits Priests in Orders, Fidalgos, and Knights who are upon military service, from buying any articles for the purpose of selling them again, and from regrating. And as the Cardinal states, it confiscates the mercantile property of any Clergyman. But it no more forbids the Priest, than the Fidalgo, to sell the produce of his lands; and most certainly did not render it unlawful for the Lay-Jesuits to carry on trade for the benefit and support of the Society.

[page] 540

CHAP. XL. 1758.

useful to the inhabitants, and indispensable for the support of the Missions! The present edict forbade them to traffic, from that time forth, under any pretext, title, colour, understanding, cause, occasion, or manner whatsoever; and all persons who were engaged in transactions with them were commanded to lay their accounts before the Visitor, within three days, that he might dispose of the property in such manner as might be most consonant to the Reform which he was appointed to effect. The Mandate was sent out to Brazil, and the Bishops were instructed to see to its execution in their respective dioceses.

Mandamento. May 15, 1758.

Attempt to assassinate the King of Portugal.

A Reform which was commenced in this temper, would not have been long in reaching its intended consummation: but a more tragical catastrophe was hastened on by the attempt to assassinate the King of Portugal; .. which, in all its consequences, is the most frightful occurrence in Portugueze history. One of the leaders in that conspiracy, when under the torture, accused three Jesuits as his accomplices. It is said that he retracted the charge, and made it his last entreaty to the Priest who attended him upon the scaffold, that this denial might be made public. Whatever truth there may be in the assertion, (which comes from too suspicious a quarter to be lightly admitted, and which is coupled with a far less credible declaration of his own innocence,) it is certain that no weight should be allowed to an accusation extorted upon the rack: that one of the accused Jesuits was afterwards tried and put to death for heresy, or rather for the delirious fancies of an old man in his dotage, not for treason: and that the other two were never brought to trial, or publicly punished upon the charge. Certain it is, too, that if these three persons had been proved guilty, their brethren in Portugal could not according to any known principle of law or rule of reason, have been justly considered as responsible for their crime, or implicated in it, unless a

[page] 541

CHAP. XL. 1758.

The Jesuits condemned as accomplices.

participation had been proved: still less could all the members of the Company in other kingdoms, and in remote parts of the world. But Carvalho involved the whole Order in one sweeping condemnation. He charged the crime upon them as the result of their maxims and settled policy, and he determined to expel them from the Portugueze dominions. Orders therefore were issued, immediately after the diabolical execution of the principal conspirators, for confiscating the property and securing the persons of all the Jesuits in Portugal and its dependencies, as persons who had planned, advised, and instigated the attempted assassination.

Carta Regin. Jan. 19, 1759.

They are deported from Para and Maranham.

The Bishop of Para, D. Miguel de Bulhoens, had already, in his capacity of Visitor, suspended the Jesuits in his diocese from the exercise of their clerical functions, and examined them upon oath respecting their commercial property and their receipts of every kind. The Bishop of Maranham, Fr. Antonio de S. Jozé, absented himself from S. Luiz that he might not be made the instrument of measures which he entirely disapproved: Bulhoens ⁸ therefore acted in both places. The order for their expulsion followed at no long interval, and was obeyed with great brutality. The Jesuits from Para were stowed as close as

8 It is said in the Aneddoti, (T. 2. p. 126.) that a report was spread in Maranham, how the King had come to a tragical death, and the Minister in consequence had been disgraced; and that because of this report, which obtained belief, Bulhoens sought to curry favour with the Jesuits, till the authentic intelligence arrived. The attack upon the King had been kept secret while measures were taken for discovering the conspirators; and such a report during that time (while he was under the surgeons' care) may very likely have arisen, and reached Brazil. But it is remarkable, that its prevalence at Maranham should not have been noticed by Seabra, and other writers of that stamp, and brought forward as a proof that the Jesuits were concerned in the conspiracy, and raised the report because they expected such an event.

[page] 542

CHAP. XT. 1759

Aneddoti. t. 2. 122.—134.

Joze de Pinto Borges. MS.

Aneddoti. t. 2. 152.—155.

Negro-slaves, and confined below decks on the voyage to S. Luiz, from which port one hundred and fifteen of these injured men were embarked in one vessel. Bulhoens returned to Portugal in the same ship, to take possession of the See of Leiria; and though four Jesuits died on the passage in consequence of unwholesome food, confinement, and thirst, it is said that he did not show the slightest symptom of compassion, or common humanity, towards men whose innocence and whose virtues he must most certainly have known. The brethren from Seara and Paraiba were carried to Recife, where the Governor, Luiz Diogo Lobo da Silva, and the ⁹ Bishop of Olinda, treated them with due respect and kindness. They were embarked with the Pernambucan Jesuits, fifty-three in all, in a ship which had belonged to the Company, being for the use of the Provincial to cross the Atlantic, and go from port to port in the performance of his visitation. It had been seized for the Crown, with the rest of their property; and was now, for the apparent purpose of adding to their humiliation, employed as a transport, in which they were to be conveyed as convicts. They were treated with extreme cruelty upon the voyage: when they were suffering the most painful thirst the Captain would not allow, even to the dying, an addi-

9 The Bishop in the discharge of his office, as Visitor and Reformer of the Jesuits, said that he could discover nothing about them which stood in need of reformation, except … their shoes, .. which were so old that he thought it was time they should have new ones. The Author of the Aneddoti calls this Bishop, F. Ludovico de S. Teresa, a barefoot Carmelite; but by a manuscript list of the Bishops of Olinda (for which I am beholden to my friend Mr. Koster) this appears to be a mistake. Fr. Luiz de S. Teresa was recalled to Lisbon in 1753, and his Coadjutor, D. Francisco Xavier Aranha, took possession of the See upon his death, in 1759: to Aranha therefore it is, that the merit of having behaved with respect and kindness to men who were in misfortunes, and undeserved disgrace, is due.

[page] 543

CHAP. XL. 1759.

Conduct of the Archbishop of Bahia.

tional drop of water to moisten their lips; nor would he permit them the consolation of receiving the last sacrament in death. Five of them died under this inhuman usage.

There are always wicked instruments enough to carry into full effect the worst intentions of unjust and tyrannical power. Examples in all history are but too common; and in the whole detail of the expulsion of the Jesuits, from first to last, they occur with infamous frequency. It is therefore the bounden duty of an historian not to leave unnoticed the conduct of those who acted generously toward them in their unmerited disgrace, especially because by so doing they exposed themselves to the displeasure of a Minister, who, in his arbitrary temper and absolute authority, regarded neither law, equity, nor decent appearances, when he was offended. The Archbishop of Bahia, D. Jozé Botelho de Mattos, was nominated Visitor and Reformer in his diocese. He received instructions to substitute secular Clergy for the Jesuits in the Indian settlements, which throughout Brazil underwent at this time the same change as in Maranham and Para. There were not many ¹⁰ in the old Captaincies, and none in the newly settled countries; but few as they were, it was difficult to find Priests who would accept the charge. The houses and goods of the Jesuits were given them, and a small fixed salary; besides which, they were to have fees at christenings, marriages, and burials. The Jesuits had taken none; .. theirs was truly a labour of love: and the Indians, looking upon their successors as mercenary interlopers, were as little pleased with them as the poor Clergy themselves were with

10 The statement in the Aneddoti (2. 137.) is, that the Jesuits had seven Missions in the diocese of Pernambuco, including Paraiba and Seara; nine in that of Bahia, five in Rio de Janeiro, and six in S. Paulo.

[page] 544

CHAP. XL. 1759.

the society into which they were banished, and the privations which they had to endure. Some gave up their situations in despair; others fled to save their lives. Insurrections against the system took place; some Indians were cast into prison; others took to the woods: and here also the immediate effect of so sudden and violent a change was to thin the Aldeas, and corrupt the remaining inhabitants. Thus far the Primate, however unwilling, strictly obeyed his instructions: they were imperative, and it was a case in which, feeling himself a mere agent, he did not hold himself morally responsible in any degree for the action. In like manner he obeyed an order for sending all the foreign Jesuits to Lisbon. But when he came to render an account of his Visitation, instead of reporting the charge of carrying on an extensive commerce contrary to the Canons, as a crime which was fully proved against the members of the Company, he sent home an honest attestation that he had found them blameless in that point, and in all others highly useful and meritorious. Eighty of the most respectable persons in Bahia subscribed this attestation; and among them was a brother of the Cardinal Patriarch. The Archbishop at the same time informed the Court, that he had not obeyed the order to suspend the Jesuits from their functions; because a residence of nineteen years upon his See had enabled him to know their real character, and appreciate the good which they performed, and he could not in conscience be the instrument of silencing men whose services were so beneficial to the community. Five years before this time he had requested permission to resign the Primacy, petitioning that he might remain in Brazil, being too old to undertake the voyage to Portugal, and that half his appointments might be continued to him. That request had not been accorded; but now, the next dispatches informed him that his resignation was accepted, and that the See was to be administered by

[page] 545

CHAP. XL. 1760.

the Dean till his successor should arrive. No pension whatever was allowed him; and this venerable man, at the age of fourscore, was left for the remainder of his days dependant upon charity. The office of Reformer devolved upon the Dean; and he was proceeding in it with sufficient severity when the Marquez de Lavradio, who came out as Viceroy, brought with him instructions for the expulsion, and one hundred and sixty-eight of this persecuted Order were deported from Bahia to the Tagus.

Aneddoti. t. 2. 134—149.

Vita di Pombal. 2. 215.

Different conduct of the Bishop of Rio de Janeiro.

The Bishop of the Rio, D. Fr. Antonio de Desterro, acted very differently from the Primate. Being a Friar, he appears on this occasion to have indulged the envy and hatred with which that description of Religioners commonly regarded the Jesuits. When the first instructions arrived, he was disabled by disease; but as soon as he recovered he issued the most virulent Pastoral Epistle that ever was so misnamed, .. wherein he called the Jesuits, the yet unpunished inventors and instigators of the attempted assassination; suspended them from their ecclesiastical functions; forbade the Clergy to lend them Church, Chapel, Oratory, Pulpit, or Confessional; and enjoined all persons to abstain from any the slightest intercourse or communication with them, lest they should be infected with the deadly contagion of their pestiferous opinions. A second Manifesto repeated this interdict, and published the circular letter from the King, which had reached Brazil since the Pastoral was published, and in which the calumniated Society was charged with the crimes of treason and intended regicide. And this was followed by a third, .. one of those works of supererogation which malice is always ready to perform: it was a proclamation, accusing the Jesuits of having concealed their relics, church-plate, and ornaments, and calling upon the persons to whose keeping they had been entrusted, to deliver them up on pain of excommunication.

Pastoral. 8 Nov. 1759.

Edital. 17 Nov. 1759.

Edital. 29 Nov. 1759.

VOL. III. 4A

[page] 546

CHAP. XL. 1760.

The disappearance of these treasures, real and imaginary, might have been more truly explained. The Colleges, Churches, and habitations of the Jesuits, had been taken possession of for the Crown, and the property therein taken for confiscation; their books and papers had been seized; their very hospitals had not been spared; .. the patients had been compelled to leave their beds, some of them in such a condition that they died while they were being removed to another place of shelter. At S. Paulo, notwithstanding the old enmity with which they had been regarded, they were treated with humanity and respect in their disgrace; and the Bishop, Fr. Antonio da Madre de Deos, said publicly, that the expulsion of the Jesuits would draw after it the ruin of religion first, and the overthrow of the government afterwards. The Rio was the place of ¹¹ embarkation for all the members from the South. One hundred and forty-five were stowed in one ship, below decks, like Negroes upon the middle passage; till the Surgeon obtained some alleviation of their durance, by assuring the Captain, that if he persisted in confining them so closely not one of them would reach Lisbon alive, and that the disease which would certainly be generated among them, would as certainly be communicated to the ship's company.

Aneddoti. t. 2. 155—166.

Fate of the Jesuits.

Those Jesuits who had previously been sent to Lisbon as prisoners were cast into prison, and never heard of more till the King's death, and the disgrace of Pombal; when, after a confinement of eighteen years, they were set at liberty. The others, as they arrived in the Tagus, were transferred to other ships, not being permitted to set foot on shore, nor to communicate with friend

11 The author of the Aneddoti carries the Jesuits from S. Paulo to Bahia, and embarks them there for the Rio! This is not the only instance in which he betrays his ignorance of the topography of Brazil.

[page] 547

CHAP. XL. 1760.

or kinsman: they were then sent to the Mediterranean, landed upon theP apal States, and there turned ¹² adrift.

12 The enemies of Pombal have asserted, that not the slightest provision was made for these poor Jesuits; but that they were left to depend upon the charity of strangers for the necessaries of life. Perhaps this may be partly true; .. it is probable that no remittances were made from Portugal to the Papal States, while the Courts of Lisbon and Rome were at variance. But that some provision was made for them afterwards is certain; the facetious complaint of Pombal is remembered by those who knew him, .. that the Jesuits were the longest lived body of men he ever knew; for according to the certificates which he received, not one of them had died after the time of their expulsion.

Cruelly as the Spanish Government afterwards behaved to this persecuted Order, its conduct was merciful when compared with that of Pombal. So many perished in prison, and so many died of the diseases induced by their usage on shipboard, that in a few years the Missionaries were almost extinguished. Their papers had been seized, and have not yet seen the light. Their broken constitutions rendered them incapable (like their Spanish brethren) of bequeathing their knowledge to posterity: their painful acquirements therefore perished with them; and for this reason Hervas had to regret that his account of the languages of Brazil was more imperfect than any other part of his work.

T. 1. p. 150. 271.

[page 548]

CHAPTER XLI.

Measures of Pombal. War of 1762. Capitation abolished. Recovery of Rio Grande.

CHAP. XLI.

The establishment of an exclusive Company for the trade of Maranham and Para, and of another for that of Pernambuco and Paraiba, were measures of the Portugueze Minister which attracted much more attention at the time than his plans for the improvement and emancipation of the Indians.

Companies of Maranham and Pernambuco established.

Alvara. 1 Feb. 1721.

The Brazil Company, which originated with Vieyra, and by means of which the trade had been protected in the most perilous times, and the expulsion of the Dutch finally accomplished, had been abolished by Joam V, after having subsisted more than seventy years. The policy of granting monopolies of this kind is one of those statistic questions which have been debated with the most vehemence, because the controversy has generally been inflamed by a warm sense of personal interest on both sides: but if there were not much apparent good as well as evil, the point would never have been disputed. Such arrangements, however, were congenial to Carvalho's disposition, which led him always to aim at

[page] 549

CHAP. XLI.

Alvara. 7 June, 1755.

producing rapid effects by great and extraordinary efforts. The first which he established was that of ¹ Maranham and Para, with a capital of 1,200,000 cruzados, in twelve hundred shares at 400 milreis each. There existed at Lisbon a public body, called the Mesa do Bem Commum, .. the Board of Public Good; instituted for the purpose of watching over the commercial interests of the country. This Board presented a memorial against the measure to the King himself, through its Advocate, the Regidor Joam Thomaz de Negreiros. Carvalho at that time was not known to have obtained the degree of favour which he actually possessed, neither was his temper then understood. No Visir or Sultan was ever more intolerant of opposition. The Board was immediately abolished; another, called the Junta do Commercio, established in its stead, and the members of the former Board were banished for different terms of from two to eight years, some to different parts of Portugal, others to the fortress of Mazagam. They who were under

1 This measure preceded the hostile acts against the Jesuits: and one of the charges against them which Carvalho was not ashamed to lay before the Pope was, that F. Ballester had preached a sermon at Lisbon against it, and affirmed that whosoever entered into that Company would not be admitted into the Company of Christ. (Instruiçam. 10 Feb. 1758.) The Italian compiler of the Anecdotes gives what appears to be the faithful fact, which he says Ballester himself attested upon oath. The Jesuit preached upon these words: 'Make to yourselves friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness:" and using that low stile which, being upon a level with the taste of those to whom it is addressed, produces its effect when a better strain might fail, he proposed to his hearers that they should engage in a new Commercial Company, the capital of which was to be invested in Heaven; the poor were to be the agents, and the returns, not one in the hundred, but a hundred for one. This comparison with a mercantile Company, which was probably pursued till it was run down, in the true style of tub oratory, afforded pretext enough for a charge of malicious intention; and the poor preacher was banished to Braganza, upon an hour's warning. Aneddoti. T. 1. p. 18.

[page] 550

CHAP. XLI.

Vida de Pombal. MS. § 27—33.

this heavier sentence were in prison, waiting for transportation, when the earthquake happened: Negreiros was buried in the ruins; the others were released by a general act of forgiveness, granted by the King during the agony of that dreadful day.

Alvara. 30 July, 1759.

The British Factory affected by these monopolies.

Ere long a similar Company was chartered for Pernambuco and Paraiba. These institutions materially affected the merchants of the British Factory at Lisbon. Great Britain had silently abandoned the right to a direct trade with the Portugueze dominions, which she possessed by the letter of old treaties; but Brazil was supplied, almost exclusively, with English manufactures through the Portugueze merchants of the capital, to whom the members of the Factory gave two or three years credit. This length of credit had arisen not so much from the competition between our numerous and wealthy houses, as from the necessity of the case: there was no trading by single ships when the system began: the fleet made only one voyage in the year; the Portugueze merchants waited for their returns before they could make payment, and those returns were not always regular or certain. Thus the Brazilian trade was carried on with British capital, as well as British goods; and the establishment of these Companies affected that capital in two ways: the Portugueze merchants who purchased shares, vested in those shares money, the greater part of which was owing to the English: and they who did not subscribe, were excluded from the trade, and consequently rendered incapable of discharging what they owed. The monopoly also placed the British merchants at the mercy of the Companies: their goods were manufactured for the Brazil market; if they were not sent to that country, they must lie in the warehouse; and the Companies, having no competitors, were masters of the price. This, however, was a lighter evil: some reliance might be placed upon the sense of equity; and the Portugueze, like the Spaniards, were eminently an honour-

[page] 551

CHAP. XLI.

able people: but the sudden stagnation of so great a capital would be seriously felt. The Factory represented their case to the British Embassador, and proposed that Great Britain should claim its right of trading directly to Brazil, as by Treaty established, unless these injurious monopolies were annulled. But though the Treaties were clear, and the injury great as well as manifest, the Embassador was of opinion that England could not interfere with any regulations which the King of Portugal might think proper to make for the trade of his own subjects with his own colonies. He believed that the new system was founded upon erroneous views, and would necessarily be abandoned when its ill effects should have been experienced: but till then, detrimental as it was to the interests of England, her interference would go no farther than faithfully to represent the injury which was ² sustained.

Earl Kinnoul's dispatch. 7 June, 1760. Walpole Papers. MS.

The Maranham Company produces a good effect.

All such considerations were despised by Carvalho, as beneath his notice: a thought of the injustice and injury which might be sustained by any individuals or bodies of men, never interfered with his designs; he acted as regardlessly of the immediate evil which he caused, as if his knowledge had been commensurate

2 The French writers represent England as exercising compleat authority over the concerns of Portugal, treating it like a dependant state, and monopolizing its trade by means of an overbearing influence, most injurious to the welfare of the Portugueze dominions. These representations have been echoed by the Spaniards, and even by some of the Portugueze themselves, who, if they knew any thing of the matter, must have known their falsehood. Upon this subject I possess the best and fullest information; and, I assert here, (what, if I live to compleat the History of Portugal will there be proved,) that Great Britain in its intercourse with Portugal has always proceeded upon principles of perfect equity, from which it has never departed in the slightest degree, except when, under feelings of the most honourable kind, it has submitted to unjust and injurious restrictions. The text affords one instance.

[page] 552

CHAP. XLI.

with his power, and the result of good at which he aimed beyond all possibility of doubt or disappointment. The Maranham and Pernambuco Companies proved to be unlucky speculations for those who engaged in them; but the main object of the Minister was not frustrated: for by the application of so large a capital, which the Administrators employed with more regard to their own profit than to the advantage of the sharers, a great and sudden impulse was given both to agriculture and commerce. This was especially felt at Maranham, where there had been but few Negroes, till this time for want of capital: many were now imported, and one immediate consequence was that the laws in favour of the Indians began to be observed, because the Negroes were not only a hardier race but more willing to labour, more active, and more intelligent. One slavery was thus exchanged for another; the system of kidnapping was transferred from S. America to Africa, and the horrors of the middle passage added to its crimes; nevertheless, there was good, both immediate and prospective, in the change. The principle which had been established in behalf of the Indians could not but be found equally applicable hereafter to the Negroes, .. a precedent to which good men might confidently appeal in better times. The introduction of so many efficient hands produced a visible improvement; and though the Portugueze of Para and Maranham have been the last to redeem themselves from the detestable imputation of cruelty toward their slaves, the number of free inhabitants received from time to time no inconsiderable addition, because emancipation was encouraged by the religion, and favoured by the laws of the country. The first articles which the Company brought from Maranham were the wild produce which then constituted its staple trade, rice and cotton ³, the growth of which they en-

3 "When the first parcel was about to be shipped, a petition was made by several of the inhabitants to the Camera, or Municipality (of S. Luiz), requesting that the exportation might not be permitted, for otherwise they feared that there would be a want of the article for the consumption of the country.

Koster's Tracels. p. 170.

Jacome Ratton says in his Recordaçoens, that in 1762 he bought three hundred bags of cotton at the Company's sale, at three hundred reis per pound, taking it in set-off of a debt. He sent it to Rouen, which at that time, he says, was the only market for cotton; but he was a loser by the speculation, in consequence of the peace of 1763. At the next sale there were no bidders for a larger quantity: the directors therefore took it among themselves at one hundred and sixty reis, and were losers even at that price. (§ 57.)

VOL. III. 4 B

[page] 553

CHAP. XLI.

couraged greatly, and lamp-wicks, manufactured by the Indians. The cultivation of the sugar-cane seems to have been entirely abandoned before this time. Carvalho was so desirous of promoting the trade of these countries, at any cost, that he would not permit the Company to proceed against their debtors by way of distress: if the debtor were honest and solvent, it was well; but if he were disposed to cheat the Company who gave him credit, Government afforded him every accommodation, for the good of the colony, .. as if colonial morals naturally were not lax enough! A favourable change however was observed from this time in the habits and disposition of the people. Hitherto they had been more turbulent, and more difficult to govern, than any of the other Brazilians; now, as they became more industrious, they grew less insubordinate: the spirit of enterprize lost its ferocious character, when they were no longer permitted, under any pretext, to kidnap slaves for themselves; and the general introduction of a civilized in place of a savage language, removed an obstacle which, so long as it continued, must have precluded any intellectual advancement.

Recordaçoens, de Ratton. § 57. Cazal. 2. 256. 276.

Whaling Company.

Carvalho also chartered an exclusive Company for the Whale Fishery; it formed establishments upon the coast of Bahia and

[page] 554

CHAP. XLI.

Salt contract.

Sim. de Vasc. Not. 1. § 42. 57. Rocha Pitta. 2. § 96. Cazal. 2. 268.

Azeredo Coutinho. p. 1. c. 1.

Ratton. § 59.

Azara. 1. 53.

Do. Quadrupedes. 2. 357.

the Rio; but its head quarters were in the island of S. Catalina. This Company obtained a contract for supplying Brazil with salt, .. a most injurious monopoly, which had previously been held by an individual, to whom for the yearly sum of sixty contos Government had sold the privilege of exacting from the Brazilians what price he pleased, for one of the prime necessaries of life. Pernambuco and Paraiba, Maranham and Para, were exempted from the monopoly, because the trade there belonged to their separate Companies, and those countries were provided by nature. There were extensive salt-pans near Cabo Frio and Cape S. Roque; and at Alcantara, three leagues from S. Luiz, the Jesuits had made salt-works, which, if their successors had managed them with equal care, might have sufficed for the supply of many provinces. But by the terms of the Charter, the inhabitants, though they could not be debarred from using what nature had given them, were prohibited from exporting it to any of the other Captaincies. There are parts of South America in which the cattle cannot exist without salt: in some of those parts there is a certain saline clay, called barrero by the Spaniards, which they devour greedily; it is scarcely possible to drive them from it, even by blows; and they sometimes eat so much of it, that it produces indigestion and death. It is said that they do not require this clay southward of latitude 27°, because the waters and pasturage contain sufficient salt; but the land north of that latitude will neither support kine, horses, asses, sheep, or goats, unless there be some of this barrero within their reach, or salt be given them. Without this they inevitably pine and die ⁴ in four months. The enormous prices

4 In North America also the buffaloes frequent the salt lakes, at regular seasons, making straight paths to them, for some hundred miles. Yet in England salt is not found necessary for cattle, and is not usually given them except as a condiment for musty hay, which they eat willingly if it be sprinkled with salt, when otherwise they would refuse it.

There are certain salt springs upon the confines of Goyaz, S. Paulo, and Minas Geraes, called Bebedouros, or drinking places, because the graziers drive their herds there every month. (Investigador Portuguez. T. 18, p. 355).

Ibañez (3. 87—93) recommended the Spaniards to open a contraband trade in this article from Paraguay with Cuyaba and Mato Grosso. They might sell it, he said, for fifty per cent more than it cost, and twenty-five per cent below the contractors' price, and they might take their payment in gold and diamonds.

The quantity which the Company exported, exceeded twenty thousand moios.

[page] 555

CHAP. XLI.

therefore to which salt was raised by this preposterous monopoly, not only prevented the inhabitants from curing fish and meat, but actually operated in many places as a prohibition against keeping cattle.

The Donatories extinguished.

It was not by such measures as these that Carvalho obtained the reputation of an able statesman; it was by the courage with which he attacked the most dangerous prejudices, made the law respected among a people who had long been lawless, and with enlarged and liberal views of general policy, aimed at the general good. During many generations it had been felt, that the claims of the Donatories in the respective Captaincies were as inconvenient as they were anomalous and indefinite; and as occasion offered from time to time, the Crown had purchased them from those possessors who were willing to accept of European honours and substantial wealth in exchange for a disputed authority in Brazil, and rights, which, when not altogether unproductive, were of precarious value. The inhabitants of the Campos dos Goiatacazes had long been at variance with their Donatory, and refused to admit the officers whom he appointed; till after more than thirty years of litigation and broils, Gomes Freyre,

[page] 556

CHAP. XLI. 1754.

not being able to command obedience to the laws by milder methods, sent troops to controul and punish the refractory people. Some of the leaders were arrested; others absconded; and the soldiers were quartered in the country at the cost of their estates. The Procurador of the Donatory took possession of his office under this protection; but Sebastiam da Cunha Coutinho Rangel, a man of great influence in that district, went to Lisbon and represented to the Minister the general desire of the people to be freed from the obnoxious authority of a subject, and placed under the immediate and benignant pleasure of the Sovereign. The request obtained a favourable reception: a general pardon was granted, and Carvalho, when the evils of the existing system were thus brought before him, acted with his characteristic decision, extinguished all the remaining Donatories by an act of salutary violence, and purchased their rights for the Crown.

Cazal. 2. 46.

Azeredo Coutinho. p. 47.

Administration de Pombal. t. 2. p. 33.

The laws enforced in Goyaz.

Goyaz, which had been made a Captaincy before Carvalho began his administration, was at this time in a state of deplorable lawlessness. The first settlers, as usual, had been men of desperate fortunes, or desperate dispositions; and their early history, like that of S. Paulo, of Minas Geraes, and Cuyaba, would be little more than a register ⁵ of crimes. In some places the inhabitants went to mass armed always with pistols as well as the knife, .. not daring to meet one another unless they were

5 The story of a Paulista woman in this country, is too horrible for relation; but one or two ludicrous instances of the state of manners deserve mention. The Juizes Ordinarios were commonly as bad as the Priests and the people; but though they neglected the duties of their office, they were jealously tenacious of its privileges. The Governor of Goyaz, D. Luiz de Mascaranhas, wanted to confine one of these men for some misdeed, at Arrayas; there was no prison, and the refractory Juiz therefore was tied to a tree! In that situation he still chose to hear and decide causes, and gave directions that all persons who wanted justice should be summoned before him by beat of drum. The discoverer of the mines at Pillar, and the Juiz Ordinario, quarrelled while they were both making part of a religious procession; the Descubridor took off the Judge's wig and dusted him with it in the face, and the procession ended in a set-to between their respective friends, with swords and knives! Patriota. 3. No. 4, p. 70.

[page] 557

CHAP. XLI. 1762.

thus prepared, even in the spot where, according to their belief, their Redeemer was substantially present! Here also the Priests were remarkable for profligacy, and open contempt of all laws, human and divine. Some of them braved the ministers of justice, at the head of their armed slaves and retainers; and there was a certain P. Joze Caetano Lobo Pereira, who, having established himself near Meia Ponte, acted as Lord of the Land, and banished the neighbours whom he did not like, compelling them to quit the country by threats of death, which they well knew he was capable of performing. When the state of the province was represented to Carvalho, orders were sent out to create a Board of Justice, from whose sentence there should be no appeal; to build a prison; and to erect a gallows. Examples were made by executing criminals every two months. More persons suffered for murder than for robbery, because murder was the more frequent crime: but when it was seen and felt, that Government possessed both the will and the power to enforce the laws, a speedy and visible amendment was produced.

Patriota. 3. No. 4. p. 78. Do. p. 58.

War with France and Spain.

Walpole Papers. MSS.

But Carvalho had now to think of providing for the safety of Brazil. France had engaged Spain in an alliance against England: the united Courts called upon Portugal to make common cause with them, and renounce its friendship with Great Britain: should this proposition be rejected, they denounced war as the alternative. Portugal chose the just and honourable part, and immediate hostilities ensued. The scheme of partition was renewed, and it was proposed by the French Government,

[page] 558

CHAP. XLI. 1762.

Earl Kinnoul's dispatch. 21 June, 1760. Walpole Papers. MSS.

that Portugal and the Portugueze islands should be annexed to the Spanish dominions, and that France should take Brazil as her portion of the spoil. Carvalho, who had now been made Conde de Oeyras, relied upon the natural strength of his country, and the fidelity of England. Concerning Portugal, therefore, he was not alarmed: and he knew, that although the scheme of such a partition might be proposed, and entertained with seeming sincerity, for purposes of immediate convenience on both sides, France would be as little contented at seeing the whole peninsula united in one monarchy, as Spain would be to let the French obtain possession of Portugueze America. With regard to Brazil, a sudden and tremendous blow, like that which Du Guay-Trouin had struck, might possibly be inflicted, though not at the Rio: permanent conquest, Oeyras well knew, was impossible; .. that question had been indisputably decided, once and for ever, by the Pernambucan war. But on the side of Maranham and Para he was not equally secure. The settlements on the north of the Orellana were open to invasion from Cayenne: there were many Jesuits in French Guiana, and Oeyras apprehended that an attack against this vulnerable part would be undertaken by their advice, and perhaps materially assisted by their means. If any such project was entertained by France, no leisure was allowed for carrying it into effect. The British councils were then directed with a vigour, which Britain had never displayed in the field nor in the cabinet since the days of Marlborough and Godolphin; and the superiority of the British arms was asserted wherever the foe was to be found, from Nova Scotia to Bengal. The blow in Brazil fell upon a different quarter, and it came from an enemy whom the Brazilians had long been accustomed to despise.

Colonia besieged and taken by Zeballos.

Zeballos, the ablest man that ever commanded at Buenos Ayres, had foreseen the rupture, and made ready for it. He

[page] 559

CHAP. XLI. 1762.

strengthened the works at Monte Video, raised a militia force, and brought Guaranies from the Reductions: being thus prepared, as soon as he received advice of the commencement of hostilities in Europe, he sent a vessel to proclaim war before the walls of Colonia, and immediately laid siege to that obnoxious settlement. The Governor, Vicente de Fonseca, apprehending such an attack, had repaired the fortifications, which however were in no degree proportionate to the importance attached both by Spain and Portugal to the place: the inhabitants also were well disposed to assist in an obstinate defence. They had been so indignant at the intended transfer, that they are said to have torn down the arms of Spain when they were set up in pursuance of the treaty. Zeballos had a less willing force under his command: the newly raised militia would not have crossed the river upon this expedition, if they had dared refuse obedience to a General of whose stern and decisive temper they stood in fear. They probably disliked a service, which, if it were successful, would put an end to the contraband trade, .. a trade, as beneficial to the people of La Plata as it was injurious to the Custom House. But the services of any men may be made available by a good Commander: soldiers soon catch the spirit of their profession; and when they can rely upon their leader, they acquire a confidence in themselves. That confidence they speedily obtained under Zeballos. The Guaranies also behaved with great alacrity: the presence of the Spaniards inspired them with courage, and they were fighting against an enemy whom they hated. The siege was pressed with vigour and ability: a breach was made on the second day; the garrison filled it up in the night with fascines which they procured from the ⁶ islands in the river.

6 Wood is scarce upon that part of the coast. The wreck of the vessel in which Dobrizhoffer sailed from Europe supplied the Guaranies with fuel during the siege. It had been lost upon the Isle of S. Gabriel. (1. 212.)

[page] 560

CHAP. XLI. 1762.

Zeballos instructed the Captain of a Spanish frigate, with some transports under his command, to cut them off from their resources; but that officer thought it prudent to keep at a distance from all danger. Trenches were ere long opened in a more favourable situation; fresh breaches were made; an assault was attempted, and well sustained on both sides, the Guaranies acting with such ⁷ coolness that they smothered the fire-pots which were thrown among them, with wet hides. At length, after a close siege of four weeks, the garrison capitulated: the honours of war were granted them, and they were allowed to embark for Brazil with two months' stores. Private property was to be respected: the inhabitants either to transfer their allegiance, or remove; they who chose to remain were to discharge their debts to the Brazilian merchants. Any vessels which might arrive within one month from the day of the capitulation should not be liable to capture, and might enter the port for refreshment.

Muriel. 342—3.

Funes. 3. 97—9.

Cazal. 1. 124.

Defeat of an English and Portugueze squadron before Colonia.

Meantime Gomes Freyre had dispatched a squadron from Rio de Janeiro for the relief of the place. It consisted of the Lord Clive, carrying sixty-four guns, and the Ambuscade, of forty, both English; the Gloria, of thirty-eight, some small armed vessels and transports, eleven sail in all, with about five hundred troops on board. The English vessels were privateers: they had been fitted out for the purpose of trying their fortune at Buenos Ayres; but touching at Lisbon on the way, with a

7 They kept a Journal of the siege, written upon leather; Muriel had seen this curious manuscript: "Obsidionis ephemerides confecerunt ipsi suas corio inscriptas, quibus inter alia ridicula pueriliaque id referunt, quemdam de suis ibi nominatum, cadens opepon, (i. e. ollam igniariam) extinxisse mingendo." P. 342.

[page] 561

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

Mr. Lyttleton's dispatch. 29 Oct. 1768. Walpole Papers. MSS.

recommendation from the Portugueze Ambassador in London to Oeyras, that they might obtain letters to the Viceroy, and not be regarded as pirates when they arrived in the Brazilian seas, an arrangement had been made with the Portugueze Government, in consequence of which the officers received Portugueze commissions, and sailed for the Rio, to receive orders from Gomes Freyre. The whole armament was under the command of Captain Macnamara of the Lord Clive, an Irishman. He learnt upon the way, that Colonia was in possession of the Spaniards; and determined upon attempting to retake it by a prompt attack. The Spanish ships under D. Carlos Sarria, the same officer who had behaved with such suspicious caution during the siege, withdrew before this superior force; and the Portugueze and English entered the harbour, and advanced to the attack with horns sounding and drums beating, in good order, and with full hope and fair likelihood of success. Zeballos, though prostrated by illness at the time, left his bed at the tidings of this unexpected danger, mounted his horse, and rode about the walls to encourage and direct his people. One on board the squadron, who had served with the late garrison and knew his person, pointed him out as he made himself thus conspicuous, to Macnamara; but the Irish Commander ordered his men not to aim at him, but to let him take his chance of being buried under the ruins of the wall. After a fire of four hours, kept up with the greatest courage and at short distances, the batteries were almost silenced, and the assailants were every moment expecting to see the garrison strike their flag, when from negligence or mishap, the Lord Clive took ⁸ fire, and almost as soon

8 It broke out, according to Muriel, in an odd place; "Ventus a terrâ classi coutrarius, debiliorum fuit salus. In Cliveâ id erat neglectum, ut apponerentur qui tormentis explosis ardentia stuparum ejectamenta extinguerent, quæ vento retrudebantur. Horum quodpiam in puppis cloacam recidit, quod sero cognitum navem incendit." P. 343.

Penrose served as Lieutenant in the Ambuscade. Among his poems are two pieces, which are interesting because of the circumstances in which they were composed: the one was addressed to the lady whom he afterwards married, written as he was going into this action; the other is a mournful elegy, written as he sailed out of the Plata after the defeat. In this latter he hints at the hopes with which the adventure had been originally undertaken:

Ah glorious Drake! far other lot was thine;
Fate gave to thee to quell the hostile pride,
To seize the treasures of Potosi's mine,
And sail triumphant o'er La Plata's tide.

But Providence on secret wonders bent,
Conceals its purposes from mortal view;
And Heaven, no doubt with some all-wise intent,
Denied to numbers what it gave to few.

VOL. III. 4 C

[page] 562

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

as the evil was perceived, was enveloped in flames. It was not possible to assist her: the other ships were obliged to get off with all haste, lest they should be overtaken by the same destruction; the enemy renewed their fire, though after such a deliverance, and under such circumstances, both honour and humanity might have taught them to withhold it; and many who could otherwise have reached the land, perished by their shot. A good swimmer took Macnamara on his back and made for the shore: his strength began to fail; and it is said that the Captain, when he perceived this, gave him his sword, bade him look to his own preservation, then let go his hold, and sunk. Of three hundred and forty persons, only seventy-eight were saved. They were sent to Cordoba, with some Portugueze prisoners, where most or all of them settled; and it is still remembered in that city, that these prisoners introduced a degree of skill in

[page] 563

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

agriculture and in manual arts, which had been unknown there before that time. The Ambuscade, at the close of the action, was little better than a wreck; her rigging had been cut to pieces, there were sixty shot in her hull, and six feet of water in her hold. Sarria, who had a frigate under his command, an armed merchant ship, and an armed packet, might have captured her almost without resistance; but instead of seizing the prey which offered itself to his hands, this pusillanimous officer hastened to secure himself between the isles of S. Gabriel, with such precipitation that he ran the frigate aground, and then set fire to her, from a preposterous fear that the Portugueze might carry her off; .. so the frigate was in flames while the garrison were giving thanks in the Church for their delivery and triumph. Owing to this scandalous misconduct, the defeated squadron was enabled to refit as well as circumstances would allow, and effect its passage to the Rio.

Muriel. 343.

Life of Penrose, in Anderson's Poets.

Funes. 3. 92—103.

Zeballos advances against Rio Grande.

After the failure of so formidable an attack, Zeballos felt that he was in safe possession of his conquest; he prepared therefore with all alacrity to follow up good fortune, and settle the long disputed question of the boundary, by means more congenial to his temper than the discussions in which he had been engaged with Gomes Freyre since the annulment of the treaty. With something more than a thousand men, he marched against Fort S. Teresa. The Portugueze had recently erected this strong hold upon the Chuy, a small river which rises between Lake Mangueira and the Lagoa Mirim, and enters the Sea nearly on a line with the southern extremity of the latter lake. It was garrisoned with about six hundred men, under Colonel Thomaz Luiz Osorio: half were regular troops; the others were people of the country, mostly herdsmen, who at sight of an enemy ran away from their compulsory service. Their panic infected the rest: and on the second day Osorio capitulated, with a disregard

[page] 564

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

to the strength of his post and the honour of the Portugueze arms, which did not escape deserved censure from the conquerors, and which undoubtedly had its share in bringing on the unhappy fate that soon befell him. Zeballos took possession of the place at midnight; and in the course of an hour he sent off one detachment to drive away the enemies' horses, and another to seize S. Miguels, a fort seven leagues north of S. Teresa. The garrison surrendered it immediately, under the influence of their first alarm; and the Spanish General without delay pushed forward a body of his victorious troops, under Colonel D. Joseph Molina, to the Rio Grande de S. Pedro.

Muriel. 343.

Cazal. 1. 124.

Funes. 3. 103.

Rio Grande de S. Pedro, and the Lagoa dos Patos.

The name of Rio Grande, or the Great River, often and inconveniently as the Portugueze and Spaniards have bestowed it, has never been more injudiciously applied than to the channel, a few miles only in length, by which the waters of the Lagoa dos Patos discharge themselves into the Sea. This lake, the largest in Brazil, runs nearly parallel with the coast for one hundred and eighty miles, at a distance varying from eight to twenty-four. In its widest part the breadth is forty miles: there is depth for vessels of the middle size; but there are some dangerous shallows. It communicates by the Rio de S. Gonsalo, a navigable stream between fifty and sixty miles long, with the Lagoa Mirim, or Lake Minor, which, though thus denominated, is above one hundred miles in length, and in breadth about thirty. This again communicates with Lake Mangoeira, which is one hundred miles long and has an average breadth of four, and lies between the Lagoa Mirim and the coast. Rio Grande, which is the only channel for all these waters to the Sea, is about twelve miles long and four wide. The land is low on both sides, and the channel shifts. The long peninsula between the great Lagoa and the Sea contains many smaller lakes, one of which, about six and thirty miles in length, is remarkable, be-

[page] 565

CHAP. XLI.

cause its communication with the Sea is said to be annually closed and opened: when at the regular season the waters again force their way, the fish enter from the salt water in such abundance that the lake is called the Lagoa do Peixe. The great lake derives its name from the consequence of an accident. Some Spanish vessels bound for the Plata in 1554, were driven into the Rio Grande by stress of weather: they left a few ducks there, and these birds multiplied to such numbers that they covered the waters with their flight, and the Lagoa dos Patos thus obtained ⁹ its designation.

Cazal. 1. 134. 138.

Sim. de Vasconcellos.

Vida de Almeida. 4. 1. § 6.

The Carijos.

No part of Brazil is blessed with greater natural advantages. The country to the south consists of hill ¹⁰ and dale, with sufficient diversity of woodland; the pastures are excellent; the water never fails, and the climate is favourable for the growth of corn. At the time of the discovery it was possessed by the Carijos, who are described as a well disposed, docile, and indus-

9 Not from the Indians, as Cazal affirms. The Indians took their name from the place.

10 F. Simam de Vasconcellos describes a phenomenon in the Serras here, which seems to resemble the helm-wind of Crossfell. He says, "A notable thing is frequently experienced, which is, that from the ravines and hollows of these mountains, as from the caverns of another God Eolus, such great and furious winds arise (commonly North-westers) that they carry away every thing before them, and raise storms which terrify those who dwell in the vallies, or are navigating the adjoining seas. But withal their uproar stops in the vallies and on the coast, and it may be seen that no such storm prevails at a little way off, as at a league distance; all being perfectly calm there, or a different wind blowing. So that this tempest appears to rule only in its own immediate district, and to have no license for passing farther. And this is a thing which I myself have oftentimes experienced." Vida de Almeida. 4. 2. § 6.

This writer loved the grand and the picturesque in nature as well as he did the miraculous in hagiology. The former taste is very unusual in authors of his age and country.

[page] 566

CHAP. XLI.

trious tribe. Their houses were well roofed, and lined with bark; they raised cotton, from which they manufactured hammocs and mantles, and they trimmed their mantles with fur and adorned them with feathers. The ships which first visited them went from thence to Santos, and reported so well of the people to the Portugueze, that a trade was commenced from that town, slaves being the principal article on the part of the Carijos. This had continued many years, before it was interrupted by an act of abominable villainy in the Portugueze. They fastened down below deck the boxes which contained the goods for barter, and directed their customers to take them out: the savages, suspecting no deceit, thought that the chests were rendered immoveable by their weight; they called therefore for more of their countrymen to help them, and when the hold was full, the slave-dealers fastened down the hatches and made sail. The ship belonged to Jeronimo Leitam, at that time Captain of Santos, .. a noble man, says Vasconcellos, and one who feared God. His name deserved to be thus honourably recorded; for he set these ill-used men at liberty, and sent them to their country with two Jesuits in their company, who succeeded in restoring the peace which had thus basely been broken.

Jaboatam. Preamb. § 25.

Vasc. Vida de Almeida. 4. 5. § 2. 4.

It is said that the Carijos would easily have been converted, had it not been for their Conjurors. These jugglers were the most famous in Brazil, and so cunning in their craft, that the Jesuits were thoroughly persuaded of their communion with Evil Spirits. The profession was indeed far advanced, insomuch that the different branches of practice were carefully divided. The first and most useful order, though probably it was held in the lowest estimation, consisted of the professors of the healing art: their remedy consisted in sucking the part affected. .. This is the commonest mode of savage quackery, and may perhaps more often produce relief, by the help of faith, than

[page] 567

CHAP. XLI.

it can prove injurious. The second were those who pretended to kill by their enchantments, affirmed that they had an Imp at their service, and acted upon a fantastic, but regular theory, of diabolical correspondences. Thus, if they purposed to destroy a victim by producing an inflammatory disease, it was required that they should get possession of something which had undergone the action of fire, and which the intended patient should have touched. If he were to be put to death by inward disorganization and decay, then the materia magica consisted of thorns, bones, or any thing sharp or edged, which had in like manner been touched, .. for that circumstance was deemed essential to the success of the enchantment. If he were to be affected with blindness, any thing which resembled the form of an eye was employed. These things the Conjuror buried in holes, which his familiar was believed ¹¹ to excavate, in the but where the obnoxious person slept, and generally under his hammock. The spell immediately began to work with effect, and the issue was always fatal, unless the cause of the malady were discovered, and the holes opened in time, and their contents cast into a river. Another method was to tie a toad, serpent, or any other crea-

11 The holes were said to be shaped like bottles; so that what they contained could not have been conveyed into them by the art of man. According to Vasconcellos, a train of this kind was discovered in an Aldea belonging to the Jesuits of S. Paulo, in 1624. The floors of their hall, their sacristy, and their kitchen, were compleatly undermined, and lined with these imp-bottles; but there were none in the dormitory: and this mystery was explained by the convicted and confessing culprits. Blackey (o negrinho) they said, was prevented from getting into that apartment to do his work, because of the prayers which were said there. Vasconcellos is so delighted with this that he makes the whole story appear fabulous. He appears not to have suspected the easy solution of his miracle, .. that the dormitory was a place into which the Conjurors could not enter by night, without being discovered in the fact.

[page] 568

CHAP. XLI.

ture which is reputed loathsome, to the foot of a tree; and as the poor reptile withered and died, death was to be produced by magical sympathy in the bewitched person. Wherever witchcraft has been attempted, practices resembling these seem to have been in use. If the Carijos, like the Mexicans and Peruvians, had become a great people, the first class of these impostors would have matured into an order of medical men; the second into an order of Magicians; and the third would have been their Priests, .. a division which appears to have obtained among the ancient Egyptians. The third class laid claim to a celestial parentage: they pretended to be the sons of good Spirits, and not of mortal men, and therefore were called Caraibebes, .. a word which the Jesuits were content to use for Angels. A Caraibebe ¹² Guazu dwelt by the Lagoa dos Patos, where first fruits were offered to him as to a Divinity. They who were going to war went to receive from him an assurance of victory, which he conveyed by blowing a blessing upon them: if they were afterwards defeated, some countervailing sin had frustrated the promise; and the breath of the Great Angel was still believed to be infallible.

Vasconcellos. Vida de Almeida. 4. 6. § 3—7. 4. 8. § 1. 2.

First occupation of Rio Grande by the Portugueze.

It was of great importance for Portugal to possess this country,

12 The person who enjoyed this dignity when Vasconcellos wrote, was a man of "liberal opinions" in his day. He was intimate with the Jesuits, and acknowledged them as Caraibebes. There were three ways to Heaven, he said; one by the Lagoa dos Patos, one by Portugal, and one by Angola. Some runaway Negro seems to have won his respect, like the Jesuits, by proficiency in a kindred art. Vida de Almeida. 4. 8. § 2.

In one of the bays upon this part of the coast, there are two huge hills composed of sea shells; from whence Cazal (1. 140.) infers how much the natives must have lived upon shell-fish. But the shells would not have been thus collected and heaped unless it had been for some superstitious observance.

[page] 569

CHAP. XLI. 1737.

See p. 293.

because of its port, its capability of growing corn, and its abundant pastures, which were already stocked with horses and kine. The vessel which arrived with tidings of the peace at Colonia, after its brave and successful defence against Salcedo, is believed to have taken out instructions for securing Rio Grande; for the Governor, Vasconcellos, immediately dispatched the Sargento Mor, Joze Silva Paez, to take possession of it. That officer accordingly formed a settlement upon the river, and built also the fort of S. Miguel. Salcedo made repeated protestations against what the Spaniards called a new encroachment of their more active neighbours. The Portugueze however continued to keep the territory which they had occupied, and it was assigned to them by the Treaty of Limits. The abrogation of that treaty left the claim again in dispute; .. the law of the strongest was to decide it now; and Zeballos, having won S. Teresa and S. Miguel without resistance, dispatched Molina against S. Pedro.

Funes. 2. 393.

The Spaniards expel them from S. Pedro.

S. Pedro bore the name of a town, and was at that time the capital of the province. Gomes Freyre had removed it, some ten years after its first foundation, to the place which it occupies at present, about a league to the north-east of its original site. It stands upon a sandy tongue of land, between the southern termination of the lake, and one of the bays in the channel; and it seems to have been placed there for the purpose of commanding the country to the south, .. otherwise the site would appear to be ill chosen; for the port is on the opposite shore, and the sand so light and loose that it fills the streets, and in high winds penetrates every where, covers the food, and half buries the houses. No fortifications could be made upon such a soil. The town however was well provided with artillery and ammunition; but the panic had reached it before the enemy: at the first appearance of danger, the troops and the inhabitants fled with such precipitation that many were drowned in crossing the

VOL. III. 4 D

[page] 570

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

channel; and Molina secured about an hundred prisoners, and took possession of all the stores ¹³, without firing a gun. The Portugueze fled to Viamam on the Jacuy, on the north-west of the lake, the largest of the rivers which flow into it; and Zeballos, crossing the water, established garrisons on both sides of the channel, and prepared to pursue the enemy, meaning to expel them from Viamam, and from their forts on the Rio Pardo. The better to secure the land behind him, he had already founded a settlement about nine miles north of Maldonado, upon an inlet of the Sea. He named it S. Carlos, after the Saint under whose patronage it was placed, in compliment to the reigning Monarch, and he peopled it chiefly with Portugueze from the territory which he had overrun. They might have been found dangerous if they had been suffered to remain dispersed about the country: he secured himself from them by thus collecting them in one settlement; they themselves were efficient colonists, and he trusted that their children would be good Spaniards.

Muriel. 343—4.

Cazal. 1. 148.

Funes. 3. 107.

The Commander of S. Teresa. put to death.

Mr. Hay's dispatch, 3 Nov. 1764. Walpole Papers. MSS.

When Oeyras heard of these transactions, he, who looked as far and as hastily forward for evil as for good, was alarmed for Minas Geraes, whither he thought such a commander as Zeballos, advised and aided by the Paraguay Jesuits, might penetrate, with every likelihood of success. A fear of the intrigues of the Jesuits seems to have been the ruling ¹⁴ imagination of

13 According to the Jesuit Muriel, thirty pieces of cannon were taken, eight mortars, two hundred barrels of powder, two thousand grenades, or shells, one hundred fire-pots, seven thousand shot, and four hundred musquets. But surely this appears to be an exaggerated statement.

14 Though Pombal had lived ten years in England in a diplomatic character, he actually supposed that the British Merchants and the British Government were acting by the instigation of the Jesuits, when they remonstrated against such of his measures as were contrary to the spirit of existing treaties, and injurious to the interests, not of the British factory alone, but of the Portugueze trade. .. Not even a tolerable account of his remarkable administration has yet been published.

[page] 571

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

this extraordinary man: whatever thwarted his intentions or desires, whether in great points or in trifling ones, he imputed to them, .. as if their influence had been omnipresent and all-powerful. Osorio, the late commander of S. Teresa, was accused of keeping a Jesuit in his household, under a secular disguise. The facility with which he had surrendered a place capable of defence, gave some probability to the suspicion of treasonable practices; and he was sent prisoner to Lisbon, with the depositions against him. Unhappily, the Law proceeded without its usual delay, and he was condemned to be hanged, not for failing in his military duties, but for harbouring a Jesuit. In vain did he protest his innocence, and supplicate for a respite till farther enquiry should be made; and when that hope failed, in vain did he petition, that for the sake of his birth, and rank, and past services, the sentence might be commuted for one less ignominious. The sentence was executed, and in the course of a few weeks there arrived from Brazil compleat proofs that the accusation had been false and malicious. Edicts were then published to make his innocence known, and to proclaim, that as he had suffered wrongfully no infamy attached to his descendants from the manner of his death.

Vida de Pombal. § 264. MS.

Proceedings on the Mato Grosso and Moxo frontiers.

There can be little doubt that Zeballos had planned his operations with the Jesuits: they were able statesmen, and he appreciated their ability, and partook that hatred against the Portugueze for which they had but too just a cause. Had there been time for further conquests on that side, a force from the Reductions would certainly have been brought into the field.

[page] 572

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

D. Antonio Rolim de Moura Governor of Mato Grosso.

Villa Bella founded.

Their brethren on the Moxo frontier were in arms, and regular hostilities between the Spaniards and Portugueze were now first carried on in the very centre of South America.

Ten years before Spain commenced this wrongful war, D. Antonio Rolim de Moura, then Lord and afterwards Count of Azambuja, being appointed the first Governor and Captain General of Mato Grosso, founded Villa Bella, and made it the capital of the new province. He fixed it upon the spot which till then had been called Pouzo Alegre, on the right bank of the Guapore, twelve miles below the mouth of the Sarare. Much of the surrounding country is annually overflowed, and the town itself has sometimes suffered by inundations; but these inconveniences are compensated by the command of the river, and the excellence of its water. Twelve days' voyage from Villa Bella down the stream, and sixteen leagues below the Ilha Grande, is the Sitio ¹⁵ das Pedras, which was regarded as an important position, being the only high ground upon the right bank: the Licentiate Joam Baptista Andrié had established himself there. A day and half below this was the Spanish Reduction of S. Miguel, and half way between that Mission and the point where the Guapore and Mamore unite (about three days from each), was the Reduction of S. Rosa, also upon the right bank. The Treaty of Limits having determined that this river should be the boundary line, the Spanish settlements upon the right bank

Almeida Serra, Patriota. t. 2. n. 6. p. 41. Cazal. 1. 292.

See p. 348.

15 The author of the Description of Mato Grosso in the Patriota, (the first which has been published) says that this spot, which he places in latitude 12° 52′ 35″. long. 314° 37′ 30″, seems to be the southern boundary of the Paiz das Amazonas, by which appellation he designates the immense track of low country in the centre of this huge peninsula. Certain trees and fruits, which flourish throughout that region, are not found, he says, south of the Sitio das Pedras.

[page] 573

CHAP. XLI.

were, in pursuance of that treaty, to be delivered up as they stood, and the inhabitants to remove and lose their property, or continue upon it, at their own option, and transfer their allegiance to the Crown of Portugal. In this stipulation there was neither hardship nor injustice. The settlements were so recent that the inhabitants would lose little by removing; and the Indians had not, like the Guaranies, an hereditary enmity toward the Portugueze, .. it mattered not to them whether they were tamed and instructed by the one people, or the other. But the Jesuits had not thought proper to give their disciples a choice: in culpable disregard of the treaty, the Rector of S. Miguel, F. Francisco Traiva, removed his flock into the Spanish territory, and burnt the place which he abandoned; and F. Nicolas de Medinilla did the same at S. Rosa. Thus the treaty tended rather to increase than to allay the unfriendly disposition of the two nations toward each other upon this frontier. The Portugueze had reason to complain of the destruction of these settlements; and moreover they regarded all the Indians whom the Jesuits had withdrawn from the right bank as natural subjects of Portugal: but the Jesuits looked upon them as their spiritual children, and continued to make expeditions across the Guapore in quest of recruits for the Baures Reductions.

Relaçam da Guerra de Mato Grosso. MS. Almeida Serra. Patriota. 2. 6. p. 56.

Disputes with the Jesuits of the Baures Missions.

Sincerely as both Governments desired to promote the conversion of the Indians, .. the work of charity wherewith they hoped to cover the multifold sins committed in the conquest, .. that consideration was always cast aside when it interfered with their territorial claims. The Lord of Azambuja sent to the Rector of S. Simam, F. Raimundo Laines, forbidding him thus to trespass upon the Portugueze border; and for the purpose of giving weight to the prohibition, he posted a small detachment at the Sitio, or as it was thenceforth called, the Destacamento das Pedras, that place being about six hours' voyage above the

1759.

The Portugueze occupy the Sitio das Pedras.

[page] 574

CHAP. XLI. 1759.

Feb. 6, 1760.

They take possession of the site of S. Rosa.

mouth of the river on which S. Simam stood. The Jesuits felt this as a fresh encroachment, and sent letters to the Governor requiring him to withdraw his men from what they affirmed to be the Spanish territory. D. Antonio was not without apprehension, that they would seek to obtain by force what he was resolved not to grant to their representations; he therefore embarked at Villa Bella with about forty men, to reconnoitre the land in person, and take such measures upon the spot as he might deem necessary for securing the rights of Portugal. Remaining a night only at the Pedras, he took from thence part of its little garrison, and proceeded to the ruins of S. Rosa. Ground was discovered in the adjoining woods which had recently been cleared and planted; and there were other indications, that though the Jesuits had withdrawn from the spot, they were actually preparing to reoccupy it. The Governor therefore determined to prevent them: he took possession of the land with the usual forms, and began to repair and enlarge the ruined dwelling of the Missionaries, as quarters for the men. The Jesuits were soon informed of his proceedings: the Superior of the Missions wrote, and some of the Fathers came in person, to assert the claim of the Crown of Spain to those lands, and to protest against his conduct as an intrusion and an usurpation. D. Antonio appealed to the Treaty in reply; .. they themselves, he said, had withdrawn from the right bank in conformity with its stipulations, and moreover they never had been justified in establishing themselves there; for the Portugueze had traversed that country before the Missions were founded, and to Portugal therefore, by right of discovery, it belonged. But because of the disposition which the Jesuits had manifested, first to frustrate the intention, and now to dispute the plain and explicit meaning of a solemn Treaty, he thought it prudent to repair an estacade, which had perhaps originally been erected as much for a defence

[page] 575

CHAP. XLI. 1760.

They give it the name of Conceiçam.

against the Portugueze, as the Savages. He changed also the invocation and name of the place, from S. Rosa to N. Senhora da Conceiçam. It was no disparagement for a simple Saint to be superseded by the Queen of Angels: the soldiers were delighted by the change, inasmuch as this was the favourite appellation of Our Lady, in ¹⁶ Brazil, and D. Antonio most probably had faith in it himself. He remained two months, directing and expediting the works, during which time he slept in his boat; and then he returned to Villa Bella, leaving a petty officer in command of the post, with twenty dragoons, ten foot soldiers, a person designated as an Adventurer, a Chaplain, and a sufficient number of Negroes for the works and the service of the garrison. On his way back he ordered all the men from the Pedras to reinforce Conceiçam, and sent an armed canoe down the river to wait below the mouth of the Mamore for a boat from Para, which was expected with public stores, and which, under the present appearances, he did not chuse to trust without an escort.

Relaçam. MS.

The Governor of S. Cruz remonstrates.

About five months after his return, he was advised that the Governor of S. Cruz de la Sierra, D. Alonso de Verdugo, with some officers and soldiers in his company, had arrived at Conceiçam to confer with him; and not finding him there, had sent the Camp-Master, D. Joseph Nunes Cornejo, to Villa Bella.

16 There is a marvellous book, in ten volumes, called the Santuario Mariano, by Fr. Agostinho de Santa Maria. It contains the history of all the images of Our Lady, in Portugal and the Portugueze conquests; and it enumerates in the year 1723, twenty-eight N. Senhoras da Conceiçam in Brazil, when N. S. do Desterro was the only other image which had half that number. Prodigious as the subject of this voluminous work must appear, the work itself is far from being worthless. Many historical facts are mingled with its fables; and Romish miracles not unfrequently convey truths, of which the fabling narrators had no perception.

[page] 576

CHAP. XLI. 1760.

1761.

This officer was received with the ceremonious courtesies of European diplomacy: the Lord of Azambuja waited upon him in his apartments, accompanied him to the Church, to hear high mass, gave him a public dinner in the Palace, and entertained him in the evening with a masked ball and supper. But when the Spaniard presented a protest against the occupance of the site and territory of S. Rosa, upon the ground that it appertained to Spain till the Commissioners for the demarcation should have arrived, D. Antonio delivered a counter memorial in reply, insisting that the right of the Spaniards ceased as soon as the treaty was signed; that they had themselves acknowledged this by retiring from the right bank; and moreover, that by the prime and legitimate claim of discovery, the ground belonged to the Portugueze. Twelve months elapsed, and then a second protest from the Governor of S. Cruz arrived, and was answered to the same purport. D. Antonio had no expectation that the treaty would be annulled, still less could he apprehend a rupture between the two Courts; but the Jesuits talked of vindicating the rights of Spain, if remonstrances were still disregarded; it was reported that they were casting cannon in the Reductions; and though the Portugueze stood in little fear of these guns, saying that the Indians would be but clumsy artillerymen, and the men of S. Cruz little better if they should come to their aid, the Governor deemed it his duty to provide for danger. He therefore sent to Conceiçam as many soldiers as could be spared from the scanty means of Mato Grosso, and applied to the Governor of Para for thirty infantry, with a supply of ammunition, matches, and other military stores. It was not without cause that the Jesuits were thus eager to dislodge the Portugueze from their neighbourhood. Easy as the life was which the Indians led in the Reductions, where all their wants were abundantly supplied, and they were never called

[page] 577

CHAP. XLI. 1761.

upon to take thought for themselves or for the morrow, the love of change, the desire of novelty, and perhaps a weariness of the moral discipline under which they lived and the perpetual inspection to which they were subject, made them desert in great numbers to the garrison, where the Chaplain took them under his spiritual care, and the Government into its service. Such open encouragement to desertion would not have been held out, if the Portugueze had not thought themselves fully justified in retaliating upon the Jesuits for withdrawing the natives from the right bank.

Relaçam. MS.

1762.

D. Antonio goes to Conceiçam.

In the August of the ensuing year the Lord of Azambuja went to visit the garrison. It consisted, after all his efforts, of seven officers, thirty-four dragoons, twenty-one pedestres, six adventurers, and sixty-five Negroes. D. Antonio employed himself diligently in disciplining these men. A pentagonal fort was traced, but could not be erected till the quarters for the men were compleated. To prevent all danger of surprize, a regular guard was mounted at the estacade, as if in time of war; and watch-boats plied upon the river below the fort, as far as the junction with the Mamore, and above it to the mouth of the Baures. In February a reinforcement arrived from Para, consisting of six and twenty men, scantily provided with stores: the whole however composed no despicable force, considering the place in which they were collected, and the kind of hostilities that were apprehended. About three weeks after the arrival from Para, the guard-boat brought intelligence that the marks of a large and recent encampment had been seen near the mouth of the Mamore: no farther discovery was made, though the place was visited from time to time, till the beginning of April, when it was overflowed; but it was plain that some considerable movement had taken place, and that it behoved them to continue watchful. The garrison had at this time no better

VOL. III. 4 E

[page] 578

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

rations than pulse and bacon: the land on their own side afforded nothing on which they could rely, whereas the country of the Missions abounded with cattle. To purchase beef was impossible, considering the present temper of the Jesuits: and to make a foray into their lands for the purpose of driving away the beasts, would have been a direct act of war: but there were wild cattle in their territory, and they might supply themselves from these without committing any greater offence than a trespass on their neighbours' ground, if by ill hap they should be discovered. A Corporal and twenty-two men, of whom half were Indians, were sent upon this border-service. They went up the Itonamas, pursued their object with great success, and sent home three supplies. Orders had been expedited to recall them, because of the alarm which the watch-boat had excited, when a large body of Spaniards and Indians, crossing the pantanal in their canoes, on their way from S. Pedro to the Itonamas, saw an encampment on the shore, and made toward it with such secrecy that they surprized the Corporal and nine of his party. Their comrades were hunting in the woods, and did not return till the prisoners had been carried off: their boat also was gone, and every thing belonging to them. They had now to cross the woods and waters as they could, .. swimming the rivers, and directing their course by guess; till after a week's severe exertion, they reached the garrison almost exhausted with fatigue and hunger.

Relaçam. MS.

Appearance of a Spanish force; and notice of the war in Europe.

A little before their arrival, as the Chaplain was out with his gun, he perceived a number of canoes at the mouth of the Itonamas, and a great many people on the shore. When D. Antonio was apprized of this he sent a boat to reconnoitre: the Spaniards ordered it to retire immediately, saying they would suffer no person to go up the river; .. the boat however had been near enough to see that they had artillery with them. Upon

[page] 579

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

this D. Antonio went himself, with two armed boats, and approached mem with drums beating. When he drew near a ball was fired, and fell near the prow of his boat: .. so rude a salutation made him put to shore. It was then evening: he passed the night there, and in the morning sent an officer to speak with the Spanish Commandant, and enquire the cause of these proceedings. The Spaniard informed him that war had been declared between Spain and Portugal sixteen months ago; and he expressed his surprize that the Governor of Mato Grosso should be ignorant of so important an event: .. indeed this can only be accounted for by supposing that the bearer of the intelligence had been cut off by the savages on the way. The Spaniard added, that these troops were under the orders of the Governor of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, who was himself with a larger force at the mouth of the Mamore; that their purpose was to expel the Portugueze from S. Rosa, while the Governor of Charcas was marching with five thousand men against Mato Grosso; that the strongest places in Portugal had been captured by the Spaniards, and half the kingdom overrun.

Relaçam. MS.

D. Antonio surrenders the command to N. Senhora da Conceiçam.

These were uncomfortable tidings for the Lord of Azambuja: however exaggerated they might be in some things, and false in others, there could be no doubt but that a great and extraordinary effort had been made on this side. The force before him, exclusive of Indians, was estimated at not less than seven hundred men, armed with swords and musquets, and eight pieces of artillery were counted. The encampment on the Mamore also was now explained; and if, as the officer affirmed, a simultaneous attack were made upon Mato Grosso, it was as impossible for the Governor to take any measures for the protection of Villa Bella and Cuyaba, as to obtain succour from thence in his own perilous situation. But D. Antonio understood how difficult it was to bring an army from Charcas; and how unlikely

[page] 580

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

that the Spaniards should act with an energy so little according with the habits in which they had been sunk for many generations. Be that as it might prove, there was no alternative for him but to remain and defend the new establishment, .. where indeed his presence was the best defence. He stationed an armed boat and two light canoes to observe the enemy; and returning to the settlement, he delivered his Commander's staff with great solemnity into the hands of N. Senhora da Conceiçam, and intreated her to take upon herself the keeping of that place, which the faithful Portugueze had dedicated to her name and placed under her especial patronage. The soldiers probably derived more confidence from this act of idolatrous devotion, than they would have felt if their numbers had been doubled; and it may be believed that D. Antonio was influenced as much by his own faith, as by policy, when he thus appealed to their superstition. But he did not neglect to apply for human assistance. Six chosen Indians were dispatched to Para; and though they found a Spanish encampment at the junction of the rivers, they watched their opportunity so well that they passed it without being perceived.

Relaçam. MS.

The Spaniards had planned their measures wisely; they designed by the one armament to intercept the communication with Para, and by the other to cut off the Portugueze from Villa Bella. This blockade might be easily maintained, because they drew their supplies from the Reductions; whereas the garrison, being confined to their own shore, would be distressed for food, as well as military stores, and might thus be reduced without a blow. Ere long D. Antonio was apprized that the upper armament had received a reinforcement of forty canoes, most of which were of great size, and that it appeared as if they were about to make a demonstration against the place. Inferior as his force was, he knew that even the Negroes might be relied

[page] 581

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

upon for firmness, but that the Indian boatmen ot the enemy were not likely to stand fire: in that confidence he manned his flotilla, consisting of three boats and four canoes, embarked himself, took the Chaplain on board, and fairly offered battle to the Spaniards. They were playing a safer game, and therefore declined the brave offer. While he was absent, a cowardly trader from Para, named Joaquim de Matos, stole away by night in a canoe with two Indians, leaving behind his goods. It was certain, that if he should effect his escape down the river he would represent the condition of the establishment as desperate, for the sake of excusing himself to his creditors, whose property he had thus abandoned. D. Antonio dispatched a canoe after him, lest his falsehoods should prevent the Governor of Para from attempting to reinforce him. He sent advices also to Villa Bella, that his danger might be known in Mato Grosso and Goyaz, and that the settlers on the upper part of the Guapore might not expose themselves to capture, by venturing without protection as they had been wont. The bearer of these dispatches made his way in a little canoe over the flooded country, till on the ninth day he came upon the river above the Spanish station, and so accomplished his voyage.

Relaçam. MS.

Activity and confidence of the Portugueze.

The whole force at Conceiçam amounted now to two hundred and forty-four men, of whom twenty-four were Indians from Para, and one hundred and fourteen were Negroes. In the latter neither courage, nor activity, nor intelligence were wanting; but most of them were recently brought from Africa, and therefore scarcely as yet sufficiently trained to be serviceable as soldiers; and of the whole number nearly a sixth part were invalided at this time. Yet D. Antonio, however he might feel under these discouraging circumstances, appeared confident, and communicated confidence to his people. Perceiving that it required more time and labour to repair and strengthen the estacade than

[page] 582

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

could be afforded, he told his men they might leave it as it was, for while the Portugueze had weapons in their hands they needed no fortifications to protect them. The waters were now at their greatest height; the heat was oppressive, and the plague of insects almost intolerable. Here and there only, on either shore, a little eminence appeared like an island above the inundation. There was one of these on the Portugueze side, opposite the bar of the Itonamas and the Spanish station, and the port where their flotilla lay; it was partly covered with trees, and D. Antonio thought it possible to throw up trenches there, and bring some artillery to bear upon the enemy. They reached the spot with considerable difficulty, and some danger, having to wade through the flooded woodland; but upon beginning to dig the water soon followed the spade, and the design was therefore necessarily abandoned. In this attempt they must have been discovered, and might have been seriously molested, had there been only common vigilance on the part of the Spaniards; the Portugueze therefore acquired a reasonable confidence when they observed the negligence of their foes, and the inactivity wherewith they proceeded, after the great effort which had been made for bringing together such a force. They were farther encouraged by the appearance of nine of their comrades, who had been made prisoners: some were of the hunting party, and others had been intercepted coming down the river and ignorant of the war. They had been treated more like malefactors than prisoners; and having been kept with ropes round their necks as well as their feet and hands, had been sent in two canoes, under a guard of two Spaniards and thirty Indians, to S. Maria Magdalena: upon the way they had contrived to loosen the ropes during the night, and then seizing the arms of their escort, put them to flight and effected their escape.

Relaçam. MS.

They attack and plunder S. Miguels.

The Lord of Azambuja seems by his example to have infused

[page] 583

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

Relaçom. MS.

into all the branches of his government a vigour, which had rarely been manifested in Brazil. The Capitam Mor of Villa Bella, Joam da Cruz, no sooner received advice of his danger than he exerted himself to the utmost in providing reinforcements. A post was established above the Itonamas, where these supplies were received, and from whence the Portugueze were enabled to act offensively against their supine opponents. They made an expedition against the Reduction of S. Miguel, which had been removed from the right bank, and contained eight hundred inhabitants. The place was taken, plundered, and burnt. The flames reached the Church, which the conquerors had intended to spare: for motives of religion therefore they removed the sacred things, and the image of the Archangel, to their advanced post, which from that circumstance obtained the name of Pouso de S. Miguel, .. St. Michael's Resting Place. They got possession of supplies which were intended for the army at Itonamas, and made also a good booty in sugar, and such articles as were manufactured by the neophytes. The Jesuits were taken and carried to Conceiçam, in hope of exchanging them for those prisoners who were still in the enemy's hands; but as these persons had been marched off to Chuquisaca, the ¹⁷ Fathers were sent by way of Villa Bella and Cuyaba to the Rio.

Retreat of the Spaniards.

The Portugueze kept possession of the territory of S. Miguel, which abounded with kine, horses, and pigs; so they were now plentifully supplied: and the alarm occasioned by the incursion

17 About this time, it is said that two Jesuits were arrested in Goyaz, coming from Para, and on their way, as was supposed, to the Spanish Missions. They are called Manoel da Silva, and Pedro Fulano. Why they should have secreted themselves when their brethren were deported, or what became of them, does not appear. Patriota. T. 3. No. 4. p. 59.

[page] 584

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

Relaçam. MS.

was so great, that the Reduction of S. Martin voluntarily offered submission. Toward the end of June, being about three months after the first appearance of the enemy, a large reinforcement of twenty-eight canoes arrived from Villa Bella, and some Sertanistas in company, who knew the country of the Missions, and were good marksmen as well as guides. Thus strengthened, D. Antonio ventured to attack the Spaniards in their camp: he made his way through a thick wood, and round a lake, to fall upon their rear, while his flotilla endeavoured to call off their attention on the other side. The estacade was found too strong; but the boldness of this measure, though unsuccessful, discouraged the Spaniards: their scheme of operations had been entirely frustrated by the activity of the Portugueze in establishing themselves at the Pouso de S. Miguel, and they soon removed from their station to the new Reduction of S. Rosa. The encampment on the Mamore was abandoned also: shortly afterwards they fell back to S. Pedro: the Spaniards then returned to S. Cruz, and the expedition was broken up. The Portugueze then withdrew from the left shore. Meantime the peace of Paris had been concluded, wherein it was stipulated that if any change should have occurred in these colonies, things should be replaced upon the same footing as before the war, and made conformable to the treaties which had then existed, and were now renewed. This stipulation was ratified by the Courts of Madrid and Lisbon.

Peace of Paris. 10 Feb. 1763. Article 22.

Rio Grande forcibly retained by the Spaniards.

Thus, as in so many previous treaties, the Spanish and Portugueze cabinets once more, as if by mutual consent, shuffled off the question of the demarcation, and left the points in dispute as unsettled as before. There was a sort of obstinate policy in this, characteristic of both nations; .. all sacrifices of pride were spared, and both were left in hope, each feeling itself at liberty to get whatever it could take, and keep whatever it

[page] 585

CHAP. XLI. 1763.

could get, upon the debatable ground. The Portugueze remained with their acquisitions on the Mato Grosso frontier: the Guapore indeed forms so convenient and natural a boundary, that from that time there appears to have been no desire in the Spaniards to contest the possession of the right bank, nor in the Portugueze to encroach upon the opposite shore. But the point was not so amicably adjusted in the South. The Court of Madrid sent out orders for Zeballos to restore Colonia, but to retain all the other places, and the whole territory which he had conquered, upon the plea that Colonia was the only part of his conquests which had rightfully appertained to Portugal before the war.

Funes. 3. 104—6.

Seat of government removed to the Rio.

1748.

1754.

1759.

27 June, 1763. Conde da Cunha Viceroy.

The seat of government in Brazil was at this time removed to Rio de Janeiro. That city, being nearer both to the Mines and to the Plata, was become of greater importance than Bahia, and had moreover the advantage of greater security; for its port was strongly fortified, whereas that of Bahia was incapable of such means of defence. This change had been going on during the last fifteen years, under the successive viceroyalties of D. Luiz Peregrino de Attayde, Conde de Attouguia, of D. Marcos de Noronha, Conde dos Arcos, and of the Marquez de Lavradio, D. Antonio de Almeida Soares. The Conde da Cunha, D. Antonio Alvares da Cunha, was now appointed to that high office, and instructed to fix his residence at the Rio. Gomes Freyre was just deceased: he had been created Conde de Bobadilla, and would never have been superseded in a government which he had so long administered, with ability and good fortune equal to his reputation. When the new Viceroy perceived that the Spaniards chose to abide by their own interpretation of the treaty, and retain possessions which it certainly had not been the intention of the contracting powers to concede, he thought it necessary to strengthen himself on that side, and assume a

VOL. III. 4 F

[page] 586

CHAP. XLI.

Funes. 3. 111.

position which might add weight to the remonstrances of the Court of Lisbon. He therefore collected forces, and secured certain points in the Serra dos Tapes, as vantage posts, whenever an appeal should again be made to the sword. Zeballos protested against these proceedings in so acrimonious a style, that the Count chose rather to let his letters remain unanswered than reply to them in the only manner which would have been consonant to his feelings as a Portugueze and as an individual. The Spanish Governor meantime, after he had restored Colonia, blockaded it with such rigour that its illicit trade was effectually stopt. To such extent had this discreditable commerce been carried on, that the stoppage materially affected the remittances from the Rio to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to England.

Walpole Papers. MSS.

The Brazilians forbidden to send their daughters to the nunneries in Portugal.

Yet though the capital of Brazil suffered thus greatly in one of its most important branches of trade, and though the pending discussions with Spain rendered the recommencement of hostilities probable at any hour, the country was in a state of general improvement. The vigour which Oeyras had infused into the administration at home, extended to the Colonies; and if Brazil felt the tyranny of his absolute power, it felt also the effects of that enlarged and tolerant spirit, which would have weeded out the superstitions of the Portugueze had that been possible. The establishment of nunneries in Brazil had been opposed by the wisest statesmen, and yet it had been permitted and encouraged by the Court. But as the wealth of the country increased, it became a point of pride for parents to send over their daughters to the Lisbon ¹⁸ Convents. D. Luiz da Cunha had pointed out

18 D. Luiz da Cunha mentions a rich Bahian who sent over six daughters, with a portion of six thousand cruzados each, to the Convento da Esperanza, because he had heard that none but persons of the first condition were admitted there. With those portions, he observes, each of these poor girls might have been well married, and six families founded in Brazil.

Carta ao Marco Antonio. MS.

[page] 587

CHAP. XLI.

the palpable impolicy of permitting such drawbacks to be made upon the capital and population of a land, the prosperity of which depended upon the increase of both. What he had rather desired than advised, was enacted under the ministry of Oeyras: the Brazilians were prohibited from sending their children to Portugal for this blind purpose, without a special permission from the King: and this prohibition was of such undeniable utility, that even the enemies of the Minister could not but commend it.

Administration de Pombal. t. 2. p. 27. Vita di Pombal. 1. 45.

Laws respecting the New Christians.

D. Luiz da Cunha. Carta ao Marco Antonio. MS.

An evil of far greater magnitude was effectually removed by a law, which, though chiefly designed for the benefit of the mother country, was not less beneficial to the colonies. The Inquisition had never been established in Brazil; but it had sent its Commissioners there, and by their means had begun the same system which had proved so ruinous and so inexpiably disgraceful to Portugal. On one occasion these agents of that infernal tribunal arrested and sent to Lisbon a great number of New Christians, .. industrious, wealthy, and respectable persons, who all confessing themselves to be Jews, because they would have been burnt alive if they had persisted in protesting, however truly, that they were Roman Catholic Christians, escaped the stake as reconciled and repentant convicts, but suffered the loss of all their property. That property went to the hell-hounds by whom the game was started and run down: but so wide a ruin was produced that many Engenhos at the Rio stopt in consequence, and the great diminution of produce occasioned a diminution of shipping from that port. The Minister, powerful

[page] 588

CHAP. XLI.

Ley. 25 Mar. 1773. Carta de Ley. 15 Dec. 1774.

Alvara. 2 March, 1768. Vida de Pombal. MS. § 419. 422. 417.

as he was, did not venture to proclaim a toleration for the Jews, which Vieyra a century before his time had strenuously contended for, regardless of the danger that he brought upon himself; but he delivered the New Christians from the horrible state of perpetual insecurity in which they had hitherto existed, by making it penal for any person to reproach another for his Jewish origin, and by removing all disabilities of Jewish blood, even from the descendants of those who had suffered under the Inquisition, and from those who themselves had been brought under its cognizance. In furtherance of this good purpose, he prohibited the public Autos-da-fe, those solemn triumphs of the Holy Office and the Romish Church, and suffered no lists to be printed of those who received judgement in private. Before the fiery age of persecution began, a tax had been laid upon all who were of Jewish extraction; and rolls of the families liable to this assessment were at this time carefully preserved, as guides for the familiars, and text-books for obloquy and malice. Oeyras obtained an edict, requiring that all such lists should be delivered in, on pain of severe chastisement for any person in whose possession so mischievous a document should afterwards be found. These were the redeeming acts of Pombal's administration, for which Brazil and Portugal have still reason to bless his name; and none of his acts drew upon him more outrageous calumny and ¹⁹ abuse.

1765.

A certain degree of freedom in trade also was permitted, upon

19 He was accused of being bribed by the Jews, for half a million of cruzados, to effect these measures in their favour, which were so injurious to the interests of religion! .. of having Jewish blood in his own veins; and moreover, of having been circumcised himself in Holland. .. Such were the stupid calumnies which were propagated against Pombal, for the best action of his life!

Vida MS. § 417.

[page] 589

CHAP. XLI. 1765.

The trade opened for single ships.

occasion of one of those losses which are beneficial to the loser. The Moors of Morocco at this time took from the Portugueze the last of their possessions in that part of Africa. In the noon day of Portugal, her best historians found it necessary to distribute her history into four distinct portions, .. so extensive was the empire which she had established in Africa, Asia, and America. The history of Portugueze Africa, (or that part of it which had been of most importance,) was now closed by the fall of Mazagam; and it ended in a happier hour than it began. The immediate consequence was a most advantageous change in the commercial system of Brazil. Hitherto Portugal had been in a state of permanent war with the Moors, and for that reason the Brazilian trade was carried on by annual fleets, .. the prohibition of single ships, which had commenced during the Dutch war, having been continued in force, first because of the Buccaneers, and their successors the Pirates, and when those common enemies of all mankind had been exterminated, then on account of the Barbary cruizers. Peace was now made with Morocco, when there was no longer an old point of honour to impede it, and Oeyras immediately declared, that as soon as the fleets from Bahia and the Rio should have returned, the trade with those ports might be carried on by single ships.

Rocha Pitta. 6. § 53. Mr. Hay's dispatch. 21 Sept. 1765. MS. Ratton. p. 96.

Inhabitants of Mazagam removed to Para.

The inhabitants of Mazagam were provided for by transporting them to Para. They had defended their native city in a manner not unworthy of the old Portugueze character; and when it was no longer tenable, and they had no relief to expect, the whole population embarked and sailed for Portugal, leaving a heap of ruins for the Misbelievers. In honourable testimony therefore of their good conduct, the name of Mazagam was given to the place where they were settled, which had previously been called the Povoaçam de S. Anna. It is on the western bank of the Mutuaca, some five miles above the bar of that river, which falls

[page] 590

CHAP. XLI. 1766.

Cazal. 2. 239. Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. t. 4. p. 40.

Jornal de Coimbra. t. 4. p. 23.

into the Orellana from the North. There were about eighteen hundred of these colonists: they brought with them polished manners and military habits; but having been bred up to use the sword and musquet, they were altogether unfit for the state of life in which they were now placed. The situation too was unfavourable; for fevers prevail dreadfully upon that coast, where the atmosphere is tainted by the great quantity of wreck which the river throws up, and by the ooze, which is alternately exposed to the action of salt and of fresh water. In the course of twenty years half the population had disappeared; some had removed to Para, others to Europe, and probably the larger part had fallen victims to the endemic disease. Oeyras believed this to be the most vulnerable part of Portugueze America, and therefore gave orders for erecting a strong fort at Macapa, some leagues below Mazagam, near the first open country upon that shore. The work was superintended by Fernando da Costa Atayde Teive, who held the Government of Piauhy with that of Maranham, Para, and the Rio Negro. He has left an honourable name, for having expended in the service of the State his whole private income as well as his salary: but carrying a generous principle to excess, he contracted debts in the prodigality of his public spirit, from which he was unable to extricate himself during the course of a ²⁰ long life.

Oeyras sends colonists to Brazil.

Oeyras was very desirous to strengthen Brazil, by increasing the number of its inhabitants; and he removed many families from the Western Islands, and settled them at Macapa and Mazagam. These islanders are among the most industrious of

20 The debts, which amounted to about 14,000l. were not compleatly liquidated till after his death, in 1807. His eulogy was pronounced in these words, by Antonio Jozé Lande: .. Sibi malus; alienis bonus; gloria temporibus.

[page] 591

CHAP. XLI.

Vita di Pombal. t. 4. p. 94. Administration de Pombal. 3. 138.

Laws against vagabonds.

the Portugueze people; and they afforded, women as well as men, a good example to the Brazilians. Gladly would the Minister have had more colonists of this description at his command; but as Portugal was not capable of supplying from its scanty population such as he would have chosen, he took those whom he could get, cleared the prisons of their inmates, paired these criminals and vagabonds with the harlots of Lisbon, and shipt ²¹ them off for the Rio, thence to be forwarded to Mato Grosso, where hands were most wanted. If his prime object were not to rid the metropolis of so many bad subjects, he must have had great faith in the goodness of human nature, the beneficial effect of easy circumstances upon the heart of man, and the conservative principles of society, or he would have thought that such persons were more likely to become enemies than supporters of government and social order, in a country where religion had little influence, and the laws less. At this very time, complaints were frequently made from Minas Geraes of the cruel and atrocious actions committed in the Sertoens of that province, by ruffians and vagabonds who passed their lives after a savage, or rather bestial manner, of their own. In consequence of these representations orders were sent out, that all persons who were without any settled place of abode, should be compelled to chuse places where they might be established in civilized communities, and divide among themselves the surrounding lands. Every such settlement was to consist of fifty hearths at least, and to have its Juiz Ordinario, Vereador, and Procura-

21 This summary mode of promoting the population of a colony has frequently been practised by the French. In one of these forced levies, George Edwards the naturalist, then on his travels (1720), had nearly been sent off to the Mississippi, as a vagrant. Nichols's Anecdotes, Vol. 5. p. 318.

[page] 592

CHAP. XLI.

Carta Regia. June 23, 1766. MS.

dor do Conselho; and all persons who should not have thus domiciliated themselves within a time appointed, were to be pursued like robbers and public enemies, and punished according to the rigour of the law. Three classes of men were specified whom this edict was not intended to affect: the Rosseiros, or agriculturists, who with their slaves and servants were living upon their lonely farms, exposed to the depredations of the infamous and pernicious vagabonds whom it was now intended to suppress; the Rancheros, or persons who had established themselves upon the public roads, to facilitate the communication between one place and another, and entertain travellers, for the good of commerce; and the Bandeiras, men who in useful and meritorious fellowship employed themselves in making discoveries: all persons of these classes were authorized to apprehend and send to prison such persons as they might find roaming about in the woods, or upon the public ways, or in what were called sitios volantes, flying quarters, and having no permanent establishment.

The capitation abolished, and the fifths resumed.

March 24, 1734.

Alvara. Dec. 3, 1750.

The Capitation was persevered in till the death of Joam V, with whom it appears to have been a favourite measure; it was however always unpopular in the country, and it is said that the fair experience of fifteen years fully proved it to be injurious. Before it was adopted, the people of Minas Geraes had offered to make up the annual quantity of one hundred arrobas, by an assessment among themselves, if the fifths should fall short of that amount. Their proposal was accepted when Joze came to the throne, and the fifths were once more collected, with this understanding. This was the golden age of the Portugueze Government. The fleet from the Rio in 1753, the richest which till that time had ever arrived from Brazil, was believed on a moderate computation to bring home to the amount of three millions sterling in goods, gold, and silver: the latter must have

[page] 593

CHAP. XLI.

Walpole Papers. MSS.

Commencement of the decay of the Mines.

Memorias. MSS.

Gold fraudulently debased.

been the produce of the contraband trade at Colonia, by which the specie of Peru found its way to Portugal and to England. The fifths from Minas Geraes amounted ²² that year to nearly 400,000l. The bullion and jewels alone which were sent to Lisbon in the following year, were estimated at a million moidores. For about sixteen years the average of the fifths considerably exceeded the hundred arrobas; but when the trade was thrown open for single ships, they began immediately to decline, and the average upon eleven years fell from one hundred and nine arrobas to eighty-six. If this great and rapid diminution were occasioned by the change in the system of trade, as may be suspected from its coincidence in time, it may have been produced in two ways. As at the first discovery of the Mines, men had turned away from commercial pursuits for the sake of gathering gold; so now, when a new impulse had been given to trade, and the first fruits of the Mines had been collected, a wiser revolution was produced, and it began to be perceived that the regular profits of merchandize were preferable to the far more uncertain advantages of mining, .. and that the trader obtained gold more surely, as well as more easily, than the miner. It is probable that this consideration was now beginning to operate; and it is certain that the immediate increase of trade was very great, and that the facilities for extracting gold without paying the duties increased in the same proportion. The temptation to evade the impost was so strong, that severe laws and strict inspection were not suffi-

22 In the outward bound fleet of the same year, there were thirty large ships for the Rio, and ten for Maranham. Of the numbers for Bahia and Pernambuco I have no account; for the former port they would be nearly, or quite as numerous, as for the Rio; for the latter, more numerous than for Maranham.

VOL. III. 4 G

[page] 594

CHAP. XLI.

cient for counteracting it. Gold was allowed to circulate within the Captaincy before it was fifthed and stamped, but might not lawfully be carried beyond the border till it had paid the duty and received the King's mark. Registers, as they are called, were established upon the frontiers, where travellers upon entering the province exchanged their coin for gold dust, and upon leaving it were to exchange their gold dust for coin. Gold dust was the only circulating medium in Minas Geraes. Whatever the miners purchased they paid for in pure ore. It is affirmed upon competent authority, that these people, speaking of them collectively, were no ways concerned with the clandestine extraction, nor in the scandalous practice of alloying the gold. But the traders into whose hands it passed debased it so greatly, that if it found its way to the Mint, there was usually a loss of ten or twelve per cent upon the assay, in addition to the twenty per cent deducted for duty. More than common honesty would be required for ordinary men to subject themselves to so heavy an amercement, if they could evade it. Among those persons who are trained up to consider the acquisition of riches as the great object of their lives (and this is always the scope of vulgar education) there will be a large proportion in every country who care little concerning the manner by which that object may be attained. Fraudulent practices in the common course of trade, are but too frequent in countries where the standard of morality is higher than in Minas Geraes: but no practice could be so gainful as that of clandestinely exporting gold; and less scruple is always felt in defrauding governments and corporate bodies, than in cheating individuals, .. a notorious fact, which in the imposition of duties ought never to be forgotten, and yet seldom appears to have been borne in mind.

Luiz Beltram. Melhoramento da Arrecadaçam do quinto. MS.

In vain had laws against making new and bye roads been enacted, and the penalties from time to time enforced. It was im-

[page] 595

CHAP. XLI.

Ordens. 26 Oct. 1733. 9 April, 1745. 22 Jan. 1756. MSS.

Law against the Goldsmiths.

possible to guard so wide a country; and when once the gold had reached one of the great cities, goldsmiths were ready either to cast it into ingots and set upon it the false stamp, or work it up into trinkets ²³. These practices were well understood, and at length a law was promulgated, whereby the prohibition of these suspicious craftsmen which had long existed in Minas Geraes, was extended to the great sea ports. The edict affirmed, that upon strict investigation, the chief agents in defrauding the Government of its fifths were found to be goldsmiths established at the Rio, Bahia, Olinda, and other places in those Captaincies. Many of these offenders had been detected; but the King, wishing, said the law, to cut up this evil by the roots, and at the same time to display his royal benignity, was pleased to release all persons who had been imprisoned in consequence of the late enquiry, and to suspend all further proceedings. But the Governors of the Rio, Bahia, and Pernambuco were enjoined forthwith to apprehend all journeymen and apprentices in the goldsmiths' trade, to shut up all the shops, demolish the forges, and send the tools to the Mints and Smelting-houses, paying their just value. The master goldsmiths were to give bond that they would not exercise their craft without a special licence from the Governor, in certain specified cases, on pain of the punishment denounced against coiners. The apprentices and workmen, if they were single men, or free Negroes, were to be enlisted in the regiments of their respective towns; if slaves, they were to be sent back to their owners, who were to give surety that they

23 By an Ordem of May 17, 1734. (MS.) rude works of gold carried to the mint at Bahia, the Rio, or Minas Geraes, if there were a presumption that they had been wrought for the purpose of exporting them without paying the duty, were to be fifthed. This law was more likely to prove vexatious to the innocent, than effectual against the fraudulent.

[page] 596

CHAP. XLI.

Carta Regia. 30 July, 1766. MS.

would put them to other trades, and not preserve any of their tools. Persons infringing this law were to be degraded for life to Angola. As some mitigation of the hardship of this enactment, the masters whose characters were unimpeached should be preferred in the Mints and Smelting-houses of Minas Geraes, Goyaz, Mato Grosso, and S. Paulo, and no artificers from Portugal might be employed in those establishments, while any such masters were to be found.

Affairs of Goyaz.

The Capitation, while it lasted in Goyaz ²⁴, produced in some years more than forty arrobas; and this is supposed to be less than the fifths would have amounted to. The discoverer of this rich Captaincy had been rewarded with the rank and title of Capitam Mor Regente, and had enjoyed the first fruits of the most productive mines: but Bueno had the prodigality as well as the hardihood of an adventurer, and his liberality was so profuse that he became needy in his old age. The Governor, D. Luiz Mascarenhas, ventured to give him an arroba from the public treasury, in consideration of his past services: the home government disapproved this act; .. it might be expedient and necessary so to do, but it was neither gracious nor grateful in the Court to call upon the old man to refund the grant; nor was he able to repay it till he had sold his slaves, his houses, and even the trinkets of his wife. The Court however, though it acted thus rigorously upon a general principle, conferred upon

24 At the Arrayal of Agua quente in this province, a piece of native gold (folheta, it is called, with singular incongruity) was found, which weighed forty-three pounds. (Patriota. 3. 6. 10.) It seems to have been an insulated mass, for it occasioned a great lawsuit between the finder and the owner of the land, whereas there could have been no dispute had it been discovered in the ordinary course of mining. It was sent to Lisbon, .. where, if my memory does not deceive me, I saw it in the year 1796.

[page] 597

CHAP. XLI.

him the passagens, or ferry-rights, of the Rio Grande, the Rio das Velhas, the Corumba, the Jaguara-mirim, and the Atibaya. He solicited permission to transfer the grant to his son. The son went to Lisbon upon this suit, and sped so well that he obtained it for three lives, had the rank of Colonel conferred upon him, and received a donation of 20,000 cruzados from Queen Marianna. The younger Bueno inherited the adventurous temper, the public spirit, and the thoughtless profusion of his father. He involved himself on the way in a debt of 60,000 cruzados at S. Paulo, for sixty slaves and their equipments; and he returned to Goyaz with these slaves, a train of artificers, and eight pieces of artillery, to be employed against the Cayapos.

Memoria de Goyaz. Patriota. 3. 4. p. 47.

War with the Cayapos.

Patriota. 3. 6. p. 18. Cazal. 1. 330.

The Cayapos were a brave and numerous people. Their largest settlement was near the Camapuam, and their hunting or predatory parties made excursions to the distance of more than a thousand miles, as far as the Sertoens of Suritiba, in the Captaincy of S. Paulo. They were archers, and they used also the short macana, .. a formidable weapon in the hands of a strong man. Their favourite sport was a trial of strength in running with a heavy log on the shoulder: as this practice prevailed among the Tapuyas of the Serra de Ipiapaba, some presumption is afforded that the Cayapos belonged to that race, once the most numerous and widely extended in Brazil. The Cuyaban convoys were frequently harrassed, and had sometimes been cut off by these savages; but the people of Goyaz were continually exposed to their attacks: at length, the Chamber of Villa Boa applied to Cuyaba in their distress, and engaged with Colonel Antonio Pires de Campos to bring five hundred Bororos to their assistance, for which he was to receive an arroba of gold. To raise this subsidy, a voluntary assessment was made of half a pataca for every slave; and the surplus was given toward building the

[page] 598

CHAP. XLI.

1750. Patriota. 3. 4. 53.

Cazal. 1. 351.

Church. These allies made great havoc among the Cayapos, and are said to have committed shocking barbarities, .. which in the war of savages against savages may always be expected. They penetrated to the great settlement near the Camapuam; but they were deterred from attacking it by the numbers of the enemy. On the whole, however, the expedition was ably conducted, and signally useful to the province, and it freed the way between S. Paulo and Cuyaba from danger on that side. A gratuity of eight hundred oitavas was advanced from the Treasury to the Commander, and the Crown approved the grant. The Bororos were settled in the Aldeas of S. Anna, Rio das Pedras, and Lanhoso. Of all the native tribes they seem to have been most fortunate in their dealings with the conquerors: in Mato Grosso and Cuyaba they were so intermingled with them as to have formed a considerable part of the Brazilian population; and even such of their hordes as remained distinct, and persevered in their wild way of life, were in peace and friendship with the Portugueze. Antonio Pires found it necessary, because of his misdeeds, to take refuge with one of these hordes: his morals were worse than those of the savages, his manners perhaps little better; but he was a young man of singular activity, boldness, and ability, and he became their Cacique. In that character he led his people against the Cayapos, who, no doubt, regarded him as their mortal enemy, and he received in battle an arrow in one of his arms. The Bororos applied hot bacon to the wound, which must have been his own prescription, and continued to give it this dressing every day, while they were carrying him to the nearest Portugueze settlement in Minas Geraes, in the hope that his life might be saved by the assistance of abler surgeons. But the wound was mortal, and they mourned for him during a whole month. Two Aldeas also were formed in Goyaz, of the Acroas and Cacriabas, upon the system of the new

[page] 599

CHAP. XLI.

regulations, and at no little expence to the Government; for its agents had now to produce that effect upon the natives by large promises and gifts, which the Jesuits obtained by unremitting zeal and constant kindness. But it appears, that the savages expected to live under the same paternal discipline which had formerly been observed in the Aldeas; and when they found how different a course was pursued by the Directors, they revolted, seized their fire-arms, took to the Sertam, and infested the road to Bahia. And this occurrence, natural as it was, was imputed to the machinations of the Jesuits!

Patriota. 3. 4. 56.

Peace with the Goaitacazes.

Vol. 2. p. 666.

The Captaincy of Minas Geraes was still from time to time infested on its eastern frontier by the unsubdued tribes, who on that side kept possession of the Sertam. The Goaitacazes, who had long disappeared after the massacre which in mistaken vengeance was made among them, had recovered numbers, strength, and audacity, when, in the early part of the eighteenth century, the Governor of that district, Domingos Alvares Pesanha, succeeded in conciliating them by friendly treatment and scrupulous good faith, and gave them an establishment upon his own estate on the river Paraiba do Sul. There he built for them a large house after their own fashion, a sort of inn, or hospital, (in the original and proper acceptation of the word,) wherein they were lodged and entertained when they came down from the Sertam to supply themselves with tools and finery. They gave in exchange for these things, wax and honey, birds, game, and pottery remarkable for resisting fire. If what they had to offer were not equivalent, they worked out the balance as wood-cutters, .. for in that occupation they were singularly expert. Towards the middle of the century they subdued the Coropos, and incorporated the conquered people among themselves: the united tribes acquired the name of Coroados, from the fashion in which they cropt their hair. They were masters of the wilderness which

[page] 600

CHAP. XLI.

1758. Reappearance of the Aymores. Cazal. 2. 71.

Azeredo Coutinho. p. 61. 67.

extends more than four hundred miles from the Campos dos Goaitacazes along the Paraiba do Sul, from its northern bank to the river Xipota, in the Comarca of Villa Rica. As often as the people of Minas Geraes attempted to fix themselves, either as miners or farmers, within this territory, they were assaulted and dispossessed by the lords of the land; .. till the Portugueze thought it better to obtain by means of peace, what it would have been difficult to win by force of arms. The Coroados declared their willingness to enter into a treaty, provided P. Angelo Pesanha, the son of their former friend, would guarantee it: and upon this that Priest, in company with some of his Indian friends, crossed the Sertam to Minas Geraes, (a tract, it is said, which no Portugueze had ever trod before him) and negociated a peace, which from that day has been faithfully observed on both sides. Two years afterward, the people once so formidable by the name of Aymores, now called Botocudos, and not less ferocious, though less powerful than their ancestors, appeared in this part of the country, and made a cruel havoc among the Portugueze settlers. The Coroados came to the assistance of their Portugueze allies, attacked these Botocudos with the most determined animosity, and persecuted them with such inveterate ardour, that the routed horde forsook the country, and did not consider themselves safe till they reached the Meary, and settled there upon the frontiers of Maranham.

Great Britain appealed to concerning Rio Grande.

But while the internal affairs of Brazil were every where improving, the Portugueze Government was disquieted by the designs of the French and Spanish Cabinet. The temper of Spain was manifested by the retention of Rio Grande: and Oeyras, learning that troops from Gallicia were continually embarking for the Spanish Indies, and that the French had a considerable force at Cayenne, for which there appeared no ostensible reason, believed that there was a scheme for attacking Brazil on both its

[page] 601

CHAP. XLI.

Mr. Hay's dispatches, 3 Nov. 1764. 21 Feb. 1765. Earl Bristol's dispatch, 17 Dec. 1764. MSS.

frontiers. The trade of Colonia was wholly destroyed in consequence of the strict blockade. The Spaniards were justified in this; but by retaining Rio Grande they cut off its land communication also, and Portugal required Great Britain to interfere, and procure the execution of the Treaty of Paris, according to the just intentions of the contracting Powers, .. that being a point upon which Great Britain could entertain no doubt. For Great Britain had been the one contracting party, and certainly it had not been her intention that the Spaniards should retain any of their conquests in Brazil. The King of Portugal, when the negociations were about to be opened, had offered to be a principal in the Treaty; he acquiesced in the wish of England to take the whole upon herself, and he acceded to what England stipulated in his behalf. Therefore, and upon good grounds, he called upon England to interfere.

Bucarelli Governor of Buenos Ayres.

Funes. 3. 111.

1767.

The Portugueze repossess themselves of Rio Grande by force.

The apprehensions with regard to Spain were not unfounded. There was a disposition in that government to wrest from Portugal whatever it could; but Zeballos, whose temper was entirely in unison with that of his Court, and whose ability rendered him so fit a person for carrying its ambitious purposes into effect, was at this time superseded by D. Francisco de Paula Bucarelli y Ursua. Zeballos had raised soldiers in order to enforce his angry remonstrances against the measures which the Portugueze were taking in the Serra dos Tapes. Bucarelli renewed the remonstrances, but in a less haughty tone. D. Joseph Molina, who commanded at S. Pedro, protested also against the occupation of a position in the Serra. But the Portugueze knew that the Spanish Viceroy had other pressing affairs to engage him at that time; they took advantage of the favourable occasion for recovering an important place, which though won fairly by the Spaniards in war, was wrongfully retained by them in peace; and therefore, having secretly collected a force of eight hundred

VOL. III. 4 H

[page] 602

CHAP. XLI.

Funes. 3. 116. Mr. Lyttleton's dispatch, 7 Oct. 1767. MS.

men, they fell upon the Spanish posts at Rio Grande suddenly, at day-break. Molina was taken by surprize, and compelled to withdraw. Indignant complaints of this aggression were made by the Spanish Government, and the Court of Lisbon disavowed the act of its subjects, .. as in the Pernambucan war. But it was suspected that secret orders had been given them to seize what the interference of Great Britain might not have succeeded in obtaining by more regular means: and, as the occupation was maintained in spite of the repeated demands of Spain, and the uniform professions of the Portugueze Ministry, it appears, that whether the enterprize had been ordered, or not, it certainly was approved at Lisbon.

[page 603]

CHAPTER XLII.

Expulsion of the Spanish Jesuits. Ruin of the Guarani Reductions. The Payaguas settled at Asumpcion. Foundation of Nova Coimbra. Regulations for the Forbidden District of Diamonds. War of 1777. Treaty of Limits.

CHAP. XLII.

Zeballos recalled from the Plata.

Zeballos had been recalled from the Plata because of his known regard for the Jesuits. The long continued warfare against that calumniated Society was now hastening toward its desired triumph. A general clamour against them had been raised throughout Catholic Europe: they had been expelled from France as well as Portugal, and Oeyras had now the satisfaction of seeing them banished from Spain and from the Spanish Indies. This was an act of worse impolicy than the expulsion of the Moriscos. That strong measure was cruelly and wickedly performed; but it cannot be denied that the reasons for it were cogent in themselves, and, upon Spanish and Roman Catholic principles, unanswerable. But every motive which was pretended for the expulsion of the Jesuits, was founded upon malicious misrepresentation, or gross calumny. By listening to such falsehoods, the Court of Madrid deprived itself of its most faithful and meritorious subjects in America, .. a body of men who

[page] 604

CHAP. XLII.

were ready to live or die in its service, and whose interests were inseparably united with the preservation of the established government. They had extended the Spanish territories in the interior, and thereby prevented the Portugueze from securing to themselves, as otherwise they would have done, a still larger portion of the central country. They had raised native troops for Spain, who served gratuitously whenever they were called upon; by whose aid rebellions had been more than once suppressed in Paraguay, and war against the Portugueze carried on upon the Guapore and at Colonia. And they had delivered the Spaniards of La Plata, Paraguay, and Tucuman, from the most formidable of their enemies, when those enemies were masters of the open country, had destroyed many of their towns, and kept the cities in perpetual alarm and trepidation: those enemies the Jesuits had conciliated, when the Spaniards were calling upon their Saints for protection.

State of the Reductions.

Peramas de Administ. § 18.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 14.

Do. 3. 197.

The Guarani Reductions were now beginning to recover from the evils which had been brought upon them by the Treaty of Limits. But by the consequences of that blind measure, by the losses sustained in service with the Spaniards, and by two severe visitations of small pox, their numbers had been diminished, since the year 1732, from one hundred and forty-four thousand to one hundred thousand. The treatment of the Seven Reductions produced its natural effect upon the other Indians. The Abipones, Mocobios, and other half-reclaimed tribes, who were yet hesitating whether the security of a settled life were preferable to the continual excitement of a predatory and wandering one, saw this iniquity in its true light; and there were many who concluded that it was better to have the Spaniards for enemies than friends, and so took to the woods again. The Jesuits exerted themselves to the utmost to counteract this feeling, and the efforts of such men were not unsuccessful; for the Company had never at any

[page] 605

CHAP. XLII.

time possessed more able or more zealous subjects in Paraguay. Indeed, a great but silent reformation seems to have been accomplished in the Order. Imposture and falsehood had been its characteristic vices, and it had systematically palmed upon the world its impudent miracles and lying legends. But, wise as serpents in their generation, the Jesuits were now conforming to the altered spirit of the age, and they addressed themselves to the reason, as they had formerly done to the credulity of mankind. Individuals were still permitted, and perhaps encouraged, to indulge in practices of ¹ self-annoyance, for the purpose of swelling the amount of their own good works. The Order had always some such members, and knew how to make

1 Peramas relates some anecdotes of this kind to enhance the character of men whose real virtues entitled them to respect. Ignatius Morro, he says, (§ 15—16) when at his prayers, would bear the stings of insects, as though he had been made of marble: he wore such prickly cilices, that he could not walk without involuntarily betraying by his motions how grievously they annoyed him; and at his meals he used to mix bitter herbs with all his food. Clemente Baigorri, (a noble-minded youth,) during his last illness sipt all the nauseous medicines which were administered to him, that he might taste them as fully and as long as possible, for a mortification, .. ita ille in omnes partes sese cruciandi intentus erat. (§ 84.) The instance which he relates of Stefano Pallozzi's virtue is ludicrous. This good, but simple missionary, was so cautious of affording any opportunity for scandal, that he would never speak to a woman except in public, and never then unless it were necessary. One day when he was shaving himself, some one sporting with his simplicity, said to him, Stefano, take care how you show that smooth face to the Indian women! It is enough to tempt them. Terrified at the suggestion, Stefano did not shave for twelve months; and would never have shaved again, if his brethren had not seriously laboured to persuade him that no such consequences were to be apprehended. However, he could only be induced to shave once a fortnight, and then with a razor which he never sharpened, so that it made the operation almost as meritorious as one of the flagellations whereby he fancied himself laying up treasure in Heaven. (§ 49.)

[page] 606

CHAP. XLII.

use of them in their proper sphere; but its own character had undergone an important change.

Improvements introduced by the Jesuits.

Peramas. Vita Castilli. § 23—25.

Do. Vita Escandoni. § 15.

Do. Vita Schmidi. § 38—45.

The Jesuits had large estates, and possessed a great number of Negro slaves. Their lands were of course inalienable; and they had a humane law, befitting a religious corporation, which forbade them ever to sell a slave, unless he were so incorrigible under their benevolent treatment, that it was deemed necessary to transfer him into severer hands. Their Negroes lived in a state of easy servitude, and increased in numbers. The women earned little more than was expended on them, and the men were such unproductive labourers, that free Mulattoes were usually hired as herdsmen. Every married slave received a stated allowance for his family, according to their number, and had a portion of land assigned him for his own use; upon this he raised grain, melons, and other fruits; and if he carried any to market, the produce was his own. These men were almost the only blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, shoe-makers, taylors, barbers, and bakers, in all the towns of the interior. They were the only musicians, and they performed gratuitously at the churches and on all great public occasions. Wherever the Jesuits had an estate they had a priest stationed there, as well as a lay-coadjutor; and this was of great use to the surrounding country, where by these means the forms of religion were kept up, and some appearances of civilized life. In fact, whatever civilization found its way into the interior, was by means of the Jesuits. F. Martin Schmid, a native of Baar, in the Canton of Zug, instructed the Chiquitos not only in the common arts of daily use, but in working metals, casting bells, and making clocks and musical instruments. More comforts were found in the Missions of the Moxos and Baures than in the Spanish capital of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Cordoba owed its press to the Jesuits; .. the last benefit which they conferred upon that city. But the Guarani Jesuits printed books

[page] 607

CHAP. XLII.

in the Reduction of S. Maria Mayor long before there was any printing press ² in Cordoba or in Buenos Ayres, or in the whole of Brazil. What little learning existed in these provinces was kept alive by the Jesuits: under their superintendence the University of Cordoba became famous in South America; and although in the prescribed course of studies much time was unprofitably consumed in dry and jejune formalities, the elements of sound knowledge also were imparted, and writers were produced who have proved, that under the tuition of the Jesuits in America, as in Europe, the classics were felt as well as studied.

Outcry against the Company.

But the fables and monstrosities of the Romish Church had at this time provoked a spirit of contemptuous and intolerant irreligion, which existed in every Catholic country, and prevailed more or less, according to the degree of intellectual freedom which was permitted. In France and Italy it was all but universal among the educated classes: short-sighted Sovereigns, who flattered themselves with the title of philosophers, fostered it in Germany; and even in the Peninsula, the most bigotted Courts in Europe were influenced through their Ministers by opinions, which no individual could have avowed without exposing himself to certain ruin. The expulsion of the Jesuits was resolved on in Spain, as it had been in Portugal, as the first step toward the removal of those superstitions and abominations by which the kingdom was so pitiably disgraced; and the Ministers were enabled to

2 It is remarkable that Peramas should not have noticed this fact, and appears even not to have known it; for he says, that for want of a press the Jesuits were obliged every year to write out the ecclesiastical Kalendar for their own use, as well as to compute it. (Mesnerii Vita, § 21.) Perhaps the Guarani grammar, and the Spanish and Guarani vocabulary, may be the only productions of the Guarani press. Both these are in the possession of Mr. Greenough. From the extreme rudeness of the types I think they were made upon the spot.

[page] 608

CHAP. XLII.

execute this iniquitous measure by the help of the press. Innumerable libels had now during many years been circulated with all the activity of malignant zeal; and calumny was repeated so often, and in so many forms, that it was believed at last. Men of the most heterogeneous characters and discordant views united for the overthrow of this odious Order. Philosophists and Friars, Atheists and Jansenists, Kings and Levellers, joined in the work; and Protestant Europe, mistaking the signs of the times, believed that a reformation in the Romish Church was about to be effected.

Orders for their expulsion. 27 March, 1767.

Walpole papers. MSS.

The Court of Madrid feared, or pretended to fear, that the Jesuits of La Plata and Tucuman would resist its authority. Therefore, before the edict which banished them from all the Spanish dominions was published in Spain, orders had thrice been dispatched to Bucarelli within the course of three weeks. He had before been secretly instructed to prepare for the expulsion, as a measure which was in contemplation. The Governor affected to enter into the apprehensions of the home government, and concerted his plans for taking a few defenceless old men in their Colleges, as if he were intending to surprize so many fortified places. The Jesuits at Corrientes, Santa Fe, Cordoba, and Montevideo, were to be seized on the same day, .. an exploit which would sound well in Europe, and accredit his vigilance at the Court. But about three weeks before the day appointed for these simultaneous operations, a ship arrived which had left Spain after the publication of the edict, and consequently the news became public. Bucarelli immediately sent dispatches into the provinces, doubled the detachments which he had stationed to watch the communication between one town and another, and surrounded the Colleges at Buenos Ayres in the dead of the night. The inmates were roused from their sleep. Suddenly as the evil hour had come upon them,

[page] 609

CHAP XLII. 1767.

they must have had reason to look for such an event, and men so admirably disciplined for whatever might befall them, were never to be found unprepared. They listened calmly to their sentence of deportation, for causes which were reserved in the royal mind; and, submitting with perfect composure to their fate, were conducted as prisoners to a house in the suburbs, wherein they had been used to receive persons who retired to go through the spiritual exercises of Loyola.

Funes. 3. p. 118—120.

They are seized in the College at Cordoba.

Fernando Fabro, with eighty soldiers, was charged with the secret expedition against the College at Cordoba. He entered the city by night, surrounded the building with his men when all its inhabitants were asleep, rang loudly and repeatedly at the gate, pretended that a confessor was wanting for a dying man, and when the wicket was opened upon that false pretence, rushed in with his followers. Immediately he went into the chamber of the Rector, F. Pedro Juan Andreu, and commanded him to rise and ³ name a place in which all the members of the College might instantly convene to hear the King's orders. The Refectory was appointed. The brethren were roused from their pallets by the soldiers; they assembled hastily, and stood in respectful silence, while a Notary, who accompanied the Captain, read to them their sentence of exile into Italy. F. Pedro replied for himself and all who were under his direction, that they

3 Peramas describes these transactions with great feeling; he was at that time an inhabitant of the College himself, and what he says of the Rector's behaviour upon this rude summons, should be laid before the reader in his own words. "Ubi ille raptim vestitus stetit, designa, ait Tribunus, locum amplum quo omnes conveniant. Ad hæc tranquillé Petrus Joannes, sine me, amabo, paulisper, dum de more hujus diei quem inimus, futura opera Deo offero. Obtulit breviter, et quidem multo erant plura quæ offerret quam alius consueverat, .. summa ignominia, mala innumera, et ærumnæ, et labores seni intolerabiles. Andr. Vita. § 82.

VOL. III. 4 I

[page] 610

CHAP. XLII. 1767.

were ready to obey the King's pleasure. The keys were then taken from them, and their names were entered in a roll. When the Notary came to the novices, who stood in their place, apart from the other brethren, he congratulated them upon the liberty which the King allowed them of retiring each to his family. But they made answer, without one dissenting voice, that they would partake the lot of banishment. They were then locked into the Refectory, and a guard set at the door. The Viceroy had received instructions to omit no care for separating the novices from the Order; and as a farther security that no undue influence might be exercised over them, he was not to permit one of these aspirants to accompany the exiles, unless he attested in his own hand-writing, that it was by his own free and deliberate choice. But they had already imbibed lessons which made the heart invincible. It is recorded of one of them, Clemente Baigorri, a Cordoban by birth, that when his father would fain have persuaded him not to leave his native country and his parents, the youth overcame him by the eloquence with which he represented the devout sense of heroic duty: and he fell upon his neck, and said, Go on in thy own way, Clemente: thy arguments are better than mine! Go whither God calls thee!

Funes. 3. 153—6. Peramas Baigorrii Vita. § 20—30. Andrea Vita. § 82—85.

Destruction of their papers.

Andrea Vita. § 85. Funes. 3. 156.

Fabro expected to meet with great riches at Cordoba; and finding in the Rector's escritoire a key which was labelled Clavis Secreti, he thought the hidden treasure was surely within his reach; and was not a little disappointed by discovering that it belonged to the place where the succession-papers of the province were deposited. The tangible wealth of the College fell short of nine thousand dollars; and great part of the convertible property was peculated by the sequestrators, as usual in such commissions. The library, which was famous, and in that part of the world, where books were necessarily so scarce, must have been inestimable, was dispersed. The manuscripts were sent to

[page] 611

CHAP. XLII. 1767.

Buenos Ayres: there, owing to scandalous negligence, the greater part has perished, .. and thus a great collection of historical documents was irrecoverably lost.

Cruel treatment of the Missionaries.

Peramas. Villeg. Vita. § 39.

The Jesuits were hurried into exile with circumstances of great barbarity, contrary to the intentions of the Spanish Court. There had been orders given, that sufficient money for the expences of their land journey should be allowed to every Rector, for himself and his companions; but this was not obeyed. They were searched by the ruffians to whose guard they were committed, and robbed of every real with which their kinsmen and friends had supplied them. F. Ignace Chomé, a native of Douay, one of the most laborious and able ⁴ of the Missionaries, was confined to his bed by illness at the age of seventy-one, when the order for the expulsion reached the Chiquito Missions. The officer, unwilling to remove a man in that condition, and yet not daring to disobey his orders, sent to Chuquisaca for instructions. But instead of permitting the good old man, whose life had so often been exposed for the service of the Spanish Government, to die in peace, the answer was that F. Chomé must be expelled as well as the rest. It was necessary to carry him

Do. Chomæ Vita. 79—87.

4 Chomé had composed grammars and dictionaries of the Zamuco and Chiquito tongues; and into the latter he translated the famous treatise ascribed to Thomas à Kempis, and the Discrimen inter temporaria et æterna of Nieremberg. He had written also in the same language a summary of the Christian doctrine, and some sermons useful for Missionaries while they were acquiring the tongue. But his greatest work was a copious history of the Chiquitos, .. eaque, says Peramas, ut pote scripta a viro rerum illius gentis scientissimo, fuisset lectoribus solidæ delectationi. Hæc omnia dies unus sepeliit jusso exilio, severissime enim cavebatur ne quis quid scriptum manu efferet secum. Quod si libros istos aliquis abjecit, corrupitve, male ille de Chiquitorum linguâ et republicâ literariâ meritus est, cum multarum vigiliarum summæque utilitatis commentarios pessundederit.

[page] 612

CHAP. XLII. 1767.

Peramas. Mesneri Vita. § 48—55.

in a hammoc, for he was incapable of being removed in any other manner: in that manner he reached Oruro, and there died, having endured worse than death upon the way. F. Hans Mesner, a Bohemian by birth, though an old man and miserably infirm, could not obtain permission to die in the Chiquito Reductions, where he had laboured one and thirty years. He had in the first place to perform a journey of four hundred and fifty miles to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in the rainy season, and through a country that scarcely afforded any human accommodation. In that city he remained five months confined to his bed; and when the season for crossing the Andes was come, he was taken from his bed and placed upon a mule, that he might pass the mountains to be embarked from Peru. Between Oruro and Tacna, on the summit of the pass, the escort halted to take their food; when they were about to resume their march, Mesner intreated the commander of the party, in the name of God, not to compel him to go farther, for he was at the point of death; but this man gave orders that he should be lifted on his mule, and that one of the soldiers should walk beside and support him on the saddle: they had not proceeded far before the soldier felt he was supporting a lifeless weight, for Mesner in that situation had expired. The Conde de Aranda, then Minister in Spain, severely reproved the inhumanity of the American Governors, and indignantly asked them, if there was not earth enough in that wide country to afford the old men graves.

The Reductions are delivered up to the Viceroy.

Bucarelli shipt off the Jesuits of La Plata, Tucuman, and Paraguay, one hundred and fifty-five in number, before he attacked the Reductions. This part of the business he chose to perform in person; and the precautions which he took for arresting seventy-eight defenceless Missionaries will be regarded with contempt, or with indignation, as they may be supposed to have proceeded from real ignorance of the state of things, or from a

[page] 613

CHAP. XLII. 1767.

Funes. 3. 128—131.

fear basely affected for the purpose of courting favour by countenancing successful calumnies. He had previously sent for all the Caciques and Corregidores to Buenos Ayres, and persuaded them that the King was about to make a great change for their advantage. Two hundred soldiers from Paraguay were ordered to guard the pass of the Tebiquary; two hundred Corrientines to take post in the vicinity of S Miguel; and he ascended the Uruguay with three score dragoons and three companies of grenadiers. They landed at the Falls: one detachment proceeded to join the Paraguay party, and seize the Parana Jesuits; another incorporated itself with the Corrientines, and marched against those on the eastern side of the Uruguay; and the Viceroy himself advanced upon Yapeyu, and those which lay between the two rivers. The Reductions were peaceably delivered up: the Jesuits without a murmur followed their brethren into banishment: and Bucarelli was vile enough to take credit in his dispatches for the address with which he had so happily performed a dangerous service; .. to represent it as a merit which entitled him to the favourable consideration of the Court, .. and to seek that favour by loading the persecuted Company with charges of the grossest and foulest falsehood.

The American Jesuits banished into Italy.

The American ⁵ Jesuits were sent from Cadiz to Italy, where Faenza and Ravenna were assigned for their places of abode. Most of the Paraguay brethren settled at Faenza. There they

5 The strangeness and suddenness of the expulsion produced an extraordinary effect upon Sebastian Biader, a lay brother, who had been insane for twenty years. It restored him for a time to his senses. Quo autem sit factum modo, ut tantâ repente conversione læsi cerebri massa corrigeretur, explicanto physici: ego id unum dico, legem exilii, quæ multis amittendæ mentis occasio fuit, Biaderi fuisse causam ejus recuperandæ, saltem ad tempus, nam aliquando vacillavit postea, sed numquam ita graviter ut prius. (Peramas de Tredecim. p. 299.)

[page] 614

CHAP. XLII. 1768

employed the melancholy hours of age and exile in preserving, as far as they could from memory alone (for they had been deprived of all their papers), the knowledge which they had so painfully acquired of strange countries, strange manners, savage languages, and savage man. The Company originated in extravagance and madness: in its progress it was supported and aggrandized by fraud and falsehood; and its history is stained by actions of the darkest die. But it fell with honour. No men ever behaved with greater equanimity, under undeserved disgrace, than the last of the Jesuits; and the extinction of the Order was a heavy loss to literatùre, a great evil to the Catholic world, and an irreparable injury to the tribes of South ⁶ America.

New system of Government in the Reductions.

Bucarelli replaced the exiled Missionaries by Priests from the different Mendicant Orders; but the temporal authority was not vested in their hands. He formed the Missions provisionally into two governments, placing the twenty Parana Reductions under D. Juan Francisco de la Riva Herrera, and the ten upon the Uruguay under D. Francisco Bruno de Zavala; and he appointed an Administrator in every Reduction to superintend the labours of the people, and provide for their concerns. Here

6 Peramas (de Tredecim. p. 409,) says, that the number of Jesuits expelled from all the Spanish Indies, amounted to five thousand six hundred and seventy-seven, of whom five thousand four hundred were Spaniards. The law permitted a fourth part to be foreigners; but the foreigners were few in proportion at that time. Peramas sailed from Spain with about one thousand companions in banishment; Hervas, with about four thousand. The greater number established themselves in Italy, where they lost the use of their own language, and confusing the two together, could not at last distinguish whether a word were Spanish or Italian. But Hervas (2, p. 385,) says, they who went among the Germans, Turks, or other Nations, where the language was radically different, lost nothing more than that readiness of speech, which disuse takes away.

[page] 615

CHAP. XLII. 1768.

1769.

ended the prosperity of those celebrated communities; .. here ended the tranquillity and welfare of the Guaranies. The Administrators, hungry ruffians from the Plata, or fresh from Spain, neither knew the native language, nor had patience to acquire it: it sufficed for them that they could make their commands intelligible by the whip. The Priests had no authority to check the enormities of these wretches; nor were they always irreproachable themselves. A year had scarcely elapsed before the Viceroy discovered that the Guaranies, for the sake of escaping from this intolerable state of oppression, were beginning to emigrate into the Portugueze territories, and actually soliciting protection from their old enemies. Upon the first alarm of so unexpected an occurrence, Bucarelli displaced all the Administrators, and appointed others in their stead, and united both governments under Zavala. But the new Administrators were as rapacious and as brutal as their predecessors: the Governor was presently involved in a violent struggle with the Priests, touching their respective powers, and the confusion which ensued evinced how wisely the Jesuits had acted in combining the spiritual and temporal authorities. Old habits would have drawn the Guaranies to take part with the Priests, who, bad as they were, were less inhuman than the Lay-tyrants. Zavala had the military on his side. Some of the Clergy fled, and others earnestly entreated their Superiors to recall them from a situation in which they could do no good, and were themselves exposed to outrages and indignities. The Viceroy then instituted a new form of administration. The Governor was to reside at S. Maria Mayor, otherwise called Candelaria, which had been the residence of the Superior; and under him were to be three Lieutenants, four Adjutants, and the respective Administrators, in whom the civil and criminal jurisdiction was vested. The Indians were declared exempt from all personal service, not sub-

[page] 616

CHAP. XLII. 1769.

Funes. 3. 130—142.

ject to the encomienda system, and entitled to possess property, .. a right of which, Bucarelli said, they had been deprived by the Jesuits; for this Governor affected to emancipate the Guaranies, and talked of placing them under the safeguard of the law, and purifying the Reductions from tyranny! They were to labour for the community, under the direction of the Administrators; and, as an encouragement to industry, the Reductions were opened to traders during the months of February, March, and April. The end of all this was, that compulsory and cruel labour left the Indians neither time nor inclination, neither heart nor strength, to labour for themselves. The arts which the Jesuits had introduced, were neglected and forgotten; their gardens lay waste; their looms fell to pieces; and in these communities, where the inhabitants for many generations had enjoyed a greater exemption from physical and moral evil than any other inhabitants of the globe, the people were now made vicious and miserable. Their only alternative was to remain, and be treated like slaves, or fly to the woods, and take their chance as savages.

Some of the Guaranies fly into Brazil.

Avizo. 29 April, 1767. MS.

The Court of Portugal seemed to agree with the Spanish Cabinet, in apprehending that the Missionaries would not quietly submit to their expulsion. Dispatches were forwarded to the Governor of Minas Geraes, apprizing him that Jesuits in various disguises, some as laymen, others as secular priests, and some in the habits of other religioners, had been provided with instructions from their General in the Pope's name, and were endeavouring to make their way into the Portugueze dominions. There was reason to believe, the dispatches added, that this infamous and abominable race, having been banished from all the kingdoms and dominions of Spain, and from Parma and Placencia, would seek to get into America; and therefore the Governor was charged to examine with great strictness all persons

[page] 617

CHAP. XLII. 1768.

who entered his Captaincy. But instead of bringing enemies into Brazil, the effect of the expulsion was to break up entirely the Guarani force, which had so often been employed against it; and even to bring many of those very Guaranies into the Portugueze territory as supplicants. The Governor of Rio Grande, Joze Marcellino de Figueyredo, founded an Aldea for these poor refugees: a large estate was assigned them, and they were exempted from taxes. The Government meant well towards them, and acted kindly; but the paternal regimen under which they had grown up was wanting. The foresight which relieved them from all care for themselves, .. the salutary and gentle restraint which preserved them from all boisterous vices and dangerous indulgences, .. the love which attended them in sickness, .. the zeal which comforted them in death, .. these could not be supplied, and most of the settlers gradually disappeared.

Cazal. 1. 150.

1768. Rupture between the Guaycurus and Payaguas.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 133. Cazal. 1. 253. Patriota. 3. 5—30. Funes. 3. 15. The Payaguas settle at Asumpcion

The alliance between the Guaycurus and Payaguas was at this time dissolved; and these tribes, who had inflicted so many calamities upon the Spaniards of Paraguay, and the Portugueze of Cuyaba and Mato Grosso, turned their animosity against each other. The Payaguas discovered, to their cost, with what ill policy they had acted, when they suffered the Guaycurus to become as powerful upon the water as themselves; and being compelled to fly before them, they took shelter in an alliance with the Spaniards of Asumpcion. They were induced to this by the example of certain hordes, who, having been severely defeated by Rafael de la Moneda, one of the most active and able Governors of Paraguay, had submitted, some thirty years before, to terms of peace of an extraordinary nature. They entered into a league, offensive and defensive, reserving as a privilege the right of making war upon any wild Indians, who were not allies of the Spaniards, nor in the habit of trading with them. They agreed to settle at Asumpcion, not under the direction of

VOL. III. 4 K

[page] 618

CHAP. XLII. 1768.

any Religioners, nor in subjection of any kind, but in perfect freedom, and in the full unrestricted use of their own customs. Moneda only insisted that they should cover their nakedness: his successors were neither so regardful of decency, nor so desirous of gradually leading them into civilized habits; and at the end of the eighteenth century, the Payagua men used to appear naked in the capital of Paraguay, and in all likelihood continue to do so to this day. Some of them paint the body to represent jacket, waistcoat, and breeches; and when thus bedaubed, they think themselves full dressed. In cold weather, or when they go into the houses of the Spaniards, they throw a sort of cloak over the shoulders, or put on a sleeveless shirt, so short that it scarcely suffices for even the pretence of decency.

Azara. 2. 12.

Their arts and customs.

Azara. 2. 124.

The example of this part of the nation was followed by their countrymen, who were now driven from Cuyaba and the Upper Paraguay; an event not more beneficial to the Brazilians, who were delivered from a formidable enemy, than to the Spaniards, who found them some of the most useful inhabitants of Asumpcion. They supply the city with fish, osiers, reeds, forage, canoes, oars, and coverlets, of their own manufacture, which is of the rudest kind, both in spinning and weaving. The spinner lays the cotton on her arm, and, sitting at her work, trundles the spindle on the naked thigh; a very little twisting is thought sufficient; and when the whole wool has been spun, the thread is turned a second time in the same manner. The weaving is equally slight: they cross the threads with their fingers, and make use of no instrument except a flat stick, wherewith they draw the work tight. They are said to be the most active and most muscular of all the Indians; but their appearance is truly savage. Their lip-jewel is a piece of wood, or a bright brass tube of the same form, long enough to touch the breast; and at one

[page] 619

CHAP. XLII.

Dobrizhoffer. 1. 128.

Jaboatam. Pream. § 24.

ear they wear the wing of a large bird, .. a fashion which has been found in North America also. Their bodies are painted, and they clot their hair with a purple juice, or with the blood of animals. The women consider pendant breasts as a beauty, and elongate them by art. Their manners are not less barbarous than their costume. It was the custom in some of their hordes that men offered themselves to be buried alive when they were weary of life, either because of age, decrepitude, illness, or the mere tedium of existence, .. a disease of mind, which sometimes prevailed among them as well as among the pampered members of corrupted society. A feast was made on such occasions. Amid their revelry and dancing, the suicide was gummed and feathered with great care. One of their huge jars had previously been fixed in the ground to be ready for him; in this he was placed: the mouth was covered with a heavy lid, and the earth was then closed over it. The custom of depositing the dead in such urns prevailed among many tribes in the interior. The Payaguas used to leave the head of the corpse above ground, and cover it with a large inverted vessel; but they who settled at Asumpcion adopted the Spanish mode of interment, as being more secure than their own from wild boars and armadillos, .. creatures which make great efforts to get at a dead body. This is almost the only instance in which they have departed from their own usages, to conform to those of their allies. They keep the graves clean, weed them, erect huts over them like their own habitations, and place many painted earthen vessels over those whom they love. The men never mourn, thinking perhaps that any manifestation of grief would imply a want of fortitude, which, with them, is the highest virtue. The women bewail their husbands and fathers for two or three days; they lament longer for one who has fallen in war, or for a famous man; and on those occasions they cry night and day about their

[page] 620

CHAP. XLII.

Azara. 2. 144.

Do. 2—137.

habitations. The belief of retribution after death, which is no always found among savage or barbarous nations, exists among them; and they think that cauldrons of fire are prepared for wicked Payaguas. The medical part of their jugglers' profession is attended with more danger to the practitioner than the patient; for if the patient dies, the whole horde fall upon the unfortunate Payé who had undertaken his case, and beat him to death.

Dobrizhoffer. 2. 274.

Ceremony which they practise at Asumpcion.

Azara. 2. 123.

A third division of this remarkable people made the same terms with the Spaniards in 1790, and joined their countrymen at Asumpcion; where their collective number, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was estimated at about one thousand. A Governor, who thought to obtain credit at Court by exhibiting proofs of his Catholic zeal, baptized some hundred and fifty of their children. But though the parents, by obvious and easy means, were persuaded to let them undergo a ceremony of which they no longer entertained any superstitious fear, the work of conversion proceeded no farther; and the most savage of all their customs is still publicly performed every year in the city of Asumpcion. The month of June is the time for this frightful ceremony, which is common to the Guaycurus, Guanas, and some other tribes. On the eve of the appointed day, the chiefs of every family paint their bodies, and dress their heads with feathers, in a fashion so fantastic that, Azara says, it is not possible to behold it without astonishment, or to describe it. They cover some earthen vessels with skins, and drum upon them with sticks smaller than a common quill: the low murmur-like sound is scarcely perceptible a few steps off. In the morning they drink all the spirits in their possession; and in that state of ferocious drunkenness which drams produce, one operates upon another, by pinching up the flesh of his arms, legs, and thighs, as largely as his fingers can command,

[page] 621

CHAP. XLII.

and running skewers through at inch distances, from the ancle to the fork, and from the wrist to the shoulder. This is a public spectacle; and thus far the Spanish women can bear to look on: but a mingled feeling of decency and horror makes them retire when the savages in like manner pierce their tongues and genitals. The Indian women behold it with composure; and the men who endure these torments, betray not the slightest emotion, either by look or gesture. The blood from the tongue is received in the hand, and they rub their bodies with it; but that from the genitals they let fall into a hole in the ground, dug with their fingers. The wounds are left to heal without any application: they are long in healing, and leave scars for life; and sometimes the men are disabled for so long a time, that their families suffer much for want of provisions. The only reason which they assign for this tremendous custom is, that they may show themselves to be brave men.

Azara. 2. 134—7.

Sugar, sweetmeats, and drams, are among the articles which they receive from the Spaniards, in payment or exchange. They have the merit of having imposed upon themselves some little restriction in the use of spirits. Women are not suffered to taste this pernicious liquor, unless they have procured it by their own labour; and youths are prohibited from it, so long as they are supported by their fathers. But their drinking bouts are of the most determined kind: they eat nothing during the whole day, and laugh at the Spanish drunkards for taking food between their cups; because, they say, it leaves no room for the drink. On the whole, however, their condition seems bettered by their strange association with the Spaniards: their ferocity is abated by mere disuse of war; their new wants afford a continual and ever-present motive for industry; and if their improvement proceeds slowly, it is for want of worthier examples. On their part there is no lack either of will or of capacity.

[page] 622

CHAP. XLII.

Azara. 2.

Their own language being so difficult that no man has ever acquired it unless from motives of religious zeal, many of them have learnt Guarani for the purpose of communicating with the Spaniards. It is the fault of the Spaniards that they are thus passing from one savage tongue to another, instead of acquiring an European language, which would put the means of religious and intellectual instruction within their ⁷ reach.

Foundation of Praça dos Prazeres.

1774.

Ravages of the Guaycurus.

The Guaycurus were not disheartened by the defection of their Payagua allies. The Portugueze of Cuyaba had recently founded a settlement, with a small fort, which they called Praça dos ⁸ Prazeres, upon the northern bank of the Igatimi, a river which enters the Parana not far above the Falls. There was a ford upon this river, called the Guaycurus' pass: .. that circumstance alone might have taught the colonists to be always upon their guard; but twice in one year the fierce horsemen came upon the unwary settlers, burnt the houses which were not within the protection of the fort, and massacred the inhabitants. The next year twenty of their, canoes ascended the Paraguay to a distance of four hundred miles from what is considered as their country, fell upon a fazenda, killed the owner, his son, and sixteen persons, and carried away some prisoners. The losses which this nation has inflicted upon the Portugueze are computed at more than four thousand lives, and three millions of cruzados. The Governor of Mato Grosso

7 Azara knew the Cacique of one of the hordes at Asumpcion who was at least one hundred and twenty years old, for he was a married man and a Chief when the Cathedral of that city was built. His sight was a little decayed, but only about a third of his hair was grey, and he was still a hale man. (2. 131.)

8 This is one of Our Lady's numerous invocations, taken from the Seven Good Joys, which are the subject of one of our own Christmas carols. The appellation from the Seven Sorrows is much more in vogue.

[page] 623

CHAP. XLII. 1776.

Nova Coimbra founded.

and Cuyaba, Luiz de Albuquerque de Mello Pereira e Caceres, thought the best means for repressing so terrible an enemy would be, to erect a fort that should command the navigation of the Upper Paraguay. He appointed Captain Mathias Ribeiro da Costa to this service, and sent him from Villa Bella to Cuyaba, whence with a sufficient force he was to descend the river of that name, and having crossed the shifting mouths which the Tacoary and the Embotateu form in that low alluvial country, fortify himself in a position which the old Sertanistas used to call the Fecho dos Morros. At this point, which is the southern boundary of the great annual inundation, the river passes through a range of mountains of considerable height, that meets it at right angles, and the stream is divided by an islet, or lofty rock, into two narrow channels. Here, on the eastern bank, the fortress ought to have been placed. But Ribeiro da Costa, unwisely listening to the advice of some of his people, who seem to have been casting wistful eyes toward Cuyaba, either as a place of succour or of refuge, was persuaded to stop forty leagues above this well selected spot: and he committed the farther error of establishing himself on the right bank, which the Spaniards claimed as being within their demarcation. The place thus chosen, in disobedience of orders, and named Nova Coimbra, is now the most southern possession of the Portugueze upon the Paraguay. There also the river is contracted between two ⁹ hills, as at the Fecho;

9 There is a remarkable and extensive cavern in these hills, containing many chambers, and a subterraneous waterfall. A description of it by Dr. Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira, is inserted in Almeida Serra's account of Mato Grosso. One of the chambers, it is said, is large enough to contain a thousand men; and the whole extent has not yet been explored. It is supposed that its waters communicate with the Paraguay by secret channels, because a live crocodile was found in them. Patriota. 2. 2. p. 59—62.

[page] 624

CHAP. XLII. 1776.

Almeida Serra. Patriota. 2. 5. 33. 2. 2. 59.

Hist. dos Indios Cavaileitos.

Do. 3. 5. 31. Cazal. 1. 263. 296.

Forte do Principe de Beira founded.

Cazal. 1. 307. Almeida Serra. Patriota. 2.6 56.

and in the dry season those hills command the passage. But they are not parts of a Cordillera, like the former, and during the greater part of the year canoes find free passage over the pantanaes on either side, without coming in sight of the fort. From the same cause, the surrounding country is neither fit for cultivation nor for pasture; in ordinary seasons it is flooded about seven months out of the twelve, and in the years 1791 and 1792, the waters never retired. Luiz de Albuquerque's orders were better observed in [founding the Forte do Principe de Beira, upon the Guapore,] about the same time. This new establishment was made about a mile above the site of Conceiçam, the former S. Rosa, where the hasty and ill-finished works were already falling to decay. In that part of the country the river annually rises to the prodigious height of thirty feet; and this is the only spot of ground between the Destacamento das Pedras and the mouth of the Mamore, which is perfectly secure from the inundation. But though in this respect the place is well chosen, the exhalations from the surrounding country after the waters have fallen produce their usual effect, and the garrison suffer from disease in consequence.

The Diamond Contract.

While the Brazilians were thus strengthening their borders, both against the Spaniards and the Savages, the means of making the diamonds more productive to the Treasury came again under the consideration of the Government. A person, apparently of northern extraction, by name Felisberto Caldeira Brant, had taken the third contract for these precious stones, under Gomes Freyre's administration. He was a great miner at Paracutu; and thinking to acquire wealth more rapidly by collecting diamonds than gold, he offered a capitation of two hundred and twenty milreis upon six hundred slaves, at a time when, according to his own statement, it was not expected that any person would have bidden more than one hundred and fifty, and when,

[page] 625

CHAP. XLII.

Diamond Demarcation in Goyaz.

Patriota. 3. 6. 9

Ruin of the Contractor.

in reality, he had no competitor: in addition to this he paid ten milreis per head, as a donative for the contract. An article in the bond stipulated that a third part of the slaves should be employed in the province of Goyaz, where diamonds had recently been discovered in the Rio Claro, and the Rio dos Piloens; and the surrounding country had therefore been reserved for the use of the Crown, under the same laws as the Forbidden District in the Serro Frio. The ground, however, was not found so productive as it had been estimated; and, after three years, the Contractor was permitted to withdraw his men, and employ them within the old limits. A suspicion prevails, that though the search for diamonds was not successful, a rich harvest of gold was collected during those years; for when, in 1801, the Goyaz demarcation was thrown open, it was found that the richest mines had been exhausted, either by Brant (who had possessed the likeliest opportunity) or by some other persons who had clandestinely wrought them. However that may have been, he represented in a petition to the Court, that he had been a great loser, owing to this clause in the covenant; and moreover, that in the last year of his contract, the coffer in which the diamonds were deposited had been broken open, stones to the weight of more than twenty-two oitavas stolen, and small ones put in the place of larger, so that the amount of the loss sustained could not be precisely ascertained, but it certainly exceeded two hundred thousand cruzados. The coffer was secured by six locks; two of the keys were in possession of the Intendant of the Forbidden District, in whose house it was kept; the Contractor himself had one; and three of the Intendant's officers had the others in their charge. In consequence of this alleged loss, Brant petitioned the Government to interfere that the bills which he drew upon Lisbon by that fleet might not be dishonoured, though the remittance of diamonds would not cover them; and that some indul-

VOL. III. 4 L

[page] 626

CHAP. XLII.

Peticam. MS. Pinheiro. Collection. T. 6. No. 4. Avizo. 20 Feb. 1753. MS. Patriota. 3. 4. 55. Cazal. 1. 399.

gence might be allowed him in paying his arrears to the Crown. Before the petition could reach Portugal an order was on the way to arrest him and seize all his effects. If the stones in his possession, and the rest of his property, should be sufficient to cover bills for nine hundred thousand cruzados, which he had already drawn upon the diamond account, and to pay his arrears to the Crown, then he was to be released; otherwise he was to be placed in close custody at the Rio, and not allowed to communicate with any person. The result was that Felisberto, and Joaquim Caldeira Brant, were sent prisoners to Lisbon, and died there in the common jail. They were suspected, perhaps, of having committed the robbery themselves; but there was no trial: the proceedings against them were not published, and nothing more is known in Brazil, than that these men came to their lamentable end for certain offences which their great power and wealth had emboldened them to commit.

Pombal's Regulations for the Forbidden District.

Cazal. 1. 399.

Regimento. 2 Aug. 1771. MS.

After the ruin of these Poderosos, the contract was taken by Joam Fernandes de Oliveira, who had shared with Francisco Ferreira da Sylva in the first contract, when that system was introduced, and continued to hold it after this resumption till the end of the year 1771, when a new system was substituted, and new laws for the Forbidden District promulgated by Pombal. The causes for this change were stated in the preamble to be, the certain knowledge of the intolerable abuses which were practised, the disorderly manner in which the ground was worked and the streams choaked, and the number of slaves who were introduced under fraudulent pretences, for the purpose of extracting diamonds. For the prevention of such abuses it was determined that the diamonds should thenceforward be worked upon account of the Crown, under the superintendance of Pombal, as head of the Treasury, of three Directors in Lisbon, and three Administrators in the Comarca of Serro Frio: these latter to be nominated by

[page] 627

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 1.

§ 2.

§ 3.

§ 4.

the Directors at Lisbon, to hold their office as long as they demeaned themselves well, and to be graduated in rank and appointments, .. the second and third succeeding by seniority to the first. They were to reside in the Arrayal of Tejuco, or in any other part of the Forbidden District which might be more convenient, and to regulate the whole of this important service. Every year they were, with the advice and approbation of the Intendant General of the Demarcation, (who was a Dezembargador) to determine what places should be wrought that year, what in the dry season, and what in the time of the waters, reserving the two Rios Pardos, and the streams which fell into them, which had always been reserved from the Contractors, as ground that might be resorted to when the mines now in use should no longer defray the expence of working them. Their choice was to be regulated by the quantity of stones which would be required for Lisbon in that year, with relation also to the expences of the extraction, and to the sum of three hundred and sixty thousand cruzados, which the Government expected to be paid into the Treasury regularly, as in the time of the Contractors. Positive instructions were given that every stream should be worked upwards, as far as those instructions could be observed; and if the Administrators failed to conform to the law in this point, the Intendant was charged to report their transgressions, that the King might give orders for punishing them as they deserved.

§ 5.

The Intendant should immediately see that all the slaves in the Forbidden District were matriculated, and their names, ages, and descriptions entered, under the names of the respective owners: and when a slave was transferred from one person to another, the new owner was to make the transfer known to the Intendant, and have it registered, on pain of the same punishment as if he had introduced a slave clandestinely. No new slave might be admitted into the district without a written license

[page] 628

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 6.

§ 8—9.

§ 10.

from the Intendant, nor might such licenses be granted unless the cause was strictly just and necessary; and every new entry must immediately be registered. If any unmatriculated slave were discovered, the owner should not only pay the appointed mulct to the informer, but, for the first offence, be condemned to the gallies irremissibly for three years, and for the second, for ten; and for ten in the first instance if the slave had been detected with diamonds upon him, or in the act of working for them, or even with the tools in his possession. All persons in the Comarca of Serro Frio and the Forbidden District, who possessed houses and plantations, held offices, or carried on business of any kind, were required to present themselves before the Intendant within fifteen days after the promulgation of these regulations; and after a rigorous examination they were to receive billets of license, signed by the Intendant, and their names and respective employments to be registered. Those who failed in giving a satisfactory account of themselves were, in fifteen days after notice had been given them, to leave the district, on pain of imprisonment at Rio for six months; and if they returned privately, they should be degraded to Angola for as many years. Persons who desired to settle at Tejuco, or any other Arrayal near the workings, were to be examined touching their motives, their means of living, and the business which they designed to carry on: and if they failed in showing a just cause why they should be admitted, they were forthwith to be sent out of the district as suspicious persons, if they were not found deserving of severer punishment.

It was known that traders and contrabandists introduced themselves into the Arrayaes; sometimes with the pretext of passing through; sometimes under pretence of collecting debts, either for themselves or others; sometimes as travelling slave-dealers, like those who frequented Bahia and the Rio once or

[page] 629

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 11.

§ 13.

§ 14.

§ 15.

twice a year. With regard to persons of the first description, if they tarried more than twenty-four hours in any place, they were to be apprehended by the local Magistrates, carried before the Intendant, and, at their own expense, sent to the Rio, there to be imprisoned six months. They who came to receive payment, were to present themselves before the Intendant, Administrator, and Fiscal, and produce their documents, state the amount of the debts, explain for what those debts were due, and show what means the debtors had, or had not, for discharging them. If all were satisfactory, licenses should be granted them to pursue their business; otherwise they must depart within three days. The travelling slave-dealers were not to be admitted; such as were in the district should immediately be expelled, together with their slaves; and proclamation made by public edicts, that if they returned, their slaves and property should be confiscated, and they themselves degraded for ten years to Angola. And, as experience had shown that persons, when expelled from the Forbidden District, often evaded the laws, by fixing themselves so near their former place of abode that they were as mischievous as before; for the future, all such persons were to be banished from the whole Comarca of Serro Frio, in cases where it might not be thought necessary to send them to a greater distance. It had happened, that some who were arrested and sentenced to expulsion, had chosen to remain in prison rather than sign the proceedings against themselves; and in the prison itself, had carried on their contraband practices upon a greater scale than when they were at large. Henceforth, if they did not sign the proceedings at once, they should be sent instantly to the Rio, and embarked for Angola, to serve there for ten years. The Intendant and the Administrators must be the most competent judges in all such cases, because they were on the spot, and possessed the best means of information; their decisions there-

[page] 630

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 16.

§ 17.

fore were to be final, and without any appeal whatever, except to the Sovereign himself.

§ 18.

Of the slaves who were to be purchased from the Contractors on the Treasury's account, those alone who lay under no suspicion of having engaged in the clandestine extraction of diamonds, might be employed; the others must be sold out of the district. No others were to be bought; but such as might be necessary now or in future were to be hired for those months in which their services were wanted, and dismissed as soon as they were no longer needed. The Administrators were to determine the number that would be required in the dry season, and in the time of waters, as might be most suitable to the interests of the Treasury, and not according to the interests of individuals, who had hitherto hired out their Negroes to the Contractors, without regulation or limit. The Negroes thus hired were all to be able-bodied; the most vigilant watch must be kept over them, the utmost precaution observed, and the strictest search repeatedly made. If weights were found in their possession, or any other indications of traffic, they were to be condemned to the galleys, for a term proportioned to the suspicion against them. The commonest agents in smuggling diamonds were Negresses, under the character of runaways. All such as were found in company with the slaves should be remitted to their owners, who were to pay the fine for taking them; and, within a given time, sell them out of the district. Free Negresses were also to be expelled; but if the women proved to be slaves, whom their owners let out to this way of life, the owners then were to be banished. The Intendant and Administrators, in hiring slaves, were first to prefer those of the most experience and ability, and of the best repute for integrity; secondly, those belonging to persons in the service of the Administration, more or fewer, according to the zeal and desert of the owners; thirdly, those

[page] 631

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 19.

§ 20.

who belonged to the other inhabitants of the Forbidden District, according to the number employed by them in their respective occupations. But if persons had acquired a large stock of slaves, merely with a view of hiring them out for the extraction, then no reference was to be had to their numbers, .. this practice being an abuse which must be entirely abolished. Owners might not be suffered to raise disputes, by pretending that their slaves ought to have been preferred; they might transmit such complaints to the Board at Lisbon, if they thought good: the King would then institute an inquiry, and give orders either for redressing the injustice, or punishing the complainant if it should be found that he had acted from overweening covetousness, or from a seditious temper. No persons, not resident within the Forbidden District themselves, might keep slaves there under the name of others, to be let out to the Administration. If this practice were detected, the owner should pay the fine for every Negro that was discovered, and be sent to the galleys for three years; for six, upon a second offence; ten, upon the third.

§ 21.

§ 22—23.

§ 24.

All the subaltern appointments of the Administration were to be made at Lisbon; and persons quitting their employment, or dismissed from it, were immediately to remove, not from the Forbidden District alone, but from the whole Comarca. The Administrators were forbidden to purchase diamonds which had been clandestinely extracted, though the Contractors had done so, in order that the sale of these stones might not interfere with theirs; and all persons detected in buying or selling diamonds, or anyways assisting in the contraband extraction, were to be irremissibly punished according to the law ¹⁰, and the diamonds

10 The Regimento refers here to an Alvara of Aug. 11, 1753. I have not met with this Alvara, nor with any account of it; but in an official summary of the Laws of the Mines, in my possession, an Alvara of Aug. 30, 1752, is noticed, as wanting in the collection; and from the manner in which it is noticed, it appears to relate to this subject. Numerals are so liable to be mistaken in transcription, that I have very little doubt the same law is meant.

[page] 632

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 25.

confiscated. Under the former system, licenses had been granted for gold workings within the diamond district, and this had opened a way for great abuses; strangers obtained ingress upon this pretext; slaves were introduced; provisions had been raised to an exorbitant price; streams were choaked, and opportunities afforded for the illicit trade in stones, which had been carried on to a great extent. A stop must be put to these abuses. The grants which the late Governor, Gomes Freyre, had made in the Morro de Tejuco, the Rio S. Francisco, and the Bicas, were confirmed, but all others were revoked; nor might any new license be granted, without the King's special permission.

§ 27.

§ 28.

§ 29.

The detachment of dragoons in the Comarca of Serro Frio were to be exclusively employed in preventing the smuggling of diamonds. The forty wood-soldiers (soldados do mato), called pedestres, who had been in the service of the Contractors, were to be kept up under the new system; and the Administrators might enlist men in this corps, or discharge them, without reference to any military superiors. If the Administrators were informed that any private person had diamonds in his possession, they were to call upon the Intendant to give orders for the arrest and seizure, either by the soldiers of the Capitam Mor and the pedestres, or in any way which he might deem best: and all the civil and military authorities were required to lend their assistance, on pain of suspension from their posts. Should the dragoons, or the pedestres, think it necessary to seize a suspected person, or search a house, without waiting to obtain an order,

[page] 633

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 30.

§ 31.

lest the object of their search should be frustrated, they were authorized so to do; and were immediately to carry the seizure and the culprit before the Intendant: and if they failed in their search, they were to explain the grounds of suspicion upon which they had proceeded, that they might be dismissed the service, and chastised according to the degree of their criminality, should it prove that they had acted from personal resentment, or any other bad motive. Hitherto it had been the practice to draw up a process of every secret information; it was now directed that the informer should write down the information which he laid, but without the insertion of his own name; that he should personally present this written denunciation to the Intendant, or to one of the Administrators; and that the person to whom it was presented should sign the paper, and date the day of its presentation. The informer, either himself or by his agent, might appeal to this paper, and by virtue thereof obtain his share of the seizure. The reward ¹¹ was to be paid without delay to the informer, and to the other persons concerned, according to their respective shares.

§ 32.

Shops, store-houses, vendas, and tabernas, had been multiplied at Tejuco, Villa do Principe, and other places within the Forbidden District, to an excessive number, serving in many cases as a cover for the persons concerned in them, to carry on the contraband trade in diamonds: therefore such places were to be reduced to the smallest number which could be deemed suffi-

11 The Regimento determines the scale of value by which the diamonds were to be rated on such occasions. Stones, not exceeding eighteen grains in weight (that is, four and a half carats), were estimated at four milreis each. From that size to an oitava (seventeen and a half carats), eight milreis; and all stones above an oitava, at six milreis per carat. In case of any considerable flaw, the Administrators were to determine the abatement of value.

VOL. III. 4 M

[page] 634

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 33.

§ 34.

§ 35.

§ 36.

cient for the use of the country, and none of the owners, of whom there was any suspicion, suffered to remain. In future, no new establishments of this kind might be opened within the district, or a circuit of six leagues round it, on pain of the penalties denounced against contrabandists. Cultivators and breeders might sell their produce in their own houses, with a license from the Intendant; but they might not purchase such produce for the purpose of selling it again. Nor might the Administrators, and other persons in office, nor the Clergy, engage in shops or houses of trade, on pain of banishment. To diminish the injury which the owners of the shops thus to be shut up must unavoidably sustain, their stock was to be taken at a fair appraisement by those who were allowed still to carry on their business. If they were not satisfied with the price fixed, they might remove their property. The remaining traders were thenceforward to receive assortments of goods from merchants settled at the Rio, Bahia, or any other of the sea ports; and private individuals, if they pleased, might do the same. This would put a stop to the trading Commissaries and Pedlars, who now wandered over the district, but who were from this time forward to be arrested, and their goods confiscated, a third part being given as a reward to the informer.

§ 38.

§ 37.

No person of any state, quality, or condition, might enter the Forbidden District, without previously transmitting a petition to the Intendant, accompanied with a certificate from the local authorities of the place which he was about to leave, and stating the business upon which he was going, and the place to which he was bound. The Intendant and the Administrators should then give or withhold permission, as might to them seem best; fix the term of his stay; and, upon just cause, grant a prolongation of that term, but for once only. All persons, whether Whites, Mulattos, or free Negroes, who had no lawful calling,

[page] 635

CHAP XLII 1771

known establishment, or ostensible means of life, were consequently to be suspected of living by some secret practices, and therefore to be expelled. Should they return, they were to be imprisoned for six months at the Rio or Bahia, at their own cost, and pay a reward of fifty oitavas to the persons who informed against them. For the second offence, the fine was to be doubled, and the offender transported to Angola for ten years.

§ 40.

§ 41.

If the Administrators had well-grounded indications that any person, of any state, calling, or condition whatsoever, was concerned, directly or indirectly; in smuggling diamonds, they were to communicate their suspicion to the Intendant, and point out the individuals through whom a knowledge of the fact might be obtained. A secret inquiry was then to be instituted; and if two witnesses gave concurrent evidence of the presumption of the crime, (such is the language of this law!) the suspected person was immediately to be expelled from the Comarca, without any power of appealing from the sentence. The proceedings upon an inquiry of this kind, were to be preserved by the Notary with the most inviolable secrecy, on pain of deprivation of his office, and the punishment due to those who prevaricate in situations of public trust. The King had been informed, to his displeasure, that there were, within the Forbidden District, men audacious enough, both publicly and privately, to menace with death and other outrages, those who impeded their illicit interests, either by not hiring from them slaves whose services were not needed, or not so many as they wished to let out; or for aiding in the discovery of the clandestine extraction, and the expulsion of traders and vagabonds. Such men, being unworthy to stile themselves the King's vassals, ought, as common enemies of the good of their country and of the public tranquillity, which are both dependant upon the exact observance of the laws, to be entirely removed from the King's dominions, and punished with

[page] 636

CHAP. XLII. 1771.

§ 42.

§ 54.

the severity which was necessary for putting an end to the scandal resulting from this unheard-of insolence. The Intendant was directed to institute an inquiry against those, who, after the promulgation of these laws, should render themselves guilty of this crime. The inquiry was to be always open, without limitation of time; neither was any determinate number of witnesses to be required. And when by these, or any other legitimate means, it should appear by proof of natural law, that there were persons guilty of this enormous crime, they were to be arrested, cast into prison, and summarily sentenced by the Board of Justice, the Governor presiding thereat. These Regulations for the Forbidden District were thenceforth to be observed, notwithstanding any existing laws which they might contravene; the King, of his own proper motion, certain knowledge, royal, plenary and supreme power, abrogating all such laws, so far as they might be contrary to what was now determined.

Regimento do Fiscal dos Diamantes, 23 May, 1772. MS.

§ 1.

§ 2.

§ 6.

Shortly afterwards, a Fiscal was appointed to assist the Intendant. It was required that he should be a jurist; his salary was fixed at two contos, without any other emoluments either from the Treasury or from individuals; he was to perform the same duties as a Procurador of the Treasury; to be present at all the resolutions of the Intendant and Administrators: and he was charged, in deciding causes, to avoid, as much as possible, all technical formalities and long legal processes, which served rather to intimidate the innocent, and introduce intrigues, disorders, and disquietude, than to any good end. He and the Intendant and Administrators were admonished not to disagree. If upon any unexpected case it should happen that they differed in judgement, they who were in the minority might deliver their opinion, in writing, freely, but with moderation; but they might not renew the old abuses of protests and counter-protests, which never answered any other purpose than to disturb the public tranquil-

[page] 637

CHAP. XLII. 1772.

lity, and that good faith and concord which it was so desirable to preserve. For the same reason that such things were forbidden, it was now ordered, that no person, who had taken a Bachelor's degree in law, should reside within the Forbidden District, on pain of six months close imprisonment at the Rio, if he were discovered. Natives of the district, who had graduated in the profession, were exempt from the law of exclusion; but only on condition, that they did not practise their calling; for in that case, they made themselves liable to it.

§ 10.

These regulations for the Forbidden District of the Diamonds bear the stamp of Pombal's peculiar character: they are in the spirit of Oriental, rather than of European legislation. The Minister had one single object in view; and to that object every thing was sacrificed without scruple, without demur, and perhaps without consideration. Established laws were set aside; the rights of individuals were violated; inevitable ruin was brought upon many of the inhabitants, great inconvenience upon the whole population; and all were deprived of all security, either for their property or their persons. And with a curious inconsistency, which always is found in tyrannical legislation, while the offence was presumed to be so general, and the temptation to it so strong, as to render necessary these violent measures, such powers were vested in the members of the Administration, and those in their employ, as if the mere possession of office implied in the holder consummate wisdom and integrity, .. nothing short of which could prevent them from abusing powers so unlimited, and instructions so dangerous.

Effect of these Laws.

Although the appointments were made at Lisbon, yet as local knowledge and experience were indispensable in the three Administrators, these persons were necessarily chosen from the inhabitants of the district, and from the class of miners. But the Fiscal and the Intendant being of a very different breeding and

[page] 638

CHAP. XLII. 1772.

Joze Vieira Couto. MS.

rank in life, despised such colleagues, for their comparative ignorance and the coarseness of their manners, and took upon themselves the whole management df affairs, regarding the Administrators as mere overseers and agents in their employ. This however was no evil, .. the evil lay in the extent and nature of the power which had been delegated; and it made little difference whether that tremendous authority were exercised by five persons, or by two. Were such power, says Joze Vieira Couto, confided to a Tribunal in Lisbon, close beside the King's Palace, even there there would be danger of its abuse: what then is to be looked for when such wide tracts of sea and land intervene between the subject and the Sovereign! Accordingly he tells us, that stagnation of trade, and depopulation, have been the consequences of such a system: that the merchants of the Rio, who are liberal in their dealings with other Comarcas, will not hear the very name of the Serro Frio, because they know that any person whom they might trust is liable, however innocent, to be seized and ruined at any hour: that no inhabitant of this unhappy district commences any undertaking without providing in his own mind how to dispose of it, and how to render his property moveable, and whither to betake himself, if his turn should come: and that Tejuco, which was once the most flourishing town in Minas Geraes, resembles under this arbitrary jurisdiction one of the wretched wards of Constantinople. There is probably no other place in Brazil where so large a proportion of the people are dependant upon charity. Enormous frauds had certainly been practised under the contract: the same writer who has thus forcibly described the ruinous effects of the existing system, affirms, that when the Contractors paid the capitation for six hundred slaves they employed more than ten times that number. But the change of system has not prevented the illicit extraction: it has only transferred the trade,

[page] 639

CHAP. XLII.

and thrown that large share which was formerly possessed by the Contractors, into the hands of private contrabandists. The Forbidden District of the Diamonds, which carries a sort of romantic interest in its name, is indeed a remarkable spot upon the globe, and for the statesman as well as the mineralogist: in no other place has it ever been the main object of the Government to enforce an arbitrary law, unconnected with any moral sanction; and no where has the law ever been counteracted by such great temptations for evading it.

Manner of working the Diamond mines.

The strictest precautions are employed to prevent stones from being stolen in the regular workings. The course of one of the diamond streams having been in part diverted from its bed, the cascalho is dug out, and carried to a convenient place for washing. The Negroes used to bear it in troughs upon their heads: it is now removed in some places by means of inclined planes, rail ways, and water-wheels; but large timber must be brought from the distance of an hundred miles. Workmen for constructing such machines are more difficultly to be procured than the materials; and in the Serro Frio, as in more advanced and more enlightened countries, a feeling prevails among the common people, that any invention which lessens the demand for manual labour, is injurious to their interests. A shed is erected from twenty to thirty yards long, and about half as wide; along the middle of the area, a current of water is conveyed through a canal covered with strong planks; on these planks the cascalho is laid, two or three feet thick, and over the cascalho three overseers are seated at equal distances, whip in hand, upon high stools, with a resting place for the feet; but neither arms nor backs to the seat are permitted, lest an easier posture might induce drowsiness, and thus their vigilance might be relaxed. The other part of the area is floored with planks with a slight declination from the canal, extending the whole length of the shed, and partitioned

[page] 640

CHAP. XLII.

Mawes' Travels.

by cross planks into some twenty compartments or troughs, which are called canoes, .. an old term adopted from the first gold washings. Each of these troughs communicates at the upper end with the covered canal, by an opening about an inch in width; and from that opening, by means of a small piece of tenacious clay, the water is admitted, directed, or stopt at will. At the other end the water is carried off by a channel. A Negro works in every trough: they are not naked, nor is there any regulation concerning their dress, which generally consists of a waistcoat and drawers. He begins by raking into his trough about half a hundred weight of the cascalho with a short handled crooked kind of rake, made for the purpose; then lets the water in, and rakes the mass backward and forward till the earthy parts are washed away. The gravel is then raked up to the end of the trough, and when the water flows from it quite clear, the business of separation begins; the larger pebbles are thrown away first, then the smaller, and the remaining rubbish is carefully examined for diamonds. The man who finds one falls back, stands upright, claps his hands, then extends them, and holds out the diamond between his finger and thumb: an overseer takes it and puts it in a bowl suspended from the middle of the shed, and half full of water; and at the end of the day's work all the diamonds which have been found in the day are weighed and registered. The men work from sunrise till sunset, with intervals of half an hour for breakfast, and two hours at noon; and they rest four or five times during the day, and are refreshed, .. not with fermented or spirituous liquors, but with snuff. While they wash the cascalho they are obliged to place their feet on the sides of the trough, and to stoop even more than when they are examining the rubbish. The work is very hard; the slaves, as may be supposed, are not under the mildest treatment, and their allowance is less liberal than it ought, and might be

[page] 641

CHAP. XLII.

expected to be in a Government establishment. They are formed into gangs of two hundred, with a Priest and a Surgeon to each, an Administrator, and other inferior officers.

Mawe. 257

Hard however as this labour is, it has attractions both for the slaves themselves and the persons by whom they are let out, which can be found in no other employment. The slave who finds a stone weighing an oitava (seventeen carats and a half) obtains his liberty. He is immediately crowned with flowers, and carried in procession to the Administrator, who redeems him from his owner, clothes him anew, and admits him to work on his own account. Two or three such prizes in the lottery generally turn up in the year, and thus some little compensation is made to humanity for the complicated evils with which this district is afflicted. Proportionate rewards are given for valuable stones below this standard: it is always therefore a hopeful, and for that reason, a willing work. The motives which make the slave owners solicitous to have their Negroes engaged in the service of the Administration are not equally legitimate. The daily wages which they receive for them are three vinteins of gold; but this cannot be the sole object, considering the little value of money in that country, the great value of slaves, and the wear and tear which they undergo in such severe labour. To prevent the Negroes from putting stones aside in their troughs for the purpose of secreting them, the overseers many times in the day make them change from one trough to another, not in any regular rotation, but as they direct, so that there is little possibility of collusion: and if one of them be suspected of swallowing a stone, he is placed in close confinement till the fact can be ascertained. Nevertheless, these precautions cannot always be effectual; and it is affirmed, upon the most probable ground of calculation, that diamonds from this district to the value of two millions sterling, have found their way to Europe through secret

VOL. III. 4 N

[page] 642

CHAP. XLII.

Effect of the system.

Noticias. MS.

channels. There seems however reason to suppose, that a considerable part, perhaps the greater, of these smuggled stones, has been discovered by prowling adventurers in places which are not known to the Administrators as diamond ground, or which they have not begun to work, or in the wild parts of the adjoining country. But it is certain, that the inhabitants are not deterred from dealing clandestinely in these fatal jewels, by the severity of the laws, the perpetual danger of detection, and the certain ruin which follows it. Laws will be always inefficient if they have no foundation in natural justice; but when they appear to violate it, they then provoke disobedience. When an adventurer exploring a savage tract of country picks up a jewel which might otherwise have lain there unnoticed to the end of the world, as it had done from the beginning, and which is of such value as to secure to him, if he can dispose of it, an ample provision for the rest of his life, and a fair establishment for his children, no possible enactment can make that man feel conscious of committing a crime in appropriating to himself the treasure which fortune has bestowed upon him. But even in those cases where the laws have the moral sanction to aid them, their united influence has not been powerful enough to countervail the strong temptation which the riches of the Forbidden District offer. The value of the diamonds remitted to the Court in the most productive ¹² year, amounted to about one hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling: the net average produce certainly falls short of half that sum. But better had these diamonds have lain in the beds of the mountain streams, or still been trodden under foot by the savages; and better had the Portugueze Government have

12 That of 1778, which produced 65,753 carats, almost double the average amount upon a term of nineteen years, beginning with 1772.

[page] 643

CHAP. XLII.

raised that portion of revenue by any other means, or have gone without it; than that a system should have been established which begins and ends in evil, .. which has produced cruelty and injustice in the Government, fraud, falsehood, and prevarication in the people, treachery and suspicion, guilt, misery, and ruin. More wealth has been drawn from the bed of the Gectinhonha, than from any other river in the world, .. but how much more real good has been derived from the smallest rill which the Savoyard or the Piemontese directs to irrigate his fields!

Conde de Azambuja Viceroy. 1767.

Marquez de Lavradio Viceroy. 1770.

Inhospitable treatment of ships in distress.

Walpole Papers. MSS.

Academy of Natural History instituted.

The Conde da Cunha was succeeded as Viceroy by D. Antonio Rolim de Moura, formerly Lord and now Count of Azambuja, the same person who had lately been Governor of Mato Grosso, and defended Fort Conceiçam against the Spaniards. The Marquez de Lavradio, D. Luiz de Almeida, succeeded him. This Viceroy was the first who enforced an inhospitable law against the ships of allied powers in distress, by which, instead of being allowed to obtain money for their repairs and necessary expences by bills of exchange, they were compelled to deposit a part of their cargo adequate to the demands upon them and the incident expences, that it might be sent to Lisbon, there to be sold, paying duty and charges, and the net produce remitted to Brazil to liquidate the debt; after which the surplus, if there was any, was to be reserved till the owner should reclaim it. The Marquez enforced this obsolete and barbarous law in its full rigour. Under his viceroyalty and patronage an Academy of Sciences and Natural History was instituted at the Rio, by the suggestion of his physician, Dr. Jozé Henriquez Ferreira. At one of their first meetings, an army-surgeon, by name Mauricio da Costa, related, that when he was in the expedition against the Seven Reductions, a Spaniard who had been in Mexico pointed out to him the cochineal in the province of Rio Grande, upon several varieties of the cactus. In consequence of this commu-

[page] 644

CAHP. XLII. 1770.

See vol. 2. p. 649.

Patriota. 3. 1. p. 3—13.

nication, a specimen of the true cochineal from Rio Grande was shortly afterwards transmitted by the Viceroy to Lisbon. It appeared that the boys in that province had discovered the property of the insect, and extracted from it a die, which they used as paint. Soon afterwards, it was found in the island of S. Catharina; and plants, with the insects, were brought from thence to the Botanic Garden of the Academy. Search also being made, it was found in the vicinity of Bahia; and it had previously been known that it existed in Para. The Governor of S. Catharina was instructed to encourage the cultivation of this valuable article. The Marquez likewise sent specimens to the Court of a good silk, produced by a native caterpillar, which fed upon the leaves of the tataiba. His views appear to have been scientific and liberal: but even if they had been more steadily encouraged by the Government, the Brazilians were not ripe for them; and his attention was distracted ere long by cares of a very different kind.

The Spaniards send an Armament against Brazil.

D. Joseph Moniñno, better known by his subsequent title, as Count Florida Blanca, had recently been made Minister in Spain. His elevation was great and sudden, and in opposition to a powerful party: but the young Minister was a man of ability and enterprizing spirit; and the pending disputes with Portugal, concerning the limits of Brazil, afforded him the opportunity which he desired, of distinguishing his administration by some sounding exploit. The time was favourable: for Great Britain, engaged in an unhappy contest with her own colonies, was not able to interfere for the protection of her ally, as otherwise she would have done. Zeballos, whose animosity against the Portugueze had been recently exasperated by their recovery of Rio Grande, was at Court to instigate and advise him. A force of nine thousand men was prepared, with twelve ships of war, and a large fleet of transports, more than one hundred sail.

[page] 645

CHAP. XLII. 1776.

1777.

The Marques de Casa-Tilly had the maritime command of the expedition. Zeballos went out with superior powers, being appointed Viceroy of La Plata; for, in order to exempt him from that dependence upon the Government at Lima, which had produced such intolerable delay and inconvenience both to public and private affairs at Buenos Ayres, that province was now made a Viceroyalty, and its authority extended over all the country which was within the jurisdiction of the Audience of Charcas. Zeballos and Casa-Tilly differed concerning the direction of this formidable force: they disputed upon it when they began their voyage in November; and in February, when they were off the coast of Brazil, the dispute was renewed at the moment when it was necessary that a final resolution should be taken. Casa-Tilly was for attacking Colonia; the Viceroy proposed to begin with the island of S. Catharina. The Admiral insisted upon the difficulties of such an attempt; and the Council of War inclining to that opinion which seemed to hazard least (the error to which such Councils naturally incline), supported his opinion. A man less firm in his purposes than Zeballos, would have yielded to such opposition, which threw upon him the whole responsibility in case of failure. He replied, that the difficulties of his intended plan, in truth, were very great: but it was because great difficulties were apprehended that the King had sent troops; and because they were so great, that such troops, and so numerous, had been selected for the service. Could Colonia be regarded as an adequate object for such an armament, .. the largest that Spain had ever sent ¹³ to America? He had taken

13 Larger armaments had been sent for the recovery of Bahia from the Dutch, and during the Dutch war. But those armaments might be considered as belonging rather to Portugal than Spain; or Zeballos might not have recollected them.

[page] 646

CHAP. XLII. 1777.

Funes. 3. 199. 204.

Colonia once with a handful of men, and would, by God's blessing, take it once more as easily. His mind was resolved, and upon the best grounds. There was no port in the Plata capable of sheltering so large a fleet; what then was to be done, but to seek for one elsewhere which could, and to win it by force of arms? This he would attempt, and this he expected to do: then he would immediately discharge the greater part of the transports; and thus evince that the promptest and most vigorous measures are the most economical. For these reasons, he would begin with S. Catharina. It was now the middle of February: by the beginning of March he would be in possession of the whole island; in the course of April he would do his utmost to settle the business of Rio Grande; and by the beginning of May, he thought, with God's favour, to present himself before Colonia; and thus complete in one campaign, what would not be accomplished in four, nor perhaps ever, if the opposite opinion were followed, and they were to begin at the wrong end. Zeballos did not rely upon the force of his reasonings alone;.. he asserted his authority, and ordered the Admiral to make sail for S. Catharina.

Island of S. Catharina.

The island of S. Catharina is about thirty-six miles long; and in breadth from four to ten. The channel, which separates it from the main land, is divided by a strait into two ports, which are nearly of equal length. The strait is not more than two hundred fathoms across: the northern port is three leagues wide, with depth for the largest ships, and is one of the best harbours in South America. Yrala had perceived the importance of this position, and sent a Spaniard to dwell there with the Carijos, and persuade them to raise provisions for the supply of Spanish ships. He did not possess the means of colonizing it; and from his time to that of Zeballos, no man of equal enterprize, or equal foresight, had been at the head of affairs in Paraguay or La

See vol. 1. 177.

[page] 647

CHAP. XLII. 1777.

1654.

p. 131.

Plata. But in his days, so little were his countrymen aware of the value of this island, that D. Hernando de Trijo began a settlement in port S. Francisco, between Cananea and S. Catharina, instead of choosing a spot so infinitely more desirable in every way. Charles V. approved of this establishment, as being very advantageous for the communication with Peru: but in the course of two years, the settlers, after suffering greatly for want, forsook the place, and made their way by land to Asumpcion. The Carijos, or Carios, as they are sometimes called, continued therefore to possess it ¹⁴ for a century longer; and its exceeding fertility was regarded as one of the causes which prevented them from putting themselves under the care of the Jesuits: their wants were abundantly supplied; and the bait, which allured less industrious tribes, who roamed over a hungry country, had no attractions for them. In the course of that century, the Portugueze discovered the advantages of the spot, and made several attempts to establish themselves there; but all without success. They however considered the whole coast to the Plata, as belonging to their half of the New World; and Joam IV. made a grant of this island to Francisco Dias Velho. The Donatory began to colonize it; but at the very commencement of his undertaking, he was attacked and killed by an English pirate; and this put an end to the attempt. At length the Government transported families from the Azores, from whence Brazil has derived so many of its best colonists. This was probably in consequence of their apprehension, during the negociations at Utrecht, that the English were designing to form a settlement upon some part of this unappropriated country; .. either here, it

14 They called the island Juru-mirim, which Vasconcellos interprets, the Little Mouth, I know not from what fancied similitude; but this is plainly the word, which Hans Stade writes, Schirmirein. (vol. 1. 176.)

[page] 648

CHAP XLII. 1777.

was conjectured, or at Rio Grande. From time to time they continued to send out adventurers from these prolific islands; and the greater part of the present inhabitants are descended from that good stock.

Langsdorff. Reise um die Welt. 1. 29.

Cazal. 1. 195. 181. 192.

Funes. 1. 152.

Vasconcellos. Vida de Almeida. 4. 9. § 1.

Ibañez. 2. 273.

S. Catharina vilely surrendered.

Zeballos had touched at this island ¹⁵ when he first went out to supersede Andoanegui: then it was in so poor a state of defence, that one of the Spanish officers told the Portugueze Governor his fortifications were good for nothing, and might be knocked to pieces by pistol shot. It had been greatly strengthened since that time: but when the Spaniards represent it as defended by forts and castles, which were mounted with more than two hundred pieces of artillery of all calibres; garrisoned by four thousand regular troops, besides the militia of the island, and the force which might be called from the neighbouring main land; and protected by twelve ships of war, .. the exaggeration is too gross to impose, even for a moment, upon any person acquainted with the circumstances either of Portugal or Brazil. The enemy landed in the Enseada das Canavieiras, about nine miles from the town of N. Senhora do Desterro, the capital both of the island and the province. No resistance was made: every fort and every battery was abandoned without firing a gun, and without spiking one. The Governor, Antonio Carlos Furtado de Mendoça, was frightened at the appearance of the enemy, and his panic ¹⁶ infected some of his officers, and rendered the

15 Ibañez supposes that Zeballos touched there for the purpose of preparing his plans, in concert with the Jesuits and Portugueze, for frustrating the Treaty of Limits. And he represents the visit as a piece of policy, consistent with the character of Zeballos. So it appears to have been; but of a very different policy from what this miserable slanderer supposed.

16 Funes, who hates the Portugueze, and therefore is generally unjust towards them, would not omit this opportunity of stigmatizing the nation for the cowardice of this Governor and his officers. He says, debe confesarse, que a los Portugueses nada les habia quedado de su antigua gloria, sino los instrumentos de sus vicios. Jamas su cobardia se dexò ver con un sambenito mas ignominioso. (p. 206.) Whether the Governor was punished I know not, but his conduct is spoken of by his countrymen with the indignation which it deserves. Pombal condemned it in the strongest language, .. and tam valerozo era, is the contemptuous expression of Cazal.

[page] 649

CHAP. XLII. 1777.

courage of others unavailing. He fled to the main land, and there, where he would have been secure if he had dared to think of doing his duty, he capitulated and surrendered to the King of Spain, not the island alone, but all its dependencies upon the continent. Zeballos was then proclaimed as Viceroy, and Te Deum for the success of the Spanish arms was sung in the Mother-Church of N. Senhora do Desterro.

Funes. 3. 204—206.

Zeballos proceeds against Colonia.

This scandalous capitulation was signed on Lady Day, .. an event which, if any thing could have shaken her popularity, might have brought N. Senhora da Conceiçam into discredit in Brazil. Zeballos immediately dispatched orders to the Governor of Buenos Ayres, D. Juan Joseph de Vertiz, to march against Rio Grande with the greatest force that could be collected, while he attacked it from the north and from the water. Vertiz accordingly, with two thousand troops and some militia cavalry, advanced to S. Teresa, and there fixed his quarters, ready to cooperate with the victorious armament. But Zeballos, having garrisoned his conquests and set sail for the prosecution of his well concerted plans, was baffled by the winds, and could neither make the Rio Grande, nor put into the bay of Castilhos, as he afterwards attempted. He therefore made for the Plata, and anchored at Montevideo. His first act was to deprive his predecessor of all authority, and this was ungenerously and unjustifiably done; for it was the intention of the Court that Vertiz

VOL. III. 4 O

[page] 650

CHAP. XLII. 1777.

Funes. 3. 207.

should not be displaced, but remain second in command to the Viceroy. Zeballos is charged with suppressing this part of his instructions, because he did not chuse to have any intermediate power between himself and the troops. The prisoners, five hundred and twenty-three in number, were sent to the province of Cuyo, and then without delay he proceeded against Colonia.

Capture of Colonia.

Colonel Francisco Jozé da Rocha, the Governor of that place, had long been aware of his danger, and had applied to the Rio for supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. All had been sent, and all captured by the enemy's cruisers. Many of his letters also had been intercepted, and among them one in which it was stated that the provisions of the garrison would not last beyond the twentieth of May. Relying upon this, Zeballos sailed from Montevideo on the eighteenth, and on the twenty-second anchored before this unfortunate settlement. He pitched his camp immediately, out of cannon shot, and began his approaches. The Portuguese Commander called a council of war; they had only five days' food, (so little had he exaggerated their wants in his dispatches,) relief was manifestly impossible with such a fleet in sight, and resistance useless when they must so soon yield to ¹⁷ famine. An officer was sent to propose terms of capitulation. Zeballos is perhaps the last strong example of that Spanish cha-

17 Funes passes over these circumstances in silence, and relates the capture of this place in a tone of insult which would be misbecoming in any writer, and is especially so from one of such general uprightness and generosity as the Dean of Cordoba.

Shortly after this event, a preacher at Buenos Ayres entered, in one of his sermons, upon the subject of female vanity; and in describing the dress of the women, he concluded by saying, .. In short, they have more ornaments than Zeballos brought artillery to conquer the Portugueze. Memorias. MSS.

[page] 651

CHAP. XLII. 1777.

Ill treatment of the prisoners.

Memorias. MSS. Cazal. 1. 125.

racter which was formed under Ferdinand, Charles V, and Philip, .. wise in council, vigorous in action, cool, prompt, decisive, and inflexible; but not a generous, not an honourable enemy. He detained the officer the whole day, and during that time pushed his approaches, knowing the Portugueze would not fire while their negociator was in the camp. At night-fell he sent him back with this answer, that when the works were compleated he would communicate the orders of his sovereign before he opened his fire; but that if the garrison interrupted him meantime they must abide the consequences. The pitiable garrison were fain to await his pleasure; and when his batteries were planted, mounting twenty-four pieces and four mortars, besides six for red-hot shot, he produced a manifesto, saying, that he was come by order of the King of Spain to chastise the Portugueze for the insult which they had committed at Rio Grande, in invading that territory under cover of peace: and he summoned the Governor to surrender at discretion, seeing the place was in a state which did not admit of capitulation. They proposed terms, which were rejected: it was agreed, however, that the inhabitants should remain in undisturbed possession of their property. That condition was grossly violated. They were obliged to sell their goods at a valuation, and pay the ¹⁸ duties on the sale. The officers only, with their families, and a few settlers who found means of purchasing their liberty, were allowed to transport themselves to the Rio. All the rest were shipped as prisoners for Buenos Ayres, plundered by the seamen, and afterwards sent into the country, under every circumstance of brutal barbarity, to be settled as colonists about Cordoba and Mendoza. With

18 Which, says the Portugueze writer (who seems to have been one of the sufferers,) was the same as obliging a man condemned to be hanged, to pay for the rope.

[page] 652

CHAP. XLII. 1777.

such inhumanity was this done, that women were forced away from husbands who were lying dangerously ill in the Hospital at Buenos Ayres; and mothers were compelled to march, with infants dying of the small pox in their ¹⁹ arms.

Second Treaty of Limits. 1 Oct. 1777.

Tratado Preliminar.

§ 1.

§ 2.

§ 3.

Zeballos was preparing to march against Rio Grande, when he was stopt in his career by dispatches informing him that a Preliminary Treaty of Peace and Limits had been signed at Madrid, to serve as the basis of a Definitive Treaty of Demarcation, which would be made in good time, after the necessary surveys should have been taken. The first article stipulated the customary and impossible condition, that there should be an oblivion of all mutual hostilities. Prisoners were to be released, and prizes restored. Portugal ceded Colonia, with all its claims upon the north bank of the Plata, and acknowledged in Spain an exclusive right to the navigation of that river, and of the Uruguay, as far as the place where the Pepiri-guazu falls in from the western shore. The Spanish line was to begin at the mouth of the Chuy, on the coast, where Fort S. Miguel stood, including that fort. Proceeding thence to the shore of the Lagoa Mirim, it made for the sources of the Rio Negro, which, with all other rivers that flowed into the Plata, or into the Uruguay below the mouth of the Pepiri-guazu, was now determined to belong to Spain. The Rio Grande, with the Lagoa dos Patos, was assigned to Portugal: and the boundaries of Brazil on this side were to proceed from the southern extremity of that great lake to the brook Tahim, and by the shore of Lake Mangueira in a straight line to the sea. Inland the line followed the shore of the Lagoa Mirim, to the first stream on the south, which should be near-

19 Tam mau he o homem, says Cazal, when he relates this. The Manuscript Memoirs contain instances of inhumanity more shocking than even this

[page] 653

CHAP. XLII.

§ 4.

§ 5.

§ 6.

§ 7.

§ 8—14.

est to the Portugueze fort of S. Gonzalo; then ascending the brook, it kept along the heads of the streams which flow to the Rio Grande and to the Jacuy, till it passed the sources of the Ararica and Coyacui, on the Portugueze side, and of the Piratini and Ibimini, on the Spanish: a line was then to be drawn, which, on the one hand, should cover the Portugueze establishments, as far as the mouth of the Pepiri-guazu, and on the other, the Spanish establishments, and the Uruguay Missions, which were to remain as they then were. The Commissioners were instructed to follow the tops of the mountains, and so to arrange the boundary, that the rivers, from their source, should flow always within the same demarcation. The Lakes, Mirim and Mangueira, and the land between them, and the narrow slip between the latter and the sea, were left as neutral territory, which was not under any pretext, nor in any manner, to be occupied by either people: so that the Portugueze might not pass the brook Tahim, nor a line drawn from it to the sea; nor the Spaniards the brook Chuy. And as Spain ceded her pretensions upon the Lagoa dos Patos and the country to the Jacuy, so Portugal relinquished her's upon the Chuy, Castilhos Grande, and Fort S. Miguel. Along the whole line to the mouth of the Pepiri-guazu, an intervening portion of neutral ground was, in like manner, to be left, the breadth whereof would be determined by the Commissioners upon the spot, according to local circumstances. The Spanish artillery taken at Rio Grande, and all its dependencies, was to be restored; but that which they had found there, when they took the place from the Portugueze, was to remain. The demarcation from the mouth of the Pepiri was, in every respect, the same as by the former treaty. The Governors on the frontiers were to exert themselves on both sides, that the border might not become an asylum for robbers and murderers: they were to pursue such persons, and extirpate them

[page] 654

CHAP. XLII.

§ 19.

§ 22.

§ 21.

by the severest punishments. And as the riches of the country consisted in slaves, the Governors were mutually to give up all fugitives of that description, who were not to be protected in the liberty they sought to obtain, but only from punishment, in case they had not deserved it by any other offence: .. the latter part of this stipulation is honourable to both Courts. S. Catharina, and all its dependencies, were to be restored; and Portugal engaged, that no foreign merchantmen, or ships of war, should be received there, or in any of the near ports, especially if they belonged to powers at war with Spain, or could be suspected of contraband commerce with the Spanish possessions. The treaty moreover contained a resignation on the part of Portugal of its claims to the Philippines, the Mariannas, and any other possessions of Spain in the eastern seas, to which it might have pretended by virtue of Pope Alexander's Bull, .. the validity of which curious instrument was thus virtually asserted by the two contracting powers!

Death of King Jozé, and disgrace of Pombal.

Coxe's Mem. of the Spanish Bourbons. 3. 391. 23 Feb. 1777.

Florida Blanca ²⁰ prided himself upon having thus definitively settled a dispute, which had lasted for more than two centuries and a half. He always regarded it as one of the most important measures of his ministry. But the Portugueze look back upon this treaty, as having been dictated in injustice, and accepted in weakness. Probably it would not have been accepted at any other time; but the death of King Jozé, a few months before, had produced great changes at Lisbon. A sudden friendship was brought about between the two Courts. The

20 It is worthy of notice, that in his Apology for his administration, of which Mr. Coxe has given an abstract, (Memoirs of the Spanish Bourbons, vol. 3. ch. 69,) he acknowledges that Rio Grande could not justly be retained by the Spaniards after the Peace of Paris; which is confessing the injustice of Spain, in making its recovery by the Portugueze a pretext for their hostility.

[page] 655

CHAP. XLII.

Becattini Istoria de Carlo 3. p. 290.

dowager Queen of Portugal visited her brother Carlos III; and if a bias toward Portugueze interests was suspected on the first Treaty of Limits, a contrary inclination might, with more reason, be presumed in the second. England was in no condition to interfere. At that time, Spain was secretly preparing to take part with the American colonies against her; .. a policy for which she was destined, in due season, to pay the full and proper penalty in her own: and she was not without hope of inducing Portugal to enter into her views, and join in a league for the destruction of her old and only faithful ally. Such counsels would never, for a moment, have been entertained by Pombal; but he was in disgrace. His fall had ensued immediately upon the death of the King, whom he had zealously served, and by whom he had been steadily supported. Among the preposterous calumnies with which he was now assailed, was a charge that he had betrayed his country; and that S. Catharina had been delivered up to the Spaniards, in obedience to secret orders which he had sent out. This was so confidently asserted, that the fallen Minister thought it necessary to expose the absurdity of so impudent a slander.

Vita di Pombal 5. 128. Confutaçam. MS.

Extinction of the Companies of Maranham and Pernambuco.

Administration de Pombal. 4. 168.

The Companies of Maranham and Pernambuco were now abolished, when so many of Pombal's measures were annulled, and so many of his plans overthrown. The Lisbon merchants are said to have had Te Deum performed, when these monopolies were suppressed. The question of their utility, which at first had been doubtful, was now no longer so; for their capital was at this time by no means ²¹ adequate to carry on the trade.

21 The capital of the Maranham and Para Company was four hundred and eighty contos; and in the year 1781, the exports from S. Luiz alone, which was considered as the minor port, cost, at the shipping prices, nearly four hundred and sixty. The exports of that year from S. Luiz, were fifty-four thousand four hundred and thirteen arrobas of cotton; one hundred and seventy-one thousand five hundred and fifty-five arrobas of rice; four hundred and ten arrobas of cacao; twenty-four thousand and five tanned hides; fourteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-six raw hides; seventeen deer skins; twenty-six canadas of rum; six alqueires of sesame, or gergelim; five thousand and fifty billets of wood; twelve thick planks; twenty-two planks for doors; eighty-one arrobas of coffee; seventeen hundred and twenty-eight arrobas of sugar; eleven hundred and seventy arrobas of ginger; nine hundred and seven arrobas of starch (made, I suppose, from mandioc); and one hundred and thirty-three barrels of honey. The number of ships was twenty-four.

D. Luiz da Cunha thought the extinction of the Brazil Company a bad measure, and a worse precedent, which would deter adventurers from embarking in other Companies. In the present instance, the profits made while the monopolies lasted, more than counterbalanced the loss sustained at their extinction.

[page] 656

CHAP. XLII. 1777

Ratton. § 58.

They had expended great sums in building large ships, which they were now obliged to sell at disadvantage; and the adventurers never recovered their capital. The increase of commerce in those ports must, however, in part, be attributed to the impulse which the Companies had given. Soon after their extinction, cotton, the growth of which they had promoted at Maranham, was introduced from that place into Pernambuco; and it is there cultivated at this time so successfully, as to form the main article of export.

[page 657]

CHAPTER XLIII.

New Settlement on the Mato Grosso frontier. Alliance with the Guaycurus. Their present state. Progress in reducing the Tribes of Goyaz. Conspiracy in Minas Geraes. War of the French Revolution. Conquest of the Missions. Removal of the Royal Family to Brazil.

CHAP. XLIII.

Praça dus Prazeres destroyed. 1777.

It was not upon the side of the Plata only, that hostilities had been commenced against the Portugueze: the Spaniards had erected a fort opposite the Praça dos Prazeres, on the Igatomy, and they attacked, took, and demolished, the Portugueze establishment. Some earlier settlement had existed there in forgotten times, vestiges of which, consisting of pottery, charcoal, and half-burnt wood, were found at a depth of twelve feet below the surface, when the foundations were laid. Having destroyed their neighbours' fort, the Spaniards abandoned their own, because of the malignant fevers which prevailed there annually, from the beginning of February until April; yet they who settled at a little distance from the river were not attacked by the disease; and the extraordinary fertility of the soil would have induced a more industrious people to try, whether the local causes of the evil were not remediable by industry and art, and whether they themselves might not in time become acclimated. Maize is said to have

VOL. III. 4 P

[page] 658

CHAP XLIII.

Cazal. 1. 273.

returned an hundred and fifty fold; rice, two hundred fold; and cotton had been found to flourish there; but the situation was now forsaken by both nations.

Encroachment of the Spaniards.

Cazal. 1. 263. 287.

Almeida Serra. Patriota. 2. 5. 36.

1780.

Treachery of the Guaycurus.

The Spaniards of Paraguay acted at this time with unusual vigour: provoked, not unreasonably, by the conduct of the Portugueze officer, in building Nova Coimbra on their side of the river, they began on their part to enlarge their border, and founded three places within the Brazilian limits, .. S. Joseph, S. Carlos, upon the river Appa, and Villa Real, upon the Ipane-guazu, .. from whence they trespassed upon the pastures of the Portugueze, and approached Camapuam, a position of the greatest importance for the communication between S. Paulo and Cuyaba. The unlucky fort, which had given occasion for these retaliatory aggressions, was at this time commanded by the Sargento Mor, Marcelino Rodriguez Camponez. He brought with him strict orders from the Governor of Mato Grosso, Luiz de Albuquerque, not to offend the Guaycurus; but that he should endeavour to establish a friendly intercourse, and induce them to trade with the fort. They abhorred the Portugueze, the Governor said, because of the injustice and inhumanity of the old Sertanistas. The positive directions of the Court were, that he should seek to do away that feeling: but he was charged not to allow them to offend with impunity. Soon after his arrival at Nova Coimbra, some Guaycurus came to the fort on horseback; they spoke Spanish, and said they were desirous of peace. Camponez went out of the estacade to receive them, with pistols in his belt, and a party of armed men. The conference was amicable on both sides: he made them presents, partly from the King's stores, partly from his own; and they promised to return within a month, and open trade. The month elapsed, and some of the officers began to murmur against the Commandant, because the Guaycurus did not appear according

[page] 659

CHAP. XLIII. 1780.

6 Jan. 1781.

to their promise. He had affronted or intimidated them, they said, by the appearance of suspicion with which he had received them; and in that spirit of intrigue and mutiny, which it is the tendency of lax discipline to produce, they actually drew up a memorial against him for his conduct. Just then, however, a party of the savages arrived, with women in their company, and sheep, turkeys, deer-skins, and other such commodities, for barter. The Commandant directed them to stop about three hundred paces from the fort, upon the ground where the fair was to be held; and he appointed the Adjutant, Francisco Rodriguez Tavares, with twelve soldiers, to be present, cautioning them to be upon their guard. Tavares accordingly formed a stand of arms, and placed a centinel over them; but when the savages requested him to remove the musquets farther off, and to have them covered over and send away the centinel, because the sight of fire arms terrified the women; and represented that they came without arms themselves, having only their short clubs and their knives,.. the Adjutant, with unpardonable folly, consented. The Guaycurus then invited the Portugueze to court their women. The only part of the ensuing tragedy which is not disgraceful to all parties is, that many of the women were observed to weep when they accepted the gifts which their blind victims were lavishing upon them. This was imputed to their repugnance at the prostitution whereto it appeared that their husbands were exposing them,.. neither the vices nor the virtues, which characterize this nation, being then understood. One man, however, who was innocently engaged in bartering for a sheep, was intreated by the woman with whom he was dealing, to leave her, and quit the place; and though he mistook the cause of her tears and gestures, they were so earnest, that he complied. Meantime the Chief of these treacherous savages, with an interpreter of his own nation, went into the fort, where they were

[page] 660

CHAP. XLIII.

Francisco Alves do Prado. Hist. dos Indios Cavalleiros. Patriota. 3. 5. p. 32—36.

hospitably entertained, and dismissed with gifts after they had eaten and drank their fill. When they came out of the estacade, some of the Portugueze were greedily engaged in barter, regardless of every thing else; others were reclining upon their Dalilahs; and the Chief, seeing them entirely in the snare, gave signal by a whistle. Instantly the massacre was commenced: some were knocked on the head, others had their throats cut, .. the women, with whom they had been dallying, holding them down in their laps while the men performed the murder. The Adjutant, who was a man of gigantic strength, drew his sword and retreated, fighting and facing the murderers; but one got behind and felled him by a blow on the legs: he was then butchered on the ground; and the Portugueze from the fort, running to protect their comrades, came up just in time to hear the word 'Jesus', uttered through his throat as he expired. Forty-five men were thus massacred; and the Guaycurus, without receiving the slightest hurt, carried off the arms and spoils before the garrison could reach the spot. The officers then destroyed the memorial against their Commandant, which accused him of treating the Guaycurus ¹ with too much suspicion, and drew up another, wherein they charged him with reposing a fatal confidence in their perfidious overtures.

1 That same year, a party of ten persons from the fort obtained leave to cross the river, for the purpose of shooting on the opposite shore. Three of them landed, and were presently attacked by the Guaycurus: they fired, killed the Chief of the savages, and wounded another; but one of them was run through the breast with a spear; another killed on the spot by arrows; and the third, with an arrow-wound in the arm, ran toward the canoe. His cowardly companions, seeing that he was closely pursued, pushed off into the middle of the river. The poor fellow began to swim after them; but the blood from his arm attracted those terrible fish, with whose jaw-bones the savages used to decapitate their enemies, (See vol. 1. p. 122,) and in a few minutes he was literally torn to pieces by them! (Francisco Alves do Prado. Patriota. 3. 5. p. 36.)

[page] 661

CHAP. XLIII. 1781.

The Guaycurus make peace with the Spaniards of Paraguay. 1774.

They attack the Chiquito Missions.

Peramas. Census Oppidorum Chiquitorum. Anno 1766.

1785.

Francisco Alves. Patriota. 3. 5. 48.

That part of the Guaycurus who possessed the eastern bank, below the Fecho dos Morros, were at this time at peace with the Spaniards of Paraguay; this had been brought about by a negociator in every respect unlike the Jesuits, by whom such treaties had usually been made, .. it was a Priest ² who had actually turned savage, and having taken refuge with this tribe, lived with them, took a wife among them, suffered his eye-brows and eye-lashes to be eradicated, and followed all their customs. But those upon the Upper Paraguay, who committed the massacre at Nova Coimbra, were still at war with the Spaniards. In resentment for some wrong, real or imaginary, which they had sustained some years before from the Rector of Corazon de Jesus, (one of the Chiquito Reductions, where, when the Jesuits made their last census, there was a population of two thousand three hundred persons,) they fell upon that settlement, carried off kine, horses, and captives, and compelled the Administrators who had succeeded the Jesuits, to remove a hundred miles from the site where that establishment had flourished for nearly a century. They attacked also the neighbouring Reductions of Santiago and S. Juan, the one containing two thousand, the other sixteen hundred inhabitants, and reduced them almost to a state of ruin and depopulation. The country was too far from Santa Cruz de la

2 Francisco Alves learnt much of their history from this Ex-Priest. He says of him, that because he was the means of delivering Paraguay from the ravages of the Guaycurus, adquirio o nome de justo entre a plebe Hespanhola. If this be the case, it implies a very general indifference to their religion in the Spaniards of that country. The conduct of the Priest is easily explained: like many of his fraternity, he did not believe a word of the fables which he preached; .. he was too ignorant to separate the truths of Christianity, which he had never felt or understood, from the impudent corruptions of the Romish Church; and he acted an honester part in a short petticoat than he had ever done in his canonicals.

[page] 662

CHAP. XLIII.

1789.

They make peace with the Portugueze.

Sierra, for the Spaniards of that province to make any efforts for its protection. And indeed, even the Portugueze, who were less patient under provocations of this kind, did not attempt to take vengeance for the treacherous murders committed at Nova Coimbra in their sight, and with so many aggravating circumstances. They knew how difficult it was to get at such enemies; and, probably, regarding the massacre as the work of those only who were concerned in it, continued in hope of reconciling the whole nation by a conciliatory policy, which proceeded neither from weakness nor from fear. This was the more prudent, because, though the Guaycurus did not venture to make advances toward a peace, they committed no fresh act of hostility. A tacit truce had lasted in this manner about eight years, when a party of the savages one day appeared on the opposite side of the river, and called out to the garrison. The Commandant sent over some persons to speak with them; but the Guaycurus were afraid to approach, lest the treachery should be retaliated; and they withdrew, without proceeding further in this first attempt at renewing a friendly intercourse. After an interval of three months, they came again, called out in the same manner, and taking more courage, ventured to speak with the Portugueze who answered their invitation, accepted some presents, and promised to return in five days. They kept their word: one of their Chiefs came with them, by name Queima: he was a man in great estimation among them, the son of a Payagua father and a Guaycuru mother, and of the highest parentage on both sides. After this interview, a trade was renewed with the garrison, but under all needful precautions. The savages brought horses, sheep and turkeys, and other things of less value, for which they received tobacco, baize, hatchets, basons, knives, pewter plates, and facoens, or large knives, which, as more likely to serve for evil purposes than for good, were afterwards prohibited by the

[page] 663

CHAP. XLIII.

1791.

Governor. A new Commandant came now to the fort, and brought with him instructions to pursue, without delay, the opportunity which was now offered for treating with this nation. Accordingly, four armed canoes were sent in search of them during the inundation. Upon the second cruize, they fell in with the people whom they sought, and invited them to the garrison: the conscious savages feared to accept the invitation; but they sent two of their captives to see in what manner they were treated; and these men went with as much reluctance as if they had been delivered up to the executioner. They were well fed, dressed finely, and dismissed with presents. Two of the Chiefs then ventured, with four of their followers; but so different is the courage of a savage from that of an European, that, though these men would have borne the severest tortures without betraying the slightest indication of sensibility, they trembled from head to foot when they entered the estacade. The result of this visit was, that Queima, and Emavidi Chané, a Chief of great authority and reputation, went to Villa Bella with a party of their people, and a Negress as an interpreter, who had been born and bred among the Brazilians, but was one of their captives. There, in the name of those Guaycurus who inhabited the eastern side of the Paraguay, from the Mondego, or Imbotatiu, which is its Indian name, on the South, to the Ipane, on the North, they made a solemn peace with the Portugueze; and, according to the words of the treaty, promised to the Queen of Portugal implicit obedience, in the same manner as all her subjects. Emavidi, upon this occasion, took the name of Paulo Joaquim Joze Ferreira, after the Commandant of Nova Coimbra; and his companion, preserving his native appellation, was called Joam Queima de Albuquerque, after the Governor. The Guaycurus could hardly have understood the meaning of the obedience which they promised and subscribed; but it was never

[page] 664

CHAP. XLIII.

Francisco Alves. Patriota. 3. 5. 36—42. Cazal. 1. 254—283.

likely to be exacted in its full sense; and if peace be preserved for a few generations, they will disappear from the land. It has continued unbroken for more than five and twenty years. They visit ³ Nova Coimbra whenever they please, in canoes during the inundation, on horseback at other seasons. They pitch their huts without the estacade, and are admitted within by day, but not with arms; and they leave it at the evening bell; after which hour, only the Chiefs are allowed to remain.

Present state of the Guaycurus.

There were, at the close of the eighteenth century, three divisions of the Guaycuru nation; .. one on the western side of the Paraguay; one on the eastern, below the Fecho dos Morros, being those who made peace with the Spaniards of Asumpcion, through the Ex-Priest; and the third, above the Fecho, who are, according to their own intention in the treaty, allies of the Portugueze; but, according to its letter, acknowledged vassals of the Portugueze crown. These branches are declared enemies each of the other, although they are of the same origin, speak the same language, and observe the same customs. The Brazilian branch is divided into seven ⁴ great hordes, who are generally upon friendly terms, and perfectly resemble each other in all their habits and institutions. Each of these hordes is so numerous, that the assemblage of its tents is said to deserve the name of a large town. The tents are arranged in straight wide streets, and are of the simplest structure: mats, made of flags or rushes, laid upon poles, almost horizontally in dry weather, but with more inclination when it rains; and when the rain is heavy,

3 Among the articles which are kept in the fort, on account of the Crown, as presents for this people, are veronicas and figas.

4 These seven hordes are called, Chagoteo, Pacachodeo, Adioeo, Atiadeo, Oleo, Laudeo, and Cadioo. (Cazal. 1. 276.)

[page] 665

CHAP. XLIII.

Francisco Alves.

and the matting begins to bag with the weight of water, they brush it off from within; but many have two or three mat coverings, one above the other, with intervals between, as a better protection both against rain and sun. They always encamp upon the banks of a river or great lake, and remain there as long as they find sufficient food for themselves and their cattle, which are very numerous; for they despise agriculture, and live chiefly upon meat. They have profited thus much by their intercourse with the Portugueze, that they rear every kind of domestic bird and beast, which has been introduced from Europe into America; and they treat them all with such kindness, as well as care, as to render them remarkably tame. Neither stirrups nor saddle of any kind are in use among them; their bridle is made of the acroata, one of the aloes of the country; and they are so incessantly on horseback, that their legs are deformed by it. Yet they are said not to be good horsemen, only that they know how to manage the horse at full speed; .. which, indeed, is all the horsemanship they need. Their mode of breaking-in the animal is peculiar to themselves: it is done in the water, almost up to the creature's belly, that he may have less power to struggle, and that the rider may have less to fear from a fall. The war-horse is never used for any other occasion, and never sold; but, upon the death of the master, it is killed at his grave. In their wars against the Portugueze, they made use of their horned cattle; and, collecting them and the horses into a great herd, drove them furiously upon the enemy. Even the Paulistas were afraid of such an attack; and their largest parties dreaded to meet the Guaycurus in the open country: the only resource was, to get into the woods, and climb the trees; then their musquets gave them the advantage. As the Guaycurus, like the savages of South Africa, made this use of their cattle in war, so, like the same people, they had trained them to

VOL. III. 4 Q

[page] 666

CHAP. XLIII.

obey a whistle, by which, at any time, they could assemble and direct them.

As soon as the surrounding pasture is exhausted, the horde removes. Presently their tents are struck, .. all are in motion: the large town which was standing in the morning disappears; what was then swarming with life and population, is left as a desert behind them; and before night, the town rises upon the banks of another water, and the wilderness is filled with flocks and herds. They sleep upon the ground, on hides, and cover themselves with skins, or with a matting made from the inner rind of certain trees; or with the garments which the women wear by day, and which are large enough to serve for coverlets. The men wear nothing, except a short philibeg, which used to be of cotton, but since their intercourse with the Portugueze, is ornamented with beads of various colours. The women wear a wider petticoat, without which they are never seen from their earliest infancy; and over this a garment, or rather web of calico, is wrapt about them, from the neck to the feet, which is laid on in such heavy folds, that it is said to render the breasts pendant by its weight and pressure: the colour of the cloth is red, with stripes of black and white. They have trimmings of shell work, beads on the arms and legs, silver bugles for a necklace, and a plate of ⁵ silver on the breast. Formerly these ornaments were made of wood, and the lower classes still make them of that material. The men adorn their heads and limbs with feathers: they wear mouth-pieces of wood or silver, according to

5 Where they should have obtained this silver, is a curious question: Francisco Alves supposes that it has existed among them from the time of Alexo Garcia's expedition, and is part of the spoil which he brought from Peru, and which remained among the tribes by whom he was cut off. Is it not more likely to have found its way from Potosi, passing from one possessor to another, .. sometimes by fair means, sometimes by foul?

[page] 667

CHAP. XLIII.

their means, and silver ear-rings in the form of a crescent. They eradicate their eye-brows and eye-lashes, tattoo their faces (a fashion, by which the women also deform themselves), and stain the body in patterns with the juice of the urucu and jenipapo. The young men shear their hair after their own fancy; the elder to a prescribed form, resembling the tonsure of the Lay-Franciscans: the women also wear only a broad circle on the head. Unlike most of the Brazilian tribes, these Guaycurus are not polygamists: it is not to be supposed, that either law or custom renders their marriages indissoluble; the parties separate if they chuse; but such separations are said to be unfrequent. Their connubial attachments are represented to be both durable and strong; and they are tenderly fond of their offspring, when their accursed customs suffer them to be born. The children are charged with showing little natural love toward their parents: cautious, as we ought to be, not to oppose mere opinion to what is asserted as fact upon fair authority, it may yet be affirmed, that this cannot be generally true; for it is impossible that tenderness in the parent should not, generally, produce correspondent, though not equal affection, in the child. Each horde has one great cemetery,.. a long piece of ground, covered like a gallery along its whole length with mats: under this roofing every family has its own burial place staked off. The weapons, and other personals of the deceased, are laid upon his grave; and if he were distinguished in war, these things are decked with flowers and with feathers, which are annually renewed. The body of a young woman is attired for her funeral as it would have been for her marriage, and carried on horseback to the cemetery: the spindle, and other articles of her use, are laid upon her grave. Upon the death of a relation, or a slave, the household change their names.

Francisco Alves.

The distinction of ranks is strongly marked in this nation:

[page] 668

CHAP. XLIII.

the true Guaycurus form but the smallest part. They call themselves Joage ⁶ and are divided into classes, the first of which is a nobility, proud to excess of their birth. The men have a title equivalent to Captain; and their wives and daughters also are addressed by an honourary prefix. There are not many of these nobles, and no supremacy among them. The second class, which is much more numerous, consists of the Guaycuru people, all of whom are soldiers, from father to son; but the great bulk of the population is composed of slaves and their descendants; for with them, one chief motive for making war is, to keep up their numbers by this system of half adoption. They spare no adult males, and sometimes kill the women; but the women are sometimes carried away prisoners, and the children always. When it happens that they bring away an infant without its mother, the wife of the captor takes the babe to her breast, whether she have a babe of her own at the time or not; for they have ⁷ discovered that a secretion of milk is excited by the action of the infant's lips, even in women of more than fifty years of age, who have never been mothers. The Chief, who makes the largest addition to the horde by such captures, obtains the greatest reputation. The state in which these prisoners grow up has only the name of slavery, for they are never called upon to perform any compulsory service. But the inferiority of their rank is considered to

6 This name is so like that of Jaadge, by which the Lenguas called themselves, that, notwithstanding the opinion of Hervas, (see p. 392,) it affords a strong presumption in favour of the assertion of Francisco Alves, that the Lenguas are a branch of the Guaycurus; but when he identifies the latter with the Chiriguanas, he is certainly wrong.

7 The Editor of the Patriota (3. 4. 29), seems to intimate a disbelief of this; but many instances have been known. A well-authenticated one is mentioned by Baxter, in his Own Life and Times. (Lib. 1. Part 1. p. 46.) and the far more extraordinary fact, that milk has thus been produced in the breast of a man, is authenticated by the indisputale testimony of Humboldt.

[page] 669

CHAP. XLIII.

Francisco Alves.

be so great, that it is deemed disgraceful for a Chief to take a captive for his wife; and the son of a Guaycuru woman by a prisoner, would despise the woman who bore him, as one who by such a connection had dishonoured herself. The Chamococos sell their children to the Guaycurus for knives and axes.

Francisco Alves.

When they are going to war, they chuse for leader the youngest of the nobles who is able to bear arms; and the elder Chiefs accompany him as his counsellors. On the day of their outset, the young warrior sits upon his bed, while they who are to serve in the expedition collect round him, and one by one pay their respects to his mother, and to the woman who nursed him; and these women, with tears, and in empassioned tones, remind them of the famous actions of their forefathers, and exhort them rather to die than show themselves unworthy of their ancestry. They have a singular notion, that a shirt made of the skin of a jaguar is impenetrable, even to a musquet ball, .. a superstition, which seems to indicate that they have not often been opposed by good marksmen. When a youth kills his first enemy, or brings home his first prisoner, his mother makes a feast, at which the guests inebriate themselves with mead almost as potent as brandy. They make war upon the Cuyarabas, or Coroados, as the Portugueze call them, who roam about the sources of the Mambaya, a river which falls into the Parana; upon the Cambebas, or Pacaleques, about the sources of the Imbotatiu, .. a race who flatten their heads like the old Omaguas of the Orellana; and upon the Caupezes, a burrowing tribe, who are said to form for themselves natural but monstrous aprons, by stretching down, from earliest infancy, the skin of the groin. They have also children from many other tribes ⁸ among their slaves, if that ap-

8 Francisco Alves enumerates the Goaxis, Quanas, Guatos, Cayvabas, Bororos, Ooroas, Cayapos, Chiquitos, and Chamococos.

[page] 670

CHAP. XLIII.

pellation may be applied to persons who feel none of the evils of slavery, and are subject to none of its restraints.

Cazal. 1. 84.

Francisco Alves.

They believe in an Intelligent Creator of all things; but they offer him no worship, and seem not to regard him either with love or with fear. The invisible power, to whom they apply for a knowledge of what is to befall them in sickness, or in war, is supposed to be an inferior Deity, named Nanigogigo; and their jugglers, who are called Unigenitos, pretend to communicate with him. There is a small kind of hawk, of which the native name is Macauham; its cry resembles that of a man in distress, and serves as an indication of weather, for those who are accustomed to it: but the Guaycurus suppose that it foretells coming events; and when it is heard the Unigenito is put upon hard duty for the following night. He passes it in singing and screaming, imitating the notes of various birds, shaking a maraca and calling upon Nanigogigo to interpret to him the augury of his unintelligible messenger. With the same ceremonies these knaves pretend to inquire whether the sick are to recover, and if an expedition will meet with good or ill success. The only appearance of a religious ceremony among them, is an annual festival of many days at the first rising of the Seven Stars; for at that season the cocoa of the Bocayuva palm begins to be ripe, upon which they probably relied for food before the introduction of European cattle. It is said, that no belief of retribution after death is combined with their notions of a future state. They hold that the souls of departed Chiefs, and Unigenitos, enjoy themselves among the stars, while those of the common people wander about the place of their interment. The Guaycurus seem to have caught their superstitious practices and opinions from many different tribes, .. a natural consequence of the manner by which the population of their hordes is supplied: it is therefore remarkable, that with this aptness for adopting the tenets of

[page] 671

CHAP. XLIII.

others, they should not during their long and close connection with the Payaguas, have learnt to look for retributive justice after death.

Mead is their only fermented liquor. Both sexes employ themselves equally in preparing their food, which is very much dressed; they eat very leisurely, and make many meals in the day. It is affirmed that they never suffer from indigestion, that scorbutic complaints are never seen, and sudden death unknown among them, .. assertions which may be admitted to prove, that these things occur much less frequently than in Europe. In every kind of illness they observe extreme abstinence, taking no food whatever, except a very small portion of the pith of the Caranda palm. There are blind people among them, but none that are bald. Their complection is of a darker tint than copper; they are rather above the middle stature of Europeans, well made, (were it not that their legs are injured by the great use which they make of the horse and the canoe,) muscular, and capable of making prodigious exertions, and enduring almost incredible fatigue. The women have large coarse features, which, with the additional and needless deformity of tattooing, renders them altogether ⁹ ugly, to the eye of an European. Their teeth are irregular, and discoloured by the constant use of tobacco; for even the women are never without a quid in the mouth; but they preserve them to extreme old age. The men girdle themselves with a cord upon their expeditions, and if food is scarce, they deaden the sensation of hunger by drawing it tighter round

9 Francisco Alves says they have none of the simple graces of Milton's Eve. It is gratifying to an Englishman to find the Commandant of a Portugueze fort, in the heart of South America, thinking of Milton. I believe no nation would display more literary industry and ambition than the Portugueze, if the restrictions by which they are so miserably fettered were withdrawn.

[page] 672

CHAP. XXLIII.

them: in this, as in a belt, they carry a short club on the right hand, and a large knife on the left. The women soon become lean and hagged, and both sexes are excessively wrinkled in old age. The odd variety of a male and female dialect prevails among them, as among many American tribes. For some purposes they can communicate by whistling, as well as by words. They have names for the planets and more remarkable stars, and for the cardinal points.

Francisco Alves.

The women have many excellent qualities. They are compassionate, and so humane towards all creatures under their care, that it is said, the domestic animals of the Guaycurus could not be treated with more kindness if they were in a Banian hospital. They deserve also the praise of industry and ingenuity: they spin, they weave dexterously, they make cords, girdles, mats, and pottery; they evince intelligent curiosity, as well as pleasure, at the sight of any thing new, and examine it attentively in all its parts. There are men among them who affect the dress and manners of women, and are called Cudinas, the name by which all emasculated animals are designated. The first conquerors found such persons in Florida, and in the country about the isthmus of Darien; so widely extended in the New World was this abomination, which has its root perhaps in one of the oldest corruptions of heathen worship. Clear nights are their favourite time for sport. Their diversions are of a rough character. The men toss the boys in the large mantles of the women, which serve as blankets for the operation. The women hold hands in a ring, while one runs on the outside; the amusement is for those who are in the circle to put out their feet, and trip her up as she is running; she who falls then takes her place in the circle, and the one who threw her runs round and round till her career is stopt in the same violent manner. They ride races, in which the women engage as well as the men. Other sports are to imitate

[page] 673

CHAP. XXXII.

the action of birds, carrying awing in each hand; to leap like frogs; and pretend to run at each other like bulls, upon all fours. Sometimes the women have regular scolding matches, as a sort of dramatic amusement; and she who rails with greatest fluency, and has the most copious vocabulary of abuse at command, is applauded by the bye-standers. Quarrels among them are decided by boxing; they are said to be good boxers; and they never have recourse to weapons in their disputes with each other.

Francisco Alves. Patriota. 4. p. 14—33. 3. 5. p. 26—44.

1793

Fracisco Alves. 3. 4. 29.

They have neither music nor songs; yet they manifest a lively sensibility to sweet sounds: they listen to a Portugueze song with exceeding great delight; and if the air be melancholy, it always draws tears from the women. They are faithful in their dealings, although they account treachery not only lawful, but laudable, in war. It does not appear that any attempts are making for the conversion of this remarkable people: but if the Portugueze evince no desire to improve them, by the best and surest means, they are no longer guilty of injustice and oppression towards them. There is land enough for both; and long before the Brazilians can replenish half of what they already possess, the Guaycurus, who are now doing their work in diminishing other tribes by their incessant hostilities, will themselves disappear from Brazil, as they have disappeared from the Lower Paraguay. The wicked practice of abortion ¹⁰ is destroying them faster than war, and more surely than pestilence. Already it has so reduced their numbers and their strength, that the Guanas upon the Imbotatiu have shaken off their old vassalage,

10 Francisco Alves knew twenty-two Chiefs, none of them under forty years of age, all of them married, and only one of them having a child, and he but one. (3. 4. 21.) From this fact, lie infers that the custom, though they say it is an old one, cannot long have obtained among them, or they must have been extinct before this time.

VOL. III. 4 R

[page] 674

CHAP. XXXII.

and placed themselves under the protection of the Portugueze, as a people independent of their former Lords.

The Cayapos reduced. 1780.

1781.

On the side of Goyaz also, considerable progress was made in reducing the native tribes by conciliatory means. Under the government of Luiz da Cunha Menezes, a Pedestre, by name Jozé Luiz, noted for intrepidity, was sent with a party of fifty men, to seek an interview with the Cayapos, who, notwithstanding the exertions which from time to time had been made against them, still remained unsubdued, and in a state of warfare with the Portugueze. Jozè Luiz had often borne arms against them, and had in his company one of their nation, who had grown up in his service, having been made prisoner in youth, and went now to act as interpreter. They entered the Sertam from the Rio Claro, and explored it for three months, subsisting all that time upon game and wild honey, after the manner of the old Sertanistas. At length they obtained sight of some Indians, and the Interpreter, with the help of presents, persuaded them to visit the Great Captain, who, he said, desired to see them, and to take them under his protection. An old man and six warriors, with their women and children, thirty-six in all, were by these means induced to accompany them to Villa Boa. There they were received with military honours, entertained with a Te Deum in honour of their arrival, feasted to their hearts' content, and enriched with toys; and then they were sent to inspect some of the Aldeas in which the domesticated Indians were enjoying a plenty and security not to be found in the Sertam. They were so well pleased with all this when they departed, that the old Chief halted with the women and children upon the Rio Claro, and sent the warriors to collect and bring with them the whole of their horde in the course of eight months. They succeeded in their charge, and two hundred and thirty-seven Cayapos, under two Caciques, arrived at Villa Boa: one hundred and thirteen of

[page] 675

CHAP. XXXII.

Memorias de Goyaz. Patriota. 3. 4. 66. Cazal. 1. 337.

the number were sufficiently young to receive baptism immediately, in presence of all the chief persons of the town. In the middle of the ceremony one of the old Indian women cried out that she would be christened too. They endeavoured to explain to her that some knowledge of the principles of Christian belief must he acquired before ah adult person could be admitted to receive that sacrament. The old woman did not comprehend this; she became impatient and clamorous; and the Priests, who were better politicians than to be too scrupulous on such an occasion, quieted her by converting her presently into a Donna Maria. The Aldea Maria was founded for them, on the river Tartaruga, eleven leagues south-east of the capital. Others of the same tribe followed their example and joined them, so that the new village soon contained six hundred inhabitants. These people behaved well, appeared grateful for the benefits which they enjoyed, and kept their word faithfully. Some of them acquired those manual trades which were most wanted, and the women learnt to sew, and to spin and weave also, .. for so much ruder were they than many other tribes, that these arts were unknown among them. But the colony which began with such good promise has not prospered. No steady system of training up the Indian children has ever yet been followed in Brazil; and in spite of the laws, and of the example in Cuyaba and Mato Grosso, the Indians in Goyaz are looked upon as so inferior a race, that none of those intermarriages take place there, which it was Pombal's wise object to promote.

Attempt to reduce the Chavantes.

Seven hundred Javaes and Carajas were settled in the same Captaincy, five leagues from the Capital, in the Aldea of S. Jozé de Mossamedes; and these also discovered the same apt docility as the Cayapos. An attempt to reduce the Chavantes, under the next Governor, Tristam da Cunha e Menezes, was less fortunate in its results, though at first it seemed to have the most splendid

[page] 676

CHAP. XLIII.

Patariota. 3. 6. 26. 1783.

Memorias de Goyaz. Patriota. 3. 5. 3. Cazal. 1. 338.

success. This tribe, the most numerous of all in Goyaz, inhabit the country between the Araguaya and the Tocantins, and the banks of that river whereunto they have given, or wherefrom they have received their name, which falls into the western Araguaya a little before it reunites with the eastern branch. They inhabit also the Ilha de S. Anna, or do Bananal, as it is sometimes called, in that river, which is probably the largest river-island in the world, though there may be some exaggeration in the statement that makes it more than one hundred leagues long and thirty wide, and gives it a lake communicating with the river, of such extent, that they who navigate it lose sight of the land. A pacific expedition, under the command of Miguel de Arruda e Sa, was so successful that no less than three thousand five hundred of the Chavantes repaired to Villa Boa, promised allegiance to the Crown of Portugal, and were established in the Aldea de Pedro Terceiro do Carretam. There, during many years, they cultivated the ground, and lived in plenty; but at length, for some unexplained cause, more likely to be found in the misconduct of the Directors than in their own inconstancy, they forsook the Aldea with one consent, returned to their old habits of life, and are at this time the most formidable enemies of the Brazilians, in the heart of Brazil.

Route from Goyaz to Para by the Araguaya explored.

Memoriar de Goyaz. Patriota. 3. 5. 3.

Their enmity is no inconsiderable evil; because it opposes a serious obstacle to the communication between Goyaz and Para by the Araguaya, which would otherwise be the most convenient liné. This course was explored in the year 1791, by orders from Portugal, but at the expence of Colonel Ambrosio Henriquez, and other merchants of Para. Captain Thomaz de Sousa Villa Real commanded the party: they embarked at the Arrayal de Santa Rita, upon the Rio do Peixe, or Fish River, and ascertained the distance from thence to be seven hundred and thirty-two leagues. Other parties have embarked upon the Rio

[page] 677

CHAP. XLIII.

1789.

Expedition against the Canoeiros.

Vermelho, or Red River, which also joins the Araguaya; but there were as yet too many difficulties, both from the nature of the navigation and from the temper of the intermediate tribes, for this course to be much frequented. A year or two before, the Governor, being instructed to reinforce Para with eight hundred men, resolved to explore, another line, and make so considerable a force perform some useful service as they went. The same Miguel Arruda, who had reduced the Chavantes, commanded the party; and Jozé Luiz, who had succeeded so well with the Cayapos, accompanied the expedition, in order to chastise the Canoeiros, a terrible race of savages, upon the way. They embarked upon the river Uruhu, the remotest source of the Tocantins: it rises in the southern skirts of the Serra Doirada, not far from Villa Boa, on the south. But at Agua Quenta they left the river, and proceeded over land, taking up men for the service in all the Arraiaes through which they passed, as far as Pontal, .. one of the earliest settlements in that country, upon an elbow or point of land, formed by the river of the same name, about four leagues above its junction with the Tocantins. From thence Jozé Luiz began his military operations.: The Canoeiros had cruelly infested the Tocantins, and the rivers communicating therewith; insomuch, that they had compelled the people of Goyaz to abandon many of their farms upon the Maranham, which receives the Rio das Almas after that river has received the Uruhu. Their name seems to be derived from their aquatic expeditions; but their head quarters are among the mountains, in the Serra do Duro, and have never been reached. They are remarkably distinguished from all the other tribes, by their ferocious and unconquerable courage; for they never fly before an enemy, and never submit, but die resolutely, fighting to the last gasp. The women behave in battle as bravely as the men; and they have a breed of fierce dogs trained for war, to seize upon

[page] 678

CHAP. XLIII.

Memoiras de Goyaz. Patriota. 3. 5. 4. 3. 6. 19. 3. 4. 68. Cazal. 1. 391.

their enemies. Their weapons are the bow and arrow, and the long spear; and horseflesh is their favourite food. Upon these people Jozé Luiz commenced hostilities, by land and by water. They defended themselves with their characteristic fearlessness, and the women and dogs bore their part: but Jozé Luiz was accustomed to savage warfare, and in many encounters made great slaughter among them. Arruda then resumed the command, and conducted the expedition down the river to Para; but instead of bringing a reinforcement of eight hundred men, he arrived with only eighty; for the men had been so disgusted with the severity of the service, or were so unwilling to be taken from their own country, that nine-tenths of them deserted by the way. The route from Goyaz to Para, by the Tocantins, though the shortest course, has not since been used. Luiz da Cunha appears to have been an active and able Governor, and to have exerted himself for the improvement of the province, in many ways. He increased its military force, embellished the city of Villa Boa, made a public walk there, and provided that all the new buildings should be erected upon a regular plan: he punished a set of impostors, who defrauded the credulous, and especially the women, by pretending to tell fortunes; and he encouraged the people to prepare, for their own consumption, the salt which that province would supply in sufficient abundance, instead of procuring it from Campo Largo and from S. Romam, on the left bank of the Rio S. Francisco in Minas Geraes, which is a great mart for salt from the salinas of Pilam Arcado in Pernambuco.

Conde de Rezende, Viceroy.

1789.

These events in Mato Grosso and Goyaz occurred during the Viceroyalty of Luiz de Vasconcellos e Sousa, who succeeded to the Marquez de Lavradio in 1778, and held the Government eleven years. The Government of his successor, the Conde de Rezende, D. Jozé de Castro, is rendered remarkable, by the first

[page] 679

CHAP. XLIII. 1789.

Conspiracy in Minas Geraes.

manifestation of revolutionary principles and practices in Brazil: it took place in Minas Geraes. A cavalry officer of that Captaincy, inflamed by the example of the United States, thought it easy for his countrymen to throw off the authority of the Mother Country, and establish an independent republic. Overlooking the difference between the Americans and the Brazilians, in all their circumstances, habits, institutions, and hereditary feelings, he used to say, that foreign nations marvelled at the patience of Brazil, why it did not do as British America had done. His name was Joaquim Jozé da Silva Xavier; but he was commonly called O Tiradentes, the tooth-drawer: .. Nick-names obtain such currency in Portugal and Brazil, that they are found in official documents, and in historical writings. His views did not extend beyond the Captaincy of Minas Geraes, either because he thought that territory large enough to constitute a powerful commonwealth, or because it would have been too perilous to have formed a wider conspiracy; and he expected that success there would induce other provinces to hoist the standard of insurrection, and that then a federative union might be established. Even in his own country, his reliance was not upon public opinion, which had never been disturbed, but upon a peculiar state of affairs, not more perilous to the stability of the Government than it was discreditable to its prudence.

Cause of Discontent.

The fifths in that Captaincy, which for many years after the Capitation was commuted had averaged more than one hundred arrobas, had for about thirty years been gradually declining, till they fell short of fifty. The people were pledged by their own offer to make up the amount of one hundred, whenever the fifths might produce less. Had this been always regularly exacted, the tax would have continued to be paid, till the difficulty of collecting it, and its disproportion to the diminished produce

[page] 680

CHAP. XLIII. 1789.

Noticias. MSS.

of the mines, would have convinced the Government that it was necessary to abate the impost. It was collected till the average fell a little below ninety; but from the death of King Jozé, at which time the decay of the mines became more and more rapid every year, the arrears had been allowed to accumulate, till, in 1790, they amounted to the tremendous sum of seven hundred arrobas, which is equal to the estimated amount of all the unminted gold then circulating in that Captaincy, and is more than half of all that circulated in those interior provinces, where there was no other circulating medium. It was believed, that the Visconde de Barbacena, then Governor of Minas Geraes, was about to enforce payment of the whole arrears. A general alarm in consequence prevailed among the inhabitants: Tiradentes hoped to avail himself of this; and for the purpose of increasing the irritation, he spread a report that the Court was resolved to weaken the people, as one means of retaining them in obedience, and with that view a law was to be passed forbidding any person to keep more than ten slaves. The first person to whom he imparted his designs was a certain Jozé Alves Maciel, a native of Villa Rica, then just returned from travelling in Europe: he had probably been living among the revolutionists in France, at a time when their views appeared to be directed with the most upright and benevolent intentions wholly toward the improvement of mankind, and the general welfare of the human race. They met at the Rio, arranged their plans, and, proceeding to Villa Rica, engaged in the conspiracy Maciel's brother-in-law, Francisco de Paula Freire de Andrada, a Lieutenant-Colonel, who commanded the regular troops of the Captaincy. The Colonel hesitated at their first disclosure; but they assured him that there was a strong party of commercial men at the Rio in favour of a revolution, and that they might count upon the assistance of foreign powers. Colonel Ignacio

[page] 681

CHAP XLIII. 1789.

Sentença. &c. MS.

Jozé de Alvarenga, and Lieutenant-Colonel Domingos de Abreu Vieira, were soon enlisted in the plot; the latter was induced to join in the scheme, by persuading him that his share in the assessment for arrears would amount to six thousand cruzados. P. Jozé da Silva Oliveira Rolim was one of the associates; P. Carlos Correia de Toledo, Vicar of the Villa de S. Jozé, was another. But the person who was represented to all the confederates as the chief and leader, was Thomaz Antonio Gonzaga: he enjoyed a high reputation for talents; and it was said, that he had undertaken to draw up the laws, and arrange the constitution of the new Republic.

Plan of the conspirators.

Their plan of operations was, that when the assessment was made for collecting the arrears, the cry of 'Liberty for ever!' should be begun at night in the streets of Villa Rica. Colonel Francisco de Paula was then to collect his troops, under pretence of suppressing the rioters, and to dissemble his real intentions till he had received intelligence that the Governor had been disposed of. The Governor was at a place called Caxoeira, and it was not determined what should be done with him: some of the conspirators were of opinion, that it would be sufficient to seize him, carry him out of the limits of the Captaincy, and then dismiss him, telling him to go to Portugal and say, that the people of Minas Geraes could govern themselves. Others were for putting him to death at once, and sending his head ¹¹ to Francisco de Paula as the signal: this was to be determined accord-

11 It is said in the official report of the proceedings, that Tiradentes undertook to bring the Governor's head; but that he himself denied this, confessing that he had undertaken to seize him, and carry him and his family to the frontiers. The Judges were of opinion, that he hoped to extenuate his guilt by admitting it to this extent. Probably his intention was as he stated it to be; but certainly he would not have shrunk from going farther, when the work was begun.

VOL. III. 4 S

[page] 682

CHAP. XLIII. 1789.

Sentença. &c. MS.

ing to the circumstances of the seizure. But whether the Governor's head were brought to Villa Rica, and exhibited to the troops and inhabitants as the first fruits of Revolution, or not, proclamation was to be made, in the name of the Republic, calling upon the people to join the new Government, and denouncing the punishment of death against all who should oppose it. P. Carlos Correia had engaged his brother in the plot, who was Sargento Mor of the cavalry of S. Joam d'El Rey; he undertook to place an ambuscade upon the road from Villa Rica to the Rio, and resist any force which might be sent from that city to suppress the rebellion. A remission of all debts due to the Crown was to be proclaimed; the Forbidden District to be thrown open; gold and diamonds declared free from duties; the seat of Government removed to S. Joam d'El Rey; and a. University founded at Villa Rica. Jozé de Rezende Costa, one of the conspirators, had a son, whom he was about to send to Coimbra for his education; he now changed his mind, detained him in Brazil that he might be placed at the new University, and thus involved him in the plot, and in its fatal consequences. Manufactories of all necessary articles were to be established, and particularly of gunpowder: this was to be under Maciel's direction, because he had studied philosophy, having travelled for the purpose of acquiring information upon such subjects. They consulted concerning a banner for the new Republic: Tiradentes was for having three triangles united in one, as an emblem of the Trinity: Alvarenga, and the others, thought it more appropriate that the device should bear some striking allusion to liberty; so they proposed a genius breaking some chains; and for a motto, the words Libertas puæ sera tamen,.. Liberty, though late; and this was approved.

Discovery of the conspiracy.

The conspirators acted like madmen: they held seditious discourses wherever they were, and with all kinds of persons,.. for-

[page] 683

CHAP. XLIII. 1789.

getful, that though the people might be discontented the Government was both vigilant and strong; and that whatever desire might exist for a diminution of imposts, there was no desire for any other change. Maciel felt this when he had proceeded too far; and he observed to Alvarenga, that there were but few to support them in their designs. But Alvarenga replied, they would proclaim liberty for the Creole and Mulatto slaves; Another person said, that the insurrection could not be maintained, unless they got possession of the fifths, and unless the city of the Rio should unite with them. Alvarenga, who seems to have been one of the most ardent of the party, affirmed, on the contrary, that if they could get into the country enough salt, iron, and gunpowder, for two years' consumption, it would suffice. Their machinations continued some months, and several persons of considerable influence and rank in life appear to have been implicated. Many intimations of inflammatory and dangerous language had reached the Governor, before a complete discovery of the design was made, by a man named Joaquim Silverio dos Reys; and two other persons shortly afterwards gave information to the same tenour. One of his first measures was, to make it known that the proposed assessment was suspended. This was an act, which, by allaying the popular discontent, deprived the conspirators of their great pretext, and of their main hope. Still they determined upon trying their fortune. But they were watched too closely. Tiradentes was at the Rio when he heard that the design was discovered: immediately he fled, by unfrequented ways, into Minas Geraes, and concealed himself in the house of one of the conspirators, still hoping that an insurrection would be commenced; but he was traced to his hiding-place. arrested, and sent prisoner to the seat of Government. The Sargento Mor, hearing of this arrest, met his brother, P. Carlos Correia, by night; the Priest was terrified at the intelligence, and

[page] 684

CHAP. XLIII. 1789.

intreated him to abscond; but he resolved that he would stand firm to his purpose, and accordingly he sent off dispatches to the other conspirators, requiring them to keep their oaths, and come forward with all the force they could collect in this hour of danger. It was too late; great numbers were arrested and thrown into prison. The evidence against them appears to have been full and compleat. They followed the most obvious means of defence, .. that of accusing the principal witness against them as the author of the plot, and representing themselves as the tempted, him as the guilty person. In this story some of them persisted till the falsehood could avail no longer, and they then admitted the truth of the charge against them.

Sentença. &c. MS.

Sentence of the Conspirators.

1792.

More than two years elapsed, from the time of their arrest, before sentence was pronounced; during that time one of them committed suicide, and one died in prison. Tiradentes, being the prime mover of the mischief, was condemned to be hanged; his head to be carried to Villa Rica, and exposed upon a high pole in the most public part of the city; and his quarters in like manner hoisted in the places where the chief meetings of the conspirators had been held. Though there be no cruelty in thus disposing of a senseless corpse, humanity is outraged by such exposures, and it is time that they were disused for ever. The house in which he had dwelt at Villa Rica was to be razed, and the site thereof sown with salt, never again to be built upon; and a pillar to be erected there, with an inscription recording his guilt and his punishment. If the house were not his own, still the sentence was to be executed, and the owner indemnified out of the proceeds of the criminal's property, all which was confiscated. The most barbarous part of the sentence was, that his children and grandchildren, if he had any, were despoiled of all their property, and declared infamous. Maciel, his brother-in-law Francisco de Paula, Alvarenga, and three others, were also

[page] 685

CHAP. XLIII. 1792.

to suffer death at the gallows; their heads to be exposed before their respective dwellings; their property to be confiscated; and their children and grandchildren, in the same detestable spirit of old law, to be made infamous. The only difference between their sentences and that of the author of the conspiracy, was, that their bodies were not to be quartered. Four others, among whom were the poor youth who should then have been pursuing his studies at Coimbra, and his infatuated father, were to be hanged; their bodies were not to be mutilated, nor their houses razed; but their possessions were forfeited, and their children, to the second generation, declared infamous, as were those of the conspirator who had delivered himself from prison and from punishment by voluntary death. The other criminals were banished to different places, and for different terms, according to their degrees of guilt. Thomaz Antonio Gonzaga was one of those who were condemned to banishment for life. There was a doubt concerning the part which he had taken: both Tiradentes and P. Carlos Correia, denied that he had appeared at any of their meetings, or taken any share in their designs; they had used his name, they said, without his knowledge, because of his reputation, and the weight which his supposed sanction would give to their cause. Tiradentes protested that he did not say this for the sake of screening Gonzaga, because there was a personal enmity between them. There was no direct proof to countervail this positive testimony in his behalf; but there was this strong ground for suspicion, .. he had urged the Intendant to levy the tax, not for the deficiency of one year's fifths alone, (which appears to have been what the Government intended), but for the whole arrears. His defence was, that he believed the Junta da Fazenda, when they tried this, would be convinced of its utter impracticability, and that by reporting accordingly to the Queen, they would obtain a remission. But this policy

[page] 686

CHAP. XLIII. 1792.

appeared too fine to be honest: the Judges believed that he acted in collusion with the conspirators, for the purpose of exciting discontent and tumult; and upon that opinion they condemned him. Some were to be flogged and banished, or employed as galley-slaves: some were declared innocent, .. among them the poor man who had died in prison: and two were said to have atoned sufficiently for the suspicion which existed against them, by the confinement which they had undergone. These sentences were mitigated at Lisbon. Tiradentes was the only person who suffered death. The others who had been condemned to die were banished, some for life, and some for ten years; and these terms were afterwards shortened, as were those of all the rest. So that, though the law was barbarous, the Portugueze Government deserves the praise of having acted with clemency: for however imperfectly the forms of justice may appear to us to have been observed in the proceedings against the accused, there can be no doubt concerning the nature and extent of their design.

Sentença. &c. MS.

Abolition of the salt contract.

During the first years of the Revolutionary War, while all Europe was in arms, Brazil continued undisturbed, in a state of rapidly increasing prosperity. The spirit of the Government also was improved. Memorials were submitted to the Ministry, in which the errors of the existing system were decorously and strongly stated, and the evils arising from them clearly exposed. Even the press, which had long been subject to a fatal restraint, was allowed a certain degree of freedom upon these subjects; and the good effects were perceptible. The salt contract, which was the greatest grievance in Brazil, was abolished in consequence of such representations; a moderate tax of sixteen hundred reis per moio was imposed in its stead; and Government is said to have gained considerably by thus relieving the people.

Ratton. § 59.

[page] 687

CHAP. XLIII. War with Spain.

1800.

In the progress of the war, when Spain had been betrayed by its imbecil Minister into a league offensive and defensive with the French Republic, and thereby made compleatly subservient to France; the Portugueze indemnified themselves in America for the indignities which they were compelled to endure in Europe. D. Fernando Jozé de Portugal was then Viceroy. From the year 1777, the Commissioners had been proceeding in the demarcation with a slowness that characterizes both nations. Perpetual disputes occurred respecting the intended line, clearly as the Treaty had attempted to lay it down; and the Portugueze are accused of starting imaginary difficulties, advancing false pretensions, and extending their boundary without any regard to right. There is more asperity than truth in these accusations. The only place which they occupied beyond what appears to be the just line of the Treaty, was Nova Coimbra; and for that the Spaniards, by a like trespass, had secured for themselves an indemnity. But an end was put by the war to the labours, and delays, and bickerings of the Commissioners. The Mother Countries were in no condition to send out armaments, and when the colonies were left to their own resources, the superiority of the Brazilians was manifested.

State of the Guarani Reductions.

Bucarelli's system for the Missions had at that time been more than twenty years in operation; and they are truly said to have been years of plunder, cruelty, and unhappiness. Instead of tracing these evils to their true source, in the want of that moral discipline and parental care under which the Guaranies had flourished; and in the substitution of ignorant, avaricious, unfeeling, and unprincipled Administrators; the Marquez de Aviles, who was the Viceroy, imputed it to the system of community; and thinking gradually to abolish that system, he began by assigning lands and cattle in propriety to three hundred fa-

[page] 688

CHAP. XLIII. 1800.

milies, as an experiment. The war broke out; he was removed to Lima, and succeeded by D. Joaquim del Piño. The new Viceroy was soon made to understand the impolicy of Spain in having expelled the Jesuits. Since that unhappy measure, the population of the Reductions had diminished from more than one hundred thousand to less than forty-six thousand; the Guaranies were universally and justly discontented; their military discipline was lost, perhaps because the Administrators had been afraid to keep it up; and even if they had still possessed ability to oppose their old enemies the Brazilians, it was believed that they had not the will. More recent, and less pardonable injuries, from the Spaniards, had effaced that enmity.

Funes. 3. 399—404.

1801.

Expedition against the Seven Reductions.

The Governor of Rio Grande, as soon as he received advice of the war in Europe, without waiting for instructions from the Viceroy, issued a declaration against the Spaniards, and offered a pardon to all deserters who should come forward and present themselves for service. One detachment was sent toward the western frontier, another toward the south. The fort of Chuy was surprized and sacked without the loss of a man; the Spanish forts upon the Jaguaron were in like manner demolished, and all their establishments toward the Jacuy, including S. Thecla. While these operations were going on, a movement was made upon the Seven Reductions, by a party of adventurers under the command of Jozé Borges do Canto. This man, a native of the province, was a deserter from a dragoon-regiment, who had come in upon the proclamation, and immediately proposed to make an inroad in that direction, relying upon the disposition of the people, which, he said, he well knew, .. if the Commandant would give him men and arms. Neither could be spared: but he was supplied with ammunition, and authorized to raise as many volunteers as he could, among his countrymen and fellow

[page] 689

CHAP. XLIII. 1801.

deserters. Forty of the two descriptions joined him, all armed at their own expence; and with this handful of men he advanced toward the Uruguay Missions. On the way he met a Guarani of his acquaintance, flying from one of those, now miserable establishments, to seek his fortune. The fugitive assured Canto, that the Guaranies would not hesitate a moment to put themselves under the protection of the Portugueze Government; and so confident was he in this opinion, that he turned back to accompany the band of liberators, as the Portugueze were now considered in a country where they were once the objects of general and hereditary hatred. The command in these Missions had been entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel D. Francisco Rodrigo; and he, fearing an attempt of this kind, had taken a position in sight of S. Miguel. But the Guaranies abandoned him, drove off the horses and cattle, and joined the Portugueze; who then pushed forward to the entrenchments, carried them almost without opposition, and took ten pieces of cannon. Rodrigo retired into what had been the Jesuit's house; but knowing his danger, from the temper of the inhabitants, he proposed to capitulate: and Canto, who was under no little apprehensions lest reinforcements should reach the Spaniards, and lest the insignificance of his own force should be discovered, (for he pretended that he had only with him the advanced-guard of the expedition,) gladly granted him the terms which he asked, allowing him to quit the province with his men, and every thing belonging to them. The representation, however, which he made, for the purpose of intimidating the enemy, though false in its intention, proved to be true in fact. The Spaniards on their march fell in with another detachment, under Manoel dos Santos, and were immediately made prisoners. Rodrigo appealed to his capitulation; but Santos replied, that he was perfectly independent of Jozé Borges do Canto, and therefore not bound by any act of his; that the

VOL. III. 4 T

[page] 690

CHAP. XLIII. 1801.

Cazal. 1. 172—175. Funes. 3. 404—405.

Funes. 3. 405—407.

Cazal. 1. 263, 264, 287.

matter must be referred to the Governor of Rio Grande; and that, till his decision could be known, the Spaniards must be contented to remain prisoners. The Governor decided that the capitulation should be performed, except as it related to the cannon, which, he said, must be detained for the Crown. The other six Reductions submitted joyfully to these adventurers. Canto was rewarded with a Captain's commission, and Major Joaquim Felis sent to command the province, with a good reinforcement. The Spaniards made an ineffectual attempt to recover it, in which they lost some seventy prisoners; and the Portugueze crossed the Uruguay in boats, which were constructed of hides for the occasion, attacked the Spaniards there, and took from them three pieces of artillery. Before this conquest was made, peace had been concluded with Spain. The Portugueze had been taught how to quibble in the interpretation of treaties, by repeated lessons from their neighbours; and profiting now by their example, they insisted, that as the seven Reductions were not specified in the Treaty of Badajoz, they were justified in keeping them, .. and therefore keep them they would. The Marquez de Sobremonte, who was the next Viceroy of Buenos Ayres, resolved to recover them by force; and that resolution was approved by the King: but Spain was too much embarrassed with nearer and more serious concerns, to carry this purpose into effect; and from that time, the seven Reductions have been annexed to Brazil. While these hostilities lasted, the Spaniards from Asumpcion, under D. Lazaro de Ribeira, ascended the Paraguay, with four schooners and twenty canoes, and besieged Nova Coimbra. It was well defended by Ricardo Franco d'Almeida; and the besiegers, after nine days, were compelled to retire, with some loss. This was the first time that the Guaycurus and Payaguas saw Europeans engaged in war with each other. The Portugueze, on their part, destroyed S. Jozé, which was one of the latest foundations of the Spaniards.

[page] 691

CHAP. XLIII. 1801. Treaty of Madrid.

The Treaty of Badajoz, between Portugal and Spain, was followed by the Treaty of Madrid, between Portugal and France. By that Treaty, France extorted from Portugal a cession of territory on the side of Guiana. The Treaty of Utrecht had named the river of Vicente Pinzon for the boundary: both nations at that time agreed that that river was the Wiapoc; but as the latitude had not been specified in the Treaty, France latterly pretended that the Arawari was meant, which is sixty leagues S. E. of the Wiapoc. Not, however, contented with this, the French now fixed upon the Carapanatuba for the division, .. a river which falls into the Orellana, about twenty miles above Macapa. This brought them close upon the Portugueze settlements, and would have given them the opportunity of quarrelling at any time, when it should be most convenient to fall upon their neighbours. That river was to form the line up to its source; the line was then to proceed to the summit of the Cordillera, which divides the waters, and follow the summit to the part where it approaches nearest to the Rio Branco, which, it was supposed, would be in about two degrees and one-third North. But when the Peace of Amiens was made, the Arawari was substituted for the Carapanatuba, and the line was to be directly from it source to the Branco, toward the West, the navigation of the river being common to both nations. Though the line had thus been carried back, still a considerable cession was extorted from Portugal; and the Portugueze, who, as a nation, amid the corruption of all their institutions, have ever retained a high sense of national honour, resented deeply the injustice to which they were compelled to ¹² submit.

12 The Portugueze have since had the satisfaction of fixing the boundary themselves, having taken Cayenne from Buonaparte, and restored it to France, after the overthrow of that Tyrant. By the treaty of 28 Aug. 1817, the Wiapoc was again made the boundary; and to prevent all farther cavil, its mouth was stated to be between the fourth and fifth degrees of N. latitude, and in three hundred and twenty-two degrees longitude, E. of the island of Ferro. From thence the line of demarcation was to be in conformity to the Treaty of Utrecht.

[page] 692

CHAP. XLIII.

11 Feb. 1805.

Conde dos Arcos, Viceroy.

1806.

Expedition down the Pardo.

The renewal of the Revolutionary War was not at first felt in South America; that part of the world remained in peace, and seemed happily exempted from the curse under which Europe was suffering. Brazil continued to flourish. The Marquez de Alorna was appointed to succeed D. Fernando Jozé de Portugal: but that appointment was shortly afterwards annulled, and the Conde dos Arcos was nominated in his stead. Under his administration an expedition was undertaken for reducing the savages in the Captaincy of Ilheos. Joam Gonçalvez da Costa, the Commander, determined to explore the country well at the same time, and follow the Rio Pardo to its mouth. He began by making a road from the mouth of the Varada, to the point where the Giboya falls into the Pardo: there he collected his stores, and built canoes; and having obtained intelligence that there was a settlement of Mongoyos in that part of the Sertam, from thence he sent a party of seventy men in search of them. They reached the Taba, as such villages are called, in forty-five days: a considerable part of the time had been consumed in halting by the way, to attend to some of the men who were bitten by snakes, or had met with other casualties. The Mongoyos received them as friends: they were the only savages of that Sertam who subsisted by agriculture. One of them had formerly been a prisoner among the Portugueze, and had received baptism: he gave information that there was an old gold mine at no great distance. A party of Portugueze and of these friendly Indians went in search of it; but when they were near the spot they fell in with a troop of Botocudos, who were inveterate enemies of the Mon-

[page] 693

CHAP. XLIII. 1806

goyos, and immediately attacked them fiercely. One of the Portugueze being severely wounded in this action, was carried back to the village for assistance: his comrades were eager to revenge him; and under Captain Raymundo Gonçalvez da Costa, the Commander's brother, they pursued the track of the Botocudos, till, on the fourth day, they discovered their habitations, and attacked them suddenly before day-break. The savages fought behind their palisade with desperate courage, the women supplying the men with arrows as fast as they could let them fly: but in the end they lost the hope of defending the post, and took to flight, leaving about twenty dead, and a few children. A great quantity of human bones were found in their dwelling, and rattles made of human shoulder-blades strung together, to the clatter of which they used to dance at their cannibal feasts. The Portugueze persuaded themselves that these people ate their own dead, and killed all who were growing old: the former conclusion they drew from the prodigious quantity of human bones which were discovered; the latter, as hastily, because not a single old person was observed among them, though they had been taken by surprize, and all the population had been seen. They found the mine on their return to the Mongoyo village. It was evident that many persons had worked at it very long ago: trees were growing in the mine itself, and from the roots of those which the miners had cut down, shoots had sprung which were as large as the original stock. They collected a few specimens of gold, and returned to rejoin the Commander at the mouth of the Giboya. When the sick and wounded were recovered, the same men, under the same officer, were sent in search of some other Mongoyo settlements; they found five; and had the same success in conciliating the inhabitants. Meantime, Joam Gonçalvez embarked upon the Rio Pardo, and, after a dangerous navigation among the rapids,

[page] 694

CHAP. XLIII. 1806.

reached the mouth of the Catolé, where he hutted his troops and waited for the absent detachment. They joined him after an expedition of thirty-five days, very much broken down by the difficulties which they had endured. He was obliged to dismiss fifty, that they might return home to recover; and with the remainder, now reduced to twenty-one, proceeded down the river. The navigation was perilous, and the country peopled with Botocudos, the smoke of whose habitations they frequently saw. After twenty days they passed the rapids, and got into smooth water; and in eight days more they reached the Povoaçam de Caniavieiras, the highest Portugueze settlement upon the Rio Pardo, there called the Patipé, .. their identity, which till that time had only been conjectured, being thus ascertained.

Joam Gonçalvez da Costa. Investigador Portugues. t. 23. pp. 397—412.

English expedition against Buenos Ayres.

Removal of the Court of Portugal to Brazil.

The time had now arrived when South America was to feel the effect of those momentous changes which every year was producing in Europe. A rash enterprize was undertaken against Buenos Ayres by the English; and its success induced the British Government to pursue schemes which it had not authorized, and would never have commenced. The plans were formed in ignorance of the nature of the country, and of the people: they were miserably conducted, and though the most exemplary courage was displayed both by men and officers, with the exception of their General, the issue was as disastrous as all such attempts at distant conquests deserve to be. Events of far more permanent importance were about to ensue. Napoleon Buonaparte, at that time Emperor of France, in league with Russia, and exercising uncontrolled authority over the rest of the continent, had determined upon adding the Peninsula to his Empire. The perfidy of this tyrant equalled his ambition: while he endeavoured to delude the Court of Portugal by carrying on a negociation with it, he dispatched an

[page] 695

CHAP. XLIII. 1808.

army with the utmost celerity into the land, for the purpose of seizing the royal family. But the House of Braganza had more than once contemplated the possibility of being expelled from their kingdom by a superior enemy. The Prince Regent embarked in time; the seas were secured for him by the powerful protection of England, the old and constant ally of Portugal; and the seat of the Portugueze Monarchy was removed from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. That event terminates the colonial annals of Brazil; and a summary view of the general state of that great country, at the time when its history thus assumed a new character, will fitly conclude this long and arduous work.

[page] 696

CHAPTER XLIV.

View of the Progress of Brazil, during the Eighteenth Century, and of its state at the time when the seat of Government was removed thither.

CHAP. XLIV.

No nation has ever accomplished such great things, in proportion to its means, as the Portugueze. Inconsiderable in size as Portugal is, being one of the smallest of the European kingdoms, and far from being fully peopled, it has possessed itself, by fair occupancy, of the finest portion of the New World; and whatever changes may take place, Brazil will always be the inheritance of a Portugueze people. Brazil extends in length through thirty-four degrees of latitude; and its breadth, in the widest part, is equal to its length. When the seat of Government was removed thither from Lisbon, the manners and condition of its inhabitants differed widely, according to the latitude and altitude of the different provinces, and other local circumstances: but the people were everywhere Portugueze, in language and in feeling; and there existed no provincial animosities. The general progress, which had been made during the preceding century, was very great, in spite of many counteracting causes.

[page] 697

CHAP. XLIV. Captaincy General of Gram Para.

Effect of Pombal's Regulations concerning the Indians.

None of the old Captaincies had experienced greater changes than Para. The people were no longer remarkable for their insubordination and turbulence. An end had been put to the captivity of the Indians; and when none but Negroes were allowed to be sold as slaves, the evils of slavery were lessened, because there were fewer to suffer; and the man who bought a Negro was less likely to murder him by cruel usage, than he who might catch an Indian if he could. But in every other respect the laws for the protection of the Indians had been disregarded. Half a century had elapsed since Pombal promulgated his regulations, whereby he hoped to place the aboriginal natives on a footing with the Brazilians of European race, and to incorporate all casts and colours in one body politic,.. for to this his views undoubtedly extended. But he defeated his own intentions, when he expelled the Jesuits, and took away the authority of the Missionaries. It was impossible to supply their place; and yet he seems not even to have anticipated a difficulty! The evil consequences were more perceptible in Para than in any other part of Brazil, because no where had so many Aldeas been established, nor had they any where else been in so flourishing a state. The Directors were usually a set of brutal fellows, who solicited the appointment for the sake of extorting what they could from the miserable Indians. The law intended to entrust them with only a directive power; but how little must Pombal have reflected upon the nature of brute man, and the tendency of power to corrupt those of a better mould (a lesson which he might have learnt from his own heart), if he supposed that such men would confine themselves within these limits! They took upon themselves, as might have been foreseen, the whole authority. The Indians, in whom the temporal magistracy was legally vested, possessed only the name. The Priest and the Director were either at variance with each other, if the former had any

VOL. III. 4 U

[page] 698

CHAP. XLIV.

sense of duty or feeling of compassion, or they united to oppress the Indians; and the Governor, however good his intentions and benevolent his desires, winked at gross abuses, and suffered great villains to go unpunished, because he could find no honest men to put in their place.

Reflexoens, &c. Patriota. 3. 6. 55.

Ill consequences of the demarcation to the Indians.

D. Fr. Caetano Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. T. 4. 351. 354.

Do. T. 5. p. 3.

An accidental cause accelerated the depopulation which such a system tended to produce. The demarcation, which, from the time of the first Treaty of Limits, went on with little interruption till Spain and Portugal were involved in the Revolutionary War, proved, in its consequences, a great evil to the Indians of Para and its dependencies. They were drafted in great numbers from all the Aldeas, for the service of the Commissioners. The service was indefinitely long: it lay amid unwholesome tracts; and was, moreover, so severe while it lasted, that most of the Indians who were thus employed, perished, or were invalided for ever: and the fear of being summoned to the same fate, made others desert in great numbers, and resume their savage way of life. The troops who were employed in the demarcation, or stationed in what were once the Aldeas, are said to have increased the evil, by the profligacy which they introduced; but without such assistance, there were sufficient teachers of depravity, as well as sufficient propensity to it. The Brazilians, who frequented the Aldeas, or settled in them, were commonly men of the very worst description, .. low-bred, low-minded, and impudently vicious. They lived in open defiance of law, and contempt of decency; and if they could not obtain women by persuasion, took them by force. The Directors ¹ were frequently as bad. The Indians, like other men, were far more readily influenced by example than by precept; they had both to improve them in the

1 The good Bishop of Para, in speaking of them says, "O vicio em quem governa, he vicio posto a cavallo e enthronisado." (Jornal de Coimbra, T. 5. p. 3.)

[page] 699

CHAP. XLIV.

Do. T. 4. 122.

time of the Jesuits; and if both were ineffectual, the Jesuits possessed an authority which they always exercised with prudence, and which, if it did not amend a vicious disposition, served at least to prevent the commission of open vice. But the Indians soon discovered that they were emancipated from all restraint of moral discipline: their new pastors were without power, and the Directors set them an example of unbridled licentiousness. The Bishop of Para, D. Fr. Caetano Brandam, a most excellent and exemplary Prelate, who, between the years 1784 and 1788, performed the arduous duty of visiting almost the whole of his extensive diocese, every where in his Journal laments over the decay of the Aldeas, and the degraded state of the Indians. Nothing, he says, could be more lamentable than their morals; drunkenness and incontinence were their incorrigible vices; and all endeavours of the Priest to correct them, when he attempted to perform his duty in this respect, were in vain. Ecclesiastical censures, which had been so effectual under the Jesuits, were set at nought, and therefore the Clergy wisely abstained from exposing them to contempt: means of restraint were not in their power; and to exhortation and reproof, the Indians were completely callous. The Bishop's kind heart and tolerant disposition led him to disapprove wholly of coercion, .. a means of improvement which he thought illegitimate in itself, contrary to the practice of the good ages of the Church, and more likely to make men hypocrites than to amend them. It would indeed have been unjust and monstrous, to have punished the Indians for offences which were committed by the Brazilians every day before their eyes with perfect impunity: but there is a wholesome discipline, by which the frequency and the scandal of offences may certainly be prevented; and that degree of discipline cannot be relaxed, or laid aside, without injury to the commonwealth.

[page] 700

CHAP. XLIV.

Their miserable state in many places. P. Fauque. Lettres Edif. t. 7. 364. P. Lombard. Do. t. 7. 334.

Jornal de Coimbra. t. 4. 122.

Do. 4. 107.

Do. 109.

The French Missionaries in Guiana, who formerly received into their establishments fugitives from the Aldeas, bore honourable testimony to the care which the Portugueze Jesuits had bestowed in ² civilizing them, and the success with which they had instructed them in the principles of the Catholic faith. But the Bishop was amazed at their utter ignorance and indifference: in matters of belief, he said, yes and no meant the same thing with them. Singing however seemed to impress them more than any other form of worship; and there was this sure ground for hope, that, insensible as they appeared to other means, they were evidently affected by good examples, especially in their pastors. Their total indifference to every thing beyond mere animal wants, was a worse indication. Their houses, he says, differed from pig-sties in nothing, perhaps, except that they were rather more filthy, and less sheltered. They were contented with four posts, thatched with leaves, and wattled round with the same frail materials: and for furniture and utensils, they required nothing more than a hammoc; a rope, whereon to hang the few rags which served them for clothing; and a pipkin, in which they mixed mandioc flour in cold water, and were satisfied with such food. The Directors said, that the men who were absent, either in the service of Government or of individuals, staid away without manifesting the slightest care for their wives and children; and when they returned at last, sometimes after an absence of many years, the women neither upbraided them for having absented themselves so long, nor asked why they had tarried, nor where they had been, but received them without any apparent emotion,

2 P. Fauque mentions a ceremony among the Palikours (a Guiana tribe), of giving a cloth camisa to males, when they were adolescent. This is worthy of notice, because both the name and the material were Portugueze, and prove that civilization was extending from the Aldeas to remote tribes.

[page] 701

CHAP. XLIV.

as if it had been only yesterday that they had parted. But this, which was related as a proof of their insensible and inferior nature, is only the natural consequence of the extreme discomfort to which they were reduced, and the few attractions which their home could have, when no other use was made of the laws than to oppress them: for their capacity of improvement, and their desire to ³ improve, had been shown under the Missionaries; and wherever they happened to have a humane Director, and a virtuous Priest, there they were industrious and happy.

Their number kept up by fugitive hordes.

The great depopulation which the Aldeas had suffered was not counterbalanced by a constant succession of recruits, as in the time of the Missionaries; for who was there to seek the savages in the woods, or by what inducements could they be persuaded to put themselves under rigorous task-masters, who offered them no one benefit in compensation for their liberty? Some addition however, from time to time, was derived from a different cause. Not the Orellana alone, but most or all of the rivers which join it in the upper part of its course through the Portugueze dominions, were infested by the Muras; and weaker hordes, though it was long before they could be persuaded that Indian slavery was indeed abolished, sometimes for the sake of protection from these merciless enemies, took refuge in the Portugueze settlements.

Ribeiro. MS.

Province of the Solimoens.

The most remote of the Portugueze establishments up the Orellana is the Prezidio de S. Francisco Xavier de ⁴ Tabatinga,

3 The Ouvidor, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampayo, whose unpublished Journal of his progress through the Captaincy of the Rio Negro is frequently referred to in this chapter, is an unexceptionable witness. He says, he certo que, nam so no canto, mas em qualquer outra arte recebem os Indios com muita facilidade as instrucçoens que se lhes dam.

4 Tabatinga is a fine white clay, of which great use is made in many parts of Brazil for buildings. In Para the liquid gum of the Sorveira is mixed with it to give it tenacity and cohesion.

[page] 702

CHAP. XLIV. Fort Tabatinga.

Ribeiro. MS. Cazal. 2. 334.

Town of S. Jozé.

Cazal, 332.

Olivença.

situated at the mouth of the Javari: the distance from the city of Para is estimated by the boatmen at four hundred and eighty-four leagues, .. a voyage of eighty-seven days. Fernando da Costa de Ataide Teive, during his government, removed the garrison from hence to a high bluff two leagues farther up, upon the northern shore, where the stream is so contracted that no boat can pass unseen by the centinels, and the navigation is compleatly commanded. But this position being manifestly within the Spanish demarcation was afterwards relinquished, and the Prezidio again stationed in its former place. The town of S. Jozé is the next settlement, three leagues below Tabatinga. It was peopled by Tucunas, who hunt, and fish, and cultivate the ground. Ten leagues farther down is Olivença, formerly the Aldea de S. Paulo, where Condamine rejoiced at finding himself once more in a place which bore some traces of comfort and civilization. The Povoaçam de S. Pedro has since that time been incorporated with it, and it was made a town in 1759, by Joaquim de Mello e Povoas, first Governor of the Rio Negro. This town, which Ribeiro calls the Court of the river Solimoens, stands upon a bluff, so steep that the tops of the houses are scarcely to be seen from the port. The banks in the vicinity frequently fall in; otherwise the situation has many advantages. Delicious fruits are produced there in abundance: a large tree grows in those parts, from which indigo may be made as well as from the shrub which is cultivated for that purpose; and the country and the adjacent islands are full of cacao, of which large cargoes used to be sent to Para by the industrious Indians who were there domesticated. Here it is that the chief remains

[page] 703

CHAP. XLIV. Remains of the Omagua nation.

of the Omagua nation were settled, .. a people once so numerous, and so famous for the fabulous report of their prodigious riches. When Ribeiro, in his judicial progress, came to Olivença in the year 1774, they had left off the apparatus for flattening the foreheads and elongating the heads of their infants; still they admired the old standard of beauty so much that they moulded them by hand: but the custom is now wholly disused, and the heads of the children are suffered to grow in the form wherein nature cast them. They were fairer than any of the other tribes upon the river, and better shaped, and were considered as the most civilized and intelligent. Both sexes wore a garment of their own manufacturing, in form precisely like the poncho. They cultivated the cotton of which these garments were made, and made also coverlets and cloths for domestic use and for sale: a manufacturing and commercial tribe of Indians, says Ribeiro, may be regarded as a prodigy. Their old enemies the Tucunas, whose heads they used to suspend as trophies in their houses, and whose teeth they formerly strung and wore as necklaces, were peaceably settled with them in the same town, where there were also settlers of the Passé, Juri, and Xomana tribes.

Rebeiro. MS. Cazal. 326.

Nogueira.

Lower down the stream are Castro d' Avelaens, Fonteboa, and Alvarens, or Cahissara as it is still sometimes called, .. small places, inhabited by domesticated Indians of many tribes; the latter, upon a lake near the Orellana, contained somewhat more than two hundred inhabitants in 1788; but the situation was ill chosen, the lake producing a perpetual plague of insects. Nogueira, which is the next town, is free from this evil, and was a cheerful and pleasant place, the houses regulaly built, and rows of orange trees in the streets. Between this town and Alvarens there is an inland communication by a natural canal, when the rivers are full. The inhabitants, who in 1788 were about four

[page] 704

CHAP. XLIV.

D. Fr. Caet. Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. 4. 352.

Ega.

hundred in number, are chiefly Indians of various ⁵ tribes, with varieties of the mixed breed, descendants of the Carmelite converts. It does not appear that they had degenerated in industry since the change, but lamentably in morals; for, upon examining the Register of Baptisms in 1788, the Bishop found that most of the infants were entered as children of unknown fathers. Below Nogueira is the town of Ega, upon the Tefé, a great river, navigable in small boats for a distance of two months from its mouth, but in large vessels only for a few days. Neither its sources, nor the names or number of its confluent streams are known, nor has the interior been explored sufficiently to know where the level country terminates: it was known long ago, that the high country inland abounds with pastures; but it is now possessed by the Muras, who have driven out all other tribes. The waters of the Tefé are clear, and amber-coloured. Ega is placed upon its eastern bank, where it forms a beautiful bay about six miles wide, two leagues above its junction with the Orellana. In the dry season this bay has a fine margin of white sand; and when the rivers are swoln it is then bordered with Aracarana, a shrub bearing a white flower with yellow stamens, of the most delightful fragrance. The Indians here, who are of fifteen ⁶ different tribes, cultivate mandioc, pulse, rice, maize,

5 Jumas, Ambuas, Cirus, Catanixis, Uayupés, Hyauhauhays, and Mariaranas. Cazal, with an inconvenient disregard to books and maps, adopts a mode of spelling peculiar to himself, rather than use the Spanish orthography, which is nearer the native pronunciation than the Portugueze: thus he disguises the rivers Jurua, or Yurua, Jutay, or Yutay, and Javary, or Yavary, under the names of Hyurua, Hyutahy, and Hyabary.

6 Janumas, Tamuanas, Sorimoens, Jauanas, Yupiuas, Coronas, Achouaris, Jumas, Manaos, Coretús, Xamas, Passés, Juris, Uayupis, and Cocrunas.

(Ribeiro.)

[page] 705

CHAP. XLIV.

Mode of debauching with the leaves of the Ipadu.

and fruits and esculent plants of many kinds; they collect honey, sarsaparilla, cacao, and the cinnamon and cloves of the country, which they exchange for iron tools, and woollen cloth: the women spin, weave, and make hammocks. These Indians practise a peculiar kind of debauchery with the leaves of a shrub called Ipadu, parched and pulverized. They stuff their mouths with this powder, so as to distend the cheeks, swallow it gradually, and as it is swallowed put in more, so as always to keep the mouth full. They say that it takes away both the necessity and the desire for sleep, and keeps them in a delightful state of indolent tranquillity, which, according to Ribeiro, is the greatest enjoyment of the Americans who live between the tropics. Ega was the chief Mission of the Carmelites, removed from the Ilha dos Veados to its present site by F. Andre da Costa, and constituted as a town with its present name in 1759, by Joaquim de Mello e Povoas. It was the head quarters, on that part of the river which is called the Solimoens, for the persons employed in the demarcation; and to that circumstance, the Bishop imputed a great increase of profligacy in the nearest settlements. Yet this political Mission carried with it good examples as well as evil; and the good Prelate speaks with admiration of a Spanish Lady, whom he found at Ega, .. and whose equal it would not have been easy to find in Spain. She was the wife of the Spanish Commissioner; and while she gave her daughters a moral and religious education, and neglected nothing which might qualify them for discharging their household duties, she taught them the French and Latin languages.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. 351—2. Cazal. 2. 326—331.

Alvellos.

Alvellos stands upon the next great river, the Coary, or Coara, four leagues from its mouth, and, like Ega, upon the sandy margin of a fine bay. In 1788, its population fell short of three hundred, many of whom were soldiers from Portugal married with Indian women; the others a motley assemblage of many

VOL. III. 4 X

[page] 706

CHAP. XLIV.

Spotted Indians.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. 4. 348—350. Cazal. 2. 325.

⁷ tribes. Their habitations were wretched hovels composed of stakes and straw; and what disposition they might have had for cultivating the land, was checked by the ravages of a species of ant called cahuba, which was so numerous and so destructive that it suffered nothing which they planted to grow up. In other respects the situation is delightful and healthy, and it is entirely free from that plague of winged insects with which the Orellana is so dreadfully infested. Among its settlers were the chief remains of the Solimoens, once so numerous, according to one derivation, as to have given name to the river, from the mouth of the Madeira upwards. Here also were some Cataunixis, a people remarkable for having white spots upon various parts of the body, which they are not born with, but which appear as they are growing up till they are past twenty years of age, and which seem to be infectious. The disease is not spoken of as painful, or any way injurious, and some of the tribe are free from it. There was no want of industry among the inhabitants of this little town; they had brought cattle there, .. a great means of civilization, where they do not multiply so fast and so easily as to make the people merely carnivorous. They weave cotton, and manufacture matting and pottery, collect wild produce, and extract from tortoise eggs that thick oil which is in such great request throughout Para. The Muras are upon friendly terms with them, and bring tortoises and sarsaparilla in exchange for knives and axes; but these savages will not be persuaded to forsake their own way of life, and now there are no persons zealous enough to acquire their language for the purpose of endeavouring to reclaim them. This town, which like all the others above

7 Sorimoens, Jumas, Passés, Uayupés, Irijús, Purus, Cataunixis, Uamanis, and Cuchivaras. (Ribeiro. Cazal.)

[page] 707

CHAP. XLIV.

the Madeira, was originally a Carmelite Aldea, was several times removed, before it was established in its present site by F. Mauricio Moreyra.

Crato.

Cazal. 2. 324.

Extent and natural advantages of this province.

The whole tract between the Madeira and the Javary is called the Province of Solimoens, and is subordinate to the Government of the Rio Negro, which is itself a dependency of Gram Para. There is only one other town in this province, Crato, which has been founded since the year 1788, high up the Madeira, on the left bank. This place is becoming an important station, because of the intercourse between Mato Grosso and Para. Its inhabitants are Indians and people of mixed blood, who gather produce, raise things of the first necessity, and collect tortoises upon the Praia de Tamandoa, four leagues below the rapids or falls of S. Antonio, and keep them in pens within the water. The province is less peopled and less improved than any other part of Brazil; and, except in the foundation of Crato, is probably in most respects worse than it was when the Carmelites were dispossessed. But the mixture of races which has taken place, is both a physical improvement, and a great political advantage. The foundations are laid, and the work is begun. This single province is equal in extent to the whole island of Great Britain; and the means of communication with remote parts which it possesses by great navigable rivers, connected by natural channels one with another, are such as exist nowhere but in South America. The Madeira and the mighty Orellana need only to be mentioned; the rivers which flow from the side of the Nuevo Reyno and Guiana will presently be noticed: but the Purus, the Coary, the Tefe, Jurua, Jutay, and Javary, would each of them be deemed rivers of great magnitude in Europe, .. the smallest of them measuring more than six hundred yards at its mouth. It was formerly supposed that they had their sources among the mountains of Peru; but this cannot be,

[page] 708

CHAP. XLIV.

unless there be a great collection of waters in the interior, like the Lake of Xarayes, where so many rivers unite to form the Paraguay: for it has been ascertained that there is a communication behind them all, between the Ucayali (which is the main stream of the Orellana) and the Mamoré, by means of the Lake Rogagualo in the province of the Moxos, and the Rio de la Exaltacion. Whether the rivers of this province flow from that lake, or have their sources more to the north, has not yet been discovered: the abolition of Indian slavery has taken away the chief motive for which the rivers in the heart of the continent were first explored; and the Portugueze of the Solimoens seldom venture far from the vicinity of their own settlements in that direction, never beyond the limits of those tribes with whom they are in alliance. The Muras possess some part of the river coast, which appears at this day to the navigators in as wild a state as it did to Orellana and his companions, covered with magnificent forests into which the axe has never entered. There are many other ⁸ tribes in the interior, but none so powerful: among them the Culinos are remarkable for round faces and large eyes; the Mayurunas for forming a circle on the top of the head, and letting the hair grow to its full length, bristling their lips and noses with long thorns, wearing macaw feathers at the corners of the mouth like mustachios, and killing such of their people as are dangerously ill, that they may not become too meagre before they die; but the Portugueze may probably wrong them in supposing this to be the

8 Maraubas, Catuquinas, Urubus, Canaxis, Uacarauhas, Gemias, Toquedas, Maturuas, Chibaras, Bugés, Apenaris, Panos, Chimanos, Tapaxanas, Uaraycús, Purupurus: these last call their Chief by the title of Maranuxanha. Most of these tribes use the bow and arrow, the spear, and the sarbacan, or blowing-tube; and they poison their weapons. (Cazal.)

[page] 709

CHAP. XLIV.

motive, which may more likely proceed from some savage notion of superstition, or even of humanity, than from the desire of making a better repast upon the body of the dead.

Captaincy of the Rio Negro

Fort S. Jozé.

Communication with the Orinoco.

Lamalonga.

The Captaincy of the Rio Negro, upon which this, extensive, and as yet uncultivated province depends, was in a state of rapid improvement; more so, perhaps, than any other part of Brazil, except the sea-ports in the South. When Pombal's edict for displacing the Missionaries was passed, there were only eight Aldeas upon the river; since that time settlements have multiplied, and those only which are most remarkable can here be noticed. The remotest establishment in this Captaincy is the fort of S. Jozé dos Marabytaunas, on the right bank, four hundred and eighty-five leagues from the city of Para, which is accounted a voyage of eighty-six days going up. A garrison is stationed here: the other inhabitants are Indians, of the tribe from which the place is denominated, and of the Arihiny nation. It is situated nine leagues below the mouth of the Cassiquiary, the river by which that communication with the Orinoco exists, which was at one time so confidently disbelieved: the distance in a straight line is computed at fifty leagues. Between fort S. Jozé and the Povoaçam of Lamalonga, a distance of about one hundred and twelve leagues, there were about seventeen settlements, chiefly or wholly composed of domesticated natives, some on the one side of the river, some on the other. The intermediate country produces spice, cacao, and sarsaparilha. Many considerable rivers enter the Rio Negro in this part of its course, and many of those rivers communicate with each other by means of pantanaes in the rainy season, or natural channels at all times; but thirty-five leagues above Lamalonga, the navigation of the great stream is interrupted, so as to require a portage; and it becomes more difficult from that point upwards. Lamalonga stands upon the right bank, in a situation which Ribeiro thought the best upon

[page] 710

CHAP. XLIV.

the river for a large town. It was founded in consequence of a quarrel between two Indian Chiefs, both baptized, and both inhabitants of the Aldea of Bararua: one of them, by name Jozé Joam Dary, seceded with his followers and settled himself here, where a church was built for the seceders; and their numbers soon increased, by incorporating the people of another Aldea. The inhabitants are a mixed race of Manaos, Bares, and Banibas.

Cazal. 2. 349—354.

Ajuricaba, the slave-hunter.

A little above Lamalonga, the river Hiyaa disembogues, which, though in other respects inconsiderable, is remarkable for having been the head quarters of a Manao Chief, by name Ajuricaba, formidable in his day, and still famous in those parts. The Manaos were the most numerous tribe upon the Rio Negro, and must once have been extremely powerful, if, as seems likely, the fabled empire of Manoa derived its name from them. In their wild state they are cannibals, and believe in two spirits, good and evil, called Manara and Sarana. Ajuricaba was one of the most powerful Caciques of this powerful nation about the year 1720, and made an alliance with the Dutch of Essequebo, with whom he traded by way of the Rio Branco. The trade on his part consisted in slaves. In order to obtain them, he hoisted the Dutch flag, scoured the Rio Negro with a fleet of canoes, captured all the Indians on whom he could lay hands, and infested the Carmelite Aldeas so grievously, that Joam da Maya da Gama, who succeeded the Annalist Berredo, as Governor of Maranham and Para, sent Belchior Mendes Moraes with a body of infantry to protect them. Moraes, on his arrival, found that this wholesale kidnapper had just attacked the Aldea of Aracary, and carried off many of the inhabitants. He pursued immediately, and after three days overtook him; but observing the letter of his instructions more strictly than the circumstances required or justified, he contented himself with delivering the

[page] 711

CHAP. XLIV.

prisoners, and reproving him severely for his conduct. An official report of what had passed, and of the miserable state in which the converted Indians were placed by the continual depredations of this nefarious Chief, was transmitted to Portugal, and orders came out in consequence to make war upon him and his people. Joam Paes de Amaral was sent with reinforcements to join Moraes, and take the command. They conducted their operations so well, that they captured Ajuricaba and more than two thousand of his tribe. He was embarked for Para, there to undergo a trial, which would have ended in sentence of death. On the way, he and his fellow prisoners attempted to overpower their guards, and seize the canoe: their desperate efforts were not overcome without great difficulty; and when they were at length subdued and fettered, the resolute savage watched an opportunity to throw himself overboardin his chains, and perished by his own act and will. But the Manaos, who delighted in his exploits, and in the reputation which he had obtained for them above all their neighbours, would not be persuaded that such a man could die; and they continued long to look for his return, as the Britons are said in romance to have hoped for the coming of Arthur, .. and as many of the Portugueze at this day in full faith expect the re-appearance of Sebastian.

Ribeiro. MS.

Thomar.

Thomar, formerly the Aldea of Bararua, is three leagues below Lamalonga, on the same bank. Ribeiro called it the Court of the Manaos; but when the Bishop visited it, fifteen years afterwards, it had undergone a great depopulation, the causes whereof are not explained. It is said to have contained, at one time, above one thousand males capable of labour; whereas, in 1788, the whole number of its inhabitants did not exceed five hundred. The statement of its former prosperity, may perhaps be exaggerated; but it is not less certain, that it had very greatly declined. The culture of indigo had then been recently intro-

[page] 712

CHAP. XLIV.

duced by the Governor, Manoel da Gama: this had restored activity to the place, and given a fair prospect of returning welfare, to which the example of the Vicar was contributing, .. a good man, who employed himself in instructing the children with conscientious zeal. There are also potteries established there; and the church and houses are roofed with tiles, made upon the spot. The Indian inhabitants are of the Manao, Bare, Passé, and Uayuana tribes.

Ribeiro. MS. Fr. Caetano Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 357. Cazal. 2. 349.

Moreira.

Insurrection of the Indians in 1757.

Seventeen leagues below Thomar, and on the same shore, is the town of Moreira, situated upon high ground. It owes its origin, like Lamalonga, to a dispute between some Caciques who were settled in the same Aldea, one of them, by name Joam de Menezes Cabuquena, removing with his adherents to this spot Cabuquena was a sincere convert, much attached to the Missionaries, and, for their sake, to the Portugueze. The Carmelite, Fr. Raimundo de S. Elias, accompanied him to his new settlement. There they were residing peaceably, when, in the year 1757, a formidable insurrection broke out, which proved fatal to them, and had well nigh brought about the destruction of all the establishments upon the Rio Negro. An Indian of Lamalonga, by name Domingos, had been compelled by the Missionary of that place to separate from a woman, who was not his wife. The man resented this with savage bitterness, and conspired to take vengeance, with three Chiefs, who, though baptized by the names of Joam Damasceno, Ambrosio, and Manoel, were Christians in name alone. They and their followers attacked the Priest's house, broke it open, sought for him in vain with intent to murder him, plundered or destroyed all his goods, burst into the church, poured the consecrated oil upon the ground, carried off the ornaments and sacred vessels, and then set fire to the place. Next they bestirred themselves to form alliances, and they succeeded in persuading other Indians to follow their example.

[page] 713

CHAP. XLIV.

P. 517.

Having thus acquired a considerable force, they came suddenly upon Moreira, which was then called Cabuquena, after its founder; and that Chief, and F. Raimundo, both fell in the massacre which ensued. Emboldened by success, and having probably increased their numbers with the bad subjects of the place, they ventured now to proceed against Barurua, the present town of Thomar. A Captain of Grenadiers, Joam Telles de Menezes e Mello, was stationed there with a detachment of twenty men; but whether men or officer were intimidated, or whether he distrusted with good reason the inhabitants whom he was appointed to defend, he withdrew from his post, and left the Aldea to the insurgents. They made for the Church first, where, in the opinion of the Portugueze, they committed a great sacrilege, by cutting off the head of S. Rosa's image, for the purpose of fixing it at the prow of one of their canoes. Having plundered the place and set it on fire, they took possession of the island of Timoni, and from thence formed a confederacy with the neighbouring wild Indians to attack Barcellos, then newly made a town. The opportunity was favourable; for it was just at this time that the mutiny, under Manoel Correa Cardozo, had broken out. The inhabitants were so apprehensive of an attack, that few of them ventured to pass their nights in the town; but the Sargento Mor, Gabriel de Souza Filgueira, made the best dispositions in his power, with their willing help; and the insurgents did not proceed with the celerity which was necessary for success, and which, at that juncture, might possibly have ensured it. Before they were ready to pursue their fortune, time enough elapsed for Mendonça Furtado to be apprized of the danger, and to send troops from Para, under Miguel de Siqueira, a man accustomed to Indian warfare. He took possession of an island opposite the mouth of the Ajuana, .. a position which enabled him to command the river: As soon as he received intelligence

VOL. III. 4 Y

[page] 714

CHAP. XLIV.

that the enemy were in motion, he posted troops upon both shores, and received them with such unexpected vigour that they were defeated and slaughtered, almost without loss on his part. He followed them in their flight, advanced against the wild Indians who had combined with them, and acted with such decision, that the ascendancy of the Portugueze upon the Rio Negro was never from that time disputed. Mendonça Furtado came there the ensuing year, bringing with him an Ouvidor, to enquire judicially into the causes of the insurrection. Three of the Indians, who had been most conspicuous in the rising, were put to death, and others sentenced to lighter punishments.

Ribeiro. MS.

Moreira, in the year 1788, contained about three hundred inhabitants; but of these there was a greater proportion of Portugueze than was to be found in any other part of the Captaincy; and those Portugueze were of the best kind, .. men from the northern provinces of Portugal, accustomed to a hardy, simple, and industrious way of life. They raised coffee and cacao: these plantations flourished; but though the country was well adapted for mandioc, their attempts at cultivating this important root were defeated by the great number of peccaries, the wild boar of the land, with which the woods abounded. The Indians were of the Manao and Baré tribes: the present population is chiefly, or altogether, a mixed race. The situation of the town is very fine, the river widening before it to a magnificent expanse.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. 4. 355. Cazal. 2. 348.

Barcellos.

Barcellos, formerly the capital of the Captaincy, and still the largest of its towns, is on the same shore, sixteen leagues below Moreira. It was originally a settlement of the Manaos, called Mariua. A Chief of that nation, by name Comandri, one day when he was fishing fell in with a Carmelite, and brought him home; they agreed so well that the Missionary took up his abode there, and converted both Comandri and his mother, who not only became sincere converts themselves, but were zealous

[page] 715

CHAP. XLIV.

for the conversion of others. Mendonça Furtado made it a town; and when the Rio Negro was, in 1758, constituted a Captaincy, dependent upon Para, the Governor fixed his residence there, and took for his palace what had formerly been the Hospice of the Carmelites. Barcellos was the head quarters of the Commissioners for the Demarcation on this side: they brought with them here, as every where else, a temporary increase of inhabitants; but this benefit was more than counterbalanced by the immorality which their people introduced, and by the effects of the compulsory service. The population in 1788 was something above one thousand, exclusive of the Commission, and the troops attached to it. The Indians were Manaos, Barés, Bayanas, Uariquenas, and Passés; they cultivated cotton and indigo. The climate is good, the soil fertile, and the most delicious fruits of the Old World and of the New grow there in great profusion.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 356. Cazal. 2. 348.

Poyares.

Carvoeiro.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 359. 355.

Cazal. 2. 346—7.

Seven leagues below Barcellos is the Lugar de Poyares, called Camaru when it was a Carmelite Aldea, and known also by the portentous name of Jurupariporaceitana, which is, in plain English, the Devil's Dancing-place. This settlement, which is one of the fine situations upon the Rio Negro, where that prodigious river is between seven and eight leagues wide, was inhabited by Manaos, Barés, and Passés, with a considerable portion of Portugueze. Good coffee was raised there. The next settlement was the Lugar de Carvoeiro, the Aracary of the Carmelites, seventeen leagues lower down, and upon the same shore. The inhabitants were Manaos, Parauinas, and Maranacoacenas, with some Whites, amounting, in 1788, to something more than three hundred in all. It stands upon a projecting point of land, almost surrounded by the water. In Ribeiro's time, the adjacent country was so infested by the Muras that the people could not without great danger cross to the opposite shore, where they had their plantations of cacao. Between the townlets of Carvoeiro

[page] 716

CHAP. XLIV. The Rio Branco.

Cazal. 2. 347. 354. Ribeiro. MS.

and Poyares, the Rio Branco enters from the opposite side. This river, the Brazilian name of which is the Quecuéné, is the largest of all those that join the Rio Negro. It rises in the Serra Baracayna; the northern waters of that range form the Paragua, which is one of the great confluents of the Orinoco; and the Mahu, which joins the Rio Branco from the south, rises in a ridge, from whence the counter-streams form the ⁹ Essequebo. The Portugueze have seven parishes ¹⁰ upon this river, inhabited chiefly or wholly by Indians in the first stage of civilization. They have also a fort there, which is distant, by the course of the rivers, three hundred and fifty-nine leagues from Para, .. an upward voyage of nine weeks. These settlements have all been formed since the year 1775; and since that time cattle have been introduced there, which have multiplied exceedingly in the fine pastures with which the country abounds. Cacao grows plentifully there; and Barcellos draws much of its supply of fish and tortoises from this river. Its name implies that its waters are turbid. The native tribes ¹¹ used to be supplied with

9 One Nicholas Horstman went up the Essequebo in 1741, and after great difficulties got into the Rio Branco, and so into the Rio Negro and the Orellana. This man was living at Cameta in the year 1775, when Ribeiro saw him there. He had performed this arduous journey in hopes of discovering Lake Parima and the city of El Dorado. In 1775 a Liegois, by name Gervaise Le Clerc, arrived in the Rio Negro by the same route, with some Paraviana Indians, who had guided him. He too said he had been in search of the Golden Lake; but it was believed, that he was a deserter from the Dutch service. Lake Parima is now, upon good authority, expunged from the maps.

10 Cazal mentions a town called S. Manoel; but he knows not₂ he says, whether it be on the Rio Negro or the Rio Branco. I have no doubt that it is upon the latter, though I do not presume so far upon my own opinion as to insert it in the text.

11 The chief tribes are the Paravianas (from whom the river is called in the splendid map of D. Juan de la Cruz), Manexis, Uapixanas, Saporas, Puxianas, Uayurus, Tapicaris, Xapirus, and Cariponas, who are said to be the people called Caribs in Guiana.

[page] 717

CHAP. XLIV.

fire-arms by the Dutch; and it is remarkable, that they preferred the blunderbuss to any other piece.

Moura.

On the right bank of the Rio Negro, some nine leagues below Carvoeiro, is Moura, one of the Aldeas which Mendonça Furtado converted into a town, by the easy process of changing its name, and erecting a pelourinho. It stands low, but upon dry and rocky ground, and the streets are planted with orange trees. Its first inhabitants were converts of the Juma, Cocuana, Manao, and Carayai tribes: the latter were once a considerable people, who made head against the Manaos in the time of their power; but partly through the consequences of that struggle, and partly by other causes, they were so reduced, that it was believed the settlers at Moura were the only relicts of the nation, till in the year 1774 a horde from the woods appeared there, and solicited admission, that they might be secured from the Muras, who had entered their lands and killed many of their countrymen. In 1788, Moura was one of the most flourishing and populous towns upon the Rio Negro; it contained above twelve hundred inhabitants, many of whom were soldiers from Portugal married with Indian women and settled there. The Indians were fortunate at that time, in having for their Director a man of sterling goodness; he was a wealthy inhabitant of the place, and made it his main business and greatest delight to consult, in all things, the welfare of the people who were committed to his charge. Under his superintendance the Church was decorated and kept in perfect order, and the streets were regularly built. Twice every day he instructed the children; and looking with a vigi-

[page] 718

CHAP. XLIV.

lance truly paternal to the conduct of those under his care, when gentle and earnest admonition proved ineffectual, he sent away upon service those who by their example were doing evil at home. The consequence of this discipline was, that the people were orderly, industrious, and happy, and the town so prosperous that it might have exported largely, had it not been for the Demarcation, which took from it the large proportion of one hundred and sixty able bodied men, .. for in this proportion were the settlements upon the Rio Negro drained of their working hands by that fatal requisition. Coffee, cacao, and indigo were raised there; and cattle had then been recently introduced.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 354. Cazal. 2. 346.

Town of Rio Negro.

The town of Rio Negro, formerly the Fortaleza da Barra, stands three leagues above the mouth of the river, on the left bank, upon high, dry, and unequal ground. Condamine determined its latitude to be in 3° 9' S. and found the width of the river, by measurement, to be twelve hundred and three toises (a mile and half), at this place. A few families of the Baniba, Baré, and Passé tribes, first pitched their habitations under the protection of the Fort, which secured them from the slave-hunters of Para, as well as from hostile savages: some Portugueze settled among them, and in 1788, the population consisted of about three hundred persons, besides the garrison. The houses were then mere hovels composed of stakes and straw; but they were regularly disposed in streets. The Fort had no other strength than what it derived from its commanding position. The Church resembled an empty warehouse more than a place of worship, with a gate instead of a door, and no fastening to it; so that the Bishop, on his visit, thought it proper to consume the wafers, and give orders that they should not be replaced till the Church was made secure. But the advantages of the situation are such, that this place is now become a considerable and prosperous town, being the de-

[page] 719

CHAP. XLIV.

posit for all the exports of the river, the seat of Government and of Justice, with a handsome Church dedicated to N. Senhora da Conceiçam, a pottery, a cotton manufactory, and a manufactory of cordage from the piassaba- palm, which are all three government establishments. The market is supplied from the royal farms upon the Rio Branco.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 361. Cazal. 2. 345.

The Rio Negro, which is the greatest and most important of all the tributaries to the Orellana, and probably the largest secondary river in the world, is only a mile wide at its mouth, though higher up it expands in some places to the prodigious width of seven and eight leagues. Near the shore the water appears the colour of amber; every where else, it is described as literally seeming black as ink: it is however perfectly clear, pure, and wholesome. The confluence is said to be a most impressive spectacle; but the turbid stream of the Orellana predominates, and the Black River loses its purity as well as its name. It is with the greatest delight that boatmen ascending from Para, or descending from the province of the Solimoens, come in sight of the highlands at the bar; for this river is free from all the physical plagues with which the Orellana is afflicted: no torment of insects is felt there, no evils of local and endemic disease. When the Indians therefore, escaping from both, first dip their oars into the clear dark waters, they set up a shout of joy, and enter with the sound of their rude music upon its happier navigation.

Ribeiro. MS. Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 352—3. Cazal. 2. 337.

Settlements on the Japura.

The Japura, which in the Spanish and Indian, and therefore, the proper pronunciation, is called the Yapura, and by the Spaniards of Popayan, the Grande Caqueta, divides the Captaincy of Rio Negro from the Viceroyalty of the Nuevo Reyno de Granada, and is the second in magnitude of the great rivers that flow into the Orellana. Its course was well explored by the slave-hunters; .. the Paramen and the Paulistas, who were en-

[page] 720

CHAP. XLIV.

S. Mathias.

The Yucunas.

gaged in the same nefarious pursuit, the one by water, and the other by land, having been the great discoverers in Brazil. Such is the force and weight of its current, that no boat could make way against it if it were not broken by innumerable islands, which form eddies and still water, and thus make easy a navigation which other circumstances combine to render delightful; for the scenery is in the highest degree beautiful, and the multitude of tortoises, the infinite quantity of their eggs upon the sandy shores, and the variety both of land and water birds, the most splendid of their kind, supply perpetual amusement, and abundant food. There is a communication by lakes and cross streams with the Rio Negro, forming a line which is not less than two hundred and fifty miles in length; and from this line there are many channels opening into the Japura. Another such communication between these two mighty rivers is said to exist, far up the country; and towards the end of its course the Japura communicates by many channels with the Orellana, receiving water by some, and discharging it by others. But these extraordinary advantages, which will be of such infinite importance when cultivation shall have increased, are at present counterbalanced by the insalubrity of the country. When the Ouvidor Ribeiro visited his district in 1775, there were three establishments upon this river. The Povoaçam de S. Mathias was the highest up the stream: it had been formed in the preceding year for some Indians of the Aniana and Yucuna tribes. The habitation of their Chief was a remarkable edifice of its kind, in the form of a conical pyramid: the ornamental part of its furniture was in right savage costume, .. shields covered with anta or crocodile skin, poisoned spears, rattles ¹² composed of certain nuts or

12 Some of my readers may call to mind, and others may be induced when they have an opportunity to enquire for, a rattle of this kind in Crosthwaite's Museum at Keswick. It was brought from Surinam.

[page] 721

CHAP. XLIV.

fruit-stones strung together, the sound of which, when shaken, is louder and shriller than would be conceived by those who have never heard it, scalps with the tufted hair upon them, and flutes of human shin bones, .. the aboriginal tibia. These people had a remarkable musical instrument, which they called troquano; it is the trunk of a large tree, hollowed and closed at both ends, having two apertures in the middle; this is beaten with drum-sticks, the large heads of which are covered with Indian rubber: it serves as a signal, according to the manner in which it is struck, and the sound is said to be audible for many miles round. The Yucunas were an agricultural people, therefore accustomed to a settled life: they used mandioc in no other form than that of tapioca, which indicates some refinement in taste; and they intermarried with the neighbouring tribes, which appears to have been unusual among the natives.

Ribeiro. MS.

S. Antonio.

A little below S. Mathias, and on the left bank also, was the Povoaçam de S. Antonio, composed of Mepuri, Xomana, Mariarana, Maui, Baré, and Passé settlers. There was a third settlement in 1775 newly formed, of Cocrunas and Juris, under a Chief called Macupari ¹³. The Bishop was deterred from visiting this river, because a malignant fever was at that time prevailing there. There is now a town upon the left bank, called Marippy, which, as the Church is dedicated to S. Antonio, seems to be the settlement that formerly bore his name. The inhabitants support themselves by agriculture, fishing, and hunting, and they collect a considerable quantity of wild produce. Europeans cannot reside there with impunity, because of the unwholesome atmo-

13 It is worthy of notice, that Orellana just in this part of his course heard of a province and a chief called Machiparo, (vol. 1. p. 88) and that in the account of Orsua's deplorable history the province of Machifaro is mentioned.

VOL. III. 4 Z

[page] 722

CHAP. XLIV.

sphere. It is not to be expected, that the Japura should obtain any White population, till the delightful country about the Rios Negro and Branco shall be fully peopled; but civilization has begun among the native inhabitants, who bring with them into the world constitutions adapted to their birth-place. The rapid progress which is made upon the Rio Negro must be felt there, and civilization will continue to spread, till the land is replenished and subdued.

Ribeiro. MS. Cazal. 2. 344.

The Xomanas and the Passés.

Copernican System, and Chivalry of the passés.

Of all the tribes in the settlements upon the Rio Negro and the Japura, the Xomanas and the Passés were the most esteemed, for their willing industry. The former were the gentler people, and had a better character for veracity. It was their custom to burn the bones of the dead, and minge the ashes in their drink; for they fancied, that by this means they received into their own bodies the spirits of their deceased friends. The Passés were the most numerous tribe upon the Japura, and enjoyed the highest reputation. They were remarkable for believing that the sun is stationary, and that the earth moves; and they imagined that our sphere is surrounded by a transparent arch, beyond which the Gods have their habitation in a luminous region, the light whereof reaches through the vault, and forms the stars. Rivers they called the great blood-vessels of the earth, and smaller streams its veins. They were remarkable also for holding tournaments, according to their fashion of war, in which the conqueror had the privilege of choosing a wife from among all the virgins of the horde.

Ribeiro. MS.

Some of the Rio Negro ¹⁴ tribes have an extraordinary and

14 Ribeiro says, that the Uerequenas, who dwell upon the Içana (a considerable river which falls into the Rio Negro from the right), used names that are supposed to be Jewish; and, indeed, there could be little doubt of their origin, if it were certain that they are actually pronounced as he writes them: .. Joab, Jacob, Yacobi, Thomé, Thomeque, David, Joanam, and Marianan. They are cannibals, and use the quipos, like the old Peruvians. If Menasseh Ben Israel had known this, how largely would he have built upon it in his Esperanzas de Israel, .. one of the most groundless treatises that ever was composed in the spirit of credulity.

[page] 723

CHAP. XLIV.

Feast of the Parica.

tremendous ceremony, for which a large house is set apart in all their villages. It begins by a general flogging, the men in pairs scourging and lacerating one another with a thong, and a stone at the end: this continues eight days, during which the old women, who, among the American savages, officiate at most works of abomination, roast the fruit of the Parica tree, and reduce it to a fine powder. The parties who had been, paired in the previous discipline are partners also in the following part, each in turn blowing this powder with great force through a hollow cane into the nostrils of his friend. They then commence drinking; and the effect of the drink and the deleterious powder is such, that most of them lose their senses for a time, and many lose their lives. The whole ceremony continues sixteen days: it is observed annually, and is called the feast of the Parica.

Ribeiro. MS.

The Muras.

The Muras had not been heard of in the Orellana at the time of Condamine's voyage; but they were well known upon the Madeira, and probably increased in numbers and in audacity when offensive war was no longer carried on against them by the slave-hunters. In Ribeiro's days they had become exceedingly formidable; so much so, that he thought it impossible for the settlements upon the Rio Negro to prosper, populous and well-established as they then were, unless the most active and vigorous measures against these ferocious savages were promptly undertaken. A fishery for tortoises, established for the supply of the Fortaleza da Barra, had been abandoned for fear of these enemies. They usually set their watch in a large and lofty tree,

[page] 724

CHAP. XLIV.

Ribeiro. MS.

Ribeiro. MS.

called the Sumaumeira, which, Ribeiro says, may be compared to the Baobab of Senegal. It sends out its branches horizontally to a prodigious distance. The wood is not durable, but the fruit contains a sort of cotton or down, which, in warmth and elasticity, exceeds any vegetable substance that has yet been discovered. They cut down the tree to collect it! and many trees are necessary for getting two or three arrobas. The fruit is shaped like a small oblong melon, and the cotton envelopes the seeds. The manguba produces a cotton similar in its properties, but of a dark colour; that of the sumaumeira is white. Amid the tufted foliage of these trees the Mura centinels were stationed to watch the river: their ambuscades were usually placed near those points of land where the current was strongest, and boats had most difficulty in passing: there they were ready with grappling hooks, and with a shower of arrows, which often times proved fatal before resistance could be offered. Their bow is full six feet long, and their arrows are headed with slips of taboca-cane four fingers wide, and a palm and half in length. No other nation impeded the progress of the Para-men so much, nor inflicted such losses upon them. In Ribeiro's time they were in the height of their power; they then possessed the coast, and great part of the interior of the Provincia de Solimoens, and extended themselves beyond the river, where they occupied the great lake Cudaya, .. part of the chain of waters whereby the Japura and the Rio Negro are connected. Many thousand pots of tortoise oil were made upon the shores of that lake, for exportation from the Rio Negro, before the savages established themselves there, and from thence infested the new Captaincy, by way of the Unini and Quiyuni. Yet when the Muras carried on their warfare against the Portugueze with most activity and courage, they unwittingly promoted the general progress of civilization, by driving weaker hordes to take shelter in the towns and Aldeas; and thus the

[page] 725

CHAP. XLIV.

population was kept up, when it was no longer recruited either by the zeal of the Missionaries, or the expeditions of the slave-dealers.

Borba on the Madeira.

They were formidable enemies to the town of Borba, then the only establishment upon the Madeira, and within the Captaincy of Rio Negro. This town, formerly the Aldea de Trocano, after it had often been moved because of local inconveniences, was finally fixed on the right bank of the river, twenty-four leagues from its mouth. During the dry season the Madeira has scarcely any perceptible current, from this place downward; but in the season of the rains it comes down with exceeding force, and is then one of the most impetuous streams in South America. A garrison was stationed there in 1775, to protect it against the Muras, who were nevertheless so bold and so dreadful, that they kept the place in perpetual alarm, and deterred people from settling there. But in the course of little more than ten years, the Muras were glad to seek the protection of this very town which had suffered so much from their hostility. Savages, as well as Barbarians, have their revolutions: the Mundrucus, a tribe even more ferocious than themselves, had put them to flight; and when the Bishop of Para visited Borba, in 1788, he found above a thousand Muras settled in the town, the inhabitants of which, before their coming, had scarcely exceeded two hundred. Already they seemed to have become sensible of the advantages of civilization: they had lived in the woods, without any other shelter than the boughs of trees: here some of them had erected hovels, like those of the Indian settlers, and like them had made plantations. Their language was not understood either by the Portugueze of the town, or the other Indians. They however discovered that the Bishop was a Payé-guazu, or Great Conjuror; the women in consequence hid themselves, and the men exhibited a dance in his honour: first

Ribeiro. MS.

The Muras take shelter there.

[page] 726

CHAP. XLIV.

a long file appeared bearing bows and arrows, then a second line bedaubed with all colours from head to foot, each blowing a long pipe made of the taboca, which produced a tremendous sound: a master of the ceremonies directed their movements, and accompanied them by fantastic gestures and distortions of countenance. Most of them had beards. Both sexes generally went naked: but their tattooing, (which was not confined to a distinctive mark on the face, like that of most tribes in Para,) and the manner in which they died their bodies, and sometimes incrusted them with coloured clay, took from them the sense, and almost the appearance of nakedness.

Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 341—5.

Brandam. Do.

Borba, though finely situated upon high ground, was then a miserable place; the habitations were mere straw-hovels; the church was little better, with a decayed thatch-covering, and the bare earth for its floor; and the manners of the people were in keeping with such circumstances. Perhaps little improvement, either in morals or in comforts, had been made at the time when this history concludes: for the intercourse between Mato Grosso and Para had been much interrupted of late years, because, while the Madeira had become more dangerous on account of the Muras first, and afterwards of the Mundrucus, the route of Camapuam was rendered safe, owing to the alliance of the Guaycurus, and the disappearance of the Payaguas from the Upper Paraguay. The Mura refugees continued at Borba, and their children after them: they were still Pagans, which, it may safely be affirmed, they would not have been, if the successors of D. Fr. Caetano Brandam had inherited his zeal and his virtues. Their Aldea was close to the town. The town contained a population of all degrees of colour, from the Portugueze to the Negro. The inhabitants cultivated tobacco and cacao, and cattle had been recently introduced; but the tortoise fishery supplied them with the greater part of their food. Indeed

Cazal. 2. 318.

[page] 727

CHAP. XLIV.

before the pastures upon the Rio Branco were stocked with kine, the people of this Captaincy fed chiefly upon tortoises, and both Portugueze and Indians throughout Para preferred them to any other food. Their number was such as to appear inexhaustible; and they grew to such a size, that a full grown one was a load for two men. It is said that they usually deposit sixty-four eggs in one hole. The oil, or butter, as it is called, which is extracted from these eggs, is clarified, and used both for lamps and for culinary purposes: a finer sort is made from the fat of the belly; and this has been pronounced excellent, even by persons accustomed to the oil of the olive.

Ribeiro. MS.

Serpa.

Ribeiro. MS.

Two towns on the north bank of the Orellana, below the mouth of the Rio Negro, were included within this Captaincy. Serpa, the one, was originally called Itacoatiara, the painted rock, because the banks of the river, which here are of considerable height, are composed of clay, white, yellow, and red, of various shades. Large masses of this clay, which is exceedingly fine, and is used as paint in Para, fall upon the shore and there harden and petrify. The town was first established upon the Madeira as an Aldea of the Abenaxis; and after four removals, all rendered necessary by the hostilities of the Muras, it was finally removed to its present situation, which is in an island close to the left bank of the river, ten leagues below the place where the Madeira enters on the opposite side. Indians of fifteen ¹⁵ tribes were collected there; among them some Paraquis, whose favourite ornament, for both sexes, was a circle of whiter skin three fingers broad, around both legs, produced by means of ligatures. Serpa was very populous before the demar-

Brandam. J. de-Coimbra. 4. 340.

Ribeiro. MS.

15 Taras, Barés, Anicorés, Apouarias, Tururis, Urupas, Tumas, Sapopés, Oaris, Purupurus, Marauas, Commassis, Tuquis, Curuaxias, and Paraquis.

[page] 728

CHAP. XLIV.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 361. Cazal. 2. 343.

The Guarana.

cation; but that fatal service thinned it grievously, and in 1788, when an expedition of naturalists was preparing to ascend to Mato Grosso by the Madeira, many families fled to the woods that they might escape the dreaded requisition. The Bishop therefore found only three hundred inhabitants, White and Indian, and that number was likely to diminish. Otherwise the town would have flourished, for the White settlers were men of some capital: tobacco and coffee grew there well, and the place was convenient for establishing magazines of salted fish, tortoise-oil, and guarana, .. a preparation invented by a tribe upon the Madeira, called the Maues. It is named from a parasite plant, bearing an almond, in a black shell. The almond is roasted, pounded, and then made into cakes or sticks, which are dried by smoke, and rasped for use upon the rough tongue of a fish called Piraunicis. A table-spoonful of this powder is taken in half a canada of water, sweetened or not, according to the taste of the drinker. It is a bitter, and is thought to be an approved remedy for many diseases; but it is taken to excess throughout Para, many persons drinking it at all hours, and then it is said to injure the stomach, and induce insomnulence and other evils.

Ribeiro. MS. Cazal. 2. 314—318.

Sylves.

Ribeiro. MS.

Vol. 2, 592.

Sylves, which is the most easternly settlement of the Captaincy of Rio Negro in this direction, stands upon an island in Lake Saraca, .. a large lake between thirty and forty miles from the Orellana, wherewith it communicates by six channels, the highest being thirteen leagues from the lowest. The highest of these channels receives the Urunu, by which river, about the middle of the eighteenth century, Dutch goods were conveyed to the natives, .. so actively was the inland commerce carried on from Surinam and Essequebo. The Mercenarios had once a Mission upon the Urunu; but the inhabitants murdered the Missionary, and returned to their old way of life: and here it was that, under Sequeira's government, Pedro da Costa Favella made

[page] 729

CHAP. XLIV.

Ribeiro. MS.

such havoc among the Indians, and burnt three hundred of their villages. The situation of Sylves is singularly beautiful; the lake contains many islands of high ground, and receives many rivers; it abounds with fish, and with wild fowl who come for the wild rice which grows profusely in the adjacent country. The native inhabitants were Aruaquis, Barés, Carayais, Bacunas, Pauris, and Comunis; the women of the latter are described as handsome. The tobacco which they raised here was excellent; the cotton of the finest quality. The only evils of the situation were that the Muras used to infest the plantations on the shore, and that there was a plague of ants, who multiplied prodigiously in what are called Capoeiras, .. lands where the wood had been cut down, and was beginning to grow again. This town, like Serpa, suffered by the Demarcation; more than four hundred Indians fled, to escape that destructive service, and in the year 1788, whole families were still forsaking it. The white inhabitants at that time regarded the improvement of the natives whom they employed with perfect indifference: provided they worked like beasts, like beasts they might live and die; and this evil undoubtedly continued, after those of the Demarcation ceased.

Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 362.

That part of the Captaincy of the Rio Negro which is on the north of the Orellana, lies between the fourth degree of south latitude and three degrees and a half north, and extends through thirteen degrees of longitude, from fifty-eight to seventy-one. It is free from that plague of insects, which upon many parts of the Orellana is almost intolerable: the climate also is favourable to Europeans, except along the Japura; even there, the natives appear to feel no ill effects from it in its present state: the causes of its insalubrity will be lessened in proportion as woods are cleared, and channels opened for the stagnant waters; and while civilization advances, a mixed population is arising,

VOL. III. 5 A

[page] 730

CHAP. XLIV.

in whom the European mind and the Indian constitution are likely to be united. The predominance of Indian blood is greater there than it ever was in any of the old Captaincies: .. pride of cast should seem therefore to be impossible; for it has not yet arisen, and cannot hereafter arise, when the spirit of the times and the wise tendency of just laws cooperate in preventing it.

Towns on the left bank of the Orellana.

Faro.

Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 363. Cazal. 2. 342.

Obidos.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 340.

There were twelve towns on the left bank of the Orellana, under the immediate Government of Gram Para. Faro, the most westernly, is on the sandy shore of a large lake, or rather broad, formed by the Jamunda, seven leagues distant from the great river. In 1788 it contained somewhat more than three hundred Indians, who were industrious, and cleaner and less addicted to drunkenness than most of their countrymen. A fabric of pottery was established there: they extracted tortoise and manati oil, and raised cotton and cacao, the latter being their chief commodity. The town of Obidos stands twelve leagues from Faro, upon the eastern mouth of the Rio das Trombetas. Upon this river, the largest which enters from the north below the Rio Negro, Orellana placed his Amazons. An expedition was sent to explore it in 1787, by the Governor Fernando Pereira Leite de Foyos: but like many former attempts, it failed; for the Commander and many of the party fell sick, and were therefore compelled to return. The town stands upon a little hill commanding a fine view of the great river, whose waters are there contracted into a channel of eight hundred and sixty-nine braças (about a mile and half) in width, but of such depth that no plummet has ever yet reached the bottom. In 1788 it had more man nine hundred inhabitants, Portugueze and Indian, a large proportion of whom were men of good estimation, and all actively employed in profiting by a situation favourable for the growth of cacao, .. that which is grown there being of the best quality. The town was

[page] 731

CHAP. XLIV.

originally an Aldea, founded for the Pauxis; it was regularly built, with a good market-place, and a fort in a most commanding site. When the Bishop made his visitation, it had outgrown its Church; but it was flourishing, and continued to flourish, and the Church which was afterwards erected is called magnificent: it is dedicated to S. Anna, who is a favourite Saint in most parts of Para.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 363. Cazal. 2. 342.

Alemquer.

Alemquer stands a day's voyage from thence down the stream, four leagues inland, on the middle one of three channels, whereby Lake Curubiu discharges its waters into the Orellana. That lake occasions a plague of carapanas: it extends widely in the season of the floods; at other times it leaves a prodigious expanse before the town covered with rich grass. There are also fine pastures near, which have the reputation of producing excellent beef. Mandioc, maize, rice, tobacco, and cacao of the best quality, were cultivated there. The population in 1788, exceeded five hundred, White and Indian; some of the former were persons of good substance: they were men of simple manners and regular conduct; the place therefore continued to increase and prosper. The little town of Prado, on the lowest mouth of the same lake, seems to have been founded since the visitation in 1788. Fourteen leagues lower down, on the left bank of the Gurupatuba, and at the distance of two leagues from its mouth, is Montalegre, formerly one of the best Missions of the Jesuits. Here their good works had survived them. It contained, in 1784, above one thousand inhabitants, chiefly ¹⁶ Indians; and their conduct was such, in every respect, as to excite a wish in the Bishop, that the

Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 365. Cazal. 2. 341. Prado. Do. Do.

Montalegre.

16 The Bishop found one Indian here of one hundred years old, in good health and vigour; three who were believed upon sufficient grounds to be much older, and were yet not more decrepit than a hale European of seventy; and one woman, who was grown up when they were children, .. but she was in the last stage of decrepitude, confined by mere weakness to her hammock. At Carrazedo there was an Indian of one hundred, who had a wife as old as himself, and was jealous of her! (Jornal de Coimbra. 4. 371.)

[page] 732

CHAP. XLIV.

White people of the Captaincy, and even the citizens of Para itself, were like them. Both men and women were excellently industrious; the former in their agricultural labours, the latter in needle-work, spinning, knitting hammocks, and painting the hollow and dry gourds, which are used for jars and basons. The children regularly attended their teacher; the parents were constant in attendance at Church, and hymns were heard at morning and evening in every house. The town was fitly named, with reference to its cheerful situation upon high ground, commanding a fine plain along the banks of the river, in part overspread with groves, and diversified with lakes. It was called the Court of the Sertam, because of the manners of the people, and the comforts which were enjoyed there. They had possessed large herds of cattle: but all had been destroyed by the Vampire bat, by which hideous beast the inhabitants themselves were sometimes attacked. American cloves grow in the district, and a tree from which tar is extracted. Large cedars were cast upon a river-island near in such abundance every season, when the freshes came down, that a saw-yard was established there on account of the Treasury.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 51—52. Cazal. 2. 341.

Outeiro.

The next town was Outeiro, about ten leagues from Montalegre and five from the Orellana, on the summit of a high hill, upon the eastern side of a broad, formed by the river Urubuquara. Notwithstanding this elevated situation, the people were tormented by the murocoça, .. a fly which will draw blood even through a woollen cloth. The hill is remarkable for the finest and most copious spring in all Para. The population was between three and four hundred in 1784: since that time a handsome Church had been erect-

Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 49. 367.

Cazal. 2. 341.

[page] 733

CHAP. XLIV.

Almeirim.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 48. Cazal. 2. 340.

Mazagam.

Villa Vistoza.

ed, .. a sure proof that the place was prospering. The inhabitants raised cotton and provisions, and were well supplied with fish. Some twenty leagues to the east, the town of Almeirim stood in a commanding situation, at the mouth of the Parú, one of the points which the Dutch occupied when they attempted to establish themselves upon the great river: the remains of their works still make part of the fort. Its population, in 1784, was wholly Indian, and amounted to about three hundred persons. They cultivated mandioc, maize, rice, pulse, and cotton. The women, at their ordinary occupations, were naked from the waist upward; but when they went to Church they wore a shift and linen petticoat, tied up their hair, and adorned their necks with a bentinho. There were two ¹⁷ smaller towns, and two river-parishes, (so those parishes are called where the population has no fixed and central point,) between Almeirim and Mazagam. That place was losing its inhabitants because of its unhealthy situation, which proved fatal even to persons brought thither from the coast of Morocco. Below Mazagam was Villa Vistoza da Madre de Deos, .. the Beautiful Town of the Mother of God! It ill deserved this lofty appellation. Three hundred families were planted there by the Government: some of them were good colonists from the Azores; but the greater number were criminals, foreign soldiers, and subjects taken from the house of correction: about nine-tenths of this hopeful population speedily forsook the place. It is on the left bank of the Anauirapucú, a considerable river, seven leagues from its mouth: the soil is fertile, and there are good pastures near; but these advantages are

17 In S. Anna de Cajari there was a plague of wasps; every place was undermined by them, and they filled the Church and the houses, and the very air. The carapanas reign six months in the year, and are said to disappear on the fourth of October, (J. de Coimbra. 4. 43.)

[page] 734

CHAP. XLIV.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 39. Cazal. 2. 339.

Macapa.

counterbalanced by a plague of flies, .. all the winged insects with which the shores of the Orellana are cursed, swarming here, to torment the inhabitants. Macapa, one league north of the Equator, and the last settlement of the Portugueze in this direction, was, like Mazagam, a forced colony. It contained eighteen hundred inhabitants in 1784, all White, except the slaves. The people vied with those of Para in their manners and their way of life, and being mostly islanders from the Azores, it is probable that they had the advantage both in industry and morals. There was a good church, a hospital, and a regular fortress, erected at great expense. The town might seem to be advantageously placed, in a situation where it is well ventilated; nevertheless it is dreadfully afflicted with fevers. These are imputed to the slime and wreck which the Orellana, in this part of its course, deposits along its shores; and if that be the cause, there can be no hope of ever remedying it by any science or any exertions.

Brandam. J. de Coimbra. 4. 37. Cazal. 2. 338.

Towns on the south of the Orellana.

Santarem on the Tapajoz.

The settlements on the south of the great river were more numerous and more important, and reached farther into the country. A little way up the Tapajoz was the town of Santarem, which, in 1788, contained above thirteen hundred inhabitants, in great part Portugueze: it had been an Aldea of the Jesuits The houses of the Indians were still neat and regular; those belonging to the White settlers were neglected, because they lived chiefly upon their plantations. The place was flourishing, being a port for vessels bound either to or from the Madeira, the Rio Negro, or the Solimoens. A military detachment, stationed there at first as a protection against the savages, was retained, to examine the vessels that touched there. It was a great depôt for cacao, which is cultivated with much success in the adjoining country. The Bishop complained grievously of the scandals which he found here; and here, as in many other places, of the conduct of the Priests, .. which was the more painful to him, be-

[page] 735

CHAP. XLIV.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 330. Cazal. 2. 312.

Villa Franca.

cause if he had ejected them from their cures, as they deserved, there were none whom he could substitute in their stead. "Miserable necessity! (he exclaims) .. I exhort, I reprove, I threaten, I change them from one place to another; but what can be expected at such a distance? They call it two hundred leagues from hence to the city: the fear of their Superiors is wanting: nakedness, savageness, opportunity, example, climate, all impel them to prevarication; and nothing but the especial influence of Divine Mercy can preserve a soul in innocence, when it is surrounded by such dangers." Cattle had been introduced here, and the town had improved since his visit. Four leagues only from Santarem, and almost equalling it in population, was Villa Franca, formerly the Aldea of Camaru, neatly and regularly built, upon a lake which communicated both with the Tapajoz and the Orellana, and, in 1788, flourishing under the care of a worthy Director. The Bishop imputed the good order and morals of the town to the absence of any White inhabitants! There were several other smaller towns and settlements upon this river, some of them containing more than four hundred persons, mostly or entirely converted and civilized Indians. Higher up there was an Aldea of Mundrucus, still in their pagan, but not altogether in their savage state, for they had learned to cultivate the ground; and some of them began to dress, in part, after the Portugueze manner. Thus had this ferocious people, having first driven the fierce Muras to seek protection in the society of the Portugueze, and in the habits of settled life, begun themselves that process, which will end in incorporating them with the great Brazilian nation.

Aldea of the Mundrucus.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 366. Cazal 2. 319—320.

Towns on the Xingu.

Towns and settlements were increasing also upon the river Xingu: Vieiros, Souzel, and Pombal, contained, in 1788, each above eight hundred inhabitants, almost wholly Indians, .. but civilized and industrious, by the labours of that Company which

[page] 736

CHAP. XLIV.

Gurupa.

Melgaço.

Portel.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 372. Cazal. 2. 306.

Oeyras.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 336—7. Cazal. 2. 306.

the Portugueze continue still to slander! Gurupa, which was considered the key of the Orellana, when other nations disputed the sovereignty of that river, was inhabited by Whites, four hundred in number: a garrison was stationed there, and there were brick-yards and potteries. Between this place and Para settlements were more numerous, and the population greater, but probably less condensed. Melgaço, which is on the left shore of a lake through which the river Annapu passes, contained, in 1784, more than two thousand inhabitants, mostly Indians: the people lived upon their plantations, without law, order, or religion, in such utter disregard of the ordinances of their Church that their children frequently were not brought to be baptized till they were eight or ten years old. Portel, on the eastern shore of the same lake, or broad, was the most populous of all the Indian settlements in this great Captaincy. Neither the Priest nor the Director knew the amount of the population; but before the inhabitants began to hide themselves among their plantations, to escape the compulsory service of the Government, eight hundred girls and four hundred boys used to attend to be catechised. The situation is magnificent. It had been lately attacked by the Mundrucus, so recently as 1788; but that danger existed no longer, and the people, standing in no fear of enemies, were falling into an intermediate stage of life, in which the faculties appear to stagnate, and the progress of civilization to be suspended. Oeyras, which, like both these towns, had been an Aldea of the Jesuits, was, like them, populous at that time, but suffering from the effects of the compulsory service, and from the want of that discipline under which it had risen and flourished. The houses were like pig-sties; the people addicted to drunkenness; and the three towns, which were thus retrograde in all good points, appear from that time to have diminished in population also, .. the natural consequence of oppression and vice.

[page] 737

CHAP. XLIV.

Cameta, or Villa Viçosa, on the Tocantins.

Cameta, or Villa Viçosa, once the capital of a small subordinate Captaincy, was the largest town in the whole state, except Para: it stands about one hundred miles south-west of that city, upon the left bank of the Tocantins, some forty miles above its mouth, in a part where that huge river expands to the breadth of ten miles, and is beautified by numerous islands. In 1784 it contained six thousand inhabitants, all White, except a few Negro or Mulatto slaves: a lucrative trade was carried on in cacao, and the town had also the advantage of being the mart between Para, and Upper Maranham and Goyaz. Yet at that time its appearance was miserable; the Church was falling to pieces, and the greater number of the houses were poor hovels, without regularity or neatness, covered with straw. One cause of this was, that the population belonged rather to the parish than the place, many of the people living upon their estates in the woods. They were in general men of no good description, who had been degraded thither, and whose morals were not improved by change of climate. There were, however, settlers of the best kind, whose example and good works would survive them; and even then there were evident marks of improvement: new houses had been built of substantial materials, and Cameta was becoming too prosperous, and too desirable a place of residence, to be made a place of banishment. Twenty-six leagues higher up, at Fort Alcobaça, a registry was established for canoes from Goyaz: thus far the navigation is good, and uninterrupted either by rocks or rapids. The tide is sometimes perceptible four or five leagues higher, at Arroios, where there was another registry for the same purpose. The intercourse between Cameta and Para was not carried on by the Tocantins, but by one of those natural canals, called Igarapes, which are not navigable at low water, and some of which are so narrow as only to afford a passage for canoes; and by the river Moju. The passage of the Tocantins

VOL. III. 5 B

[page] 738

CHAP. XLIV.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 133. 136. Cazal 2. 305.

Oliveira Bastos. Roleiro. p. 1.

itself is facilitated by its numerous islands, which break the force of the current, and afford shelter in rough weather. This line is taken even by vessels which are bound up the Orellana from Macapa, .. so formidable is the navigation of the Great River, because of its numerous currents, and of the hyger, or bore, which is perhaps more tremendous there than in any other part of the world.

Country between the Tocantins and the sea.

That part of Gram Para which lies between the Tocantins and the sea, touching upon Goyaz to the south, and upon Maranham to the south-east, extends about one hundred and thirty leagues from north to south, and some three score from west to east, .. a flat country, with wide forests and numerous rivers. The southern part was still possessed by unsubjected savages; the line of river and sea-coast not ill-peopled. Between Cameta and Para, there was a succession of river-parishes; that of S. Antonio do Igarape-merim contained, in 1784, more than eight hundred inhabitants; that of Espirito Santo do Rio Moju about fifteen hundred, who were Whites. In some parts, the traveller passed through a chain of beautiful estates on both sides of the stream. Eastward of the city the Jesuits had many fine establishments; but from the time when the Aldeas were converted into towns, and the people placed at the will and pleasure of men who looked to their own interest alone, not to the service of God and their fellow creatures, they had been dismally depopulated; and being more frequented by Whites than the remoter Aldeas, and liable to more calls from the capital, their depravation and decay had been proportionably faster. Villa Nova d'El Rei, in 1784, contained about six hundred inhabitants; Cintra, more than one thousand: both were rapidly diminishing; and in Vigia, a large, rich, and populous place when the Jesuits had a college there, wherein they trained up youth for the ministry, the houses were falling to ruins, and the town overgrown like a wil-

Villa Nova.

Cintra.

Vigia.

[page] 739

CHAP. XLIV.

Gurupy.

Cayté or Braganza.

derness. These places, formerly among the most industrious and prosperous in the state, had not recovered. Gurupy, once the capital of a little Captaincy, and having the rank of a town as early as 1661, was also going to decay; partly perhaps, because its road-stead has become shallower, and partly because its agriculture had declined with its population, Cayté, once also the capital of another short-lived Captaincy, now the town of Braganza, was more fortunate. Its population, in 1787, amounted to sixteen hundred, mostly Whites; and it had continued to prosper, being one of the best as well as oldest towns in the State. The coasting vessels from Maranham to Para put in there.

Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. 4 112—116.

Do. 242. Cazal. 2. 300.

Ilha dos Joanes.

The great Ilha dos Joanes, the inhabitants of which had been so formidable to the Para-men, before Vieyra conciliated them, contained many villages and small towns, and many extensive grazing farms, from whence the capital drew its chief supply of meat. The population was of all shades of colour, but the Indians were the most numerous. The Indian women wore only a single garment, except when they went to Church, then they put on a sleeveless short vest; but as soon as the service was over, they took it off at the Church door, impatient either of the heat or the confinement. The Aldeas here, in the division of the Missions, had been allotted to the Franciscans; .. an Order, which seems to have been less successful in introducing civilization among savages than either of its rivals in Brazil. In 1784, the Bishop complained that the Indians of this island were still strongly attached to their old heathenish superstitions and abuses. The women had certainly, in one respect, been worsened by their conversion: for in their heathen state they had not been allowed to taste fermented liquors; but they now drank to excess, as freely as the men. Their liquor, which is called Pajauarú, is made from mandioc flour in a state of acetous fermentation: they made

[page] 740

CHAP. XLIV.

Ribeiro. MS.

Alvara. 17 Aug. 1816.

Brandam. Jornal de Coimbra. 4. 118—132.

plantations of the root for this purpose. Their drinking bouts continued day and night till the stock of drink was exhausted, and seldom ended without wounds and murder: yet so passionately were they addicted to this vice, that they trained up their children to it from infancy, and actually gave the beverage to babes at the breast. They had retained the most useful of their savage accomplishments, .. their extraordinary skill in ¹⁸ swimming, which was practised fearlessly, though the rivers of the island are infested with crocodiles, .. creatures which are nowhere more formidable than in Para, which are bold enough sometimes to attack a canoe, and which often carry off boys when bathing near the edge of the rivers: in deep water it is said that they may always be eluded by diving. The mixed and white population consisted, in general, of persons from whom the Indians were not likely to derive improvement. The island had not yet been made a Comarca, and therefore had no resident judge, but was visited by the Ouvidores from Para in the course of their duty; but the difficulty and danger of the passage occasioned sometimes a fair cause, and a pretext at any time, for leaving it unvisited; and men of evil propensities were thus emboldened to commit crimes by the hope of impunity. In 1784, a few individuals cultivated the vine with success. Much cheese at that time was made there, which, though far inferior to the excellent cheese of Alem-tejo, was still thought good by a Portugueze. A fishery of tainhas on the coast of the island was carried on for the Treasury; but the habit of eating meat on fast days prevailed almost generally in Para, and more particularly in the Ilha dos

18 The Commandant of Macapa assured the Bishop, that a woman had crost from that place to Chaves, in the island, upon a plank, with a child in her arms: the distance is eight leagues, and nowhere is the water rougher, or the tide stronger.

[page] 741

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 294—308.

Joanes, where beef was in such plenty: fish, the people said, cost something. Tortoise and manati, (of which savoury sausages were made) were allowed to be fish, and therefore lawful food at all times.

City of Para.

[Para, now known no longer by its original name of Belem, haa become a populous and flourishing city.] The Cathedral and the Palace are called magnificent buildings. The Jesuits' College had been converted into an Episcopal Palace and a Seminary; the Convent of the Mercenarios, that Order also being extinct in the Captaincy, into barracks. There were Royal Professors of Latin, Rhetoric, and Philosophy, a Theatre, a Misericordia, an Hospital, a proper judicial establishment, a splendid ecclesiastical one, one Convent of Capuchins, and one of Carmelites. The streets were regularly built, and the principal one paved; most of the houses solidly, and even handsomely constructed, of stone. The proportion of Negroes was not great, even here, where it was greater than in any other part of the Captaincy. There was no plague of insects, and the climate had undergone a material improvement since the thinning of the woods, and the introduction of ¹⁹ cattle. At the end of the eighteenth century it had doubled its consumption of meat, in less than sixteen years;

19 In the Reflections which accompany the Roteiro do Maranham a Goyaz, (an excellent paper published in the third volume of the Patriota, No. 3, 4, 5, 6,) it is said that the Captaincy of Para, in the year 1767, began to feel a great difficulty in supplying itself with food, for want of cattle. Means therefore were taken for procuring them both from Maranham and Piauhy, and Evaristo Rodriguez was sent from Para to make the land journey practicable, by clearing a way through the woods; but though some were brought in this manner, the difficulties were too great. Joam Paulo Diniz, an enterprizing merchant of Parnaiba, embarked a live cargo from that port, and lost it, vessel and all, to the value of twenty thousand cruzados: but he succeeded afterwards. (No. 6. p. 39 § 131.) The author of this paper seems to think that cattle were then first introduced into Para; but if this had been the case, they could not, I think, have been so numerous as they certainly were in 1784, without supposing a degree of forbearance on the part of the people, which it is altogether improbable that they should have exercised.

[page] 742

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 4. 92.

Do. 3. 2. 8.

Investigador Portuguez. T. 4. p. 94.

whence it must be inferred, that its population had doubled in the same time. Extensive as the pastures in the Ilha dos Joanes were, the supply began to be unequal to the increasing demand, and jerked beef was imported from Parnaiba. [Sugar was grown near the city, on the borders of the rivers, and in the islands;] but the ground, which is an alluvial soil upon a bottom of white clay, is not favourable to the cane: brackish water is found by digging only a few palms, and that water reaches the roots; [the sugar therefore is bad,] and yet twice the cost of what it is at Bahia. Ships for the navy were built here, and timber exported to Lisbon for the use of the arsenals to a great amount. The Prince Regent of Portugal had given orders that botanical gardens should be established in the chief capitals of Brazil: the order was fulfilled with more success at Para than in any other place, because with more zeal, by the then Governor D. Francisco Innocencio de Sousa Coutinho. In consequence of this, the Bread Fruit was introduced into this Captaincy, and oriental spices appear in the list of its exports. Its other exports were the spices of the land, cacao, coffee, rice to a great amount, cotton, sarsaparilha, copaiba, tapioca, gum, Indian rubber, Maranham chesnuts, hides raw and tanned, molasses, and timber.

Do. T. 4. 661.

Arruda. Instit. de Jardins. p. 16.

Cazal. 2. 280. 299.

People of Para.

The Bishop, D. Fr. Caetano Brandam, described Para in 1784 as a country which only wanted population to be made the loveliest garden in the world. But the Portugueze who went thither from Europe at that time were of the very lowest order, and as soon as they arrived they were infected, he says, with the dis-

[page] 743

CHAP. XLIV.

Jornal de Coimbra. 4. 110.

Cruel treatment of the Slaves.

Jornal de Coimbra. 4. 139.

ease of the land, .. a kind of dissolute laziness, as injurious to worldly concerns as to manners and morals. Their common course was to open a taverna, or a haberdasher's shop, or to stroll about with a miserable assortment of paltry goods. Yet these persons, the outcasts and refuse of their own country, were not so bad as many of the settled colonists. The huckster and the pedlar, however low in their respective callings, are agents of civilization: the vilest people in Para were those numerous planters, who, living at a distance from the Priest and the Magistrate, abandoned themselves to the impulse of their own will, and gave full scope to the worst propensities of their corrupted nature. They dwelt upon their estates, frequently two or three days' voyage from a Church, or even farther, in a country where there were no roads; and many of them lived and died without the slightest observance of the forms of religion, in the worst state of moral, intellectual, and spiritual darkness. The Bishop draws a frightful picture of their profligate way of life: "And for their miserable slaves! (he exclaims) many masters treat them as if they were dogs, caring for nothing but that they should do their work. Either they are never baptized, or, if baptized, they pass their lives without confession, because they are left entirely without instruction, and they are suffered to die with the utmost inhumanity; nor does the owner order a single mass for the soul of the poor creature, who has been worn to death in enriching him. I have seen some who were maimed in their hands and feet; others, whose sides and lower parts had been cut to pieces, .. the effect of such punishments that it is difficult to conceive how any human beings could be so monstrous in wickedness as to have inflicted them. But what can be expected? The fear of God is wanting, and if that be taken away, there is nothing too bad for the heart of man to conceive and perpetrated." On the other hand, there were instances wherein the dangerous

[page] 744

CHAP. XLIV.

Happy condition of the better Colonists.

power which the system of slavery permits, having fallen into humane hands, was used as the means of beneficence; where this was the case, the want of liberty was scarcely felt, and literature was the only thing needed to make such a state enviable. The establishment of a wealthy colonist was of such an extent, that the people formed a community of themselves larger than many towns or parishes; and if their intercourse with the rest of the world had been cut off, they would scarcely have been sensible of any privation, till their stock of tools began to fail. Such was that of the Camp-Master, Joam de Moraes Betencourt, near Cameta, which the Bishop described in 1784: the whole establishment contained more than three hundred persons; and above thirty sons and daughters, with their children and kindred, sat down every day at the patriarchal table of the father of the family. The houses upon the estate were good: there was a large pottery, an Engenho, extensive plantations of cacao, and a Chapel in neat order, with an excellent choir, .. for music was cultivated there. Most of the wealthier colonists had, in like manner, their private Chapels. The Negroes upon such estates were like children of the family, and enjoyed every comfort of which, in their state of ignorance and degradation, they were capable. But these instances were exceptions from the general practice: ill usage was so much more frequent, that the Paramen were noted for their cruelty by the other Brazilians; and to this day, the threat which is held out to a vicious or refractory Negro in Pernambuco is, that he shall be sent to Para for sale.

J. de Coimbra. 4. 137.

Captaincy of Maranham.

Maranham, from whence the colony in Para was originally an offset, appears insignificant in extent, when compared with that enormous Captaincy. It lies between one and a quarter and seven and a half degrees south latitude; and though its breadth does not exceed three degrees of longitude, its bending line of indented coast extends one hundred and twenty leagues. S.

City of S. Luiz.

[page] 745

CHAP. XLIV.

Apologia. MS.

Correio Braziliase. 6. p. 229.

Koster. 166.

Romualdo Antonio. Jornal de Coimbra. No. 30, P. 2. p. 326.

Luiz was accounted the fourth city of Brazil, in commercial importance. Before the establishment of the Company, the number of ships from that port was annually from ten to fifteen; in 1781, they were twenty-four; and in 1806, they exceeded thirty: such had been the effect of introducing the cultivation of rice and cotton, which the people, when it was first introduced, are said to have regarded as a foolish and vexatious innovation, .. one of the impracticable projects of an adventurous minister. They were now almost the only articles of exportation. The population of the city was estimated at twelve thousand. The Carmelites, the Mercenarios, and the Franciscans, had each a convent: there was a Recolhimento, or retreat for women, and a Misericordia. The Jesuits' College had been converted into an Episcopal Palace, and their Church into a Cathedral, the finest in any of the maritime cities of Brazil, excepting Para: the city contained one other Church. The Governor's Palace was a long uniform stone building, one story in height; the Town-hall and the Prison adjoined it, and appeared to be parts of the same edifice. The coast is dangerous, and the harbour difficult. The rise of the tide is twenty-eight palms; but the depth of the port here, as well as at Para and along the whole intermediate coast, is diminishing. The city, which is built upon a stratum of soft red stone (easily worn into dust), spreads over a large space, and contains some wide streets and squares, which give it an airy appearance; but it would be more healthy if it were in a better situation for receiving the sea-breeze. The best houses had only one story, but were neatly built: the upper floor, in which, as at Lisbon, the windows reached down to the flooring, and opened upon iron balconies, was inhabited by the family; the lower, appropriated for servants, shops, warehouses, and such purposes. Flourishing as the city was, the island itself was for the most part uncultivated; and sugar, which it had exported

VOL. III. 5 C

[page] 746

CHAP. XLIV.

late in the eighteenth century, was now imported for its consumption from the south. The soil is said to be unsuited to the sugar-cane; and indeed unfavourable for any agricultural purpose; yet when the Dutch won the island, they found six Engenhos upon it in full employ. The roads, even close to the city, were exceedingly bad; carriages however were kept by the rich, rather for state than for use. Grass is scarce, and horses therefore were not common. The inequality of ranks was far greater than in the commercial cities to the south: the opulent merchants possessed large estates and numerous slaves, some of them from a thousand to fifteen hundred; their influence consequently was very great. The city was well supplied with water, fish, meat, and fruits. The largest Indian town in the Captaincy was upon this island. Alcantara, on the opposite side of the bay to S. Luiz, was a large and prosperous town: the salt works, which the Jesuits had wrought to the great benefit of the province, were neglected. Guimaraens, ten leagues farther to the north, was thriving also by its exportation of rice, cotton, and mandioc-meal.

Cazal. 2. 266—267. Koster. 166—172

Tribes in the interior.

The interior of the province was ill peopled, because the course of enterprize had been diverted towards Para, from its first settlement; considerable part therefore was still possessed by the savages. The northern hordes were known by the name of Gamellas, given them because of their mouth-piece, the effect of which was, to spread the under lip like a bowl: they dwelt nearest the Portugueze, upon good terms with them; and when they saw that their neighbours ridiculed this preposterous fashion, many of them laid it aside, and no longer bored the lips of their children. To the south, were the Timbiras da Matta, who dwelt in the woods, and the slender-legged Timbiras, who were said to make such use of their sinewy shanks that they could keep pace with a horse, in the open plains over which they wandered. It was reported that they had salt mines in their country, and took

Cazal. 2. 264.

Do. 2. 265.

[page] 747

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 2. 3. 63.

Do. 3. 6. 47.

salt with their food, .. a taste not usual among the South American savages, necessary as salt is to some of the inferior animals in that country. Farther south were the Temembos, or Macamecrans, a whiter race, of Tupi, or Tapuya origin, about three thousand in number, under an hereditary Cacique, and seven War-captains. They were remarkable for disliking ardent spirits. The practice of earth-eating was known among them: it arose probably from the scarcity of food, for they cultivated little; and any other supply was daily becoming more and more precarious. It is worthy of notice, that in the Sertoens of Brazil, the absence of birds, beasts, and insects, is understood by the Sertanistas to indicate that savages are settled near: they exterminate whatever they can eat; whereas, in civilized countries, birds and insects are always found near the plantations of man, in the cultivated country rather than in the waste. The Macamecrans were persecuted by other tribes of the same origin, who differed from them neither in language nor customs, but warred against them with inveterate animosity; by the Pochetis, who were cannibals; and by those Chavantes, who, having forsaken the Aldea in Goyaz, wherein they had been domesticated many years, employed against the Portugueze that knowledge of their habits, their speech, and their weapons, which they had acquired while living among them. Fire-arms had been introduced also among the Cortis, by ruffians from the adjacent Captaincies, who, flying from their creditors, or the punishment of their crimes, joined the savages, and instructed them in the use of arms more efficacious than their own.

Berford. Officio. p. 20.

Patriota. 2. 3. 67.

Internal trade of Maranham.

Many rivers enter the sea in this Captaincy, some of which are navigable for a considerable way; and all, more or less peopled. Even those which have least water are navigated by barks, drawing from three to five palms, or even less, that carry fifteen hundred algueires of rice, and four hundred bags of

Berford. Officio. p. 19

[page] 748

CHAP. XLIV.

River Itapicurú.

Cazal. 2. 263.

Aldeias Altas.

Cazal. 2. 279.

cotton, of six arrobas each. The most important of these rivers, both for size and population, is the Itapicurú. The territory between it and the Parnaiba had long been cleared of savages, and was in great part peopled by Whites and domesticated Indians, who raised mandioc, maize, pulse, and rice and cotton, which were the great objects of apiculture in this province. Every estate here was as a village in itself, and many of them not small ones, because of the number of slaves, which greatly exceeded that of the Portugueze. Regular villages were few, and some of the parishes were more than twenty leagues in extent. Hammacs and calico were the only articles which were manufactured. Large canoes from S. Luiz, which is twenty leagues from the mouth of the Itapicurú, ascended that river, about forty miles to N. Senhora do Rosario, or Itapicurú Grande (as it is also called), where much rice was cultivated, and where there were extensive grazing farms. From thence the navigation was carried on in large flat-bottomed boats about ninety leagues farther, to Aldeias Altas, .. a populous place of great commercial importance. Great quantities of rice and cotton were raised here; but the inhabitants were noted for a destructive propensity to gambling, whereby they had ruined many of their creditors in S. Luiz. This was the central point of communication between S. Luiz and Piauhy, and the Arraiaes da Natividade and S. Felis, in Goyaz. As many horses as were required for land carriage might be purchased there for ten or twelve milreis each. Opposite to this place is Trezedellas, where the Jesuits formerly had a Seminary: the people of Piauhy used to send their children there for education, and its place had not been supplied by any similar establishment for that Captaincy, since the Company were expelled. Forty leagues above Aldeias Altas is S. Bento das Balsas, or the Freguezia de Pastos Bons, by which name it is more frequently called. From these pastures hides used to be carried by

[page] 749

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 3. 9.

Arrayal do Principe.

Berford. Officio. 10. 13.

land to Aldeias Altas, for the tanners of S. Luiz. A certain Vicente Diogo first attempted to navigate the river, and embarked with a cargo of hides, and a flotilla of balsas. He lost them all by mismanagement, and was seized with such a fit of frantic passion against his son, that the lad, for fear of being killed, fled into the woods, and was never heard of more. This catastrophe deterred other persons from trying the navigation; and the cotto, hides, and cattle, were conveyed over land to the river-port, till the year 1807; when, under the government of D. Francisco de Mello Manoel da Camara, the Arrayal do Principe Regente was founded by Lieut. Francisco de Paula Ribeiro, thirty leagues above Aldeias Altas. The Timbiras of the Wood attacked the settlers, and killed several; but active hostilities were carried on against them in return, and they were driven from a tabar, containing not less than five hundred houses, within two leagues of the Arrayal. Fazendas were then established under the protection of this settled camp, without fear or farther molestation, and it was found that the navigation thus far was good: the rapids and shallows, which half a century before had been thought to render it impracticable, proved to be of little importance when the river was understood: the chief rapid is immediately above the mouth, but may be passed at high water without difficulty. The electrical eel is found in this river.

Patrita. 3. 3. 9.

Communication by the Tecan tins.

There was so little communication of knowledge in Brazil, that although the course of the Tocantins was well known both in Goyaz and Para, it was not known in Maranham in what latitude the river was to be sought from that Captaincy. Orders were sent from Lisbon in 1798 to ascertain this, for the purpose of opening an intercourse, by means of this great river, with the two provinces wherein it rises and terminates. Attempts were made by direction of the Governor, Antonio de Saldanha da Gama, but they were ineffectual. An enterprizing man, by name Elias Ferreira

[page] 750

CHAP. XLIV.

de Barros, one of the old Sertanista stamp, was at that time settled on an estate in the district of Pastos Bons. He set out upon an expedition into the wilderness, in quest of a situation where he might find pasture and water for another grazing farm; and such a spot he found upon the river Manoel Alves Grande. After he had resided there some time, a stray Indian made his appearance; and being questioned whence he came, confessed that he had run away from a canoe, which was bound from Para to Goyaz, and had made his way from the river through woods and plains. Barros, upon this, thought he would try his fortune in finding the way to Para: he built one of those little boats which are called montarias in that part of Brazil, and embarked in it, with the Indian and three slaves, upon the Manoel Alves Grande, which, in a day and half, carried them into the Tocantins. The Indian proved to be a bad guide; for, when they reached the junction of the Tocantins and the Araguaya, he entered the latter river, instead of keeping the current; but suspecting their error after two days, they turned back, and met a vessel from Para at the confluence, which directed them in the right course. Barros was well received at Para, and sent back with goods in some larger canoes, as the commencement of a trade with Upper Maranham, in that direction. He was afterwards dispatched by the Governor of his own Captaincy up the river to Goyaz, and employed in opening a road from his own settlement, now called Mirador, to Pontal.

Berford. Officios. 17. 18.

River Meary.

About six leagues from S. Luiz the Meary enters the sea, a deep, wide, and rapid river. It is remarkable for its tremendous bore: the extent of beach which has been left bare during nine hours ebb, is covered in a quarter of an hour, and the tide flows up for three hours with the rapidity of a mill-stream: this is felt for five leagues. There are spots, called esperas, or resting places, where boats take shelter at such times. It is only at

[page] 751

CHAP. XLIV.

high water that they can enter; for the river, which has every where else a great depth, is dilated over a wide extent of shoals at its mouth. It is navigable to the centre of the province; but there the farther progress of boats is impeded by a fall. On the Maracu, which is one of the confluents of the Meary, the town of Vicuna stands, about thirty leagues from S. Luiz; much cattle and timber were brought from thence, and in its district was the best Engenho in the whole province, formerly belonging to the Jesuits: but throughout Maranham the cultivation of the sugar cane had generally given place to that of cotton. The fruits in that Captaincy are excellent. Cattle multiply there faster than in Europe; but their size is somewhat diminished, and the meat is not so good. Sheep and goats are said also to be more prolific than in the country from whence they were introduced; and in like manner, to have in some degree degenerated. There is said to be a native silkworm here, whose cone is thrice the size of the European one, the colour of the silk a, deep yellow; it feeds upon the pinheira, or atta, which is an indigenous tree, and upon the leaves of the orange.

Cazal. 2. 260. 262. 269.

Difficult communication with the south by sea.

The navigation of this coast is so difficult from north to south, both wind and current setting in from the south, that it is easier for Para and Maranham to communicate with Lisbon, than with the Rio or Bahia, by sea: and for that reason, the Bishops of Para and S. Luiz were suffragans of the Patriarch of Lisbon, and not of the Primate of Brazil. Para, therefore, had no maritime intercourse with any other Captaincy except Maranham; but this was compensated by the prodigious extent of its own inland navigation, in which it has the advantage over every city in the world. It possessed also an increasing trade with Goyaz and Mato Grosso. The communications of Maranham were of late years chiefly with the adjoining Captaincy of Piauhy, which had formerly been one of its Comarcas, and had frequently

[page] 752

CHAP. XLIV.

since been held by the same Governor; but was now important enough to require a distinct judicature, and a resident Commander. Piauhy has only eighteen leagues of coast, between Maranham and Seara, but it reaches inland, about one hundred and twenty leagues, from north to south, with an average breadth of fifty, its area being equal to that of England and Wales. The Parnaiba divides it from Maranham, the Serra de Ibiapaba from Seara, the Serra dos Guacuruaguas from Goyaz.

Captaincy of Piauhy.

Rocha Pitta. 6. § 76. 77.

City of Oeyras.

In 1724, six years after Piauhy was made a Captaincy, and orders had been given for founding there the town of Mocha, under the patronage of N. Senhora da Victoria, there were about four hundred extensive Fazendas in this province, from which Bahia received much, Minas Geraes most, of their supply of cattle. Mocha was made a city in 1762, by King Jozé, and its original native name changed for that of Oeyras, in compliment to the great Minister who then bore that title. The city was small, but flourishing; its houses were not elevated above the ground floor, and were built of wood whitened with the Tabatinga, which is found so extensively throughout the north of Brazil. Many of them, however, were commodiously and even elegantly constructed; and a great proportion of the inhabitants were Europeans. Besides the Mother Church, which was a h ndsome building, N. Senhora had two Chapels there, under the favourite appellations of the Rosary and the Conceiçam. The city stands on a little stream, which three miles off falls into the Canindé: that river flows through a flat country of rich pastures, and twenty leagues below the city joins the Parnaiba. Its position is about seventy-five leagues south of Parnaiba, the sea-port of the province, one hundred leagues south-west of S. Luiz, forty leagues in the same direction from Aldeias Altas, and about two hundred leagues west of Olinda. About the end of the eighteenth cen-

Cazal. 2. 247.

[page] 753

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 3. 20.

tury, the population of Oeyras and its district was estimated at fourteen thousand: the city probably did not contain a fourth of that number; and it included the whole cavalry force of the Captaincy.

Town of Parnaiba.

Six other settlements were constituted towns when Oeyras was made a city. Of these S. Joam da Barra da Parnaiba was the most important, and exceeded, in all respects, the capital itself. It stands on sandy ground, four leagues from the sea, on the right bank of the eastern and largest branch of the river whence it derives its name. The Parnaiba is navigable for barks of considerable burthen, more than an hundred leagues up, to the place where it receives the Rio das Balsas; and for canoes, almost to its source. They sail up the stream eight days' voyage; the rest of the way must be performed by the oar and the pole; and in some places the current is so strong, that the vessels must be lightened of half their lading. The country about Parnaiba produces excellent melons; and the water-melon, which is prized still more in hot countries, is in season there throughout the year. The place is ill supplied with water: there is none but what is drawn from the river, or filters from it into pits in the sand,.. a great evil this to a water-drinking people. Fevers are prevalent there. This was a great depot for cotton and hides. Joam Paulo Diniz, the same enterprizing man who first shipped cattle from hence for Para, opened for the town a new and important branch of trade. The cattle from Piauhy, till the year 1769, were driven to Bahia, or Minas Geraes,.. a journey of nearly three hundred leagues, and through a country which presented many serious impediments. Joam Paulo formed establishments in the heart of the grazing country, eighty leagues up the river, for jerking beef, brought it down the stream to Parnaiba, and exported it to Bahia, the Rio, and Para. About the end of the last century, sixteen or seventeen vessels came annually from

Cazal. 2. 241. 247.

VOL. III. 5 D

[page] 754

CHAP. XLIV.

the south for this article, which Seara had altogether ceased to supply, though meat in this state still was called carne de Seara. The depth of the river has diminished so much, that vessels which used to ascend to the town, anchor now two leagues below it. The entrance is dangerous, among shoals, and through a heavy surf.

Patriota. 3. 3. 8.

Cazal. 2. 246.

The other towns were of less importance. Campo-Mayor exported mill-stones from the bed of the little river Maratahoan: mines of green vitriol, sulphur, and silver, are found in the district of Morvam: and about Pernagua, which is far up the country, near the frontier of Goyaz, the most esteemed tobacco in Brazil was cultivated; and the inhabitants, who seem to have been mostly a mixed race, raised the sugar-cane chiefly for distillation. This town stands upon a lake of the same name, remarkable because it is said to have been formed since the conquest of the Captaincy, during an extraordinary overflow of the river Pirahim, which passes through it: if this be true, some convulsion of the earth probably contributed to its formation, for the lake is described as deep; in the dryest seasons it is never less than two leagues long and one wide; in the rains its extent is doubled.

Cazal. 2. 247—8—9.

Indians in Piauhy.

Page 153.

Piauhy was more easily conquered than any other Captaincy, because there were neither large forests, nor chains of mountains to which the savages could retire. Those on the river Poty made the most resistance, under the educated Indian Manoel; but he was killed while swimming across the Parnaiba, and then the resistance ended. No wild Indians had been known to exist in the province for more than half a century, till about the year 1765, a horde made their appearance, and compelled the graziers to abandon a great many Fazendas. They were called Pimenteiras, from the name of a place within the territory of which they took possession; and there they remain, between

[page] 755

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 238.

the sources of the Piauhy and the Gurguea, on the frontier, surrounded by Brazilian settlements, and likely soon to be blended with their neighbours. They are supposed to be the descendants of certain Indians who were domesticated about Quebrobo in Pernambuco, but forsook the Portugueze in 1685, because they would not bear part in an expedition against some other natives. A large Aldea, under the invocation of the Portugueze Saint Gonsalo de Amarante, was founded in 1766, for nine hundred Guegues and sixteen hundred Acroas. After awhile they grew weary of their new manner of life, and set out to regain their former wild freedom: they were pursued, and brought back by persuasion: .. so large a body could not have been compelled to return, by any force that could on a sudden have been brought against them. From that time their numbers continued to diminish. The proportion of Indians in this Captaincy was considerably less than in those adjacent.

Do. 2. 249.

State of the Fazendas.

Vol. 2. p. 567.

This country was explored and conquered, not for the sake of mines, or slaves, but for its pastures; cattle were introduced by those who first took possession of it for the Crown of Portugal; and the Conqueror, Domingos Affonso, oddly as that appellation may appear to suit his way of life, was the greatest grazier in Pernambuco. He was a native of Mafra in the Mother Country, and so successful in his schemes of conquest, that he possessed more than fifty large Fazendas in Piauhy, and disposed of many more by gift or sale. Thirty of these estates he bequeathed to the Jesuits, in trust, for endowing maidens in marriage, clothing widows, and other works of charity: if any surplus remained from the annual produce, they were to employ it in increasing the property. Accordingly they added three Fazendas. When the Jesuits were expelled, the Crown took upon itself the trust, and the thirty-three estates continue still to be administered for the same purpose, by three Directors, who

Cazal. 2. 240.

[page] 756

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 3. 21.

Arruda. Ins. de Jardins. p. 20.

Patriota. 3. 4. 79—80.

have a salary of three hundred milreis each. The lands in Piauhy were given in sesmarias of three square leagues: between every two, a league was left common to both for the use of the cattle; but neither owner might build either house or fold upon this intermediate land. This was thought necessary, because of the frequent droughts, and consequent failure of pasturage. The owners also were jealous of neighbours, and liked their state of lonely lordship: they bad some reason, considering that there were times when a watering place became of as much value as in Arabia; and that dogs were a nuisance to all cattle, except those which they were trained to guard. But this system tended to keep them in a barbarous state of manners. A house was built, usually with a thatched roof, some folds were inclosed, and twelve square miles were then peopled, .. according to the custom of Piauhy. Ten or twelve men sufficed for managing an estate of this extent. Part of their duty is to destroy the wild cattle and horses, that they may not decoy away the tame, or render them unmanageable. If the owner has no slaves, Mulattos, Mamalucos, and free Blacks, who abound in the Sertoens of Seara, Pernambuco, and Bahia, and particularly about the Rio S. Francisco in the higher part of its course, are eager to obtain employment in these farms. These men, who hate any other labour, are passionately fond of this way of life, which not only gratifies their inclinations, but holds out to them the fairest prospect of attaining to wealth themselves. Every one hopes to become a Vaqueiro, Creador, or Homem de Fazenda, as the managing herdsman is called, in his turn. These superintendants serve for five years without pay; from that time they are entitled to a fourth of the herd every year. This gives them an interest in its prosperity, and in the course of a few years, some of them establish Fazendas of their own. A flourishing Fazenda produces annually from eight hundred to a thousand calves; but after

[page] 757

CHAP. XLIV.

deducting the tithe, which in Brazil is paid to the Crown, and the fourth for the Vaqueiro, it can only export from two hundred and fifty to three hundred oxen: the cows are always reserved for breeding and home consumption; the rest are accounted for by the plague of flies, vampire-bats (from which the folds afford no security), jaguars, snakes, poisonous herbs (of which there are many kinds), and above all, by drought, which frequently converts all the grass in the country into standing hay; and when that is consumed, the cattle perish by thousands.

Patriota. 3. 3. 22.

Cazal. 2. 237.

Trade in cattle.

Maranham, Pernambuco, Bahia, and Minas Geraes, looked chiefly to Piauhy for their cattle. The communication with Maranham is easy; that with Pernambuco lies through a country, where want of rain not unfrequently occasions extreme suffering; but between Piauhy and the Rio S. Francisco, a Sertam intervenes, varying in breadth from twelve and fifteen to forty or fifty leagues, which may almost be termed a desert: this must be traversed to reach either Bahia or the Minas; and during the last five months of the year, if the season be dry, the journey becomes dangerous. Five roads, or rather tracks, across this wilderness, were used; and upon each some individuals had formed tanks, by damming the river Pontal, or some other stream, which, like that river, is dry in summer. By thus husbanding the water, when it would otherwise have run to waste, they were enabled to establish a few Fazendas; and extensive tracts of country will, in time to come, be rendered habitable by such means. Travellers upon this journey have sometimes perished for thirst, and sometimes owed their lives to the Imbuzeiro, .. a remarkable tree, with which bountiful Providence has blessed the most arid regions of Brazil: bulbs, about a palm in diameter, and full of water, like water-melons, are attached to its shallow roots. Arruda names this tree spondia tuberosa. Its fruit is smaller than a hen's egg, and, under a tough skin, contains

Patriota. 3. 3. 22—24.

[page] 758

CHAP. XLIV.

Arruda. Ins. de Jardins. p.42.

a succulent pulp of a grateful flavour, at once acid and sweet. The Brazilians make a dainty of its juice, with curds and sugar. This tree, and the Acajou, seem to offer means for subduing the desert part of these hot provinces.

Arruda. Ins. de Jardins. p. 34.

The people of Piauhy make a beverage from the Buriti, one of the loftiest and most beautiful of the palm tribe, but which grows only in moist or swampy places. Its fruit is about the size and shape of a hen's egg, covered with red scales which are arranged spirally; under these is an oily pulp of the same vermilion colour. The liquor which they prepare from it is said to be nutricious and palatable; but if it be drunk to excess, it has the singular property of tinging the skin and the whites of the eyes, without in anywise appearing to affect the general health. In the low lands of Para and Mato Grosso, this tree might be of great value. The Piqui (the acantacaryx pinguis of Arruda) is of more importance to a country like Piauhy, where drought is the great evil, for it prospers in a dry and sandy soil, and produces in profusion a wholesome oily fruit, the size of an orange, of which the inhabitants are very fond. It grows to the height of fifty feet, with a proportionate girth; and the timber is good for ship-building.

Do.

Captaincy of Seara.

This tree is also a native of Seara, where, if it were extensively planted, it would tend to alleviate the evils of scarcity, which are now often and severely felt. The province of Seara contained about one hundred and fifty thousand ²⁰ inhabitants, notwithstand-

20 The returns made by the Capitaens Mores, in 1813, shew an excess of females to the amount of more than twelve thousand, upon the whole population. But the parochial returns of the same year show only an excess of two thousand five hundred. These latter returns are said to be defective, but they fall short of the others by little more than eight thousand; and it is manifest, that this deficiency cannot affect the proportion of the sexes. There is reason for supposing that they are the more accurate of the two, because it may be suspected that men avoid enrolling their names with the Capitaens Mores, in order to avoid the military service, which is one of the great grievances in Brazil. And there is this proof of their greater accuracy, that the other returns make an excess of females among the slaves, which is contrary to all known facts; whereas the Parochial make the excess there upon the side of the males.

[page] 759

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 221.

Town of Seara.

Koster's Travels. 114.

Aracaty.

ing its natural disadvantages, and notwithstanding many thousands died, or emigrated, in consequence of a drought, which continued from the year 1792 to 1796. All the domestic animals are said to have perished during this dreadful visitation: the people subsisted a long time wholly upon wild honey, .. and that food contributed to produce diseases which swept them off by hundreds. The inhabitants of seven whole parishes forsook their dwellings at that time, one and all; and indeed it seems wonderful, that such an affliction should not have depopulated the province. Yet it appears, in the course of ten years, to have recovered. The capital, Villa da Fortaleza de Seara, is placed in a site which, though the best maritime situation in the province, has no other advantage than that the reef, which runs parallel with the shore, is rather higher there than on any other part of the adjoining coast, and therefore affords some little protection to ships at anchor: there are two openings which afford a passage through this reef, one above, the other below the town. The houses had only a ground floor. There were three Churches, a Governor's Palace, a Town-hall and Prison, a Treasury, and a Custom-house; these public buildings were small, but neat, and well adapted for their respective uses, and the town bore marks of greater prosperity, and higher civilization, than might have been expected from the circumstances of the province. It contained about twelve hundred inhabitants. Of the other towns, Aracaty was the most important for wealth and commerce: it

[page] 760

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 111.

Crato.

Cazal. 2. 231.

Villa Viçoza.

stands about eight miles from the sea, on the Jaguaribe, or river Jaguar, so called, not like Tigris, from the rapidity and force of its current, but from the number of the beasts which frequent its shores. The houses have a second floor, which is not found any where else in the province, but is necessary here, because the floods are sometimes so great as to enter the ground floor. The river forms a spacious bay within the bar; the entrance is exceedingly difficult: the sands accumulate, and shift; and it has happened, that during a violent gale from the sea, the bar has been completely choaked. Hides and cotton were exported. The population was about six hundred. Crato, high up the country, upon one of the smaller streams which form the Rio Salgado, .. itself the largest confluent of the Jaguaribe, .. is remarkable, because the inhabitants of its district practice irrigation, and by that means are enabled to supply other parts of the province with provisions in seasons of drought. This was the most abundant and delightful part of Seara; but affections of the eyes and legs (probably elephantiasis) were endemic there. Villa Viçpoza, in the Serra de Ibiapaba, had been an Aldea of the Jesuits: the site was judiciously chosen upon the borders of a lake, with beautiful woods adjoining, in a fertile and healthy country, where the nights are cooler in summer than in winter. These advantages drew thither many Europeans of the better kind, .. industrious agriculturists, who raised cotton, and lived in plenty. Copper is found in the Serra. This was the birth-place of Camaram, whose name is in high estimation both among Indians and Portugueze, in the provinces which were the scene of his exploits. The Indians here were numerous.

Cazal. 2. 233.

State of the Indians.

Cazal. 2. 235.

There were several other towns, which had originally been Aldeas established by the Jesuits. Throughout Seara the number of pure Indians was diminishing, while the general population increased, by the increase of the mixed breed. Pombal's

[page] 761

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 122.

Cazal. 1. 59.

regulations had been modified in favour of the Indians, about the end of the century; it was then decreed that they should be left entirely free to dispose of themselves, that they were eligible to all offices and employments, and that a preference should be given to those among them who might chuse the clerical profession. This is not the only instance in which the Portugueze Government has anticipated the feeling of better times, and advanced farther than the public mind could follow it. The Indians were not in a condition to receive the benefit which was intended for them. The intermediate process, which, according to Pombal's provisions, should have preceded their emancipation, had been neglected: no attempt had been made to instruct and prepare them for the change; and, except that they had generally acquired the Portugueze language, (in some cases to the entire disuse of their own,) they were less competent to act for themselves, and mingle as free citizens with the general population, than at the moment when their religious teachers were removed, .. for their morals had been corrupted, and their spirits broken, by the vulgar tyranny of the Directors, to which they and their parents had been subjected: they were as ignorant, but more vicious and more degraded. When, therefore, it is said that their complete emancipation produced no effect upon their natural indolence and apathy; that it neither inspired them with ambition, nor with the desire of bettering their condition in any way; that they are never found in the higher schools; and that very few of them learn any liberal art; .. assertions which might seem to detract from their capability as a species, .. it should be borne in mind, that, continuing as they did in the same circumstances, no such change could be produced by a mere act of emancipation; unless Governments could work miracles, and accomplish the end which they desire, dispensing with the means. The Directors continued to exercise authority, not of the gentlest kind; there

VOL. III. 5 E

[page] 762

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 276.

Koster. 121.

was this difference, that they could not employ the Indians in any compulsory service; but they were still the persons who bargained for their labour, and usually at a rate below the regular wages. The Indians receive the money themselves, and expend it as they like; and they understand their own freedom just enough to forsake any service, whenever indolence, or caprice, or the love of change, induces them. The traders of Upper Maranham and Mato Grosso have suffered seriously by desertions of this kind, in situations where hands cannot readily be obtained; and their inconstancy is so well understood in Pernambuco, that when they are engaged to work on an estate, the overseer relies upon them only for the passing day.

Koster. 119.

The worst parts of their present character are an apparent want of natural affection, and a vile indifference regarding the conduct of their wives and daughters. The latter they brought with them from the savage state, and it has been perpetuated by the oppression under which they had lived, and the conduct of the Brazilians, who frequented their towns: the submission to which they were reduced, would alone have necessitated this prostration of mind; and this again would weaken their love for their offspring. But if natural affection did not exist, as an attribute of humanity, it would hold its place as an animal instinct; and the seeming want of it (except in a few individuals, who are monsters,) may be explained by the effects of habitual misery, and a feeling, not confined to the Indians of Brazil, that early death is a lot far more desirable than a life of hopeless labour. Let but the Priests and Magistrates of Brazil exert themselves for the general reformation of manners, by the early instilment of good principles and the just execution of good laws, and the Indians will not be found the worst members of the state; for they are certainly a docile race, and possess many useful qualities: they are quiet and inoffensive, cleanly in their persons, contented

[page] 763

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 236.

with little, and patient of fatigue. This is their character in Seara, where they have several settlements not far from the capital, built in the form of a square, and containing about three hundred inhabitants each. Such settlements are numerous in that province; and it is said, that they might become rich and flourishing, if the Indians were more active, and the Directors more religious, more patriotic, better acquainted with agriculture, and less avaricious. They were generally employed as letter-carriers; in which occupation they walked, with a goatskin wallet upon the shoulders, at a regular pace, "unaltered by rough or smooth," and with such perseverance, that upon a long journey an Indian would outstrip a horse.

Koster. 116. 122.

Productions of Seara.

Joam da Silva Feijo. Patriota. 3. 1. 48—49.

Do. 3. 1. 60.

Most of the rivers in Seara fail during the dry season. From June to December, no rain falls; but the nights are cool, and bring with them a heavy dew; and a regular sea-breeze sets strongly in from nine at night till five in the morning. It is when the other half-year ²¹ passes without rain, that the consequences become so dreadful. All the esculent plants of Portugal had been introduced there, and cultivated with success: the onion alone dwindles and degenerates. English potatoes succeed there: it is curious, that the Tupinamban root, as it was called, when first introduced into Europe, should thus have obtained the name of English in its own country. The vine produces fruit twice or thrice a year, but finds something ungenial in the climate, for the grape never ripens thoroughly. The carnauba is the most common tree, and the most useful: the inhabitants build houses with the wood, and cover them with the leaves: they eat the fruit; the cattle are supported by the leaves, and even the trunk of the

21 According to Cazal (2, 221.) such dearths recur every ten years. But it seems most improbable, that such visitations should be periodical.

[page] 764

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 130.

Cazal. 2. 225.

Feijo. Patriota. 3. 2. 19—20.

Cazal. 2. 224.

Koster. 155.

young tree, in extreme drought; and the people prepare from the wood, at such times, a flour for themselves, of which they form a paste, bitter indeed, and nauseous to a stranger's palate, but capable of supporting life. This is the tree which produces the vegetable wax. The sugar-cane was cultivated here, as in Piauhy, chiefly for distillation and for rapaduras, .. hard cakes of sugar formed into that shape, that it may be easily portable, and less liable to waste in conveyance. The people had begun to raise cotton. Their trade in dried meat had ceased; and what cattle they could rear, above their own demand, were driven to Pernambuco: but the Vampire-bats destroy thousands, and reduce opulent graziers to poverty. These hideous creatures are said to be more destructive than all other wild beasts. The horses are remarkably good and hardy. Every breeder of cattle in the interior has his flock of sheep and goats: the goats are milked, and children are frequently suckled by them. The goat which has performed this important service is always called comadre in the family, .. an appellation equivalent to that of gossip, in its original meaning. The wool is of excellent quality, and may perhaps become an object of main importance; for it has been calculated that there are not less than five thousand flocks, of two hundred each, in the province. Manufactories of this wool, of cotton, and of earthen ware, had recently been established, under the encouragement of the Governor, Luiz Barba Alardo de Menezes, who had the interest of the province at heart, and zealously promoted every thing which could tend to its improvement. Salt licks are numerous; and large fossil-bones have been found in great abundance in the lake of S. Catharina. Hurricanes are frequent in the interior, and destructive to the cattle as well as the plantations and habitations.

Feijo. Mem. Economica. § 5. 7. 9.

Romualdo Antonio. J. de Coimbra. t. 6. No. 30. p. 2. p. 332.

Feijo Patriota. 3. 1. 58. 56.

Cazal. 2. 229.

Rio Grande do Norte.

Seara is supposed to be about ninety leagues from east to west, and ninety from north to south, in its widest part, with a consider-

[page] 765

CHAP. XLIV.

City of Natal.

Cazal. 2. 212.

Koster. 69.

Assú.

Cazal. 2. 216.

Koster. 94. Portalegre.

able length of coast. The adjoining province of Rio Grande do Norte runs as far back, but is confined between latitude 4° 10' and 5° 45' south. The city of Natal (a position so highly valued during the Dutch war, that the fortress there was considered the strongest place in Brazil), contained only some seven hundred inhabitants; but was of consequence as the seat of the Provincial Government, and the port of the Captaincy. The Potengi, (which is likely to recover this its Brazilian and more convenient name, now that the Rio Grande of the South so greatly exceeds it in importance,) admits vessels of an hundred and fifty tons, and affords safe and commodious shelter for six or seven such; but the entrance is difficult: it is navigable about forty miles for large barks; higher up, only for canoes. The city is built upon' a sandy soil, and was no otherwise paved, than that a few of the inhabitants had raised a brick foot-path before their own houses. Of the towns in the interior, Assú, which was one of the most considerable, did not contain above three hundred inhabitants; but it was a place of trade. There are numerous salt works near, and the river Assú abounds in fish, which the inhabitants cured for exportation. The bed of the stream is dry in time of drought; but in the proper season large barks come up to the town, which is seven leagues from its mouth. Portalegre stands less, advantageously for commerce, more favourably for the health and comfort of its dwellers, two miles up the Serra, to which it has given name. Indians inhabited it, who were descended from the Payacus, Icos, and Pannatis; but the greater part of the inhabitants were native Portugueze: they raised cotton and mandioc, and enjoyed the blessings of a cool and delightful temperature, and of fine mountain springs.

Cazal. 2. 216.

Noticias. MSS.

Parts of this Captaincy were better peopled than might be supposed, from the size of its towns. Its whole population was estimated, in 1775, at twenty-three thousand; and if its increase

[page] 766

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 211.

Do. 1. 75. Vicente Coelho de Seabra. Mem. da Academia. t. 2. p. 99.

Cazal. 2. 209.

has kept pace with that of Paraiba, as may reasonably be assumed, it must have far more than doubled since that time. Indeed, the Serra do Martins, which is only three leagues in length, contained at the end of the century four thousand communicants. The salt lakes, since the abolition of the monopoly, had attracted much trade, and consequently many settlers. Sugar and cotton were raised for exportation, but cotton chiefly, as requiring less capital, and finding a surer market. Maize, mandioc, rice, and tobacco were cultivated, mostly for home consumption. Wild bees are so numerous that wax is generally burnt. All the many species of bees in Brazil are inferior to the European; they form their cells without symmetry, and in a circular form: none of their hives are populous. There is one species which takes possession of the deserted piles of the termites. The Negroes in this Captaincy were few in number, and there were no wild Indians: the proportion of European blood had for many generations been increasing. There was no want of industry among the people: indeed, wherever indolence is the vice of the Brazilians, it proceeds from some vile prejudice, connected with slavery, not from the national character.

Paraiba.

Noticias. MSS.

Patriota. 1. 4. 94.

Cazal. 2. 197.

When the Dutch possessed themselves of Paraiba, the whole Captaincy contained seven hundred families and twenty Engenhos; in 1775, the population was estimated at fifty-two thousand; in 1812, it exceeded one hundred and twenty-two thousand, of whom seventeen thousand were slaves, eight thousand free Blacks, twenty-eight thousand free Mulattoes, and only three thousand four hundred Indians: here also, there were no wild natives. The province runs back sixty leagues; its extent of coast is between eighteen and nineteen: this, therefore, is a considerable population for Brazil, especially as two thirds of the whole surface are deemed incapable of any kind of culture,.. an error which will not be long maintained when the good

[page] 767

CHAP. XLIV.

The city of Paraiba.

Koster. 50. 51.

Cazal. 2. 198. 202.

ground shall all be occupied. Flourishing however as the province was, the city bore marks of decay, because Recife, being a better and surer market, had in late years drawn to itself the produce of the Sertam, which would otherwise have been brought to Paraiba. That capital contained some three thousand inhabitants, five Ermidas, or Churches which are not parochial, a Mother Church dedicated to N. Senhora das Neves, a Franciscan, a Carmelite, and a Benedictine Convent, .. all three large buildings, and all almost uninhabited; the first having, in 1810, but four or five friars, the second but two, and the third but one; a Misericordia with its Hospital, and two fountains, .. things as unusual in Brazilian cities, as they are ornamental and useful. The Governor resided in what had been the Jesuits' College. The houses were mostly of one story; some had glass windows, and some are spoken of as noble buildings. The principal street was broad and well paved. The river Paraiba rises in the skirts of the Serra do Jabitaca, near the spot where the Capibaribe has its source. The earlier part of its course lies through an arid country, and in that part its bed is dry during the summer; but nearer the sea it receives several considerable streams. A little above the city it is joined by the Guarahu, and with this, the greatest of its confluents, and the Unhaby, it forms the spacious bason which is the port. The waters, where they enter the sea three leagues below, are divided into two channels by the Isle S. Bento, which is nearly a mile long. Vessels of one hundred and fifty tons can pass the bar, and the port is capacious and perfectly secure. Though the commercial importance of Paraiba had declined, it was likely to retain a certain degree of permanent prosperity, as the seat of the Provincial Government, and as the place where the great landholders of the Captaincy had their town residence, and passed the rainy season. The river is navigable about fifty miles above the city, to the town of

[page] 768

CHAP. XLIV.

Town of Pilar.

Cazal. 2. 205.

Vol. 2. 104. 155.

Pilar, formerly the Aldea of Cariri. There the Indians, mixed and pure, formed the bulk of the population: but there is a little town in this province called Montemor, which owes its origin to the ill neighbourhood of the Whites and Indians: a number of Whites fixed themselves in the Aldea de S. Pedro e S. Paulo, and their quarrels with the former inhabitants were so frequent, that it was judged expedient for the Indians, as the weaker party, to retire and establish a new settlement for themselves. Cunhau, the scene of a memorable massacre committed by the Dutch, and of the victory obtained over them by Camaram, now a small hamlet, gives name to one of the largest estates in this part of Brazil, extending fourteen leagues along the road from Recife to Natal, and belonging to the Albuquerque do Maranham family. Besides this prodigious property, the owner possessed estates in the Sertam, which were supposed to be from thirty to forty leagues in extent, .. such leagues as, if measured by time, are each three or four hours' journey. No better sugar is made in any part of the country than in ²² Paraiba: but the cane plantations were diminishing, and those of cotton were on the increase; partly because the cotton plant endures drought better than the cane, still more, because of the enormous demand occasioned by the cotton mills in Great Britain.

Koster. 61.

Do. 52.

Cazal. 2. 202.

Recife.

Pernambuco was one of the most flourishing parts of Brazil: it contains more ports than any other Captaincy, and Recife was only inferior in commercial importance to Bahia and the Rio. That city, which has not unaptly been called the Tripoli

22 In the Serra do Teyxeira, there are some inscriptions in red characters, which none of the persons in the neighbouring country can decypher, but which they suppose to be Dutch. If they are merely painted upon the rocks, it is not likely that they should be of older date, .. scarcely that they should have lasted so long. Cazal. 2. 200.

[page] 769

CHAP. XLIV.

Corrcio Braziliense. t. 1.p. 289.

Koster. 369.

of the New World, contained in its three natural divisions about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and the ²³ population was rapidly increasing. It had continued to be a place of the first importance from the time of the Dutch conquest, and no other city had derived such great and unequivocal benefit from the growth of the cotton trade. The cotton of Pernambuco was falling in estimation about the end of the last century, because of the careless manner in which it was packed, without separating the stained wool, leaves, and other impurities: inspectors therefore were appointed, and it soon recovered its repute, being superior to any other except the Sea Island, Nearly twenty-seven thousand bags, of one hundred and sixty pounds each, were exported in the year of the Removal. Recife bore some traces of old times in its appearance: narrow streets and lofty houses indicated that the inhabitants were once crowded within the protection of its walls; and a few monuments of the Dutch might still be pointed out with pride by the Pernambucans. Most of the houses had lattices and wooden balconies, as in the old part of Lisbon; some few were glazed and had balconies of iron. The shops were without windows, the door-way admitting the only light; and there was little distinction of trades, but all kinds of manufactured goods were sold by the same dealer. The Fathers of the Oratory, the Franciscans, and the Carmelites, had each a Con-

23 In 1810, Recife, (properly so called) contained 1229 families, S. Antonio 2729, and Boavista 1433; which, upon the usual estimate of five to a family, would make the population about twenty-seven thousand. This would differ little from the estimates of Romualdo Antonio, who, in 1808, called it thirty thousand; and of Mr. Koster, who stated it, in 1810, at twenty-five thousand. But I observe that Cazal, in estimating the population of Olinda before the Dutch war, allows ten to a family; and this average may perhaps not be too great in a country where slaves are numerous, and custom requires a large establishment of servants.

VOL. III. 5 F

[page] 770

CHAP. XLIV.

vent; the Bearded Italian Capuchines, and the Almoners of the Holy Land, each an Hospice. There was a Recolhimento, and an Hospital for Lepers. The Episcopal Palace was called magnificent. The Governor resided in the Jesuits' College: the place of the Jesuits, as instructors of youth, was supplied by Royal Professors of Rhetoric and Poetry, of Latin, and of Philosophy; in no other good respect was it supplied by the Religioners who had survived them. There was a Theatre, miserably conducted, but good enough for the wretched farces which were performed there, .. for in dramatic composition the Portugueze are poorer than any other people who have a national literature. There was also a Foundling ²⁴ Hospital established in 1790, by the Governor, D. Thomas Joze de Mello. The streets of Recife were paved, but not those of the middle town, nor of Boavista: this latter division of the threefold city is the only one capable of increase, and consequently sure to become the most extensive: it has therefore justly been regretted, that the Senado should not have interposed its authority, and compelled all persons who built there to proceed upon a regular and well arranged plan. Water-drinkers as the Portugueze are, this populous town was still without an aqueduct, and water was brought by canoes, either from the Capibaribe above the influence of the tide, or from the Beberibe at Olinda, where a wear was built to prevent the salt water from passing up; at this wear canoes took in their lading, four and twenty spouts being placed

24 In the first year one hundred and thirty children were received, and seventy-six of these died within the year: .. a dismal account! But the proportion of deaths has been far greater in establishments upon a much larger scale. The two most dreadful instances are those of Lisbon and of Dublin, .. the latter perhaps the most frightful example of human wickedness that ever was recorded for the shame of human nature.

[page] 771

CHAP. XLIV.

for that purpose, and they carried it in bulk for sale. The well water is brackish and bad. The environs of Recife are delightful; and there the wealthy townsmen have their summer residences, in low, neat, unassuming cottages, amid gardens of pomegranates, lemon, orange, and other trees, alike beautiful in their blossom and their fruitage, and perpetually green. The climate is good, and the heat is rendered tolerable, even in the hottest season, by the sea-breeze, which throughout the year rises about nine in the morning and continues till midnight; the land-breeze then succeeds to it, and the half hour's, interval, which sometimes occurs in the morning between the two, is the most unpleasant part of the day.

Koster. 5—9. 13.

Cazal. 2. 171. 173.

Olinda.

Olinda makes so fine an appearance from the sea, with its Churches and Convents, and houses all dazzlingly white, interspersed among trees and gardens on the sides and summit of the hill, that the exclamation of Oh beautiful! which gave occasion to its name, has often been repeated by those who behold it. The hill is steep towards the sea, but declines gradually on the land side; and the view which it commands is magnificent. The city covers a great extent of ground, many parts not having been rebuilt: hence, a certain air of depopulation and decay is felt, which, however, accords with the quiet collegiate character of the place. It contained a Recolhimento, a Misericordia, and Convents of Franciscans, Benedictines, and Carmelites, both shod and barefoot. The Episcopal Palace was in a dilapidated state, and the Governors were no longer required to reside half the year there, so compleatly had its political importance merged in that of Recife. The Jesuits' College was converted into a Seminary, not yielding in repute to any other in Brazil. It had its royal professors of Latin, Greek and French, Geography, Rhetoric, Universal History, Philosophy, Design, Ecclesiastical History, and Theology dogmatical and practical, .. high sound-

[page] 772

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 175.

Romualdo Antonio. J. de Coimbra. No. 30. p. 2. 336.

Koster. 15—16.

Iguarassú.

Koster. 45.

Do. 47.

Cazal. 2. 176.

Goiana.

The Lagoas.

Do. 2. 180.

ing words, under all of which how little of each was meant! The Pensioners paid one hundred and twenty milreis annually. The Bread-fruit, the Oriental Pepper, and the large Sugar Cane from Otaheite, were raised in the Botanic Garden, and distributed to any persons who were willing and able to cultivate them. The population consisted of about eleven hundred families: it contained more than two thousand five hundred before the Dutch war; but if Olinda had not been burnt during that contest, great part of its inhabitants would nevertheless have been drawn off by the growing business of Recife. Its decay is an accidental and local consequence of the general prosperity. Iguarassú also had decayed from a similar cause, the weekly cattle-fair having been removed from thence to Goiana; but it was still a place of considerable importance, from whence much sugar was embarked for the capital: it contained about eight hundred inhabitants, and the only regular inn in Pernambuco, .. for even in Recife, there was neither inn nor lodging-house! This establishment was for the convenience of travellers between Recife and Goiana. The latter town contained between four and five thousand inhabitants, and within its term, or district, five times that number, and some twenty Ermidas, or Chapels. Magdalena, the chief settlement upon the Lagoas, had increased to a large town, which was the capital of a flourishing Comarca. In the early part of the eighteenth century, the average yearly exportation of tobacco from this district was two thousand five hundred rolls, of eight arrobas each, .. almost two hundred weight; and this of such quality, as to bear a price fifty per cent. higher than the tobacco of Bahia. Latterly its culture had given place to that of the sugar cane. Towns and villages were rapidly increasing in this southern part of the Captaincy; and every where a considerable trade was carried on with the Sertam, for the whole interior was now explored, and inhabitants were scattered

[page] 773

CHAP. XLIV.

over it in every part: .. so great a change had been silently produced since the time of the Dutch, when cultivation was found only in patches along the coast, from Recife to the Potengi, and extended inland never more than one or two and twenty miles, seldom more than from twelve to fifteen. Since the expulsion of the invaders, the inhabitants had continued to multiply, without any drawback from war, and, for about a century, without any visitation of pestilence. In 1775 the population was estimated at two hundred and forty-five thousand; and it is known that the adjoining province of Paraiba had more than doubled its numbers since that time.

Noticias. MSS.

Inhabitants of the interior.

The Sertanejos, as the inhabitants of the Sertam are called, were in a curious state, to which the history of the Old World, neither in any time nor place, affords a parallel: because, in barbarous ages heretofore, the institutions and habits of all countries were formed with reference to war, war being the motive by which men were associated. The evil of those ages is passed; but to the feelings and virtues which they evolved in their turbulent course, the noblest European nations owe their best and proudest characteristics. It remains to be seen hereafter what will be the character of those nations who have passed through no such discipline: from all that has hitherto appeared, the inference is not favourable. In the Old World also the tendency of events had always been to collect men into states, or where society was in its rudest stage, into clans, .. thus every where binding them together by ties of mutual dependance: but in the New, the tendency has been towards segregation, and a sort of savage independance. This tendency in Pernambuco would have rendered each generation more barbarous than the last, if the natural process had not been counteracted by the civilizing influence of commerce, extending rapidly to all parts from the coast. Owing to this influence, decencies, and even comforts, were found upon

[page] 774

CHAP. XLIV.

the Fazendas, or cattle-estates, in this part of Brazil, which would be looked for in vain among the wretches of Paraguay and the Plata. In the poorest cottage of Pernambuco, Paraiba, Rio Grande, and Seara, water is served before and after every meal, as in the days of chivalry in Europe; an earthen bason, or a half-gourd, supplying, in humble dwellings, the silver vessel which is displayed in the habitations of the opulent. A table is found in many cottages; but more generally the custom prevails of sitting on the ground, as still retained by the lower orders in Portugal. Knives and forks are superfluities, of which those orders in Brazil had not yet acquired the use. Hammocs served always for beds (even Europeans soon learn to prefer them), and frequently for chairs or sofas. The home-dress of a Sertanejo consists merely of shirt and drawers; abroad, he wears a frontispiece, or half-pantaloons of leather, tanned, but undressed, tied round the waist; a tanned goat-skin over the breast, and fastened with strings behind; a leathern jacket, which is generally thrown over one shoulder; a leathern hat, shallow in the crown, and narrow in the brim; slip-shod slippers of the same rusty colour as the rest of his leathern habiliments, and spurs fastened upon his naked heels. A sword and knife are his constant weapons, and frequently he carries a large pistol. Upon a journey he usually takes a hammoc and a change of linen, and perhaps a pair of nankeen pantaloons, rolled up in a piece of red baize, and fastened to the saddle. The home-dress of the women consists of a shift and petticoat, no stockings, and oftentimes no shoes; but they never go abroad barefoot, nor without a large piece of white cloth (sometimes of their own manufacturing) thrown over the head and shoulders, as in Portugal,.. a cleanly and convenient fashion, which affords good protection from the sun. The petticoat was of the calico of the country, and sometimes died red with the bark of the coipuna, which is also used

[page] 775

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 87. 143—145.

for dying fishing nets, because it is supposed to preserve the thread. Children of both sexes are generally naked till they approach the age of puberty.

There are no wild cattle in these Sertoens; nevertheless, kine are so numerous, that the people live too much upon meat; they eat it thrice a day, taking with it piram, which is a paste made of mandioc flour, rice occasionally, less frequently maize; and, in default of all these (which are generally brought from the more fertile country nearer the mountains, or nearer the coast,) the dough which is made of the pith of the carnauba. Sometimes curds are eaten with the meat. They are fond of the kidney-bean in its dry state, in which state it is much used in Portugal; but they think sallads fitter food for beasts than for men, and make no use of any green herbs whatsoever: a change in this respect, as rendering horticulture necessary, would be an advance in civilization. Wild fruits are so numerous, that they cultivate very few; they raise however the water-melon. They milk both cows and goats, .. a work which is performed by the men; and they make cheese, which is excellent when new, but becomes tough if it be four or five weeks old: their skill in the dairy extends no farther. Irish butter finds its way into the Sertoens of Pernambuco, and acquires, as well may be supposed, a potent flavour upon the road. The great agents of improvement among these people are the pedlars, who travel about with the calico of the country, earthen ware, either the white porcelain of Europe, or a dark brown kind made by the civilized Indians of Pernambuco (there called Caboclos), small kegs of rum, Irish butter, tobacco, and snuff; rapaduras, or sugar-cakes, spurs, bits, and other gear for horses, (saddles excepted, which the Sertanejos make for themselves,) and even trinkets of gold and silver. They seldom receive payment in cash, but take hides, cheese, and cattle of all kinds, which they

Trade of the interior.

[page] 776

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 154. 159.

convey to the coast, or some convenient market, and exchange for goods; .. thus carrying on their trade almost without money. The Pedlar's return is made about once in twelve months, and the profits are in proportion to this, and to the trouble of bartering (which implies two dealings in place of one): they amount, it is said, to two or three hundred per cent.

Koster. 146.

Itinerant Priests.

The Sertanejos had already acquired the worst part of the spirit of trade: they would over-reach the persons who dealt with them if they could, and looked upon a successful trick as an exploit to be vaunted; yet, in other respects, they deserved the praise of being frank and generous. With regard to women, they were in that state of profligacy, in which men, judging of their own wives by those of their neighbours, and of their neighbours by themselves, are at once debauched, jealous, and vindictive. From this cause murders were frequent: the laws, which are scandalously administered throughout the Portugueze dominions, scarcely possessed the slightest influence in the Sertoens of Brazil; and consequently, every man who was wronged took vengeance for himself. But the state of religion was not such as in any degree to diminish the necessity for them. In the thinly peopled parts of that country, parishes are of enormous extent; and there is not perhaps a church within eighty or an hundred miles. Certain Priests, therefore, obtain licenses from the Bishop to itinerate and perform what, in Roman Catholic countries, are regarded as the essentials of religion. One of these Itinerants sets out with a portable altar, so constructed as to go on one side of a pack-saddle, and with the apparatus for saying mass. The boy who drives the pack-horse assists at the mass; and wherever customers can be found to pay for the ceremony, the altar is erected, and the performance takes place. The price varies according to the zeal and means of the parties, from the value of three or four shillings, to as many pounds; sometimes a much larger

[page] 777

CHAP. XLIV.

sum, and not unfrequently the Priest is paid in cattle. These men baptize and marry, and are unquestionably useful in keeping up forms which are essential to civil society, and even in supporting a blind and ignorant belief, .. for the corruptions of the idolatrous Church of Rome, gross and monstrous as they are, are better, far better, than utter irreligion. It is a fatiguing, but a gainful employment; and it may be suspected, that these Itinerants are more influenced by the profits and the license of this way of life than by any worthier motives. They are supposed to make from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds a year, which is a large income in Brazil, especially for persons who are bound to celibacy.

Koster. 85.

Improvement of manners.

Valentoens, Knights-errant of vulgar life.

Koster. 250—253.

Badly however as the laws were still administered, there had been an evident amendment of late years; they were still too often broken with impunity, but they could no longer be openly and impudently defied. There were a set of ruffians, calling themselves Valentoens, or Bravos, who used to frequent fairs and festivals for the pleasure of taking up quarrels, and intimidating all other persons. They would take their station at a cross road, and compel all passengers to dismount, take off their hats, and lead their horses till they were out of sight, .. or fight, as the alternative. A struggle against one of these desperadoes, armed with sword and knife, was more perilous than the roughest encounter of a knight, with spear and shield. They trained dogs of extraordinary size to be as savage as themselves, and yet in such obedience that they would drink rum at command; and they wore green beads around their necks, which were believed by the credulous to have the virtue of rendering them invulnerable. So many of these knights-errant of vulgar life came to their deserved end, that toward the close of the last century the race became extinct. A custom prevailed in Paraiba, to the great annoyance and danger of peaceable people, which the

VOL. III. 5 G

[page] 778

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 52.

Koster. 58.

police long since had put down in the Peninsula, lax as it is both in Portugal and Spain. Men went about the town at night, wrapt in large cloaks, and with crape over their faces, and in that disguise committed any excesses to which they were excited by the cruelty or the wantonness of their temper. The late Governor apprehended all who were found in this dress: some of the principal inhabitants appeared among them; but this detection sufficed to prevent any repetition of the offence. The same Governor arrested a most ferocious ruffian of half-blood, who kept the whole country in terror; carried off innocent women from the houses of their parents; and, without scruple, murdered those who attempted to oppose him. This villain presumed upon his connections, because he was the bastard of a great man in the Captaincy; and indeed the influence upon which he depended was such, that the Governor was obliged to forego the intention of putting him to death. Justice however was not wholly evaded: he was ordered to be flogged; and when he maintained that he was not liable to this ignominous punishment, being half a Fidalgo, the Governor admitted the plea so far, that he directed him to be flogged on half his body only, and left him to determine which was the Fidalgo side: after this he was transported to Angola. A family, by name Feitoza, possessed large estates in Piauhy and Seara, and abusing their power, like the Poderosos in the worst times of anarchy, behaved with audacious violence, and even put people to death who offended them, or refused to obey their commands. The head of the clan was Colonel of the Ordenança in his district: he enlisted in his own service deserters and murderers, who had committed the crime from personal motives, not in pursuit of plunder; and he had above an hundred such desperadoes at his command, .. no inconsiderable force in that thinly-peopled country. The Governor of Seara, Joam Carlos, received secret in-

[page] 779

CHAP. XLIV.

structions from Lisbon to apprehend this man. It was a service of great danger, and the Governor had recourse to a stratagem which must have been painful to his honourable mind. He apprized Feitoza that he should visit him for the purpose of reviewing his regiment, and accordingly went to his house, with ten or twelve followers. The review was held: the men were dismissed, weary with the exertions of the day; and when Feitoza thought his guests were about to retire for the night, the Governor suddenly presented a pistol to his breast, and told him, that if he made the least resistance, or attempted to give the alarm, he would immediately fire, though at the certain cost of his own life also. Such of Feitoza's people as were present were, in like manner, surprised and secured, taken out at a back door, mounted on horseback, and carried away. They rode fast all night, and in the morning reached the coast, where a vessel was lying off and on; jangadas were ready for taking them on board; and the embarkation was hardly effected, before Feitoza's people came in sight, .. too late for the rescue. The Chief was sent to Lisbon, and thrown into prison, where he is believed to have died about the time of the removal to Brazil, or to have been set at liberty by the French.

Koster. 124—5.

Great families in Pernambuco.

But the age of the Poderosos was over. Men possessed of that power which is the consequence of great property, were, in these parts of Brazil, found chiefly in situations favourable for the export of their produce, and therefore more under the cognizance of Government, and within the influence of the spirit of the times. Such persons, instead of disturbing order, and impeding the progress of improvement, were the great promoters of civilization; their lives were not merely inoffensive, but eminently useful; and they practised a liberal and magnificent hospitality, wherein the courtesies and elegancies of the Old Country appeared in the midst of colonial and semi-barbarous profusion.

[page] 780

CHAP. XLIV.

Romualdo. Antonio. J. de Coimbra.

State of the slaves upon their estates.

The long Dutch war had left behind it permanent good in these provinces; the Pernambucans appealed to the achievements of their ancestors, as conferring upon them a proud distinction among the other Brazilians; and the representatives of the great families, who had distinguished themselves in that tremendous struggle, had the true stamp and character of nobility. Every thing had an air of permanence about their estates. None of their slaves were ever sold, .. from a feeling too noble in its nature and origin, and too beneficial in its effects, to be called pride, though pride was mingled with it. In a state of slavery, it is a blessing thus to be attached to the soil. The slaves in these circumstances had all the comforts which they required in such a climate: their huts were neat; they had their gardens, in which they cultivated bananas and tobacco; and they reared pigs and poultry. Those who were born upon the estate were sometimes permitted to add one of the family names to their own: even if they were not attached to their master, they were proud of the family to which they belonged; and something like clanship existed among them.

Koster on Slavery. Pamphleteer, vol. 8. p. 323.

Slaves on the conventual estates.

The estates belonging to the Monastic Orders had a similar character of stability. There also the slaves were never sold; and the treatment was so paternal, that corporal punishments were neither permitted nor required. This course had been pursued so long that the slaves were almost all children of the soil; and hence the good consequence resulted, that the sexes were equal in number, .. the inequality between them being one of the great evils of slavery. The Brazilians have guilt enough to answer for on that score, but they have never entertained the infamous opinion, that the Africans are incapable of feeling the affections, and observing the moral and religious relations of the marriage state. In this part of Brazil, they have universally endeavoured to make their slaves as good Christians as themselves: these poor creatures are not suffered to remain without the hopes and consolations of

[page] 781

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster's Travels. 409—410.

Correio Braziliese. t. 15. p. 738.

religion, .. blessings which are not lessened by the corrupt form in which Christianity is presented to them. It is a matter of course, that the newly-imported African should be baptized as soon as he has acquired a tolerable knowledge of Portuguee, and can repeat a few prayers; and it is on his part a matter of desire, that he may be upon a footing with his countrymen and fellows in captivity, who, while he is unbaptized, regard him as an inferior, and fail not in their quarrels to upbraid him with the appellation of Pagan. Early marriages are encouraged upon the conventual estates, because a sense of what is right and just cooperates with the principles of œconomy upon which the property is managed. The children are carefully instructed in their religion, and the evening hymn to the Virgin is sung by all the Negroes as a daily duty. The slaves provide themselves with food, for which purpose the Saturday in every week is allowed them, besides the holy days and Sundays: the holy days are about three and thirty in the year; and to the honour of the Portugueze Government, when some of them were so far abolished in Portugal that people were permitted on those days to follow their usual occupations if they were so inclined, the permission was not extended to Brazil, from a principle of humanity, lest the slaves should be deprived of that time which was their own, either for labour or for rest. Almost every kind of work upon the conventual estates is done by the piece, and conformably to the wise and humane principles of the establishment, the task is such as is usually accomplished by three in the afternoon; for it is performed willingly, and therefore well. Those who are industrious employ the remainder of the day upon their own grounds. They have sufficient motives for industry: the laws empower a slave to demand his freedom, whenever he can offer to his owner the price which was originally paid for him, or which he is considered to be fairly worth in the market.

[page] 782

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster's Travels. 424—427.

Slaves of the small proprietors.

This prospect induces children upon these estates to solicit that they may begin their regular labour, before the age appointed by the rules; because they are not allowed to possess ground of their own before they work for the estate. If a boy shows an aptitude for any particular trade, his inclination is consulted. The only regulation which makes the evil of slavery felt is, that the male slave may not marry a free woman, though the female is not prohibited from marrying a free man: the reason of this distinction is found in the principle of old law, that the children follow the condition of the mother; and in the one case the population of the estate is increased, in the other a free family would be introduced, .. which would obviously be injurious. A notion prevails among the Benedictine slaves, that they are the property, not of the monks, but of St. Benedict himself, the monks being only his stewards upon earth: .. and this whimsical opinion has the comfortable effect of making them fancy themselves privileged persons both in this world and in the next.

Koster on Slavery. Pamphleteer. Vol. 8. 324.

Do. Travels. 439.

Thus upon the great family estates slavery has something of the feudal character; upon the conventual, much of the patriarchal one. Among the small proprietors, who are mostly people of colour, it is alleviated, as it is among the Orientals and among savages, by the parity of condition in all other respects, between master and slave: they work together and fare alike, and this equality induces a sense of honourable pride in the slave; he enters into the interest and the feelings of the family of which he is a member, and will not suffer a word to be spoken against his master without resenting it. The character and description of the owner may plainly be understood by the appearance of the slaves; upon estates where the proprietor is not resident, or which are in the hands of a speculator of little or no capital, (too large a proportion are in one or other of these predicaments,) the Negroes have neither time, nor strength, nor

[page] 783

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster on Slavery. 323. Usual state of the slaves.

Koster on Slavery. 312—313.

Do. 329.

Do. Travels. 428. 403.

Do. 431.

Oliveira Mendes. Mem. Economicas. t. 4. p. 36.

heart, to provide any comforts for themselves. The usual routine is, that the slaves begin work at six o'clock, and continue till half past five, or six, with intervals of half an hour for breakfast, and two hours at noon. Sometimes, there is home work for an hour or two after the field labour; and in crop time, which is from four to six months, they work through the night as well as the day, being relieved every six hours. The slave receives in the year two shirts and two pair of drawers, and perhaps two straw hats: he has a mat to lie on, and a piece of baize for a coverlet. If the master feeds him instead of allowing him the Saturdays for raising his own provision, his food consists of mandioc flour and jerked beef, or salt-fish: the Saturday's work, even with the aid of holy days, is not sufficient, unless he work for his master by the piece, and is thus enabled to win time for his own use. Instances of abominable cruelty sometimes occur in the treatment of slaves; but they are less frequent than in former times, and excite a very general feeling of indignation and abhorrence. It is observed, that slaves when made overseers are more unmerciful than freemen, and men from Europe than natives of the land; and that women are more cruel to their slaves than men. A Negro who finds his life hopeless as well as miserable, will sometimes tell his master that he is determined to die; and when this resolution is formed, the event seldom fails to follow:.. he falls into a species of atrophy, so common among the slaves as to be classed among their peculiar diseases by the name of the banzo, loses his appetite, pines, and becomes almost a skeleton before death sets him free. This has sometimes been accounted for by their eating lime and earth: more likely, the strong determination of a desperate will brings about its end by persevering and intense desire: for the habit of eating earth and lime prevails among Black children, Creole and African, the free as well as the slaves, and among both sexes; it

[page] 784

CHAP. XLIV.

seems to be partly habit, partly disease, .. but a disease for which coercion is the cure. Ill-used, or indignant slaves, sometimes put an end to their sufferings in a more summary way. This is frequent among the Gabam Negroes, a tall, handsome race, accused of cannibalism in their own country, and of all Africans the most untractable. Whole lots of them, when purchased together, have destroyed themselves, or pined to death.

Koster's Travels. 420—421.

Mitigations of slavery in Brazil.

Koster's Travels. 410.

Do. 423.

But slavery has mitigations in Brazil which are unknown in the British Columbian Islands. There are privileges and harmless enjoyments connected with Catholic superstition, whereby the hours of bondage are exhilarated. As N. Senhora da Conceiçam is the great Diana of the Whites, N. Senhora do Rosario is the peculiar patroness of the Blacks; she is even sometimes painted as a Negress. The slaves have their religious fraternities, like the free part of the community: it is an object of great ambition for a bondsman to obtain admission into one of these, still more to be chosen one of the officers and directors; and he will even expend part of the money which he is hoarding for his own redemption in ornamenting Our Lady, that he may appear of some importance in the Brotherhood. The law which empowers them to purchase their own freedom, is sometimes set at nought by the master; but not frequently, for by so doing, the public opinion is offended. A slave, who is exerting himself for this purpose, is always distinguished by his industry and steady conduct. In large towns many slaves are employed as handicrafts, boatmen, or porters, paying to their owners a certain sum weekly: such men, if they do not fall into evil habits, to which their way of life exposes them, may redeem themselves in ten years, allowing largely for their necessary expenses, and something for indulgence. Female slaves are less able to provide for their redemption, but they are not wholly without means: they make sweetmeats and cakes for sale, and some of them are hired out

[page] 785

CHAP. XLIV.

Frequent emancipations.

Koster's Travels. 407—408.

Koster on Slavery. 326—329.

as domestic servants. Many are emancipated at the death of their owners; and rich proprietors generally set some at liberty during their life time. The woman who shall have reared ten children, is declared free, by a law more benignant in appearance than in reality, because its benefits can but possibly extend to very few; and it becomes a cruel aggravation of the keenest of all griefs, when the parent forfeits her claim to liberty, because of the death of her child. A more effective law, worthy of introduction wherever the abomination of slavery is permitted, provides, that the owner shall manumit an infant at the font, if any person offers twenty milreis, as the price of its freedom. Freemen frequently emancipate their illegitimate offspring in this manner; and it is not uncommon for the sponsors thus to confer the greatest of all benefits upon the babe for whom they pledge themselves. In the hope of this, a bondswoman sometimes requests persons of quality to become sponsors to her child; thinking, that either at the ceremony, or at some future time, from feelings of kindness or of dignity, they will not suffer their godchild to remain a slave; .. for this tie is highly regarded in Brazil. The godchild never, in any rank of life, approaches the sponsor without asking a blessing; and a master seldom or never contracts this relationship to one of his own slaves, because, it is said, that it would prevent him from ever ordering him to be chastized. The clergy are, as it becomes them to be, the friends of the oppressed. Negroes, who had belonged to a Priest, if they are transferred into the hands of a layman, are said to be the most unfit for work of any in the country, .. a proof that they have been treated with unusual indulgence and humanity. The slave who stands in fear of punishment, takes refuge with a Priest, if he can, and is invariably sent back with a written intercession for pardon, which, in such cases, is invariably granted.

VOL. III. 5 H

[page] 786

CHAP. XLIV.

Difficulty of escaping from slavery.

Koster's Travels. 440. 399.

It is not easy for a Negro to escape from slavery in these Captaincies, where there are no wild Indians who can receive and shelter him. An African is known every where by his shibboleth, and is certainly secured, unless he can give a satisfactory account of himself. Creoles and Mulattoes have a better chance, because they may have been born free; and men of this description, when they obtain their freedom, generally remove to a distance, and settle where their former condition is not known: whereas, the manumitted African carries about proof of his servile origin in his speech; and knowing this, finds it to his advantage to remain where the good character, by which he has gained his liberty, may still avail him. The reward for apprehending a runaway slave is considerable; and the Capitaens do Campo ²⁵ are always upon the alert. In Pernambuco they are almost without exception Creole Negroes, all men of the greatest intrepidity: they have large dogs trained to scent the fugitives in the woods, and, if need be, to pursue and bring them to the ground. Sometimes a few poor fugitives succeed, and form a Mocambo in the woods, where they subsist upon wild fruits and game. But this is a precarious way of life; and though, because of their thorough knowledge of the thicket, it is difficult to ap-

25 Mr. Koster mentions a cruel case, which occurred a few years ago at Recife: .. A Negro and his wife who had escaped, and long been given up as dead or irrecoverably lost by their owner, were discovered, after sixteen or seventeen years, and brought back into the house of bondage with five children, all born and bred in freedom, and now condemned to slavery! Among them was a girl of fourteen, and a youth of sixteen! The master put them in confinement till he could dispose of them to a slave-dealer, and they were then shipped for Maranham, .. a destination with which refractory Negroes in Pernambuco are threatened, as the most formidable of all punishments. It is scarcely possible to conceive a more cruel case than this; and the cruelty was not more in the individual, than in the system. .. Like Shylock, he only claimed just as much human flesh as the letter of the bond gave him.

[page] 787

CHAP. XLIV.

prehend them, they have not collected in any force in these Captaincies, since the memorable destruction of their great establishment under the Zombi.

Free Creole Negroes.

Koster's Travels. 396.

Free people of colour.

Koster on Slavery. 336.

Mamalucos.

Koster's Travels. 395.

Gypsies in Pernambuco.

Koster's Travels. 383.

The free Creole Negroes in this province are a fine race of men, mostly employed in mechanical trades. There are two regiments in Pernambuco, in which men and officers must all be pure Blacks: these regiments are called the Old and New Henriques, in honour of Henrique Diaz, whose services are still remembered gratefully by the Pernambucans in general, and enthusiastically by those of his own colour. Their uniforms were white cloth, turned up with scarlet: their appearance was military and imposing; their discipline not inferior to that of the White regiments. Neither men nor officers received any pay; the honour of the service contented them, and that feeling was a sure pledge for their fidelity. There were also Mulatto regiments. The free people of colour were an industrious and useful part of the population: most of the maize, mandioc, and pulse, with which the towns are supplied, was raised by them upon small pieces of ground, which they rented of the great proprietors at a low rate. About Recife, and other large towns upon the coast, the mixture is chiefly Portugueze and African. More Mamalucos are found in the interior; they are finer in person than the Mulattoes, and of a more independant character; for though the Negro despises the Indian, the Mulatto looks toward his White relations with a sense of inferiority, as if the brand of bondage were upon his skin; but the Mamaluco has no such feeling. The women of this mixture excel all other classes in beauty. It is remarkable, that the Gypsies have found their way into Pernambuco: they lead the same kind of vagabond life there as in Europe; but they seem to traffic more, and to pilfer less: their ostensible business is to buy, sell, and exchange horses, and gold and silver trinkets. They pay no regard to any religious

[page] 788

CHAP. XLIV.

Reduction of the last wild Indians.

ceremony, and intermarry exclusively among themselves. The last wild Indians in this great Captaincy were the Pipipan, Choco, Uman, and Vouvé tribes; neither of them numerous, each speaking a different language, but apparently of the same stock; and each at deadly enmity with all the others. They possessed a territory of some thirty square leagues, between the rivers Moxoto and Pajehu, .. a rude and arid country, far in the interior, where they lived upon wild fruits, wild honey, and the produce of the chace. Whatever they killed, they broiled or roasted whole, neither plucking the feathers of the birds, nor skinning the beasts, nor taking out any part of the intestines. The men were altogether without clothing; the women wore an apron of fine elastic net-work, or of a long thick fringe, made from the thread of the croatá with some elegance. Bows and arrows were their only weapons. A man might have only one wife; and it is said, that adultery was unknown among them, and that they regarded it with horror, when practised by their Christian neighbours; hence the supposition seems probable, that their forefathers had at some time been under the tuition of the Missionaries. At the beginning of the present century they were persuaded to settle each in an Aldea, and cultivate the ground: nor was any fault imputed to them in their domesticated state, except that, retaining their old passion for the chace, they could not easily be made to understand, that the sheep and cattle of the neighbouring Fazendas were not fair game.

Cazal. 2. 155—156.

Improvement of horticulture.

Koster. 383.

Barlœus. 143.

Horticulture was rapidly increasing in the vicinity of Recife, chiefly through the exertions of some good colonists from the Mother Country and the Azores; the markets therefore were well supplied with esculents of European origin. In the time of the Dutch, the island of Itamaraca produced the best grapes in Brazil: the vine is now neglected in that island. It is found in gardens about Recife and Olinda, but wine is not made. The

[page] 789

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 383.

Plants which afford a substitute for hemp and flax.

Arruda. Dissertaçam, &c. p. 27.

Koster. 375.

onion dwindles, and becomes oblongated. English potatoes deteriorate the first year in size, and acquire a sweetishness afterwards. The olive has not been naturalized, nor is it needed in a country where the cocoa abounds. The cocoa is not indigenous in Pernambuco; but of all the trees which the Europeans have introduced, it is far the most important. To save trouble in watering, the nuts are frequently set in a row under the eaves of a house, that they may have the benefit of all the rain which falls: at twelve months growth they are transplanted, after which they require no other care than weeding: at six or seven years they bear fruit, and from that time yield a regular income to the owner, without labour or expense. The nuts are gathered four times a year, and form one of the chief articles of internal trade; they serve both as meat and drink; they produce a fine oil, and are in general use in cookery. The tree will become still more valuable when the excellence of its outer shell, as a substitute for hemp, shall be more generally understood. At the beginning of the century it was not used for that purpose. It has been calculated that the island of Itamaraca produced annually at that time not less than three hundred and sixty thousand nuts; and cocoa trees grew along the whole coast, from the river S. Francisco to the Mamanguape, .. an extent of ninety-four leagues: the husks from all these trees were suffered to accumulate where they fell, till the owners of the ground made bonfires to consume them. But in the year 1801, Dr. Manoel Arruda da Camara, a botanist of distinguished talents, received orders from Lisbon to report what plants there were in the country which might supply the want of hemp and flax; and from that time the coire, or cordage of the cocoa, seems to have been introduced. Several plants were found, from which the fishermen made line for their nets: and it was ascertained, that a fibre finer, and at the same time stronger, than the best European

[page] 790

CHAP. XLIV.

Arruda, Dissertaçam. 18—21.

flax, may be obtained from the pine-apple plant, which, in that country, may be had in any quantity, for it grows better in sand than in clay, but well any where: it is hurt neither by sun nor by rain; no insect, in that land of insects, injures it; and weeding is all the trouble that an ananazal, or pine-yard, requires. The plant is worth cultivating in Pernambuco for its flax alone, which is so easily prepared, that in one day it is fit for spinning. Arruda advised, that the guinea-grass (panicum altissimum) should be introduced, which would be invaluable in the interior, where droughts are so frequent. He suggested also, that for the dry and flat Sertoens, between the Rio S. Francisco and the Serra de Ibiapaba, the camel and the dromedary are as well adapted by nature, as for the sandy deserts of Africa and Arabia. .. The Minister, by whom this suggestion shall be adopted, will be remembered in history as one of the benefactors of Brazil. The Sertanejos, who suffer severely from the dry seasons, take advantage of them to entrap the wild pigeons, which cross their country in great flights. After the rivers are dry, water is still preserved in clefts of the rock: the birds as well as the people know these places: near them, at such times, they dispose vessels with an infusion of the maniçoba brava; the bird takes the deadly poison, and unless it be instantly rejected, dies in a few seconds; but is not considered unfit for food, because of the manner of its death.

Do. Instituçam. 29—30.

Cazal. 2. 165.

River S. Francisco.

Cazal. 1. 157.

Pernambuco touches upon Paraiba, Seara, and Piauhy to the north, and upon Goyaz to the west: from Seregipe and Bahia it is divided by the Rio S. Francisco, and by one of its larger confluents, the Carynhenha, from Minas Geraes. The S. Francisco is the greatest river that enters the sea between the Orellana and the Plata. Its sources are in the heart of Minas Geraes; in the Serra da Canastra, whence the counter streams flow into the considerable rivers that join the Parana from the north and east. A long part of its course lies through the province in which it rises, where it

[page] 791

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 6. 79.

Salt trade from Pilam Arcado.

Cazal. 2. 190.

Villa da Barra do Rio Grande.

receives part of the waters of the Forbidden District, and is joined by other streams which are believed to be rich in diamonds and in gold. When it enters the Captaincy of Bahia it flows through a desert country; and the upper part of its course, when it touches Pernambuco, is not through better land. Toward the close of the eighteenth century there were no other inhabitants upon its banks, in the upper and middle parts of its long course, than a few fishermen, who subsisted upon what they could catch, and carried on a little trade in salt; and scattered vagabonds, rather more numerous, who, having fled from the private vengeance which they had deserved, or the public justice which they had provoked too long, resorted to these Sertoens, and supported themselves by stealing cattle from the Fazendas. But settlements were now rising there, and the salt trade from Pilam Arcado to Minas Geraes was becoming a source of industry and wealth. Pilam Arcado was a growing village, about three hundred and fifty miles up the river, containing some three hundred families: the inhabitants of its district exceeded five thousand. The salt lakes near were upon proprietary grounds; nevertheless they were considered common property, by which any persons might profit; the heat of the sun suffices to crystallize the salt; and the increasing demand from Minas Geraes made the people active and numerous. While the S. Francisco flows through the mountainous country it receives many considerable rivers; but so few from the arid Sertoens of Bahia and Pernambuco, that it probably loses more water by evaporation there than is supplied by all its confluents in that part of its course; and in fact it is navigated by larger boats in the upper than in the lower country. The upper navigation ends at Vargem Redonda, a village in Pernambuco, below the mouth of the Rio Grande. At the mouth, as the name implies, is the Villa da Barra do Rio Grande, a trading town well supplied with fish and meat, and with a population, including its parish, of

[page] 792

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 189.

Do. 1. 159.

Do. 2. 186.

Town of O Penedo.

Cazal. 2. 182.

above one thousand families. The S. Francisco at this point is a mile broad, and the passage there is much frequented, being in the line from Piauhy and the whole intermediate Sertam, to Bahia and the Mines. Thus far barks are used upon the river, and ajojos, which are two or more canoes fastened together and connected by a platform. From Vargem Redonda there is a long portage of twenty leagues, to Canindé; the river along this part of its course flows through a contracted channel, and makes many rapids and falls, .. one of such magnitude that the spray is visible from the mountains six leagues distant, like the smoke of a conflagration. Below Canindé the voyage is performed only by ajojos: a strong current carries them down, and the wind sets up the river regularly from eight in the morning, blows through the day with more or less power according to the season and the age of the moon, freshens always in the evening, and sometimes dies away at midnight, but generally continues till dawn. From Canindé to O Penedo, which is the sea port, the distance is thirty leagues. O Penedo, or the Rock, contained, in 1806, about three hundred families, mostly Azorites, or European Portugueze; and after having for a century and half continued poor and unprogressive, it had become a busy, and a flourishing place. Instead of its old wooden hovels, substantial and handsome stone houses of two and three stories were erected. There were five Ermidas, the Mother Church, a Franciscan Convent, and a Professor of Latin. The river here, seven leagues from its mouth, is a mile in width: it rises only three feet at spring-tides: but the town is exposed to injury when the freshes come down; and one tremendous flood is remembered, when the water rose twenty feet. The river disembogues by two mouths of very unequal size: the northern, which is much the largest, is half a league broad, but so shallow, that smacks can only enter at high water, and must wait for the spring tide before they can get out.

[page] 793

CHAP. XLIV.

Province of Seregipe d'El Rey.

Cazal. 2. 141.

Cazal. 2. 152.

City of Seregipe.

Cazal. 2. 147.

Cazal. 2. 148.

The subordinate province of Seregipe d'El Rey, lying between Pernambuco and Bahia, with twenty-six leagues of coast, and extending about forty leagues into the interior, has no natural advantage for commerce, like the adjoining Captaincies, and was therefore far behind them in advancement; yet it had not been stationary during the general progression. At the close of the seventeenth century, some Poderosos broke open, the prison to release some of their followers, set the Governor-General at defiance, and tyrannized over the scanty and scattered population. But when they found that they were too near the seat of power to persist in such courses with impunity, they sued for pardon and obtained it, on condition of reducing the remaining Tupinambas, who still annoyed the settlers. This they in part effected, and the good work was completed by the Missionaries. A Mamaluco, by name Christovam de Mendonça, who remembered this insurrection, died in the year of the Removal, at the age of one hundred and thirty, .. so hale an old man, that he worked at his business, as a potter, till the year of his death. The province contained seven towns, besides the city of Seregipe, or S. Christovam. That city, after two removals, had finally been well situated upon high ground, on the Paramopana, five leagues from the sea: sumacas ascend to it, and load there with sugar and cotton. It is described as a considerable and populous town, with two Convents, .. Franciscan and Carmelite, .. a Misericordia, two Chapels, .. the one of N. Senhora do Rosario, the Lady of the Blacks, the other of N. Senhora do Amparo, the Lady of the Mulattoes; .. Royal Professors of Latin and of Primary Letters, a handsome Town-house, a great bridge, and plenty of good water. But the most populous, and the busiest settlement in the Captaincy (exceeding the capital itself in commercial importance,) was the Povoaçam da Estancia, five leagues from the sea, on the river Piauhy, which flows into the Rio Real.

VOL. III. 5 I

[page] 794

CHAP. XLIV.

None of the rivers are navigable for vessels larger than sumacas; and the entrance of all is exceedingly dangerous, because of the shoals, the bars, and the tremendous surf. These impediments in the way of commerce have retarded the improvement of the people, and may, in some degree, explain why their manners should be more ferocious than those of the Pernambucans, or Bahians. At the latter end of the eighteenth century, an Ouvidor in this Captaincy, in less than two years, received information of more than two hundred murders; and since that time, twelve were committed in one parish in the course of one week! These are frightful facts; .. but it is the historian's duty to record them, for they mark the state of the people and of the police. Wherever such manners exist, the fault is in the Magistrates more than in the people: the Portugueze have good laws, and have little more to desire from their rulers, than that those laws should be duly administered. Had the first of these murderers been punished with death, or condemned to life-long imprisonment and penance, all the other lives would probably have been saved. The inhabitants of Seregipe are of all shades of colour; and it has been observed, that of all classes the Mamalucos are the longest lived.

Lawless state of the people.

Cazal. 2. 144.

Captaincy of Bahia.

City of Bahia.

Cazal. 1. 119.

This province is subordinate to Bahia, which, including Ilheos, extends one hundred and fifteen leagues from north to south, and between seventy and eighty from east to west: it has Seregipe and Pernambuco to the north, Goyaz to the west, and Minas Geraes and Porto Seguro to the south. S. Salvador, now generally called Bahia, suffered no other loss than that of rank, when the seat of the general Government was removed to the Rio: it continued to be one of the largest, most opulent, and most flourishing cities of the New World: including its suburbs, it extended four miles from north to south. Its population was estimated at more than one hundred thousand: more than two

[page] 795

CHAP. XLIV.

Lindley's Narrative. 253.

Lindley. 241.

thirds of this number were Mulattoes, or Negroes, and the proportion of slaves was fearfully great. The Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, and the bare-foot Carmelites, had each a Convent; the Almoners of the Holy Land, the bare-foot Augustinians, the Carmelites, the Benedictines, the Franciscans, and the bearded Italian Capuchines, each an Hospice. There were four Nunneries, two Recolhimentos (institutions which have all the use of Nunneries, and none of their evils), and Third-Orders of Carmel, the Trinity, S. Francis, and S. Dominic. These are harmless associations of persons, who engage to perform as many observances of the Monastic Order to which they thus affiliate themselves, as are consistent with their way of life; people, therefore, whether married or single, in any occupation, and in any rank or condition, may belong to them. The Dominicans have never established a colony in Brazil: the exception is remarkable, and its cause has never been explained; for they have certainly not been less ambitious of extending themselves than their compeers and rivals. It may be hoped that Brazil will continue free from them: for though they may not have sunk into such utter contempt as the Franciscans, the Order, as professing poverty, is equally injurious to the State: its legends exceed those of the Franciscans in monstrous falsehood, and scarcely yield to them in blasphemy; and it is, above all other Orders, infamous and execrable, for the part it has borne in the Inquisition. The Jesuits' College served for a Military Hospital. Their Church was the finest structure in the city: it is built of marble, brought from Europe for the purpose (as in earlier times our Anglo-Norman Kings imported their Caen-stone); and besides the profusion of gaudy ornaments which are usual in such edifices, the wood work is inlaid with tortoise-shell. It is to be feared, that the books and manuscripts of the College had been suffered to perish, through scandalous neglect, before a public library was

[page] 796

CHAP. XLIV.

instituted (soon after the Removal,) by the Conde dos Arcos, D. Marcos de Noronha, among the many excellent measures of his government, .. the best with which Bahia ever was blessed. There were also a Misericordia with its Hospital, a Lazar-house for Lepers, at a proper distance from the city, liberally endowed, and charitably administered; an Orphan-house for the children of White parents, a Seminary for Orphans, a Theatre, a Mint, Public Tribunals of every kind, and Royal Professors of Greek, Latin, Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Mathematics.

Lindley. 107.

Do. 267—268.

This great city was without a single inn; but it should be remembered, that the want of one would scarcely be felt, while no intercourse was carried on with any other country than Portugal; and consequently every person who arrived there from Europe either had connections in the place, or came provided with credentials which insured him the good offices of those to whom they were addressed. Empty lodgings might be hired, and were presently rendered habitable in a land where more furniture than is necessary would be inconvenient, and where there is no ostentation in such things. There were eating-houses, which, bad as they were, satisfied the persons for whose accommodation they were intended; and it was customary to breakfast in a dirty coffee-shop, upon a glass of coffee and a roll and butter, at the price of four vintens (about five-pence): the butter was Irish, and wheat was cultivated in the eastern division of the Captaincy, about the town of Jacobina. Young meats are never seen in the shambles; mutton seldom; and the beef is lean and bad: the consumption however is very ²⁶ considerable.

26 In the year 1787, twenty-one thousand three hundred and seventy-five head of cattle were consumed at Bahia, weighing one hundred and seventy-six thousand two hundred and fifty-five arrobas; .. though fresh meat is not the food of the slaves, who probably amount to half the population, the Portugueze eat less meat than any other people, who do not wholly abstain from it: and, moreover, the fast days are a full third of the year. The consumption of Lisbon in that same year, was twenty-six thousand four hundred and seventy-seven head, .. two hundred and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and eighty-six arrobas; and the population in 1780, one hundred and thirty-five thousand nine hundred and forty-four.

[page] 797

CHAP. XLIV.

Lindley. 104.

Do. 189.

The market is a surprising sight to an European, so rich is the variety of fruits, both what are indigenous and what the Portugueze have introduced; and the Indian and Mamaluca women sell nosegays there of the most delightful flowers, which fill the place with their perfume. The vine bears thrice in the year, and is cultivated in many parts of the Captaincy; but the climate which forces this triple fruitage, has hitherto frustrated all attempts at making wine.

Cultivation of Pepper.

Arruda. Instituçam. p. 9.

The oriental spice trees, which Vieyra had watched with such patriotic pleasure, when at his instigation they were introduced, had been neglected and lost, and were now re-introduced more than a century afterwards. Francisco da Cunha e Menezes, sent pepper-vines from Goa not many years before the Removal; and being subsequently appointed to the Government of Bahia, interested himself greatly in the culture. Many thousand stocks were distributed to those who were desirous of engaging in the cultivation; and though the best method of training them seems not to have been adopted, they succeeded so well, that pepper of home growth was brought to market. From Bahia, plants were taken to Pernambuco by P. Joam Ribeiro Pessoa Montenegro ²⁷. The botanic garden was in the Quinta dos Lazaros, and did honour to the patronage of three successive Governors.

27 When the History of Brazil shall be continued by those who come after me, this name will hold in it a disastrous place. He was one of the prime movers of the insurrection at Pernambuco, in 1817, and perished by his own hand,.. miserably erroneous in the most important of all things, and miserably guilty, his fatal opinions having perverted a powerful intellect, and hardened a heart naturally as humane and gentle as it was elevated and generous. The effects of revolutionary principles were never more mournfully exemplified than in P. Joam Ribeiro. Let it be allowed to me thus to mention, with regret, one who had manifested a wish for the completion of this book, to whom I hoped to have acknowledged obligations in the present volume, and whose continued approbation I had anticipated with pride, as that of a competent judge.

[page] 798

CHAP. XLIV.

Lindley. 54.

Do. 108.

Koster. 36.

Lindley. 55.

Koster. 273.

Correio. Braz. t. 7. 205.

The streets of Bahia were narrow, ill-paved, and almost as filthy as those of Lisbon itself. The shops were gloomy; they had drop-lattices instead of windows, and a few only of the better houses were glazed. Even the middle classes were not habituated to the use of knives and forks: they rolled the meat, vegetables, and mandioc-meal, into a ball in the palm of the hand, after the Moorish manner; water of course was served both before and after the repast; so that the custom, unseemly and uncomfortable as it is, is less unclean in reality than in appearance. The city contained several booksellers: there were none at Recife, nor in any of the towns to the north; and not a single printing office in Brazil! Goldsmiths and lapidaries were in great employ. Golden knee and shoe-buckles are said to have been common; and the women of all ranks and colours wore gold chains of great length, with a crucifix, a golden Bentinho, or some other amulet, appendant. There were few wheeled carriages, because of the steep hill between the upper and the lower town: Negroes plied in the streets with palankeens, and the wealthy vied with each other in the richness of these vehicles, and in the splendid liveries of the bearers, which accorded strangely with bare feet and legs. In the year 1807, three hundred and sixty ships entered the bay, and three hundred and fifty-three left it: the imports amounted in value to nearly eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds, the exports to nearly a mil-

[page] 799

CHAP. XLIV.

Internal trade of the bay.

Lindley. 71.

lion. Of the articles of export, sugar was the first in importance, tobacco second, and cotton third. Latterly, there had been very little gold, the mines in this Captaincy having ceased to attract adventurers: other articles were rum, rice, coffee, whale oil, hides, tallow, and wood. But the internal trade, to which this magnificent bay and its numerous rivers afforded such facility, is described as surprisingly great. It is said, that full eight hundred launches and smacks, of different sizes, arrive daily at the capital; and the statement will not appear exaggerated, if it be remembered that the people subsisted chiefly upon vegetables, and that the city received far the greater part of its supplies by water. Perhaps the whole world does not contain a livelier or a more splendid scene than this beautiful bay, .. spotted with islands, swarming with vessels of alt sizes, from the smallest canoe to the largest merchantman, and echoing to the sounds of business, and the music of festivity, which is here almost in daily demand. The Portugueze are eminently a musical people, and give their demi-gods credit for the same taste. Every Portugueze has his saint, every saint has his day, and on every saint's day some of his votaries summon the musicians to celebrate the festival, and accompany them to the Church or Chapel of the idol, .. frequently by water. The Negroes also are passionately fond of music: the city-wayts are all Negroes, and the barber-surgeons, an odd but old association of trades, are the heads of this company: they have always a full band ready for service, and find constant employ from public or private devotion, which, in Catholic countries, is commonly connected with merriment and display. Many of the islands are cultivated and inhabited. The Whale Company had an establishment at Itaparicá, and carried on their operations upon a most wasteful and destructive system. It is well known, that the whale is distinguished from all other fish by the strong affection between parent and offspring,

[page] 800

CHAP. XLIV.

as much as by that organization for which naturalists have arranged it in a higher class of creatures: a cruel use was made of this knowledge by the Brazilian harpooners: they attacked the young, knowing that the mother would not forsake her suckling, and thus they might secure their prey: but by this practice the proportion of females was continually diminished, to the evident diminution of the species. The young were slaughtered in mere waste, and left to welter upon the waters; and the extraction from the full grown animal was so imperfectly performed, that pools were literally formed by the oil which ran from the carcases, where they were left to putrify.

Manoel Ferreira da Camara. Mem. Econom. t. 1. 3. 2. § 2. 3.

Engenhos in Bahia.

Ferreira da Camara. Mem. Econom. t. 1. 3. § 4.

Cazal. 2. 110.

The masters of Engenhos in Bahia were far from opulent, .. excellent as their sugar is, and great as was the exportation. That establishment was thought a great concern, just before the French revolution, which produced annually one thousand loaves of three arrobas each. A load of canes was required for a loaf, and every load contained one thousand canes. The price of the arroba at Bahia at that time was twelve hundred reis; and when the expenses of the establishment were discharged from their gross return of nine thousand cruzados, there remained scarcely two hundred milreis, from which the rent was still to be deducted. The master of a large Engenho, one year when the returns were twelve thousand cruzados, affirmed, that his net profits would not be more than from twenty-five to thirty milreis. This should seem poor encouragement for the planter: the gains may probably have increased in later years, for more sugar was raised here than in any other province. The Reconcave, which extended round the whole sweep of this ample bay, and in breadth varied from twelve to forty miles, was probably the richest and the most populous part of Brazil. A great many little rivers enter the bay, all navigable for barks; some for a few miles only, others for several leagues: and upon these rivers many flourishing

[page] 801

CHAP. XLIV.

Lindley. 263.

See p. 21.

Cazal. 2. 126—7.

towns were situated, which carried on an active trade with the capital. It is a fact worthy of notice, that this trade was generally carried on by barter and account, notwithstanding the abundance of specie in the country. Cachoeira, one of the largest towns of the Reconcave, contained, in 1804, one thousand and eighty-eight families: it had grown near the Seminary of the Jesuit, F. Alexandre de Gusman. A mass of native copper, weighing a ton and half, was found near this place. A plant, called Malvaisco, in this district, which spreads rapidly, and is difficult to eradicate, so that it is one of the most troublesome weeds, has been found, by a short and easy process, to yield a thread stronger than any hemp or flax. The Portugueze Government had long considered it a great object to find some such substitute in Brazil; and it had sent flax seed from Europe to different Captaincies, where the cultivation was attempted without success, .. failing perhaps more from inattention than any other cause. The object, probably, was not to establish a manufactory in the country, .. the system was not yet ²⁸ liberal enough for this, .. but to supply Portugal with the raw material for its linen trade. Linen was one of the most important articles of trade with Brazil: the importation in 1787 amounted to three millions seven hundred and thirty-five thousand ells.

Joaquim de Amorim Castro. Mem. Econom. t. 3. 392—395.

The province of Bahia is naturally divided by a chain of mountains of considerable elevation: from the eastern side the numerous streams proceed which flow into the Reconcave, and

28 Mr. Lindley says, that a cotton-spinner, who, about the beginning of the present century, attempted to set up a manufactory near Bahia, was sent to Europe, and his machinery destroyed. The prohibition of manufactures in a colony, is impolitic and unjust; but the speculator must have known that he was acting in defiance of the existing laws, and ought to have expected the ruin which he drew upon himself.

VOL. III. 5 K

[page] 802

CHAP. XLIV.

Comarca of Jacobina.

Sertoens of Bahia.

those which form the rivers of Ilheos. The western division, called the Comarca da Jacobina, from its capital, was formerly rich in gold, .. in all better things, greatly inferior to the maritime district. This portion comprehends the country on which the Rio S. Francisco enters, when it leaves its native province; and it resembles in its character the worst part of the Sertoens of Pernambuco and Seara. Population, however, was scattered every where, and every where cattle were bred, who sometimes were full-fed in abundant pastures, and at other times endured the extreme of want, according to the season. The regular winter, or wet season, extends only some thirty leagues from the coast; and what rain falls in the interior comes only in thunder showers, which are of course irregular, in no part frequent, and occur seldomer in the northern part of the province than in the south. After rain the ground is presently covered with rich verdure, and the cattle fatten; but when drought succeeds to this season of abundance, they are reduced to browse upon such shrubs as resist the burning sun: the streams fail; and if the tanks, which the thunder-showers had filled, are dried also, a dreadful mortality ensues. Because of the frequency of this evil, the Captaincy cannot depend upon its own pastures, but looks to Goyaz and Piauhy for a regular supply. Nevertheless, a trade in cattle was carried on within the Captaincy; but at an unmerciful expense of life, because of the intense heat, and the want of water on the way. The road was tracked with the skeletons of the poor creatures who perished on the journey: never more than half the drove reached the place of slaughter, frequently not a third part. Yet, with all this loss, meat, in 1789, sold at Bahia for about three farthings a pound.

Cazal. 2. 133. Manoel Ferreira da Camara. Mem. Econom. t. 1. 2. § 5.

Town of Jacobina.

Jacobina, though the mines had failed, was still a considerable town; and its inhabitants were more happily employed than their forefathers had been, when mining was the universal passion

[page] 803

CHAP. XLIV.

Villa do Rio de Contas.

Cazal. 2. 134. 136.

Patriota. 3. 4. 105—106.

among them. They raised sugar, cotton, excellent tobacco, maize, and pulse; and they cultivated wheat, which is not found farther north: the fruits, as well as the pulse and grain of Portugal, flourished at this elevation. They had grapes and oranges, and exported considerable quantities of quince-marmelade. The Villa do Rio de Contas, high up the country in the road to Goyaz, on the river from whence it takes its name, had risen in like manner, in consequence of a great influx to its mines; and in like manner, continued to prosper when the pursuit of gold was abandoned. There were some Engenhos in the district; they raised tobacco for the consumption of the country, and cotton, which was in great repute, for exportation. The quince was the only European fruit which had been naturalized; it had dwindled in size, and had lost its flavour: nevertheless great quantities of marmelade were made, in which the insipidity of the fruit would not be regarded as a fault, because the Portugueze overpower every other flavour in their sweetmeats by the excess of sugar which they use. Between this town and Jacobina, which lies between two and three hundred miles to the north, the greater part of the country was uninhabited, and travellers were obliged to carry water. Rio de Contas prospered, because it was on the high way from Bahia. Along the beaten roads, from every great port to any populous part of the interior, the mere transit induced population: men settled where they were sure of finding a certain sale for their produce, and where they had the advantage of purchasing, at their own price, cattle that were foundering upon the way, and would perish for fatigue or want of food or water, if they were driven farther. A few other towns, and many smaller settlements, were scattered over this part of the province: it contained also copper mines and salt works.

Captaincy of Ilheos.

The Captaincy of Ilheos had been incorporated with Bahia, as

[page] 804

CHAP. XLIV.

See Vol. 2. 565.

Interior still possessed by savages.

Jaboatam. Preamb. § 91.

Gonçalves da Costa. Invest. Port. Vol. 23. 410.

See p. 692.

The Mongoyos.

one of its Comarcas. It contained seven maritime towns; but it was on the decline, from a cause little honourable to the inhabitants, or to the Government. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, the people had called the Paulistas, under Joam Amaro, to their aid against the savages; and these allies cleared the country for half a century. But in the year 1730, some hostile Indians appeared on the side of Cayrú: they were supposed to belong to certain reduced natives in the neighbourhood, who resented some wrongs which they had received, and were resolved upon vengeance. The people against whom they directed their arms were not of warlike habits. Government, intent only upon the mines, disregarded this part of the country: the savages therefore increased in numbers and in audacity; and by the middle of the century, the cultivators, even upon the coast, were obliged to carry arms when they went to their plantations. This was only where they were brave, and tolerably numerous; for if they were few in number, or thought only of their personal safety, they left their lands uncultivated, and scarcity ensued. This evil, which a little exertion might at any time have remedied, was suffered to go on, by a scandalous inattention, that probably would not have prevailed if the seat of the general Government had continued at Bahia: and at the time of the Removal, the towns and settlements along the coast, for twenty leagues to the south of the town of Ilheos, were almost depopulated. The tribes, who had attained this ascendancy over the Brazilians were the Patachos, or Cotochos, and the Mongoyos. Many hordes of the latter were reduced in consequence of the expedition down the Rio Pardo, in 1806; their fear of the Botucudos (the terrible Aymores) inducing them to take shelter in civilization; .. as the Muras of the Madeira and Orellana had, in like manner, been tamed by their dread of the more ferocious Mundrucus. They cultivated mandioc, several kinds of potatoes

[page] 805

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 100—101.

and other roots, and the water-melon also; and they laid up large store of honey, from which they prepared, in loathsome manner, a strange drink: they took the whole hive, strained off the honey, and boiled the rest with the bees which it contained in all stages; .. a mode peculiar to themselves, whereby they obtained a strong fermented liquor. They made also fermented drinks of potatoes and mandioc. The men wore an apron of palm leaves, the women a short philibeg of cotton, well manufactured into a fringed or fleecy cloth: they were potters, and blew their fires with a bellows made of deer-skin. Their weapon was the bow and arrow, and they danced to the sound of the bow-string. Six or seven small Aldeas were formed of these people; and they who settled there, soon laid aside the bow for the musket. The Indians, who have been reduced of late years in these parts of Brazil, have accepted as a boon the instruction which their forefathers used haughtily to reject, .. so completely do they now understand the superiority of the Portugueze: the pride, which rendered them intractable when they were the more numerous and formidable race, has ceased to influence them, and they soon become useful members of the community. The Sertoens of Pernambuco and Bahia were supplied with pottery from the towns and villages of the Christian Indians; and in the Indian town of Olivença, in the district of Ilheos, a large and populous place, the people were almost all employed as turners, and exported their work annually to the amount of one thousand cruzados.

Do. 106.

Town of Ilheos.

At the time of the Removal, Ilheos was suffering much from the savages, and the evil had been aggravated by the conduct of the local authorities; so that, notwithstanding the advantages of situation, which had formerly rendered the capital a flourishing place, the town was an assemblage of dilapidated houses, inhabited by families, who, like their habitations, had fallen to

[page] 806

CHAP. XLIV.

Gonçalves da Costa. p. 412.

Cazal. 2. 107.

Gonçalves da Costa. 413.

Cazal. 2. 100.

Ferreira da Camara. 1. § 2. 3.

Do. 2. § 3. 5.

decay: but the number of its Churches, and the ruins of large edifices, and of Engenhos round about, were melancholy proofs of the prosperity to which it had once attained. The people of Rio de Contas, a second town of the same name, at the mouth of the river, were required by their municipal laws to plant a certain quantity of mandioc, in proportion to the number of their slaves; they raised so much, that the meal became a great article of export to Bahia: but in 1806, the inhabitants were actually suffering scarcity, because they were afraid to cultivate their lands. The predominant race in the maritime towns were Mamalucos, of Tupiniquin extraction: there were some pure Indians; very few of pure European blood, and not many Negroes, .. the intermediate breed, of all shades, far exceeding the unmixed races. Agues were endemic; but wherever cultivation was extended, there they ceased to prevail. In 1789, there was not a person in the province qualified to act either as surgeon or physician, nor an apothecary's shop. The deaths were not many, perhaps because the people, having no faith in ignorant practitioners, trusted themselves to empirical remedies, or to nature. Little tobacco was cultivated, and not more sugar canes than sufficed for the distilleries: they raised mandioc and rice for exportation. Rice returns three hundred fold, and they feed poultry, and even cattle, with it. For their own food, they imported jerked beef from Piauhy; and this was the staple article of diet, brought from so great a distance; for though the Sertoens of Resaca, and of the Rio de Contas, from whence cattle are driven to Bahia, are much nearer this district, and the communication better, because there is no want of water on the way, the savages possessed the intermediate country. A road was opened toward the end of the last century; but population and traffic were wanting to keep it open, and it was soon overgrown. Turtles are numerous upon the coast, and their eggs were much

[page] 807

CHAP. XLIV.

Ferreira da Camarca. 3 3. § 6. 1. § 2.

Do. 3. § 3. 15.

Do. 2. § 6.

eaten: the people also lived much upon bananas and shell-fish; and as they were generally prolific, they imputed it to this part of their diet. In the year 1780, an Intendant was instructed to promote the growth of cacao: the proprietor of one Engenho pursued it with great ardour, for the good of his countrymen; and experiments were made to show, that if more should be raised than they find a market for, it might advantageously be manufactured into soap and candles. It was long before the people could be persuaded to bestow the slightest attention upon an object which they regarded with contempt: nevertheless, more enlightened men prevailed by perseverance, and cacao is now among the exports of the province. The love of finery was so general and so strong, that persons who went barefoot and in rags about their ordinary occupations, would expend their rents, or their earnings, in golden trinkets, silks, and brocades, for festival days.

Captaincy of Porto Seguro.

Jaboatam. Preamb. § 20.

The Botocudos.

The Captaincy of Porto Seguro, which touches Ilheos on the north, extended sixty-five leagues from north to south: its limits in the interior had not been determined, because the Sertoens of that and the adjoining provinces were still possessed by wild Indians. In the early part of the eighteenth century, the Aymores had not ceased to annoy the inhabitants of these Captaincies: they were however driven from the coast, and it was believed that they had been almost extinguished by the small-pox, .. a disease which the savages regard as more fatal and terrible than all others. Their numbers were recruited in a few generations, and they became formidable again, under the new name of Botocudos, .. given them by the Portugueze, from the fashion of studding their faces with ornaments. They had lost nothing of their ancient ferocity, but seemed rather to have become more ferine during their concealment in the forests; when a prisoner fell into their hands, they sucked the blood from the

[page] 808

CHAP. XLIV.

living victim, as the commencement of the abominable feast in which his flesh was to be consumed. Their hordes, or malocas, contained from two to three score families. Some of them stained their skins red or yellow; and in seasons or situations where the insects were most troublesome, they varnished themselves with the milky sap of certain trees, which effectually preserved them against their bite. The other tribes in this part of the interior were the Machacaris, Cumanachos, Monnos, Frechas, Catathoys, Canarins, and Patachos: the Botocudos were the only cannibals; the Patachos the only people who did not stand in fear of them, .. deriving confidence from their numbers, in which they exceeded all the others. The chief settlement of the Canarins was believed to be one huge house, or human hive, in a valley between two mountains. Some of these hordes still come down to the coast, at regular seasons, to search for turtles' eggs.

Carta Regia. May 13, 1808.

Cazal. 2. 73.—74.

Cazal. 1. 71.

Town of Porto Seguro.

The rights of the Donatories in all other parts of Brazil, where such rights had existed, had been purchased by the Crown; here they fell to it on the confiscation of the Duque de Aveiro's property, after the attempted assassination of the King, in 1758. The Captaincy had long been neglected, and was then in its lowest state of abasement; since that time it had greatly recovered, and the capital, Porto Seguro, with three small villages, so close to it that they appeared like suburbs, contained about three thousand inhabitants. The port, from whence it is named, is formed by a reef, which is dry at low water; and if this, as is believed, be the place where Cabral anchored, his ships must have been of inconsiderable burthen, or the depth of the port must have diminished; for within the bar it shallows to twelve feet. The town stands at the mouth of the Buranhen, .. a better name than that of Cataract River, (Rio da Cachoeira), by which it is also called. The view from the water is beautiful: cocoas on the beach, fisher's huts and orange gardens, the town on

[page] 809

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 36.

Lindley. 213—220.

Villa Verde.

Cazal. 2. 81.

Caravellas.

Cazal. 2. 83. 77.

Do. 83. Lindley. 229.

a steep eminence, and the forest behind all. The greater part of the inhabitants are engaged in the garoupa fishery,.. a fish about two palms long, very thick in proportion to its length, red, and without scales; the flesh is white, and esteemed a delicacy when fresh: it is salted for the Bahia market. They are caught off the Abrolhos; and about fifty decked launches were employed in the fishery, which was the principal trade of the province after that of mandioc meal. The nets and lines are made of cotton, well twisted, and afterwards rubbed with the inner bark of a certain tree: the gluten which this bark contains coats the thread, and preserves it. The town was ill-built, of unbaked clay; two Churches were the only buildings of stone and brick, and they were constructed from the materials of a dilapidated Church, and of the Jesuits' College. So little meat was consumed there, that in 1806, one beast was slaughtered in a week: the Governor and officers were first supplied, and what remained was sold for three vintens a pound. Cattle however were not scarce, and poultry was in abundance; but the people generally contented themselves with salted fish and farinha. Twenty miles above the capital was the town of Villa Verde, formerly called Patatiba, in a fruitful country, inhabited almost wholly by civilized Indians, who exported wood and cotton. Caravellas was the most active and thriving town in the province: it stands upon the river of the same name, about a league from its mouth, opposite the deep and spacious natural channel by which it communicates with the Peruhype; that river, in like manner, communicating with the Mucury. This place was founded by fugitives from the other settlements, when they were laid waste by the savages; it now exported a prodigious quantity of mandioc meal, and carried on also a considerable trade in building small craft, with which it supplied Porto Seguro. The industry of the inhabitants was felt by the country round,

VOL. III. 5 L

[page] 810

CHAP. XLIV.

and was giving importance to the smaller town of Alcobaça, .. a sea-port, about four leagues distant, at the mouth of the Itanhem. Belmonte, formerly an Aldea under the Missionaries, had become a thriving town, inhabited by the mixed breed: it is most unappropriately named, for it stands upon such low ground that it is exposed to floods; and the appellation, with equal or greater impropriety, has been communicated to the river, which before had been one of the many Rio-Grandes of Brazil, and might better be called by its Brazilian name, the Paticha. This river is formed by the confluence of the Gectinhonha (so famous for its diamonds,) and the Arassuahy, both rising in the Forbidden District: it is of considerable magnitude, but spreads over a wide bed of sand, and therefore forms no port at its mouth. The number of hearths in this Captaincy, in 1749, was four hundred and eighty-five; the number of communicants, two thousand four hundred and eighty; the progress therefore during half a century had been very great.

Belmonte.

Cazal. 85.

Pinheiro Collection. MSS. Vol. 9. No. 47.

Captaincy of Espiritu Santo.

River Doce.

Porto de Sousa.

The Rio Doce, which rises in the centre of Minas Geraes, divides the Captaincies of Porto Seguro and Espiritu Santo, and enters the sea with such force, that the sweet waters hold on their way for a considerable distance before they mingle with the salt. The Camapuan, or Cabapuanna, divides Espiritu Santo from the Captaincy of the Rio: its demarcation on the side of Minas Geraes had not been determined, because the interior was still occupied by unsubdued tribes. But as the Doce is navigable for canoes after it leaves its native province, a military station had been formed on the confines, at a place called Porto de Sousa, to prevent persons from smuggling gold by that channel: otherwise the fear of the savages, and the difficulties of the river voyage, would not have deterred them. The place contained no other habitation than the barracks; but it was likely to acquire inhabitants, and become a prosperous settlement, for the

[page] 811

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 2. 66. 67.

Villa Velha.

Cazal. 2. 59.

Francisco Manoel da Cunha. Patriota. 2. 3. 31. Villa de Victoria.

Jaboatam. Preamb. § 67.

position was important, and the attention of Government was directed towards the conquest and colonization of these Sertoens. A shrub grows in this part of the country, from the leaves of which a permanent red die is obtained; and the soil about Sousa returns three and four hundred fold. Of all the old Captaincies, Espiritu Santo had made the least progress: the civilized population was still confined to the coast; and even on the coast the inhabitants were infested by the Puries, who occupied the central and western parts. These Indians were below the middle stature, but bold and crafty; and they would have been far more formidable to the Portugueze than they actually were, if they and the Botocudos had not done the work of their common enemies, and, by weakening each other in continual war, prepared the way for their common subjugation. The town now called Villa Velha, formerly Espiritu Santo, which gave to the Captaincy a name that may well be thought irreverent, contained only some forty habitations. The ruins of the Custom-house might still be traced; but not a vestige remained of the trade which had once been carried on from this place with Europe and Africa. The inhabitants were in easy circumstances, chiefly owing to a fishery, in which they were actively engaged; the Camara, richer than that of the capital. A N. Senhora da Penha (whose Church is a landmark near), was in high reputation, far and wide; and her idolaters had enriched her with numerous trinkets of gold and precious stones. The Franciscans had established a small Convent near the Church of the wonder-working image. Villa de Victoria, the present capital, was described, in the middle of the eighteenth century, as one of the good towns of Brazil. It stands in the bay of Espiritu Santo, on the western side of an island which is about twenty miles in circumference. The town was large, and well supplied with water: it contained nine Churches, besides a Franciscan and a

[page] 812

CHAP. XLIV.

Francisco Manoel da Cunha. p. 29.

Cazal. 2. 63. Villa Nova d'Almeida.

Cazal. 2. 65.

Francisco Manoel da Cunha. p. 28.

Pinheiro. Collection. MSS. Vol. 9. No. 47.

Carmelite Convent; the Palace, formerly the Jesuits' College, was the finest of its buildings: frigates could enter the harbour. The Camara had formerly impoverished itself by surrendering its rents to the Crown, on condition that a company of regular troops should be stationed to protect them against the Indians. Every thing bore the marks of decay: agriculture was neglected; and if a dwelling in the country needed repairs, it was suffered to fall to ruin. Some little exportation was still made of sugar, rum, coffee, maize, kidney-beans, rice, and cotton; it was but little; and their small vessels crept along the adjacent coasts of Bahia and the Rio, seldom venturing to Pernambuco on the one hand, or to Rio Grande do Sul on the other. But the women were not indolent; most of them were employed in spinning cotton, by which they earned three or four vintens a day. What is commonly called Peruvian balsam, is collected in this Captaincy, chiefly about the town of Guaraparim. At Villa Nova d' Almeida, near the mouth of the Rio dos Reys Magos, the Jesuits in their time had an Hospice, whither the younger members went from the College at the Rio, to acquire the Tupiniquin tongue. In this parish there were more civilized Indians than in any other, in the whole wide diocese of Rio de Janeiro: some Whites, and more of the intermediate race, were dwelling among them. They raised provisions; many were employed in fishing; and they exported wood, pottery, bowls, and tubs. The Capitam Mor, and the whole of the Camara, were Indians; but here, as throughout the province, the springs of action were wanting; there was neither capital, nor hope, nor emulation, nor example. The Captaincy was in a worse state than any other part of the whole Brazilian territories: the number of hearths which it contained in the year 1749, was one thousand seven hundred and five; the number of communicants, nine thousand four hundred and forty-six.

[page] 813

CHAP. XLIV.

Captaincy General of Rio de Janeiro. CITY OF THE RIO.

Pinheiro Collection. MSS. Vol. 9. No. 47.

Noticias. MSS.

an the Captaincy General of Rio de Janeiro, has Espiritu Santo on the north, S. Paulo on the south and west, and is divided from Minas Geraes by the rivers Preto, and Paraiba do Sul, and by the Serra da Mantiqueira. In the year 1749 its capital, called also Rio de Janeiro, contained twenty-four thousand three hundred and ninety-seven communicants. In 1792 the number of deaths was one thousand five hundred and fifty-two, of whom two hundred and eighty-two died in the hospitals, and seven hundred and six were slaves, or paupers, buried by the Misericordia: the births in the same year were one thousand six hundred and forty-eight, of which one hundred and thirty-three were carried to the Foundling Hospital: the importation of slaves in that year was eight thousand four hundred and twelve, and eight hundred and seventy-five Negroes died upon the passage! The number of merchants was one hundred and twenty-three: the number of shops one thousand and fifty-one, among which there was one bookseller's: six hundred and twenty-nine vessels entered its port; twenty of these were from Africa, three from the Azores, thirty-four from Portugal; the rest were from the other ports of Brazil. The gold which was registered in the city that year amounted to three hundred and sixty thousand pounds weight; and the balance which the merchants remitted in money to Portugal, two hundred and fifty-four contos and a half, .. about seventy thousand pounds sterling. The estimated population at the time of the removal was one hundred thousand. The position of this city, midway between Europe and India, and with Africa opposite, is the best that could be desired for general commerce: the harbour, one of the most capacious, commodious, and beautiful in the world; and nothing was wanting to place the inhabitants in the full usufruct of these great local advantages, but that freedom of trade, and introduction of capital, which followed upon the removal of the Court. Local revolutions have deprived Alexandria and Constantinople

[page] 814

CHAP. XLIV.

of that commercial importance which their situations formerly assured to them, and which entered into the views of their great founders. But the whole civilized world must be rebarbarized before Rio de Janeiro can cease to be one of the most important positions upon the globe.

Cazal. 2. 26. 30.

Jaboatam. Preamb. § 54.

The city contained three Monasteries,.. Benedictine, Franciscan, and Carmelite; a Franciscan Nunnery, a Nunnery of Theresans, an Hospice of the Almoners of the Holy Land, Third Orders of S. Francis, N. Senhora do Carmo, and S. Francis de Paula, each with its Hospital for the poor members of their respective confraternities; a Misericordia, with its Hospital; a Foundling Hospital, founded in 1738 (which, from that time till the year 1792, had received four thousand seven hundred and sixteen infants); and a Recolhimento for Female Orphans, born in matrimony, and of White parents, where they remained till they were portioned off in marriage from the funds of this munificent establishment. The inhabitants were formerly obliged to fetch their water from the Carioca, a league from the city, where that torrent leaves the mountains. Early in the last century, an aqueduct was constructed, and the water of this stream was supposed to possess the three-fold virtue of preserving the health of those who drank it, rendering the voice mellow, and brightening the complexion of the women. The city had now increased so greatly, that the aqueduct no longer sufficed for its supply. The houses consisted generally of two floors, and had latticed balconies. The Convents and Churches were well built: the Cathedral was upon a handsome scale, but unfinished: the Mint, the Military and Naval Arsenals, and the Custom-house, are called magnificent edifices. There were inns, which to an Englishman appeared abominably bad:.. they could not possibly be worse than in the Mother Country. The prisons, as at Bahia and in Portugal, were in a loathsome and disgraceful state. The

[page] 815

CHAP. XLIV.

Romualdo Antonio. J. de Coimbra. No. 30. p. 2. p. 340.

Climate of the Rio.

Manoel Vieira da Silva. Reflexoens, &c. 6—12.

Koster. 321.

Vieira da Silva. 12. 14.

country houses about the city are very inferior to those in the vicinity of Recife; and the fruits not to be compared with those of Pernambuco or Para. This cannot be from the temperature, because a native of Para complains of the intense heat at the Rio: it may probably be ascribed to the greater frequency of rain. The city was not healthy: it is built upon low ground, scarcely above the level of the sea; and the waters which descend from the great mountains behind it were allowed to stagnate in marshes round about on every side. It was remarked, that Europeans felt the ill effects of the atmosphere less than the natives, whom no length of generations seemed to acclimate. It was also observed, that the winter was the most unhealthy season; though if the marshes were the cause, it might have been thought that the effects would be most perceptible during the summer: but the heat in winter is sufficient to act upon the marshes, and acts upon them more continually, because rain is much less frequent then than in the summer. The mode of interment was supposed to be another cause which contaminated the air: the Brazilians dislike as much to have their graves under the canopy of heaven, as some of the equestrian tribes object to a burial under any other covering. At Recife and Olinda, therefore, all bodies are buried in the Churches; and the same preposterous custom prevailed at the Rio, for all persons except those who were indebted to the charity of the Misericordia for their funeral. The exception included half the annual mortality; and the mode of interring that half was more injurious to the living than if they had been deposited in the Churches also: for in the cemetery the bodies were piled one upon another in a crowded space, all without coffins, and scarcely covered by a few shovels-full of mould. Other causes of disease, in like manner remediable by a good police, were found in the state of the food: damaged mandioc meal was eaten by the Negroes and the poorer Whites; the fish

[page] 816

CHAP. XLIV.

Vieira da Silva. 18. 21.

Slaves.

Do. 20. 23.

Patriota. 3. 6. 53.

Cook's First Voyage. ch. 2.

Cazal. 1. 60.

was frequently tainted before it was consumed; and the cattle, which were to serve for the whole week's consumption, were driven at once into the pens, and there, after a long journey in that burning climate, the poor creatures were suffered to remain, each till its time of butchery; many, therefore, for many days without food, and without water, .. so inhuman is man! Slavery too is a source of physical as well as of moral evil: the White, who could just raise means to purchase one or two slaves, abandoned himself to indolence, as being one of a superior race, and trusted to the earnings of his human black cattle for subsistence. It followed, that when the Negro contracted any malady, the owner was immediately reduced to want, and became incapable of providing him either with medicine or with necessary food; and the slave, dying for want of help and charity, not unfrequently left the contagion of his disease behind him; .. a just punishment upon that society, to the iniquitous institutions of which he had fallen a victim. The Blacks were frequently landed in an infectious state; and the Negresses, who were employed as nurses, sometimes communicated diseases with their milk. Negro slavery exists in no part of the world without producing indolence, licentiousness, and inhumanity in the Whites; and these vices draw after them their earthly punishment, .. to look no farther into their fearful, but assured consequences. A Portugueze writer affirms, that numerous murders are committed by the slaves in Brazil, because of the notorious cruelty with which they are treated. The evil seems to be far greater in this Captaincy than in any other. In the year 1768, the proportion of Negroes to Whites was supposed to be seventeen to one. It is even affirmed, that upon the whole population of Brazil, the Blacks are more in number than the Whites and Indians collectively. But the moral evil is now fairly acknowledged; the impolicy is distinctly understood; and though Portugal has been

[page] 817

CHAP. XLIV.

one of the last nations who lent her aid to the abolition of the slave trade, Brazil will probably be the first country where the full benefit of that great measure, the peculiar glory of England, will be experienced; for its tendency will be assisted by the principles of the Government, the influence of the Clergy, and the general spirit of the laws.

Population of the Captaincy. Cook's First Voyage.

Noticias. MSS.

Cochineal.

Cazal. 2. 36.

The Comarca of the Rio, in the year 1768, was said to contain six hundred and sixty thousand persons, of whom only thirty-seven thousand were Whites: but the Comarca at that time may probably have included the whole of the present Captaincy. In the year 1792 there were in the country round about (this also is a phrase of wide acceptation), five hundred and twenty-nine Engenhos, two hundred and one distilleries, and eight hundred and sixty-two indigo works: the latter branch of trade declined after that time; and the cochineal, which had been introduced by a few scientific men, zealous for the welfare of their country, and which, being encouraged by Government, was becoming a regular article of commerce, was ruined by the roguery of the cultivators. As soon as they found that it obtained a high price in the market, they began to adulterate it: the fraud was detected; Government, which had previously been a liberal purchaser, withdrew its custom; the merchants did the same; and the cultivation of this important dye was abandoned. The Reconcave of the Rio, though less extensive than that of Bahia, was not less populous in proportion, and had the same advantage of numerous streams; some navigable for three or four miles only, others for as many leagues; the Macacu ²⁹, which

29 Upon this river, and in the most fertile part of the country, a certain Andre da Costa settled some poor families, in theyear 1718, upon an estate of two square leagues, which he devised to them in perpetuity, making it unalienable, and requiring that each household should provide two masses annually for his soul. In the course of a century they had increased to nearly a thousand persons, well provided with every thing, and contented with their lot. (Cazal. 2. 15.) The details of this establishment would be interesting, and might possibly present something worthy of imitation in any country, where there are at the same time waste lands and persons that want employment.

VOL. III. 5 M

[page] 818

CHAP. XLIV.

Ilha Grande.

Journal. MS.

River Paraiba do Sul.

Town of S. Salvador.

is the most considerable, for fifteen leagues. The bay, called Angra dos Reys, is much larger than the Rio itself, and scarcely less beautiful or commodious. Ilha Grande, in this bay, contained three thousand inhabitants: .. a delightful island, about four miles long and two in width, with many good harbours, the best of which has obtained the remarkable name of O seio d'Habraham, .. Abraham's Bosom. The Paraiba is the only considerable river in the province; it proceeds from a small lake in the southern part of the Serra da Bocaina, which is a continuation of the Serra dos Orgaons: it flows into the Captaincy of S. Paulo; and after a long and winding course, re-enters the province in which it rose; forms part of its boundary from Minas Geraes, and disembogues in the eastern part of the Captaincy. The body of its waters is not proportionate to the length of its course. Five miles above its mouth is the town of S. Salvador, one of the most flourishing in the province, with a population of eleven hundred and thirty-nine families. The inhabitants were rich, because of their sugar plantations, and had the character of being expensive in their habits, and litigious: the latter vice would bring with it its own penalty, and its own cure: the expensiveness of their habits would contribute to the improvement and welfare of the place. The opposite extreme is that which prevails in Brazil, and is far more injurious, both to individuals and to the community; for they who can be contented without the comforts of life, easily accustom themselves to dispense with its decencies, .. the dividing line being almost imperceptible in practice.

Cazal. 1. 6. 7. 51. 52.

Captaincy of Minas Geraes.

The great Captaincy of Minas Geraes, extending one hundred

[page] 819

CHAP. XLIV.

Luiz Beltram de Gouvca de Almeida. MS.

Patriota. 3. 3. 99. Corr. Braz. v. 19. 358. Antonio da Costa. Rocha Pitta. Inves, Port. v. 23. p. 357.

and twelve leagues from north to south, with an average breadth of eighty, reaches behind the Captaincies of the Rio, Espiritu Santo, and Porto Seguro, and touches upon Pernambuco, having Goyaz to the west, and S. Paulo to the south. The population, though little in proportion to the territory, will not appear so, when the means which Portugal possesses for colonization are considered, and it is remembered that the settlement of the country commences with the eighteenth century. In the year 1776, the whole province contained three hundred and nineteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine inhabitants. In the diocese of Marianna, which included about half the Captaincy in extent, and about two thirds of its inhabitants, the number of communicants, according to the Church lists of its fifty-three parishes, in the year 1813, amounted to ³⁰ four hundred and twenty-five thousand two hundred and eighty-one; the whole population therefore was computed at four hundred and eighty thousand. The births in that year were thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-five; the burials eleven thousand five hundred and fifty. The Negroes appear in the proportion of two to

30 There is a statement in the Correio Braziliense (vol. 19. p. 358.) making the whole population of this diocese, in 1816, three hundred and ninety thousand six hundred and eighty-five; the births, fourteen thousand two hundred and eighty-one; the deaths, twelve thousand nine hundred and fifty one. This would make the proportion of deaths almost one in thirty; which is very improbable in a healthy country, where longevity is so common, that many persons of all colours reach the age of one hundred, (Cazal. 1. 364,) and where, according to this very statement, the births considerably exceed the deaths upon the whole; though in the slave part of the population there is an excess of death to the amount of one tenth. Thinking it likely, therefore, that the returns for some parishes may not be included in this account, I have preferred the statement in the Patriota. In England there are three births per cent. per annum, .. two deaths. The proportion of births in the text would indicate the same degree of prosperity, did not the greater mortality (11,500, instead of 9,600,) render the increase of population less rapid than in England.

[page] 820

CHAP. XLIV.

one to the Whites: the Mulattoes in the proportion of three to two to the Whites, of three to four to the Blacks: the Indians were estimated at no more than nine thousand.

Villa Rica.

Mawe. 169.

Von Eschevege. Corr. Braz. v. 14. p 377.

Effect of the Mines.

The capital, Villa Rica (Rich-town), situated sixty-six leagues north-north-west of the Rio, contained a fiscal and judicial establishment, more proportioned to the state of prosperity from which it derived its name, than to its condition at the time of the Removal, when the mines produced so little, that the inhabitants said mournfully, their town ought to change its appellation for that of Poor-town, .. Villa Pobre. The whole sum of gold extracted from the Captaincy, calculated upon the quantity registered and fifthed, and upon the moderate computation, that only a fifth of the whole had been ³¹ clandestinely exported, has been estimated at forty-five millions sterling. It left behind it no permanent prosperity, for it produced neither regular industry nor good habits; yet it certainly effected great good: for this wide territory, and the yet more extensive regions of Goyaz and Mato Grosso, would have remained unsubdued, and even unexplored, had it not been for the spirit of enterprize which the passion for gold called forth. The population, which was thus attracted and diffused, took root in the land. Unfavourable as the circumstances were in which the people of every class were placed, and low as was the general level, both of morals and of intellect, the foundations of civil society were firmly laid; and the people were ready

31 Manoel Ferreira da Camara, in his Obsercaçoens Physico-Œconomicas acerca da extracçam do Oiro das Minas do Brazil (an unpublished Memoir, read before the Academy at Lisbon), says, it was proved, by comparing the wrought gold which came from Brazil with the fifths, that the Crown did not recover more than one twentieth part of its due, .. so successfully was the contraband extraction carried on, though large seizures were sometimes made. And so carelessly was that which it did receive collected, that the assayers at Lisbon often found pieces of copper mixed with it. .. That the clandestine exportation was very great, is certain; but there must surely be a monstrous exaggeration in this statement.

[page] 821

CHAP. XLIV.

Ferreira da Camara. Obeservaçoens. MSS.

Mawe. 265.

Cazal. 1. 368. 370.

to participate in those improvements, which the more liberal system, consequent upon the removal of the Court, and the repeal of so many injurious restrictions, could not fail to induce. This unequivocal good had been effected by the discovery of the mines: and that discovery was of essential benefit to Portugal; for it came at a time when her commerce, once the most flourishing in the world, was lost: but the wants and habits, which that commerce had created, existed still; and by the produce of its mines, Portugal was enabled to pay the balance of trade, till new sources of wealth and industry were opened. There were in the capital of the province, Royal Professors of Primary Letters, Latin, and Philosophy; a Misericordia, two Churches, ten Chapels, Third Orders of Carmel, St. Francis, and St. Francis de Paula, four stone Bridges over the Rio do Carmo, a Theatre, a spacious Town-house, a handsome Palace, a small Fort, good Barracks, an Hospital, and fourteen Fountains. The rents of the Camara amounted to fifteen thousand cruzados (fifteen hundred pounds). The military force of the Termo, or immediate district of the town, consisted, at the end of the eighteenth century, of two regiments of Auxiliar-cavalry, fourteen Ordenança companies of Whites, seven of Mulattoes, and four of free Blacks. A Board was established in the year of the Removal for promoting the conquest and civilization of the Indians on the Rio Doce, and the navigation of that river. The exhaustion of the mines had caused the town to decline: houses had fallen one half in value, so many were untenanted; and the people, long accustomed to look to mining as the only source of riches, had not yet learned to bestow upon the surface of the earth a labour, which is so much more surely rewarded, and in itself so infinitely more beneficial to the labourer. The population was still estimated at twenty thousand; and there were more Whites than Blacks.

Mawe. 169. 167.

Marianna.

The episcopal city of Marianna stands about eight miles

[page] 822

CHAP. XLIV.

Ordem. 21 Feb. 1729. MS.

Mawe. 181.

Cazal. 1. 371—372.

S. Joam d'El Rey.

Cazal. 1. 377. Mawe. 273.

Sabara.

east-north-east of the capital, upon the same river. The Camara of this place, when it was only the Villa do Carmo, disputed with the Chamber of Villa Rica for precedence at the Juntas which the Governors convoked; and the contention was settled by an order, which adjudged to the town of Carmel precedency before all other places in the Captaincy. It contained six Chapels, besides the Cathedral, Third Orders of Carmel and of St. Francis, two Praças or Squares, seven Fountains, a good Town-House, a good Episcopal Palace, a Seminary for the Clergy, and from six to seven thousand inhabitants. The rents of the Camara were eleven thousand cruzados; and in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty five, the military force of the Termo, which comprized twelve parishes besides the city, consisted of two regiments of Auxiliar-cavalry, twenty Ordenança companies of Whites, ten of Mulattoes, and five of free Blacks. S. Joam d'El Rey, twenty-two leagues south-west of Villa Rica, and the capital of another Comarca, contained about five thousand inhabitants, an Hospital, a Church, six Chapels, and Third Orders of our Lady of Carmel and St. Francis; .. the Chapel of the latter was the most splendid in the province. This was an industrious, and therefore a flourishing part of the Captaincy; it supplied the other parts with grain, and sent cheese, bacon, and poultry, to the Rio, whence it is sixty-two leagues distant. Cotton was grown in this district; a coarse calico manufactured for the clothing of the Negroes, and a finer kind for table-linen. The wealthier females employed themselves in making lace, and were distinguished from their countrywomen by their attention to domestic concerns. Villa Real do Sabara, also the capital of a Comarca, contained, in 1788, eight hundred and fifty hearths and seven thousand six hundred and fifty-six inhabitants, one Church, and a Chapel of N. Senhora do O, our Lady of the Round O, .. the most whimsical of all her thousand and one ap-

[page] 823

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 386—387.

Caeté.

Do. 388.

Sucurys and Sucuriús.

Do. 386.

pellations. The great Goddess of the Romish Idolatry had another Chapel there, under her invocation of the Rosary, with a large fraternity of Negroes; and there were Third Orders of Carmel and St. Francis. The rents of the Camara were from eight to nine thousand cruzados; and the military force of the Termo, which included six other parishes, consisted of two regiments of Auxiliar-cavalry, the one containing eleven White companies, the other eight; twenty companies of White Ordenanças; a Terço of Mulattoes, eleven companies strong; and another of free Blacks, containing seven companies. Villa da Rainha, still generally called by its original and more convenient name of Caeté, was a considerable and thriving town, inhabited by miners, graziers, and agriculturists: potteries were carried on there. It contained a fine Church and two Chapels. The rents of the Camara were eight thousand cruzados, and with the three out parishes of its Termo, it raised seventeen Ordenança companies of Whites, seven of Mulattoes, and some squadrons of free Blacks. The sources of the Rio de S. Francisco are in this Comarca. Some few leagues below the place where this river receives the Bambuhy, the first of its larger confluents, there are two lakes communicating with it, one called Lagoa Feia, the other Lagoa Verde: it is said, that no living thing ventures to drink at them, less for fear of the crocodiles, with which they swarm, than of the sucurys and sucuriús, .. enormous reptiles, distinguished only by their colour, the former being of a grey, the latter of a blackish hue; and differing from snakes only in having two great claws at the extremity of the tail, with which, when they are about to seize any large animal, they lay firm hold on the roots of a tree, or the rocks below the water, and by help of that purchase, draw any creature down. Some of these monsters have been killed, measuring sixty geometrical feet.

Villa do Principe.

Villa do Principe, the capital of the Comarca of Serro Frio,

[page] 824

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 395.

Mawe. 214. Tejuco.

was a considerable town, with one Church and five Chapels; it contained about five thousand inhabitants, of whom a great portion were shopkeepers. The rents of the Camara amounted to seven thousand cruzados; and the military force was twenty-two companies of White, thirteen of Mulatto, and six of Black Ordenanças. The town would have been more prosperous had it not been near the confines of the Forbidden District of the Diamonds, and therefore within the sphere of those oppressive and vexatious laws, which the system of the District rendered necessary. The Arrayal de Tejuco, which is the capital of the diamond demarcation, contained about six thousand inhabitants, a Mother Church of S. Antonio (the patron of the place), six Chapels, a Third Order of Carmel, a Recolhimento for girls, a Misericordia, and three Hospitals. More than six thousand Negroes were employed by the Intendancy, and two hundred subaltern inspectors; and the sums ³² expended by Government

32 Mr. Mawe (230), estimates the annual expenses at about thirty-five thousand pounds; and the average quantity obtained (231,) at from twenty to twenty-five thousand carats yearly. And he says, it appears that they actually cost thirty-three shillings and nine-pence per carat (249). But by the papers in my possession it appears, that the annual average, from the year 1772 to 1790, amounted to more than thirty-six thousand carats. In 1788, the house of Cohen, at Amsterdam, contracted for ten thousand carats every year, at nine thousand two hundred reis. After two years, the house found it necessary to withdraw from the contract, and lost one hundred thousand cruzados, which had been consigned, (Noticias. MSS.)

Before Government took the mines into its own hands, the Extraviadores (smugglers,) and the Contractors were upon a reasonable understanding with each other; the Contractors being glad to purchase good diamonds at a price much below their market value, and the Extraviadores glad to sell them at that rate, to the only persons with whom they could deal in perfect safety. The last Contractor drew bills for six contos, for twelve stones of eighteen carats each, which he bought in Sabara. (Correio Braziliense. t. 14. p. 68.) It is conjectured, that the best diamond ground has not yet been discovered; for the rivers alone have been worked, and their formation is supposed to be in the mountains.

Mr. Mawe says, that the diamonds in the King of Portugal's possession, in 1808, exceeded three millions sterling in value. (P. 259.)

[page] 825

CHAP. XLIV.

Mawe. 229.

Destruction of the woods.

Vieira Couto. MS.

produced a degree of business and activity which would not have been excited without that impulse. Provisions were dear, because they were brought from a distance of several leagues, .. the country round producing nothing for the maintenance of the inhabitants: it would yield excellent crops, but agricultural enterprize is wanting; and if a disposition to it existed it would be effectually checked by the sense of perpetual insecurity in which every man lives, under the suspicious laws of that unhappy district. Timber was brought ten or twelve leagues; and fuel, in the year 1799, was as dear as at Lisbon, where it used to be cheaper to consume pit-coal from England, than the wood which grew within sight of the city, in the pine-forests of Alem-Tejo. This inconvenience began to be felt in all the most populous parts of Minas Geraes; it was occasioned by the wanton manner in which the woods had been destroyed: a farmer made no scruple of setting fire to them, and laying waste a track of ten or twelve miles round his miserable plantation. The evil which would inevitably result from this havoc, was early foreseen; and Gomes Freyre, at the commencement of his long administration, endeavoured to prevent it in time. By one of his orders, he enjoined that, in virgin woodlands, a line of two hundred palms in depth should be left between every two plantations: this line was not to be cleared without a special permission; and when that permission had been obtained, if there were any trees of a certain standard size upon the ground, they were to be preserved; for it had been found by experience in Brazil, that the land would not produce them a second time, or at least, not till

VOL. III. 5 N

[page] 826

CHAP. XLIV.

Bando. 14 March, 1736. MS.

after ages should have elapsed. Whosoever should break this enactment was to forfeit his land to his neighbour, and be fined fifty oitavas: and if two persons, whose lands were adjacent, combined, thinking thereby to elude the law, a double fine was to be levied upon each. No trees that could serve to make washing-troughs for the mines, or which were more than ten palms in circumference, might be burnt for charcoal, nor consumed in the Engenhos: and no wood of a kind fit for canoes might be cut for any other use, under a penalty of ten oitavas, if it grew within musquet-shot of a river on which canoes might be required at some future time. Moreover, persons who had virgin woodland upon their grants, were enjoined to preserve a tenth part in wood; half that portion being on the side of rivulets or rivers, where the ground permitted, in order that wood might not be wanting for the service of the mines. The people of Minas Geraes have cause to regret that these regulations were not observed by their ancestors.

State of the mines.

At the close of the eighteenth century there was a general complaint in this province, that the ground was exhausted of its gold. The miners, from being the most opulent, had become the most indigent class. Yet it was the opinion of scientific men, that hitherto only the surface of the earth had been scratched; and that the veins were still, for the most part, untouched. The mining was either in the beds of the streams, or in the mountains. In process of time the rivers had changed their beds: the miners discovered that the primary beds were above the present level, and these they call Guapiaras; the next step is the Taboleiro, which seems to be close by the side of the Veio, or present body of the stream. All these are mining ground: the first is easily worked, because little or no water remains there; they had only to remove the surface, and then they found the cascalho. In the second step, wheels were often required to draw off the water.

[page] 827

CHAP. XLIV.

Vieira Couto. MS.

The present bed could only be worked by making a new cut, which is called Valo, and diverting the stream: and even when this is done, the wheel is still wanting. The wheel was a clumsy machine, which it was frequently necessary to remove; and fifty slaves or more were employed a whole day in removing it. This was the only means in use for saving human labour;.. they had not even a cart, or a hand-barrow! The rubbish and the cascalho were all carried by the slaves, in troughs, upon their heads. River-mining however was the easiest, and the most effectually performed: it was therefore the commonest. But the greater part of those streams which were known to be auriferous, had been wrought. The mountains were more tempting, but required much greater labour: a few braças, if the vein were good, enriched the adventurers for ever; and in the early days of the mines, the high grounds attracted men who were more enterprizing and persevering than their descendants. The mode of working in such ground is not by excavations, but by what is called talho aberto, the open cut,.. laying the vein bare by clearing away the surface. This labour is immense: if water cannot be brought to act upon the spot, the earth is carried away upon the heads of the slaves: but this is so operose and slow, that they say proverbially, a mountain of gold is worth nothing, unless there be water at command. But when there is water, it is not always easy to direct it; nor will the nature of the cut allow always of its use. When they found no cascalho³³ in the mountains, they

33 There is a difference between the cascalho in the mountains, and that in the rivers: the embedded stones in the mountain-cascalho are rough and angular, but in that of the rivers they are rounded. Hence it has been argued, that the gold in the rivers has not been brought down from the hills, as is commonly supposed; and also because the gold, though found in lumps, has not been rounded, which, according to the common hypothesis, it ought to be; and because it is of a different quality from that in the interior of the mountain, whence the hypothesis would bring it. (Manoel Ferreira da Camara. MS.)

[page] 828

CHAP. XLIV.

Ferreira da Camara. MS.

suspected that the stones might contain gold; and they were not deceived in the supposition. This is the most difficult mode of extraction: the stones were broken by manual labour, with iron mallets. In a few instances only an engine was used, which was worked by slaves instead of cattle.

Vieira Couto. MS.

State of society.

The modes of mining having been so imperfect, it has not unreasonably been thought, that when more scientific means are adopted, Brazil is likely to yield more gold than at any former time. But improved methods will require an outlay, which can only be advanced by Government, or by Companies possessed of great capital when they commence their operations. It was said, at the close of the eighteenth century, that the miners, weary of the little success which then resulted from the means in use, and incapable of adopting better, by reason both of their ignorance and their poverty, were betaking themselves to agriculture; and apprehensions were expressed, that agriculture would thus be overstocked with hands, and the home consumers would be lost, while there was no export for any surplus produce; and thus that misery and depopulation must ensue. But the writer, who anticipated these consequences from such a change, imputed to his countrymen a degree of industry, which unhappily they did not possess. It is affirmed, that no White man, even of the lowest order, in that Captaincy, has ever been known to take an agricultural instrument in his hand for the purpose of using it! The state of society indeed is deplorably bad; and how should it be otherwise, where there was nothing to elevate the character, as in feudal times; nothing to refine it, as in the enlightened parts of Europe; nothing even to strengthen it, as among the men, by whom these very regions were explored and won? Books were almost unknown; and industry of any kind was considered derogatory. There were very few persons of great wealth in the Captaincy; scarcely half a dozen families,

[page] 829

CHAP. XLIV.

who possessed a capital of twenty thousand pounds, or three hundred slaves. The persons who fill the public offices, and the commercial men, are called the Nobles of the Mines: the former live wholly upon their salaries. They are described as holding every kind of study in abhorrence; passing their hours at the windows, wrapt up in loose morning robes, and devoting the least possible time to business; so that their year's work is averaged at thirty days' employment, of six hours each. This way of life leaves ample leisure for debauchery and petty intrigues, to which they are miserably addicted. Such are the White inhabitants of the towns, in the dark colours with which they have been painted. The miners and agriculturists of the same complexion are free from those vices, which grow like weeds in the hot-bed of crowded society; but of those which spring up upon the dunghill and the waste, they had a full crop. The business of the farm or the mine is left wholly to slaves and factors: every thing therefore was wretchedly conducted; and most of them obtained from their property nothing beyond a bare subsistence. The perpetual lottery in which the miners are engaged, renders them fickle of purpose; and the habit of always deceiving themselves with vain hopes, makes them so little scrupulous at disappointing others, that the word of a miner is regarded as of no value, either by himself or by any one else. The people of colour are generally poor: he who has half a dozen slaves, scarcely raises produce enough for the support of his family, though the Negroes are half starved. They do not even cultivate the commonest culinary plants. A traveller must carry provisions, for he will not be able to purchase them as he proceeds: if he call at a house in the country with the hope of buying food, he may very probably be answered by a petition from the owner, to give him a little mandioc meal "for the love of God!" A frightful character is given of the immorality of the Mulatto class: they are

[page] 830

CHAP. XLIV.

Antonia da Costa Rocha Pitta. Inves. Port. T. 23 p. 355. 367

said to be desperately revengeful, and desperately dissolute: many of the women are prostitutes: parricide and incest are said to be common among them ; and crimes of every kind so frequent, that from three to fourscore criminals of this cast, and of the Negroes, suffer every year by the executioner, .. many others escaping punishment by flight. But let it not be supposed, that this depraved race carry in the tint of their skin a leaven of wickedness, .. an original sin peculiar to the composition of their blood. The people of colour, in Minas Geraes, would be as respectable as their brethren in Pernambuco, if they had the same example of activity and well-directed enterprize. The slaves are the only part of the population who are not idle: they work by compulsion ; they are therefore the least vicious: but it is said, that when any cruelty is to be perpetrated, they are the most inhuman agents. Cheese, bacon, and a few cattle, are the only articles of produce, which are sent from this Captaincy to the Rio. The Negroes are fed wholly on maize and kidney-beans ; and this is the common diet of all who do not live in towns, or Arraiaes, in which there are usually shambles. The more opulent indeed rear pork upon this food, and eat it salted.

Hateful as this description of society in Minas Geraes is, the very fact, that persons in the heart of that society should thus strongly resent and delineate its evils, is in itself a point of relief, and a proof that honourable minds and cultivated intellects are to be found there. Notwithstanding the injurious restrictions and complicated disadvantages, whereby literature during two whole centuries had been crippled in Portugal, that country has produced more men of letters, in proportion to its population, than Great Britain. Scarcely any men were appointed to the higher civil and judicial offices in Brazil, who had not received the best education the Mother Country could bestow: and it is surprising, how many of those men carried into public life a love

[page] 831

CHAP. XLIV.

of information for its own sake. They knew that what they wrote would not be published during their lives, and might probably perish without ever coming before the public. Emolument from such pursuits was impossible ; present reputation not to be dreamed of ; and the reward of posthumous honour, scarcely within the scope of expectation. Yet from the documents, collected and preserved under such circumstances, and bequeathed by the writers to chance, this history has been in great part compiled ; and concerning no province have the materials been more ample than those which relate to Minaes Geraes. Nor must we so far disparage humanity, as to suppose that the vices, which may be general in many places, are in any place universal. It is in the nature of evil to manifest itself, and of goodness to lie concealed: .. while vice and folly are flaunting in public, virtue and good sense keep house. The even tenour of a well-spent life passes on in obscurity and silence: but actions of atrocious guilt are bruited abroad far and wide ; though they are as certain to excite imitation in the wicked, as abhorrence in the good.

Improvement in Miners Geners.

There are countries, where the tendency of society is necessarily from bad to worse, because of sonic principle of deterioration fatally and inseparably connected with their institutions: such as polygamy among the Mahommedans, and the system of casts, wherever it prevails. There are other countries where no such permanent cause of debasement exists, but which are precluded from any present possibility of improvement by the state of the surrounding nations, being cut off from the influence of the civilized world: the Abyssinians and the Armenians are in this state. But in Brazil, every thing tended to the melioration of the people: it was desired by the Government, promoted by the tenour of the laws, and favoured by the spirit of the age. And in no part of Brazil would this tendency proceed more rapidly

[page] 832

CHAP. XLIV.

Vieira Couto. MS.

Funes. 3. 40. Patriota. 3. 5. 57.

than in Minas Geraes, which lay so near the capital, and received a constant accession of educated men, because of the numerous establishments connected with the mines. Many marks of advancement were perceptible. The road to the Rio was greatly frequented: no other labour had yet been exerted in making it, than that of cutting down the trees, removing a few stones, and making here and there a passage for the waters. Upon such roads, wheel-carriages of course were not in use; every thing was carried upon horses, till it was found that mules ³⁴ were better able to endure severe labour and hard usage. Mules were then purchased from the Spaniards of the Plata; and this was at one time a considerable branch of trade; but latterly, the Portugueze drew them from their own province of Rio Grande do Sul; and about the close of the century, they were beginning to breed them in Minas Geraes. There were inns along this high road, which, bad as they were, were proofs of progressive im-

34 Jozé Vieira Couto recommends that the Camel should be introduced. For the dry and level Sertoens of Pernambuco and Seara, this creature is admirably adapted; but it was never intended for hilly countries, nor for clayey soils. He recommends also the Anta, which, he says, is stronger than a mule, very docile, and well made for climbing, having its hoof divided into toes. In the Noticias de Brazil, it appears, that the Anta was domesticated in the sixteenth century; and perhaps this may imply that it was used for burthen. (See Vol. 1. p. 634. note 42.) The Portugueze might probably be induced to train these animals (before horses were common), by knowing that the Llama and Vicuna were used for this purpose by the Peruvians. Jozé Vieira Couto observes also, that the Buffalo would be useful for draught, and might be easily introduced from the Gold Coast, or from Congo.

Camels were introduced into Peru, from the Canaries, in Acosta's time: he says they bred there, but slowly. ( L. 4. c. 53.) Carlos II. had no less than fourscore, at Aranjuez, in the beginning of his reign. (Journal du Voyage d'Espagne, 1669. p. 54.) It appears, therefore, that the Camel bred both in Spain and Peru; but that the breed in both countries was lost, either through negligence, or because the advantages of using this animal were not found so great as had been expected

[page] 833

CHAP. XLIV.

Mawe. 162.

Do. 180.

Cazal. 1. 369.

Mawe. 200.

Cazal. 1. 356.

Mawe. 196.

provement: those which were managed by women were the best conducted. Some individuals had succeeded in cultivating and preparing flax: and not only was the vine cultivated, but wine had been made from it with complete success. Of the other Portugueze fruits (all had been introduced,) the peach and the quince were those which flourished best; from the latter, marmelade was made in great quantities. The houses of the higher classes in Villa Rica were better built, and better furnished, than in the Rio, or S. Paulo, and kept in the neatest order. The women wore a profusion of golden trinkets, and ornamented their hair, which they never covered till they were advanced in years, with golden combs of elaborate workmanship: they employed themselves very generally in making lace, which was profusely used in their bed furniture and hangings. An Englishman says, that he never saw beds so magnificent as those of the opulent Portugueze in Minas Geraes, notwithstanding the lavish expenditure of modern luxury in his own country. Lace-making seems to have been the only fashionable occupation for the women. They bore a general appearance of debility among them, imputable to their indolent and relaxing way of life: the household business of every kind was left to their slaves, and they seemed not to know that exercise is conducive both to health and to enjoyment. Leprosy is a common disease in all parts of the Captaincy. It is said, that swelled necks are not uncommon among the male Blacks: .. if the observation be accurate, the fact is remarkable; because enlargements of the throat, in those countries where they are most common, are more incident to women than to men.

Captaincy General of Goyaz.

The Captaincy-General of Goyaz, which is the central province of Brazil, and one of the largest, touches upon Para and Maranham, to the north; upon Piauhy, Seara, Pernambuco, Bahia, and Minas Geraes, to the east; upon S. Paulo, to the

VOL. III. 5 O

[page] 834

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 4. 34. Cazal. 1. 318.

Villa Boa.

Patriota. 3. 5. 19—20. 25—26.

Meiaponte.

south; and upon Mato Grosso, to the south and west. Its eastern waters flow to the Rio S. Francisco; its western, to the Paraguay; but most of its streams unite to form the two great rivers Araguaya and Tocantins, by which it communicates with Para. Except the Provincia de Solimoens, it was the most thinly peopled part of this great country, because it was the last which had been explored and settled. Villa Boa, the capital, .. so named from Bueno, the discoverer, .. was a large and flourishing town, the residence of the Governor, and of a Prelate, who was a Bishop in partibus Infidelium. The Ouvidor, in the year 1743, exacted a donation from the people for building the Mother Church, and was reprehended by the Home-Government for having exceeded his authority in so doing: the Crown contributed five thousand cruzados to the work, the Camara eight hundred oitavas. There were also eight Chapels, six of which belonged to N. Senhora, under as many different invocations; a Mint, Barracks, and a little Fort, where the guns were fired upon festivals. The Town-house and the Prison had cost the Camara more than thirty thousand cruzados. The town contained nearly seven hundred families, four companies of cavalry, four of infantry, two of Ordenanças, and one of Blacks, .. here also, as in Pernambuco, called Henriques. The revenues of the Camara amounted to about one thousand oitavas; they arose from its lands, its right of marking the weights and measures, certain imposts upon the market, and fines for trespasses. The next settlement in size and importance, was Meiaponte, twenty-six leagues east of the capital, upon the Rio das Almas, with a Church, four Chapels, and an Hospice of the Almoners of the Holy Land. This place possessed a cause of prosperity more permanent than mines could have produced, in the industry of its inhabitants: they raised wheat, mandioc, maize, tobacco, sugar, cotton, and coffee; they bred cattle and pigs in

[page] 835

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 352.

Do. 338.

great numbers; and they manufactured woollen cloth as well as calico. They enjoyed also the advantage of a transit trade; the caravans from Villa Boa, and Cuyaba, to the Rio, S. Paulo and Bahia, touched there, and then separated according to their destination. An elastic stone is found in this neighbourhood. But the part of this extensive Captaincy, which has the most natural advantages, is the district of New Beira, a tract one hundred and thirty leagues in length, lying between the Araguaya and the Tocantins, and gradually diminishing from a breadth of about three degrees, till it terminates at the angle of their confluence. Settlements were increasing there, and would multiply as the communication by means of these rivers increased with Piauhy, Upper Maranham, and Para, the capital of which latter Captaincy was likely to become one of the most busy and prosperous cities in Brazil.

Patriota. 3. 4. 43.

Do. 46.

Do. 43.

State of the Mines.

Patriota. 3. 4. 56.

Do. 3. 5. 18.

For a time, the only path into this great country was that from S. Paulo, by which the first settlers entered; but when the rumour of their success spread abroad, ways were opened through the Sertoens of Cuyaba, Minas Geraes, Bahia, and Pernambuco. The first Sertanistas here committed barbarities, for which they are deservedly condemned by the Brazilians of the present day: they used to bring home strings of human ears from their expeditions against the Indians; and the Goyas, who had deserved better treatment at their hands, were utterly exterminated by them; for those who escaped destruction, escaped only by forsaking their country, and now no trace of them as a tribe remains. The mines were very productive for awhile: about the middle of the eighteenth century, one hundred and fifty arrobas were extracted, at a place called the Coral, within the circuit of a mile. The second Vicar of Villa Boa accumulated one hundred thousand cruzados, in less than three years; the fourth, eighty thousand, in less than five. A capitation tax was introduced in

[page] 836

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 4. 50—55.

Cazal. 1. 322.

Patriota 3. 5. 5.

Forbidden District in Goyaz.

1737, under which four oitavas and three quarters were paid for every slave; sixty for every large shop, storehouse, and shambles; thirty for smaller ones; and fifteen for the smallest: every master workman was assessed in eight, and every other artificer in five. An allowance was made to the Governors, the civil and military Officers, and the Clergy, for the tax upon their slaves. The regulations which were framed for Minas Geraes were afterwards substituted, and continued fourteen years in force. Upon an average of the only year of which the returns had been seen, the whole sum paid to the Treasury in that time, would have exceeded two hundred arrobas; but that year was known to be one of the least productive: and it was known also, that in another year, the receipts had been more than forty. Latterly the gold was failing; though here, as in Minas Geraes, it was believed, that the main treasures of the earth were still untouched; and that only what was scattered upon the surface had been gathered. About the end of the century, a discovery was made at a place, which, because of the colour of the metal, was called Ouro Podre, .. the rotten gold. The vein was rich, and the people were so eager to profit by it, that when the Guarda Mor endeavoured to interpose his authority, and regulate the extraction according to the laws, he was set at defiance. A party of contraband miners collected three arrobas in the course of one night. Some persons were arrested for these disturbances; but they were delivered by process of law. The people had long solicited, that the country about the Rio Claro and the Rio dos Piloens, which had been reserved because of its diamonds, should be laid open; for this Forbidden District, which was forty leagues in extent, was supposed to abound with gold: and they repeatedly urged the suit, as the sure and only means of restoring the prosperity of the province. Accordingly, in 1801, the petition was granted, on condition that the diamonds, if any

[page] 837

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 4. 53. 3. 5. 8.

were found, should be deposited in a coffer under three keys. But it was soon ascertained that the richest mines had been wrought by some secret adventurers: (the Caldeira Brants were suspected of having done it during the time of their diamond contract:) and hands and capital were wanting for any effectual search, after this disappointment.

Revenues.

Patriota. 3. 5. 21.

The largest amount of fifths was one hundred and sixty-nine thousand and eighty oitavas from Villa Boa, in the year 1753, and fifty-nine thousand five hundred and sixty-nine from the Arrayal de S. Felis, in the northern division of the Captaincy, in 1755: the latter place rendered only three thousand three hundred and eight, in 1805; the former not quite twelve thousand, in 1807. The whole yearly expenses of the establishment, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, at the time of the Removal, were forty contos. The revenues had diminished more than half during the preceding thirty years, and fell short of the expenditure by eight contos: to supply this deficiency, the Crown annually granted three arrobas from the fifths. A Post-office was established in the year 1799: the revenue derived from it, in the fourth year after the Removal, was one hundred milreis; and this is more than might have been expected, considering the general state of the country and the people, and their trifling number. A census of the population was taken, with much apparent ³⁵ accuracy, in 1804,

35 The number of White married males was 901; of White single males, 2,639: of married free Negroes, 546; of single free Negroes, 2,662: of married Mulattoes, 1,518; and of single Mulattoes, 5,850: whole number of free males, 14,116.

White married females, 809; White single females, 2,693: married Negresses, 576; single Negresses, 4,179: married Mulattas, 1,638; single Mulattas, 6,639: whole number of free females, 16,534.

Male slaves, 12,021; female slaves, 7,868. Whole number of males, 26,137; whole number of females, 24,402. Whole population, 50,539.

[page] 838

CHAP. XLIV.

and it amounted to little more than fifty-thousand. But when the Brazilians shall have learnt duly to estimate the blessings of a temperate and healthful climate, and duly to profit by the advantages of a fertile soil, Goyaz will soon become a flourishing and happy country.

Captaincy General of Mato Grosso.

Cazal. 1. 265.

Almeida Serra.

Patriota. 2. 1. 50.

Villá Bella.

Decline of the trade with Para.

Patriota. 3. 2. 5.

Mato Grosso is divided by the Araguaya from Goyaz, by the Parana from S. Paulo; on the west it has the Spanish provinces of Paraguay, the Chiquitos, and the Moxos; on the north it touches the Captaincy-General of Para, and its subordinate Governments of the Rio Negro and the Solimoens. It extends from the parallel of seven degrees south, to twenty-four and a half; its breadth in the broadest part is fifteen degrees of longitude; and its area has been estimated at forty-eight thousand square leagues. The capital, Villa Bella, contained one Church and two Ermidas: the houses were low, regularly built, and whitened with tabatinga, which appears to be found throughout Brazil. As yet this was the only parish in the Comarca; but there were five places of worship within its extensive term, each with a resident Chaplain, and requiring only the recognition of authority to become separate parishes in form, as they were in reality. The soil about Villa Bella returned two hundred fold. Mato Grosso flourished while the trade with Para, by the Madeira, was carried on: that trade began to decline about the year 1780, and was shortly afterwards abandoned because of the Muras and Mundrucus, to the great injury of Villa Bella, which was the port of this commerce, and of the Captaincy. The load of salt, which, when it came by that channel, cost from eight to ten milreis, rose to sixteen, twenty, thirty, and forty; iron was doubled in price; wine and vinegar more than quadrupled; and all other heavy goods were proportionably enhanced in cost. The voyage from Para to Villa Bella used to require ten months, from three to four of which were allowed for

[page] 839

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 3. 2. 10.

Do. 3. 2. 13.

Do. 3. 2. 11.

passing the falls. A trading canoe carried twenty persons, and took in at Borba five alquieres for each, besides dry fish: a charge of twenty-five per cent. upon the cargo paid the expenses of conveyance. Even Negroes were brought from Para, though their price there was thirty or forty milreis more than at the Rio; but the costs of the transport were less, and certain duties were avoided, which were exacted on the other road. When the trade with Para failed, that with Bahia and the Rio was carried on by enterprizing men, upon borrowed capital, for which they paid from ten to twenty per cent. interest at Villa Bella. Large profits are required to cover this drawback, and the expenses of the journey (a distance of six hundred leagues, which occupied five months): they dealt therefore chiefly in articles of luxury and high price, upon which they could lay on forty or fifty per cent. In this manner they amassed fortunes, to the hurt of the Captaincy; for being mostly adventurers from Portugal, they usually returned to their own country, carrying with them what they had accumulated.

Cuyaba.

Cazal. 1. 299.

Almeida Serra. 2. 2. 56.

Villa Real de Cuyaba was a larger and more flourishing town than Villa Bella, though not the seat of Government. It was the residence of a Prelate, who was a Bishop in partibus; it contained a Church and three Chapels, and had its Royal Professors of Latin and Philosophy: the principal streets were paved; the houses low, and well built of clay. The town and Termo contained, in 1797, about eighteen thousand persons. The orange trees bear fruit throughout the year there: melons, water-melons, and pine-apples succeed well: mandioc, maize, kidney-beans, cotton, and sugar-canes were cultivated, the latter chiefly for distillation. About ten leagues east of Cuyaba, is the Arrayal de S. Anna, upon high ground, where the cotton trees are sometimes hurt by the frost. The mean level of the interior and mountainous provinces in Brazil has been estimated at from four hundred to

[page] 840

CHAP. XLIV.

Von Eschwege. Corr. Braz. vol. 19. 380.

four hundred and fifty braças above the sea: the highest ground is probably in Minas Geraes; but the general level of Mato Grosso must be above that of any other Captaincy. There are no ³⁶ mountains in Brazil that reach the level of perpetual snow.

S. Pedro d'El Rey.

Cazal. 1. 300.

Patriota. 2. 2. 57.

Villa Maria.

Cazal. 1. 301.

Do. 290.

Patriota. 2. 2. 53.

The district of Cuyaba contained many flourishing settlements; one of the largest was the Arrayal de S. Pedro d'El Rey, formerly called Poconné, and containing, in 1797, about two thousand inhabitants. It has been said, that Villa Maria, on the left bank of the Paraguay, about seven miles above the place where it receives the Jauru, is likely to become perhaps the most prosperous of all the towns in the interior. It was inhabited chiefly by Indians of various tribes, who reared cattle and cultivated the ground, and extracted for their lamps the oil of a small fish, which is found in prodigious numbers. An Engenho had been established there. Opposite to this place was a Fazenda belonging to the Crown, where numerous herds of kine and horses were reared. One of the marble pillars, which the Commissioners for the Demarcation erected is at the confluence of the Jauru and the Paraguay: this point is regarded by the Portugueze as a position of the first importance, which covers the communication between Villa Bella and Cuyaba, and commands the navigation of both rivers, and the entrance to the interior of Mato Grosso. There were very few persons of unmixed blood in Cuyaba: the native tribes, who were less dark than most of the

36 Colonel Von Eschwege (Correio Braziliense. v. 19. p. 380) observes, that as no volcano exists in Brazil, and no volcanic substances have yet been observed there, an earthquake, which was felt some years ago in Ilha Grande (twenty leagues from the Rio), must be considered as a remarkable phenomenon. But the centre of that convulsion was probably in the sea, which contains proof of such processes in its volcanic islands. Earthquakes have been felt in Cuyaba (see p. 360); they seem to have been the skirts of the explosion by which Lima was overthrown.

[page] 841

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 307.

Forbidden District in Mato Grosso.

Cazal. 1. 292—294.

American savages, found it convenient from the first to ally themselves with the Portugueze; and in no part of Brazil had the intermixture been more general. Owing to the Mines also a considerable portion of African blood had been introduced. The breed between the Negroes and Indians are here called Caribocas: of these, and of the Mamalucos, the bulk of the population consists; and both have the character of being an orderly, industrious, and highly respected people. Here, as well as in Goyaz and Minas Geraes, there was a Forbidden District, with a settlement called the Arrayal Diamantino, situated at the angle where the River of Diamonds joins the River of Gold, three leagues above its confluence with the Paraguay. The remotest sources of the Paraguay are in this Diamond District, rising at a place called the Seven Lakes, in the Serra do Pary, where the counter streams form the great Rio dos Tapajoz. The Arrayal is thirty leagues north-west of Cuyaba, and its Ermida, dedicated to N. Senhora da Conceiçam, was a dependency upon the Church of that town.

Forte do Principe.

Patriota. 2. 5. 36.

Cazal. 1. 307.

Moxo Misstons.

The Forte do Principe da Beira (the S. Rosa of the Jesuits) was maintained, notwithstanding the fevers to which the garrison were subject after the annual inundations. Close to it was a populous Aldea of converted Indians; and not far distant was another, called Leonil, inhabited by the same race: they were cultivators, and made excellent pottery. These people, had it not been for the system which the Governments both of Spain and Portugal pursued, might have derived more benefit from a communication with the province of the Moxos, than from their difficult intercourse with Villa Bella and Para. The Indians of that province were more fortunate than the Guaranies, after the expulsion of the Jesuits: they had been trained upon a different plan; and having been accustomed to think as well as to labour for themselves, and encouraged to provide both comforts and lux-

VOL. III. 5 P

[page] 842

CHAP. XLIV.

Almeida Serra.

Patriota. 3. 1. 15.

Do. 3. 1. 16.

uries by the surplus produce of their industry, they were not placed under the tuition of rapacious Administrators, but left as they were found, with no other change, than that such Religioners and Priests as could be collected were substituted for the Fathers of the Company. At the close of the eighteenth century, the Indians of these Reductions were a brave, an industrious, and comparatively a polished people: they were good carvers, good workers in metal, good handicrafts in general, and the women manufactured calico of the finest quality: they made candles both of tallow and wax: they cultivated the cane, both for sugar and rum: and distilleries, which in most places produce little but evil, may be regarded with complacency there, because the moderate use of ardent spirits appears to counteract the ill effects of marshy situations. The jealous and inhospitable system which both Portugal and Spain pursued in their colonial policy, prevented the people of Mato Grosso and of the Moxo country from engaging in that natural intercourse, which would so obviously have been beneficial to both. But deserters from the Portugueze service took shelter in the Spanish territories; and the slaves ³⁷, who sought to escape from bondage, found the advantage of being near the frontier: they crossed the Guapore, and were safe. It was however not difficult for them to establish themselves in savage independence, amid the wilds of Mato

37 The author of the Description of Mato Grosso, in the Patriota, after observing, that the Spanish settlements serve as a decoy for slaves, and an asylum for criminals from Brazil, implies a charitable wish, that the Chiquito and Moxo provinces were once more a mere wilderness; because the Spaniards would have a great difficulty in invading Brazil on that side, if they were deprived of the food, cattle, horses, canoes, boatmen, labourers, guides, and soldiers, which those provinces supplied: of all which advantages they would be deprived, if there were but a waste of two hundred leagues between the Brazilian frontier and Santa Cruz de la Sierra!! (Patriota. 3. 1. 16.)

[page] 843

CHAP. XLIV.

Patriota. 2. 6. 49.

Grosso. A great Quilombo upon the river Quariteré, which flows into the Guapore about half way between Villa Bella and the Destacamento das Pedras, was destroyed when Luiz Pinto de Sousa Coutinho was Governor of the Captaincy: the Negroes who escaped, rallied and re-established themselves; and in 1795, under the government of Joam de Albuquerque, the place was a second time attacked, and fifty-four persons were carried into captivity, some being Indians, and some of the mixed breed.

Settlement on the Madeira.

Patriota. 3. 2. 7.

State of the Indians.

Only one settlement seems to have been made upon the Madeira from the side of Mato Grosso, that of S. Jozé, about five miles below the confluence of the Mamore and the Guapore. Attempts had been made to plant a colony at the great falls, both by the Lord of Azambuja and by Luiz Pinto: but the Captaincy in their time had not sufficient population to supply hands; and after a few years, the settlers were obliged, by the repeated attacks of the savages, to withdraw. This point, in 3° 52′ S. one hundred and thirty-three leagues below Forte do Principe, and one hundred and sixty-three above the town of Borba, is in the very centre of a Sertam, abounding with sarsaparilha, spices, cacao, gums, and precious woods; the river swarming with fish, and the shores with tortoises. Canoes of the largest size might be made there, carrying, it is said, from two to three thousand arrobas, and in thirty days they would reach Para. Now that the Muras have quietly associated themselves with the Portugueze, and that the Mundrucus have begun to feel the advantages of a settled and peaceable life, it may be expected that the navigation of the Madeira will be resumed, and Villa Bella again receive its European commodities from Para. The whole northern part of this extensive Captaincy was possessed by unsubdued tribes: the Baccurys wandered about the sources of the Arinos; the Mambares over the country, through which the Taburuhyna flows to the Juruenna; the Appiacas and Cabahybas were on the Arinos,

[page] 844

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 308. 311.

Patriota. 3. 4. 78.

farther down its course, before it joins the Juruenna, and with it forms the great river Tapajoz; the Guapindayas, Tapiraques, Chimbiuas, and Aracis, possessed the country between the Xingu and the Araguaya: but the course of all these rivers had been explored, and a communication with Para had been opened by them. It has been remarked of the Indians (more particularly those of Maranham and Piauhy), that though they fight with ferocious courage in their wars against each other, and display a fortitude in suffering which almost exceeds belief, they are awed and cowed before the Whites. A horde, which had been reduced, was prone to run wild again, if its settlement on any side were fairly open to the wilderness; but if it was surrounded by a settled country, the Indians then were submissive, and accommodated themselves to their fortune. A time was fast approaching when all the tribes of Brazil would be thus circumstanced. On whatever side the Indians looked, they saw the Portugueze, not as invaders and persecutors, but as a people rooted in the country from an age beyond the memory of savage man, and no longer hunting them down as slaves, but inviting them to partake the land with them as brethren, and participate in the advantages and comforts of a secure and settled life. Abominable as the conduct of the Portugueze was in many respects toward the natives for nearly two centuries, the views of the Government had long been politic and enlightened, because they were in strict conformity to justice, and had a religious feeling for their principle. Whatever may be thought of Pope Alexander's donation, and the right of discovery, the present system of the Portugueze toward the Indians is upright and humane; there is no hypocrisy in their dealings; no affectation of treating with them upon equal terms; no transactions of bargain and sale, in which the simpler party is gulled to sacrifice its perpetual interests for some paltry gratification. The Portugueze, as a civilized and Chris-

[page] 845

CHAP. XLIV.

tian people, assert a superiority, which the Indians feel and acknowledge: they assert it, not as belonging to their cast and colour, nor to the right of conquest, but to their state of knowledge; and they call upon the Indians to receive instruction, and to become free members of the same community upon equal terms. If the revolutionary wars in Spanish America should be protracted a few years longer, there is a danger, that in many places the Indians may exterminate the remnant of both parties. But in Brazil, if the Brazilians (which God in his mercy grant!) escape the curse of revolution, and the Government, pursuing its upright intentions, effect those reforms which are as easy as they are essential, in the course of a very few generations, all the remaining Indians will come within the pale of civilization, receive the faith of the Portugueze, adopt their language and their usages, and be incorporated with them as one people.

Captaincy General of S. Paulo.

Cazal. 1. 200. 203.

City of S. Paulo.

The Captaincy-General of S. Paulo, including half the old Captaincy of S. Vicente, from which it was originally an offset, and part of S. Amaro, extends from latitude 20° 30′ S. to 28°, with a mean breadth of one hundred leagues from east to west. On the north, it is bounded by Minas Geraes and Goyaz; the Serra de Mantiquera dividing it from the former, the Parana from the latter and from Mato Grosso; it has the sea on the east, the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro on the northeast, those of S. Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul on the south. The highest range of mountains is the Serra de Cubetam, which runs along the coast. This Cordillera is covered with wood, and slopes gradually toward the interior: the greatest rivers of the province have their sources there; and except the few streams or torrents which flow from the eastern side into the sea, the whole waters of the Captaincy are received by the Parana. The city of S. Paulo, in the plains of Piratininga, three hundred

[page] 846

CHAP. XLIV.

Journal. MS. Mawe. 67.

and fifty braças above the level of the sea, is in point of climate more desirably situated than any other town in Brazil. Nine years after the Removal, it contained four thousand and twenty families, twenty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty inhabitants, of whom about half were Whites: but it must be remembered, that the Paulistas were originally a Mamaluco race. It had a Cathedral, one Church, many Ermidas, three Hospitals, a Misericordia, a Benedictine, a Franciscan, and a Carmelite Convent, two Recolhimentos, Royal Professors of Primary Letters, Grammar, Latin, Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Theology, moral and dogmatical; a Mint, several Squares, several Fountains, three wooden Bridges, and three fine ones of stone. The houses were built of clay, in that manner which is called Pisé; projecting roofs therefore, which in Portugueze and Brazilian dwellings are usual, for the sake of shade, were necessary there for shelter. No other mode of building is at once so cheap, so easy, and so durable: the walls take any colour, and are stuccoed without and ornamented within, according to the taste of the owner. Some of the streets were well paved, and all remarkably clean: this has been ascribed to the site of the city, because it stands upon a slight elevation, and is almost surrounded by the two streams which meet there, and join the Tiete at a little distance; but other cities, as favourably situated, have become infamous for filth; and the cleanliness of S. Paulo must be imputed to the sense of decency and of comfort in its inhabitants, and to the merits of the police. Such, at the time of the Removal, was the city which had grown round the hovel of wicker-work and mud, wherein Anchieta composed the first Tupi grammar, and began the great work of instructing the Indians.

The lower ranks in S. Paulo are said to be in a very advanced state of civilization, when compared with those of any other

[page] 847

CHAP. XLIV.

Mawe. 87.

Gaspar da Madre de Deos. p.62.

Cazal. 1. 222.

Journal. MS.

town in Brazil; and the higher classes have an ennobling spirit of nationality. The women more particularly pride themselves in the appellation of Paulistas; and relate with great satisfaction, that when a nobleman, who was formerly one of their Governors, had seduced the daughter of a Paulista mechanic, the whole people espoused her cause, and compelled him, at the peril of his life, to marry her. Whether the tradition be true or not, it characterizes the temper of the people: and the spirit of the Paulistas was so lofty, that in former times they sent representations to the Court, requesting that the King would not send them any General or Governor, except such as were of the first nobility of the kingdom. The men dress superbly: they are distinguished from all other Brazilians by their outer garment, which is called ponché, and is indeed a kind of poncho. The usual dress of the women, abroad and at church, was a robe of black silk, or in winter, of black cassimer or baize, with a long veil of the same material, trimmed with broad lace: the veil covered the whole face, except the eyes, .. a fashion so favourable for intrigues, that it brought upon the women of S. Paulo an ill report, and deserved the interference of the Bishop and the Governor. They wore also a long coat of coarse woollen, edged with fustian, plush, velvet, or gold lace, according to the rank of the wearer: a round hat was worn with this as an undress. All articles of female dress were made by tailors; the number therefore of these workmen was very great. At balls and public festivals, they appeared in elegant white dresses, with a profusion of gold chains, and the hair braided and fastened with combs. Flowers were an indispensable part of the female head-dress, .. a natural fashion, in a land where the sweetest flowers blossom in all seasons; but the beauty of this fashion was destroyed by the odious custom of wearing powder, with which the Paulista women of all ages loaded their heads. When a

[page] 848

CHAP. XLIV.

Mawe. 85.

Mawe. 83. 84.

stranger is introduced to a Brazilian lady, it is an act of courtesy in her to take a flower from her head and present it to him, and he is expected to return the compliment in the course of his visit: strangers, ignorant of the customs of the country, and interpreting them by their own licentious habits, have vilified the women of Brazil, upon no stronger grounds than this! They usually employ themselves in embroidery and in making lace, and leave all domestic business to the slaves. The almost general debility which is observable among them has been imputed to the want of exercise, the frequent use of the warm bath, and extreme abstemiousness; but the warm bath is not known to produce any ill consequences in countries where it is most used: their abstemiousness may perhaps arise from a desire of preserving the delicacy of their persons; or not improbably from some erroneous opinion, that it is conducive to health. Kidney-beans, either simply boiled, or mixed with mandioc meal, were the common breakfast; but coffee was also used. The dinner-hour was at noon, or earlier: more vegetables than meat were eaten, and water was the usual drink. Wine was too costly to be in common use; and it is remarkable, that in a country where there are so many fruits, from which a beverage not inferior to wine might be made, no general substitute for that generous liquor should yet have been devised.

The rede, or hammoc, was a beautiful piece of furniture in the houses of the opulent, elaborately ornamented, fringed with lace, and slung low, to serve the purpose of a sofa. The pottery in use was made by Indians, in the outskirts of the city. The markets were excellently supplied: good wheaten bread might be purchased; and the butter appeared tolerable, even to an Englishman. The Churches and Chapels were gaudy, and the religious processions exceedingly splendid. The follies of the Intrudo, which is the Carnival of the Portugueze, were in full

[page] 849

CHAP. XLIV.

vogue, and carried farther than in Lisbon. The Paulistas went masked into the streets; and men and women pelted each other with waxen lemons and oranges, filled with perfumed waters, till they were thoroughly wetted from head to foot. In other parts of Brazil, the men sluiced one another liberally at this time; but at S. Paulo this was thought improper, .. probably lest it might give cause or occasion for quarrels, among a people, who, in former times, had suffered much from family feuds. Many hundred persons were employed in making the waxen missiles for this season.

Bahia de Santos.

Road to S. Paulo.

Cazal. 1. 217.

Mawe. 62—63.

Journal. MS.

Santos is the port of S. Paulo. The bay of Santos is formed by the islands of S. Amaro and S. Vicente, and has three openings; that of Bertioga, on the north, where the whalers have an establishment; the Barra de S. Vicente, on the south; and between them, the Barra Larga, or Barra de Santos, which is the main entrance. The current there is so strong, that ships are often three days in making their way from the fort off which they first cast anchor, to the town, which is only three leagues distant: there are many channels also, so that the navigation requires good pilotage, and exceeding care: but vessels of considerable burthen can enter, and the harbour is safe. Many streams, which are only navigable with the tide, disembogue into the bay; there is water-carriage, however, for about twenty miles up one of them, to the Arrayal de Cubatam, where goods from the capital are embarked. The ascent to the plains of Piratininga, which was once so formidable, had been facilitated by a road, constructed skilfully and with great labour, parapetted where there are precipices, running in zig-zag lines, and in some places cut for a considerable distance through the rock. In other parts the soil is chiefly clay, and therefore the road is paved: the rains indeed, which take the direction of the road, would soon destroy it, if it were not thus firmly made. There

VOL. III. 5 Q

[page] 850

CHAP. XLIV.

Santos.

Cazal. 1. 263—237.

Investigador Portuguez. t. 18. p. 119.

was an inn between the summit and the city, where the accommodations were much better than any thing, even at the Rio itself, might lead a traveller to expect. The town of Santos stands on the north side of the island of S. Vicente, in a flat marshy country, frequently enveloped in mists, and therefore subject to agues, and the other maladies which are endemic in such unwholesome situations. It was tolerably well built of stone, and contained a Misericordia, which was the oldest of those charitable establishments in Brazil; a Franciscan Convent, a Benedictine Hospice, a Carmelite one, several Chapels, and from six to seven thousand inhabitants. Santos possessed, at the time of the Removal, an injurious and obnoxious privilege, by which some other parts of the Captaincy were prohibited from sending their produce to any other port; and thus it became a great entrepot for sugar, rum, calico, coffee, hides, and bacon. Much coffee was raised in the vicinity, and the rice, which was grown near, was of the best quality: but the greater part of the grounds in the island, which were fit for this unwholesome culture, were lying waste. From this port a considerable trade was carried on with Rio Grande do Sul, and with the Spaniards of the Plata; though in the latter case, it was with all the risk and disadvantage of an illicit traffic.

Journal. MS.

Mawe. 59. 61.

S. Vicente.

S. Vicente had been first stript of its rank by Santos, and afterwards of its commerce; and being the oldest town in the province, and the original seat of Government, it retained no other preeminence than what was attached to the Mother Church of the Captaincy, that being irremovable. The inhabitants, however, retained a proud remembrance of the dignity which their predecessors had enjoyed; and in the middle of the eighteenth century, the place was still noted for its breed of large pigs, from whose skins bags were made for the conveyance of liquids, and leather for chairs: they were preferred to cow hides for this pur-

Jaboatam. Preamb. § 44.

[page] 851

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 237.

Island of S. Sebastian.

Journal. MS. Cazal. 1. 238.

pose; and the bacon of S. Vicente was esteemed the best in Brazil. There was a project for making a communication between the island and the main, by a mole; .. a great undertaking, whereby it was supposed that many shipwrecks would be prevented. Not far to the north of Santos Bay is the island of S. Sebastian, about seven leagues long, with a population of some seven hundred persons, exclusive of the Negroes. This place is remarkable, not for its beauty alone, but for the industry of the inhabitants, who are mostly of one family, and are therefore united by a clan-like feeling. The sugar and tobacco, which they raised and exported in considerable quantities, were the best in the province: they had also large plantations of coffee. The plant from which indigo is made, grew wild upon the island; but they were not expert in extracting the dye. The women employed themselves in embroidery and lace-making. They were as frugal as they were industrious, living upon fish and vegetables, scarcely ever tasting fresh meat, and even regarding bacon as a luxury. There was an establishment for the Whale Fishery, chiefly managed by Indians: from eight to ten fish were usually killed during the season. Canoes of great size were made there. The Arrayal do Bairro, on the shore of the main land opposite, is celebrated for its red pottery; the clay is remarkably fine: the women mould it into beautiful shapes with no other instrument than the hands; and these same women excel in making lace, and in embroidery. Both sexes were proud of their European extraction; but even the higher class of women were barefoot. The ports on this side had declined greatly, in consequence of the restriction, which prohibited them from sending their produce to any other port than Santos.

Cananea.

Southward of Bahia de Santos, is the little town of Cananea, pleasantly situated in an island close to the main. One of the stone pillars, bearing the arms of Portugal, which the first dis-

[page] 852

CHAP. XLIV.

Paranagua.

Cazal. 1. 227.

Curytiba.

Cazal. 1. 231.

Journal. MS. Mawe. 216.

coverers planted when they took possession of the country, is still standing upon the main land, close to the bar. Much rice was grown there. Paranagua, upon the bay of the same name, was a larger town, and well built: it contained a Mother Church, three Ermidas, a Mint, and a Professor of Latin. Mandiocmeal, rice, and coffee, were exported from thence in sumacas; and wheat also, which came down the country from Curytiba. The southern Comarca of the Captaincy derived this Tupi name (which has also been applied with less propriety to its great river, Yguazu,) from the pines wherewith it was originally overspread. There are still remaining extensive forests of these majestic trees, upon which the old Paulistas relied for food in their expeditions; and where at present the wild boars find plentiful subsistence. The people of this district are esteemed the most robust and handsome of all the Paulistas. They cultivate maize, rice, and great quantities of corn; they breed sheep, horses, asses, mules, and kine, and make butter and cheese, the latter of good quality: the rennet of the stag is preferred to that of the calf, because it has been found to coagulate the milk sooner. The cows give more milk in summer than in winter; but the proportion of cheese obtained from the milk is observed to be greater in winter than in summer, by one half. Another curious observation which has been made in this district is, that the sheep invariably pine and die, after they have been fed ten years in one place; but if they be removed as soon as the symptoms appear, though only to the distance of a few miles, they recover. Salt is regularly given to the cattle throughout the Captaincy: they hurry at the herdsman's call from the pastures round, far as his voice can reach; and if the summons is deferred beyond the usual time, they repair of their own accord to the place where the distribution is made, and testify their instinctive eagerness for a mineral, which, in that country, is almost as essential as food to

[page] 853

CHAP. XLIV.

their existence. In the district of Curytiba, the effects of a colder latitude begin to be perceived. It is only in choice situations that the mandioc, the banana, the coffee and cotton-tree, and the sugar-cane, will prosper; and European fruits thrive better there than those from the northern provinces of Brazil. Figs, pears, apples, plums, peaches, quinces, nuts, and chesnuts, flourish there: the olive blossoms profusely, but scarcely produces any fruit: the vine brings forth clusters of prodigious size, but wine has never been made with success; it is however supposed, that this will be the great wine country of Brazil; and since the Removal, vines in great number have been brought thither from Europe, and arrived in excellent condition. The Caa, Maté, or Herb of Paraguay, grows in this district. It is much used in S. Paulo, and the two southern Captaincies, is growing into use at the Rio, and, greatly inferior as it is to the Chinese tea, will probably become an article of great importance in Brazil.

Cazal. 1. 231—232.

Thaubaté.

Cazal. 1. 218.

Sorocaba.

Among the numerous towns in this Captaincy, Thaubaté, though no longer able to vie with S. Paulo, as in the old days of their enmity, was still one of the most considerable, and best situated. It stands thirty leagues north-east from the capital of the province, on a small stream, a league from the river Paraiba; and it contained a Mother Church, two Chapels, a Franciscan Convent, and a Franciscan Third Order. The houses are constructed in the pisé manner of building. Pigs and poultry were bred there in great number; and the inhabitants made and exported beautiful mats and baskets. The country along the Paraiba was well peopled, and there were many considerable towns upon the banks of that river, at no great distance from each other. On the south-west, between S. Paulo and the Comarca of Curytiba, is the large town of Sorocaba, which contained about one thousand seven hundred families at the time of the Re-

[page] 854

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 244

Investigador Portuguez. t. 18. p. 107.

moval, .. two thirds of the population being White. They were an industrious people, and derived considerable advantage from the passage of cattle from the south. The tax upon cattle was paid there: there was a heavy and injudicious impost upon mules. In Rio Grande, where the greater number were bred, they cost from one to two milreis each; one milrea was paid at a registry in that Captaincy, three and a half here in S. Paulo, and when they reached Minas Geraes, a third impost was levied equal to the other two; so that the whole tax amounted nearly to eight times as much as the original cost, though the inland trade was almost wholly carried on upon these animals. Sorocaba was likely to become a place of great importance, because of its vicinity to the Serra Guarassoiavá, or the Sun Shader: this mountain range, which extends three leagues in length, is supposed to be one mass of iron ore, and works were about to be established there. The town contained one Church, one Ermida, a Benedictine Hospice, and a Recolhimento. Seven leagues north-east from Sorocaba, and eighteen west-north-west of S. Paulo, is the large and flourishing town of Hitú, with a Church, four Ermidas, a Franciscan Convent, a Carmelite Hospice, a Lazar-house, and a Royal Professor of Latin: some of the streets were paved: the houses were of pisé, and generally had gardens attached to them. The name of the town is derived from the great falls of the Tieté, two miles distant.

Cazal. 1. 203.

Hitú.

Cazal. 1. 245.

Savages in the Captaincy of S. Paulo.

Though the Paulistas, in quest of slaves, had reached the Upper Paraguay, the Tocantins, and even the Orellana, they had not cleared their own Captaincy of the savages. The Cayapos sometimes crossed the Parana, to annoy them from the north: and the country between the Tieté and the Uruguay was still, at the time of the Removal, possessed by four tribes, distinguished from each other by the fashion in which they disfigured their faces, and comprehended by the Portugueze under the general

[page] 855

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 221—2.

Carta Regia. 8 Nov. 1808.

Manner of travelling.

Journal. MS.

name of Bugres. The men were entirely naked; the women made for themselves a short petticoat with the thread of the acroa. They broke the ground with wooden instruments (which they wrought with stone tools), and cultivated maize, pulse, and other esculents: but they trusted much to the chace for their subsistence, and to the wild fruits, especially the pine nuts, of which they laid up large store, subjecting them to a process like that of malting. Some of the plants which they cultivated had been obtained from the Portugueze; and they had also learnt the use of dogs from these neighbours: except these, the only animals which they domesticated were the quatys and cotiás, who were more probably kept for amusement than for food. They envied nothing which the Portugueze possessed, except iron. They lived in huge houses, .. a custom common to many of the Tupi tribes: and they were good potters, for they made vessels which bore the fire, and they boiled their food as frequently as they roasted it. Some of them were of whiter complexion, and were also distinguished by having beards: .. it can hardly be doubted that these were of Mamaluco extraction. These tribes infested the Campos Geraes of Curytiba, those of Guarapuava, and the range of high land, from whence the Uruguay proceeds on one side, while the counter-streams flow to the Parana. Their audacity increased as the Paulistas became more regularly industrious, more commercial, more opulent, and therefore less enterprizing: and the line of road to Curytiba, which used to be safe, was depopulated by their murderous incursions, and became so perilous that travellers did not venture upon the journey, unless they were collected in large bodies. Even from S. Paulo to Minas Geraes, it was usual to travel in troops of twenty or thirty laden mules, with five or six men, well armed with swords, guns, and pistols, and two or three very large and fierce dogs, with spiked collars, to protect them from the jaguars.

[page] 856

CHAP. XLIV.

As people thus travelled in caravans, the estallagens in this country bore a nearer resemblance to the caravanseras of the East, than to European inns. They were large sheds, supported upon upright beams, and divided into separate apartments, or rather stalls. A traveller occupied as many of these as he wanted for himself and his baggage: and there was an adjacent inclosure, with upright stakes, four or five yards asunder, to which the beasts were fastened while they were fed, saddled, and loaded. The traveller must carry with him a hammoc ³⁸, or be contented to sleep upon the ground.

Mawe. 65.

Small-pox.

The Paulistas suffered dreadfully from the small-pox, .. perhaps because of their Indian blood. Whosoever heard his malady pronounced to be this disease, was prostrated to such a degree that the declaration differed little from a sentence of death: in most cases indeed the disease proved fatal; and this was so fully expected, that at this time many persons, when they are seized with it, give themselves up, and refusing to take sustenance or medicine of any kind, lie down to die. The Senado formerly made a law, by which every person who should have the small-pox was required to leave the city; and heavy penalties were laid upon all the family of the sufferer, if they did not see that the law was obeyed, under whatever circumstances. This

38 Mr. Mawe (p. 95,) says, that a bed is an indispensable part of a traveller's baggage: .. the net-hammoc is far more convenient. He advises the traveller also to take with him candles, candlestick, and snuffers; but most probably a lamp may be procured wherever there is a lodging. In Paraguay, travellers make extemporé candles with the fat of the beasts which they kill upon the way: they melt it, and pour it into a reed, the joints of which are from eighteen inches to two feet in length; and in this case the candles are portable, without danger of breaking. Or they make a ball of Indian rubber, insert a wick in it, and float it in water. (Azara. 1. 119. Do. 1. 127.)

[page] 857

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 235.

Do. 1. 225.

was enforced till the year 1752, when the father of a family refused to obey, and the Senado called upon the Ouvidor to interpose his authority; but the Ouvidor replied, "the sick stand in need of remedies, both for the body and the soul, and these cannot be administered to them so promptly any where as in the city; therefore I hold it better, when the small-pox appears, that they who have not had the disease, should be the persons to remove." The establishment of an appropriate hospital would have been the proper measure. Vaccination will deliver the Brazilians from this evil; and for the honour of the Government, it ought to be added, that no means were spared for communicating the benefit of that great and happy discovery. In the northern part of the province, goitres are common; but it is said, that they are not so frequent now as they were in former times.

Revenues.

Noticias. MSS.

Population.

The revenues of this Captaincy, about the close of the eighteenth century, amounted to sixty-eight contos, four hundred and fifty milreis. Besides this, there was what is called the Subsidio Litterario, amounting to three cantos and a half, which was applied to the Professors and School-masters; and some property, formerly belonging to the Jesuits, which yielded a rent of six hundred milreis, and was applied to the Clergy, who officiated in their Churches. In 1777³⁹, the population of the Captaincy

39 Male children, under seven years of age, 14,639; boys, between seven and fifteen, 10,726; youths and men, between fifteen and sixty, 27,042; old men, above threescore, 8,969; among these were nine of 100 years of age, three of 101, one of 102, two of 105, two of 106, one of 109, one of 110, and two of 111; .. in all, twenty-one men above 100 years old.

Female children, under the age of seven, 14,125; girls, between seven and fifteen, 10,556; women, from fifteen to forty, 25,352; women from forty upwards, 10,566; among these were five of 100, two of 102, one of 104, two of 106; .. in all, ten women above 100 years old. The births in the year 1776, were 5,074; the deaths, 3,250. (Noticias MSS.)

VOL. III. 5 R

[page] 858

CHAP. XLIV.

amounted to one hundred and sixteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-five; in 1811, it had reached to two hundred thousand four hundred and eight; in 1812, two hundred and five thousand six hundred and sixty-seven; in 1813⁴⁰, two hundred and nine thousand two hundred and eighteen; but in these latter years, some part of the increase may probably be ascribed to the immigration consequent upon the Removal.

Province of S. Catharina.

Island of S. Catharina.

The province of S. Catharina, formerly under the Government of S. Paulo, is separated from that Captaincy by the river Sahy, and by the Mampituba from that of the Rio Grande do Sul, or de S. Pedro, .. more conveniently called by the name of the Saint alone. Its breadth, in the broadest part, does not exceed twenty leagues: its extent of coast is about threescore, and includes the greater part of the old and short-lived Captaincy of S. Amaro. The island of S. Catharina was, in the year 1712, still covered with ever-green woods, except in the little bays and creeks opposite the main land, where some fourteen or fifteen spots had been cleared round the habitations of the settlers. These colonists were chiefly bad subjects, who had fled from other Captaincies, and were described by a Portugueze Officer, as a people that knew no King. With such people the Portugueze Government has always dealt politicly; contenting itself with the slightest recognition of its authority at first, and gradually assuming and exerting power as they became more numerous, fell naturally into the habits of regular life, and consequently felt the necessity of subordination. At that time a Cap-

40 Whites, 112,964; free Blacks, 3,951; Black slaves, 37,602; free Mulattoes, 44,053; Mulatto slaves, 10,648. Marriages in 1813, 2,466; births, 9,020; deaths, 4,451. (Patriota. 3. 6. 114.)

The Whites therefore are rather more than half the population; and the proportion of births to deaths rather above two to one.

[page] 859

CHAP. XLIV.

Frezier. t. 1. 38—40. Shelvocke. 50. 58.

Walters' Voyage of Ld. Anson. 63—64.

Pinheiro Collection. t. 9. No 47. MSS.

Langsdorff. Reise um die Welt. 1. p 59.

tain had the nominal command, who was appointed by the Commander of Laguna,.. a little town on the continent, some few leagues to the south. There were within his jurisdiction one hundred and forty-seven Whites, a few free Blacks, and a few Indians, some of whom were prisoners taken in war, and treated as slaves; and others came voluntarily, to better their condition by living with the Portugueze. The ordinary dress consisted of only shirt and drawers; he who added to this a jacket and a hat, was a magnificent person: shoes and stockings were seldom seen; but when they went into the woods, they put on leggings, made of jaguar-skin, in one whole piece, transferred from the legs of the wild beast to their own. The jaguars at that time were so numerous, even upon the island, that a great many dogs were kept to protect the houses. During some thirty years, foreign ships were well entertained there: the inhabitants allowed them to lay in wood and water, and gladly supplied them with provisions, in exchange for European goods:.. money they would not receive in payment, because they had no use for it. But when Commodore Anson touched there, in 1740, the place having become of more consequence, and the authority of the Government being increased in proportion, the inhospitable system, established in other parts of Brazil, had been introduced there also. A great contraband trade was then carried on from this island with the Plata, the Portugueze exchanging gold for silver, by which traffic both Sovereigns were defrauded of their fifths. Fortifications were then being erected. In 1749, the population of S. Catharina had increased to four thousand one hundred and ninety-seven; but about the end of the century, several thousands were carried off by a contagious disease, which appears to have been dysentery, attended with putrid fever.

N. Senhora do Desterro.

Few towns in Brazil were increasing so rapidly in importance as N. Senhora do Desterro, the capital of the island and of the

[page] 860

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 195. Mawe. 47—48.

province. At the time of the Removal, it was supposed to contain from five to six thousand inhabitants. The houses are of two or three stories, well built of stone, with boarded floors, and gardens well stocked both with esculents and flowers. The appearance of the town from the anchorage is beautiful. It contained a handsome Church with two towers, two Chapels, a Third Order of S. Francis, a Hospital, good Barracks, a Royal Professor of Primary Letters and of Latin, whose salaries were drawn from a tax upon spirits; but spirits were very cheap, and therefore in great use, much to the injury of the inhabitants. Permission to erect a Convent had often been solicited, and hitherto had wisely been withheld. The streets were, for the most part, regular: the market was well supplied with fish, pigs, and poultry of every kind: excellent greens and roots were plentiful and cheap, and the finest fruits were in abundance. The meat was bad, but at the low price of about three half-pence a pound; mandioc-meal was the staple food: the rich indulged themselves with bread. There were artisans of all descriptions; and the shops were not ill supplied with glass, hardware, paper, and other European commodities; but these were necessarily at a high price. The descendants of the colonists from the Azores were still distinguished by their cleanliness from the other Portugueze: the soldiers, the peasantry, and even the poorest towns-people of this race, wore good and clean linen, and their houses were remarkable for neatness; they had retained also their industry. Here, as in many other parts of Brazil, lace-making is the amusement of the ladies. Within doors, their dress usually consists of a shift of fine calico or linen, with a handsome border worked round the bosom, a thin gown, and a muslin handkerchief; in company, they appear in the European fashion, but with a great variety of colours, and a profusion of ribbands and tinsel. It was a mark of distinction to have long nails, especially upon the thumb, .. a

[page] 861

CHAP. XLIV.

custom common to many different countries in the barbarous and semi-barbarous stages of society. The equipage was a cadeirinha, .. a kind of palankeen, with curtains of scarlet cloth fringed with gold: when the curtains are open, the person within appears as if seated on a throne.

Langsdorff. 30—31. 33. 35.

Slaves.

The Negro slave wore nothing but a pair of drawers, or short trowsers; the Negress, a short petticoat, with perhaps an old shift, or a few rags fastened upon the shoulder, and hanging over the breast. That worse than home sickness, called the banza, was well known among them; and the slaves who fell into this disease, whether it proceeded from a longing after their own country, or the weariness of life and desire of death, seldom recovered. The price of a young and healthy Negro was from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars; but it was greatly enhanced if he were expert in any mechanical art. They were let out to work, and jobbed by the day or the week, like horses in Europe. It happened not unfrequently, that Negroes, who were inhumanly treated, took for themselves that vengeance which the laws denied them: and sometimes they escaped into the Sertam, joined the wild Indians, and became their guides in incursions against the Portugueze.

Langsdorff. 36—37.

Climate and Diseases.

The air is moist, and the nights are particularly damp; nevertheless the province is reputed healthy. The greater the heat during the day, the more surely may rain and thunder be expected in the evening. All persons, of whatever rank, carefully wash their feet every night, as the best preservative against the chiguas. The small-pox raged like a pestilence, whenever it reached the island, and had materially checked its population. Inoculation was not practised at the beginning of the nineteenth century; this may probably have been owing neither to ignorance nor prejudice, but to the number of Negroes, and the certainty that a great mortality would ensue among them, in

[page] 862

CHAP. XLIV.

Langsdorff. 41. 60.

whatever manner the disease might be introduced. Cutaneous diseases were frequent; and syphilis is said to have been so common, as to indicate a deplorable state of morals. The women were very fruitful; insomuch, that it was not remarkable for one to be the mother of fifteen or twenty children: but children were often suckled till they were three or four years old, for the avowed hope of preventing any farther increase. Deaths in childbed were much beyond the usual proportion in warm ⁴¹ climates.

Do. 61.

Island of S. Francisco. Pinheiro Collection. t. 9. No. 47. MSS. Cazal. 1. 198.

Do. 197.

Inhabitants on the main land. Langsdorff. p. 55.

The island of S. Francisco, north of S. Catharina, contained, in 1749, one hundred and twenty families, and twelve hundred and twenty-one inhabitants. Many vessels were built there; and the principal exports were wood and cordage, made of the imbé. The town of Laguna, on the continent, was well situated on the lake which gives it its name, little more than a mile from the bar: sumacas enter the port, from whence a considerable trade was carried on in mandioc-meal, rice, maize, wood, and salted fish. There were four other parishes on the main land; but in general, the houses there were scattered at considerable distances from each other; and the settlers had not ventured far inland, because of the savages. Their dwellings were generally near the sea, surrounded with orange-trees, bananas, coffee, and cottonplants; and the country is so abundant in water, that there is

41 There are some springs at Cubatam in this island, which are thought to possess great virtue in cases of debility. Orders were given by the Government, in 1818, to erect a Hospital there: subscriptions were to be raised throughout Brazil for the building, and a square league upon the spot was granted as an endowment. This, as the prosperity of the island increases, must become a valuable property. It had been previously granted by the Crown; but the grant was revoked, because the grantee had failed to cultivate it, and thereby forfeited his title by breaking the implied condition. (Correio Braziliense. 19. 376. Decreto, 18 March, 1818.)

[page] 863

CHAP. XLIV.

Langsdorff. 53.

usually a fine clear spring in every garden. The luxuries of civilization were found nowhere, except in the capital: even chairs and tables were not in use elsewhere; and it is remarkable, that the hammoc, which has been so generally adopted throughout the north of Brazil, should not be used in the southern provinces. The same mat, which served for a bed by night, was spread upon the floor and covered with a cloth, to supply the place of a table at dinner; the men lay round it at full length, resting one arm upon a little pillow or cushion; and the women sat on their heels, after the eastern manner. The Caa, here called Herba do Mato, was in general use. Musquets being of high price, and gunpowder not always to be purchased, the people used a bow, which discharged small pebbles, or balls of clay, with the force of the old cross-bow; .. but probably imitated from those weapons which the young Guaranies used for shooting birds.

Do. 40. See vol. 2. p. 369.

Whale Fishery.

Population.

Cazal. 1. 193.

The Whale Fishery, upon S. Catharina, had been very productive; but had declined since the English and American whalers frequented the Falkland Islands: indeed, the pursuit of these huge but inoffensive creatures has been carried on so long, and so destructively, that whales are now rarely or never seen of the same magnitude as in former times; and the race itself would probably, in a few generations more, be extirpated, if the general use of gas-lights were not likely greatly to lessen soon, and gradually to supersede, the demand for train-oil. In 1796, the whole province contained four thousand two hundred and sixteen families, twenty-three thousand eight hundred and sixty-five souls, three Engenhos, and one hundred and ninety-two distilleries. In 1812, the population had increased to ⁴² thirty-three thousand and forty-nine, of which number seven

42 Here, as at Seara, an excess of females appears in the free population. White males, 11,495; White females, 13,311; free Negroes and Mulattoes, 312; free Negresses and Mulattas, 353. Among the slaves there is a greater disproportion on the other side: Negroes, 4,905; Negresses, 2,673. The cause of the disproportion among the free people might, doubtless, be ascertained by a judicious observer upon the spot: I can only conjecture, that the men who were employed on shipboard, may have been omitted in the returns; that others have found means not to enroll themselves, for the purpose of escaping the military service (one of the grievances of Brazil); and that licentiousness and dram-drinking are much more common among the men than the women, and make proportionately a greater havoc.

[page] 864

CHAP. XLIV.

Krusenstern's Reise um die Welt. 1. 106.

Patriota. 3. 3. 99.

Province of Rio Grande do Sul.

thousand five hundred and seventy-eight were slaves, and six hundred and sixty-five free Negroes or Mulattoes. When the Russian squadron touched at S. Catharina, in 1803, one or two small vessels, of seventy or eighty tons, exported the surplus produce to the Rio, and brought back European goods: they were forbidden to trade with any other port; and owing to this restriction, and the consequent inactivity which it occasioned, Capt. Krusenstern says, that a ship of four hundred tons could not have obtained a lading upon the island. Since that time, a surprising change has taken place: in the fourth year after the Removal,⁴³ one hundred and fifty vessels entered the ports of the Captaincy; and the exportation was considerable, especially of mandioc-meal, rum, and rice. Among other exports of European origin, were wheat, barley, garlic, onions, hemp, and flax. The country abounds with fine clay, both red and black, from which good tiles and excellent pottery were made, and exported to Rio Grande de S. Pedro, and to the Rio. Sassafras grew wild upon the island in such abundance, that Shelvocke laid in a store of it for fuel.

The province of Rio Grande de S. Pedro, or of the South,

43 Galeras, 5; Bergantins, 32; Sumacas, 63; Penque, 1; Lanchas, 37; Hiates, 12. To translate these into their correspondent English words,.. Galley, Brigantine, Smack, Pink, Launch, and Yacht, would only mislead the reader, unless the difference could be pointed out.

[page] 865

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 118.

Correio Braziliense. t. 14. 205. 238.

P. 570.

Portalegre.

Cazal. 1. 149.

Correio Braz. 14. 238.

S. Pedro.

which has sometimes also been called Capitania d'El Rey, as never having belonged to any Donatory, is separated by the river Pellotas from S. Paulo, and by the Manbituba from S. Catharina. Its limits to the south and west, so long disputed, and twice adjusted by the Treaties of Demarcation, were left again to be decided by the law of the strongest, at the time of the Removal; and Portugal at that time retained possession of the Seven Reductions. The Government was a dependency upon the Rio till the year 1800; then, when the separation, after much opposition, was finally decreed, the expences of the province amounted to fourscore contos, and the revenues only to forty. The effect of the separation was, that the revenues were immediately doubled: the customs alone, in 1805, yielded more than the whole receipts had formerly reached; and for the three years preceding the Removal, the fifths, tenths, and ferries, were leased for one hundred and sixty-one contos and a half. After the capture of S. Pedro, by Zeballos, in 1762, the seat of the provincial Government was removed to the Aldea of N. Senhora da Conceiçam; but after a few years the Governor, Jozé Marcellino de Figueyredo, fixed it in the bay of Viamam, upon the river Jacuy, seven leagues above its entrance into the lake, and called the place Portalegre, or Gay-port, .. a name aptly applied to its cheerful situation. Yachts ascend the river, and carry produce from thence to S. Pedro, for farther exportation. It has been thought that S. Pedro has better claims to be the capital, needing, it is said, no other protection than the difficulty of the harbour. But if that difficulty be not sufficient to prevent a great and increasing commerce, certainly it could not be relied upon as a security in time of war. Portalegre was a large, populous, and prosperous town; the streets well built and regular, and the principal ones paved: it contained one Church and one Chapel, and had a Royal Professor of Latin. S. Pedro seems not to

VOL. III. 5 S

[page] 866

CHAP. XLIV.

Cazal. 1. 141.

have equalled it in size; but it had a more active principle of increase, as being the sea-port: it contained one Church, and had Tertiaries, or Third Orders of S. Francis and of Carmel: the opposite Arrayal of S. Jozé was probably little inferior in size or population. In 1814, three hundred and twenty-three vessels sailed from hence, laden chiefly with wheat, hides, jerked beef, tallow, and cheese.

Do. 148.

Population.

Investigador portuguez. 19. 199.

Do. 17. 253.

The whole population of this province was about sixty-thousand in 1801: in the year of the Removal, it was estimated that the number of Negroes alone amounted to forty thousand; and yet more work was performed by Whites in this Captaincy than in any other part of Brazil. Idleness was not the vice of any class of men there; and the descendants of the colonists from the Azores are described as of great stature (the climate having agreed with them well), good labourers, intelligent farmers, upright and orderly. Kine are more numerous here than in any other district, notwithstanding the wanton havoc which was made among them at one time, when veal was the favourite food, and the younger it was the greater delicacy it was esteemed. In those days, a calf just dropt was served up whole at every feast. If two men dined together, one calf of a larger size was not sufficient, but each must have the tongue, and therefore two were slaughtered. A traveller killed a beast for breakfast, and rather than carry on a steak with him, he butchered another for dinner. At length both the Spanish and Portugueze Governments found it necessary to interfere. Viana, the Governor of Montevideo, prohibited the killing either of calves or cows; and enacted, that none but bullocks should be slaughtered for food, and no beast for the sake of its hide, that was not full five years old. The Marquez de Lavradio made similar regulations on the Portugueze side of the country; and thus the mischief was checked, though it could not wholly be prevented.

Corr. Braz. 14. 222

Destruction of cattle.

Cazal. 1. 142.

[page] 867

CHAP. XLIV.

State of the grazing farms.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the pastoral part of this Captaincy contained five hundred and thirty-nine landholders, possessing estates which had been assigned them according to law: they were either Fazendeiros, wholesale graziers, or Lavradores, .. farmers, who only bred cattle enough for their own use and consumption. Their estates varied in extent, from two to ten square leagues; and some even exceeded this enormous size. For a herd of from four to five thousand, a plain of some twelve miles was required, the pasture in general not being good: for a Fazenda which contained five thousand, at least six men are necessary, and one hundred horses; the latter, which must all be geldings, are divided into troops of twenty each, with a tame mare to each troop, by whose means they are kept together upon a march; for when the mare is fastened, not one of her company will leave her: they are not shod, and cost nothing in maintenance. In every Fazenda there is a piece of plain ground, called the Rodeio, and large enough to hold all the herd; .. the most elevated part of the estate is generally chosen. They are driven into this as often as is necessary, the herdsmen galloping round and round, and shouting out 'rodeio, rodeio,' .. a cry to which the beasts are accustomed. This is done for the purpose of marking some, castrating others, and selecting for slaughter those which are above four years old: after that age it has been found that they become wild, will no longer obey the call, and would soon make the whole herd unruly. About a thousand calves are marked every year upon a Fazenda of three leagues.

Cazal. 1. 143—144.

The herdsmen of Rio Grande are not so brutal as those of Paraguay and the Plata: they are not merely carnivorous, and consequently mere butchers. Upon every large Fazenda about one hundred milch cows are kept, who feed with the other cattle, and are in a state that may be called half-wild. They bring forth in lonely places, sleep with their calves by night, but visit

[page] 868

CHAP. XLIV.

them only at times during the day to give them suck; and they conceal them so well, that it is difficult to find them for the first week. As soon as the calf is found, it is removed to the inclosed part of the farm, where the mother visits it: that opportunity is taken for milking her. In this manner they obtain milk for butter and cheese. The calves which are thus reared are tame; the females are reserved for breeding, the males broken in for the plough and for draught. It is remarkable, that the calves of the wild herd, though they have the whole of the mother's milk, neither grow so fast, nor fatten so well, as those in the inclosure, who have only what the dairy spares them from their natural allowance: the fact is explained by the frequent alarms to which the others are exposed, from dogs and wild beasts. It is also asserted, that the same pasture which supports only four thousand wild cattle, would support twice that number of tame; and that the flesh of the latter is the most savoury. The hides from the Plata, about the time of the Removal, usually weighed ten or twelve pounds more than those from S. Pedro: the cattle were of the same breed; but because of the interruption of trade which the Spanish province suffered during the war, the animals were not killed so young. In some of the southern parts of the province they burn the dung and the bones of the cattle, for want of other fuel.

Cazal. 1. 144—145.

Corr. Braz. 14. 214.

Cazal. 141.

Mules.

Great numbers both of horses and mules are bred also in this province. The machos, or male mules, are all castrated; and a good one is worth double the price of a horse. The females, when they are two years old, must be separated from the herd, because of a strange habit, the effect, as it seems, of perverted instinct: .. one of these misbegotten creatures will take to a mare's foal when newly dropt, as if it were her own, and not suffer the mother to come near it; so that the colt would be starved. Sheep were not very numerous, because there was not

Cazal. 1. 145.

Sheep.

[page] 869

CHAP. XLIV.

Shepherd's dogs.

as yet any great demand for the wool; but the wool is good: few persons possessed so many as a thousand head. Two of the large shepherd's dogs, which they call rafeiros, are required for that number; and these dogs are curiously trained, by substituting them, as soon as they are whelped, for newly-yeaned lambs, and compelling the ewes to suckle them. Thus they become attached to the ewes: sheep are the first creatures which they see when they open their eyes; they play with the lambs as they grow up, and know no other kind. They are castrated, and shut up in the fold with the ewes, till they are old enough to go afield with the flock. If a ewe happens to yean at a distance from the fold, one of these dogs will take up the lamb carefully in his mouth, and carry it home. It is worthy of notice, that these creatures appear not to have lost their courage by emasculation; and it is put to the proof by their own kind; for not only the wild dogs, but the domestic ones also, are the most dangerous enemies of the sheep: but these faithful keepers suffer neither stranger nor animal to approach their charge. The wild or maroon dogs, as they are called, are very numerous: they hunt in company, and pursue a herd of cattle, till one of them is run down: if they are hungry, a solitary horseman is in danger.

Cazal. 1. 146—147.

Do. 142.

Conclusion.

In this state were the various provinces of Brazil, from the Rio Negro and the Cabo do Norte, to the debateable ground upon the Plata, when the seat of the Monarchy was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. No general character of the manners and morals of a people, under such differences of climate, country, and surrounding circumstances, could be offered, without presumptuousness and manifest injustice; but this may safely be asserted, that a firm foundation for power and prosperity had been laid, which nothing but the most extreme and obstinate misconduct on the part of the Government, or the most blind and culpable impatience on the part of the people, can

[page] 870

CHAP. XLIV.

See vol. 2. 550

Patriota. 3. 5. 7.

subvert. Trade, agriculture, and population, were rapidly increasing; and the country was susceptible of any improvements which a wise Minister, and a benevolent Sovereign might introduce. There were great abuses, which cried out loudly for correction. Hitherto the Governors had exercised despotic authority in their respective Captaincies, .. regulated by no laws, checked by no usages, standing in no fear of public opinion, and controlled by no responsibility: they were as absolute as so many Bashaws; and had this advantage over the Turkish Sub-despots, that their own heads were perfectly secure from the scymitar and the bow-string. In former times, when any fresh contribution was required for the service of the State, the matter was proposed by the Governor to the Camara, and settled with the consent of the people: this right the Chambers and the people continued to exercise, till the last vestiges of good government were extinguished in Portugal; and then the arbitrary system, under which the Mother Country declined, was extended to Brazil. The colonial Government then obtained a mere military character, and the Chambers were called upon not to consult, but to obey. A few years before the Removal, the Camara of Villa Boa attempted to oppose some measure of the Governor of Goyaz, and they received a reprimand from the Court, for not knowing that all the Camaras of Brazil were subordinate to the Governors. But ineffectual as the resistance was, it shews that the rights of the Chambers were still remembered. In these latter times it has been but too plainly demonstrated, how difficult it is to temper with a wholesome mixture of democracy, a government which has long been absolute; every attempt has only tended to shew the extreme danger of the experiment: but where good laws, and good old customs, have only fallen into disuse, it is a safe and practicable measure to restore their efficiency.

[page] 871

CHAP. XLIV.

The administration of justice in criminal cases was scandalously remiss, and in all cases shamefully corrupt. Inasmuch as the ministers of justice were not liberally paid, the Government was culpable: and Government also was answerable for the encouragement to deeds of violence, which was given by the general impunity of the criminals. But the degree of purity with which the laws are administered, is one criterion of the standard of morals; and that test shows that they were at a low ebb in Brazil, and that the defect was not supplied in public men, by any sense of honour. A reformation in this point, while it obtained credit for the Government, would be among the surest means of improving the character of the people.

The system of farming the taxes was followed in Brazil, though the experience of European states might have shown, that by that system, Governments at once lessen their revenue and their influence, and pay a dear price for unpopularity. The Tax-farmers let out their districts in small portions; these were again subdivided; at every step a profit was to be made; and probably not half the sum, which was levied upon the people, found its way to the state. Monopolies were in the same manner injurious to both parties: the Salt Contract indeed had been abolished, and for that relief the Brazilians were indebted to the Portugueze press. The Whale Fishery had formerly been let to a Company, but was now carried on for the Government; which was exchanging a measure of doubtful policy, for another that certainly is not better. The dye-wood, formerly an article of such importance in commerce, that it gave name to this great country, was a government monopoly, and exported chiefly, or exclusively, from Pernambuco, on account of the Crown. A system at once wasteful and oppressive was the consequence: no plantations of the trees were made; they were cut down by the officers appointed for the service wherever they were found,

[page] 872

CHAP. XLIV.

without reference to age and growth; and having thus been extirpated upon the coast, where it was once so abundant, the wood was brought many leagues from the interior upon horses, which were taken for the use of Government at a price below the usual rate: the owners were exposed to much delay, and much vexation, besides the positive injury which they sustained; and they were glad to obtain a speedy dispatch, by feeing the inferior agents. Individuals, if they were permitted, would plant the tree in situations favourable for exportation; and Government would gain by throwing open the trade, and imposing a reasonable duty; for the present system renders the labour and cost of procuring the wood every year greater than the last, and must end in destroying it. The ferries in Brazil are royalties, which are either granted or leased: those in the province of Rio Grande de S. Pedro produced from three to four contos annually; and the lessees made large claims up and down the rivers, to the great inconvenience of the public. A person in that province offered, at his own expence, to build a bridge at a place where the ferry was rented for only thirty milreis; and the result was, that a member of the Treasury Board threatened him with imprisonment for making the proposal; .. thus bringing odium upon the Government for the refusal itself, whereby the improvement of the neighbourhood was impeded for the sake of a sum too paltry to be worth a thought, and for the unworthy manner in which a public-spirited individual was treated by its insolent and oppressive officer.

Koster. 377.

Invest. Port. 18. 118.

Another grievance arose, from the manner in which the regular troops were raised: the principle was, that every family, in which there were two or more unmarried sons, should supply one for the army; and that men of bad character, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, should be pressed into the service. This might appear in theory a tolerably fair requisition, aided by

[page] 873

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Koster. 305. 308.

a specious measure of police; but the practice was in the last degree iniquitous and oppressive: and when a general recruiting was ordered in any populous Captaincy, the country appeared almost in a state of civil war. For there existed a general dislike to the service: when rogues and vagabonds were condemned to it as a punishment, all prudent parents would regard it as odious and dangerous for their children: moreover, the men were ill paid, ill clothed, and had no leisure allowed them for bettering their condition, by pursuing any gainful and useful employment during the hours which might be spared from military duty. Therefore they who were liable to serve, concealed themselves. Armed parties were seen every where in pursuit of them, directed by private malice to its victims. Young men, upon whom their parents, sisters, or younger brethren, depended for support, were pressed; and others, who were the pests of their neighbourhood, and fell strictly within the intention of the law, were perfectly safe, if they possessed any means of influencing the Capitam Mor of their district. This impolitic and cruel system had been introduced within the memory of man. Formerly men enlisted to serve in the forts which were in their own neighbourhood, and were not removed to any other station. Compulsion was not necessary then; the pay was a sufficient inducement: and as men had their families about them, and were desirous of enlisting under such circumstances, so many entered, that the duty was rendered light, and left time for every one to pursue his usual employment. In case of necessity, any force, upon whatever terms it may have been raised, becomes disposable for the defence of the country. That necessity is never doubtful; and men submit cheerfully, in such cases, to one of the plainest and most equitable maxims of general law: but for the purpose of having a regular force more disposable in form (not in reality), the present system had been introduced. A

VOL. III. 5 T

[page] 874

CHAP. XLIV.

Journal. MSS.

forced levy was ordered in the Captaincy of S. Paulo, shortly after the Removal; many thousand persons forsook their houses, and retired into the woods; and the Government becoming sensible of its exceeding impolicy, by the consequences of Which it had been forewarned in vain, found it necessary to invite them back, by promises of security to all who would return. It is so easy to render the military service desirable by just and judicious regulations, that there must be a grievous mispolicy in the system, wherever a general dislike to it is entertained. But the worst part of Pombal's administration had survived him: a character of oriental despotism had been given to the Government in all its branches, for which the Portugueze had been prepared by the mal-administration of the laws, and by the yoke of the Inquisition. The subalterns of Government were entrusted with power which ought not to have been confided even to the most intelligent and virtuous of men; .. what wonder if it was frequently abused? Caprice held the place of law, and justice was sacrificed to any consideration of interest. The murderer might be considered as unfortunate, if he were not permitted to walk abroad, with impunity, in the scene of his guilt; but the man who knew not of what he was accused, might be torn from his family, cast into a dungeon, and left to rot there, without the hope of ever being brought to trial, and enabled to prove his innocence. Things could not possibly be worse in this respect in Brazil, than they were in the Mother Country. The oppression to which individuals were exposed, may appear incredible to those whose happiness it is to live under the protection of good laws. A man was compelled to act as Harbour-master in one of the small ports of Brazil, without any salary or emolument whatever, though he was obliged to visit every vessel that entered the harbour, and make a report to the Commandant. After more than twenty years of this compulsory service, he presented a petition

[page] 875

CHAP. XLIV.

to the head of the naval department, stating his case, and requesting either that such a salary might be allowed as would suffice for his maintenance, or that he might be permitted to retire from the office, and work for his own support: both requests were refused; and, at the age of fifty-five, the man continued in his hopeless service, preferring rather to slave on in that occupation, than to incur the danger of being sent to Angola, if he refused to perform it longer.

Journal. MS.

Pombal relied upon his despotic police as a security against all disaffection. It is surprising to what an extent the system of vigilance was carried in Brazil. One who had been Intendant of the Forbidden District in Minas Geraes, has said, that there was not a single inhabitant in the whole Comarca of Serro Frio of whom he had not some knowledge; and when he was Ouvidor of Sabara (a Comarca, according to his estimate, one hundred and forty leagues long, and one hundred wide), he knew every one of the inhabitants, in like manner. Nor was this the effect of any remarkable activity on his part; all the other Magistrates, he says, were equally well acquainted with their districts … How easily, and how efficaciously might this knowledge be applied to the purpose of enforcing good laws! But the Court of Brazil has yet to learn, that it is the first and most important duty of a Government to execute justice, and to maintain laws; and that the security which individuals enjoy for their persons and property, is the best pledge for the security of the state.

Luiz Beltram. Memoria. MS.

It was another proof of pitiable impolicy, that no press should have been suffered in Brazil, till the time of the Removal. The great mass of the people were in the same state as if printing had never been invented. Many wealthy negociants could not read; and it was difficult to find young men qualified for clerks and book-keepers. An opulent Sertanejo would sometimes com-

Corr. Bras. 10. 90.

[page] 876

CHAP. XLIV.

Koster. 394.

mission one of his neighbours, who was going to one of the great sea-ports, to bring back with him a young Portugueze of good character, who could read and write, as a husband for his daughter. Yet there were public schools in most places for instructing the children in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and there were few towns, in which the Reading-master and the Latin-master were not dignified with the title of Royal Professors, .. institutions strangely discrepant with that blind system by which the press was prohibited. They who had learned to read had few opportunities of gratifying the desire of knowledge, if they happened to possess it, because of the exceeding scarcity of books. Since the Jesuits were expelled, none of the Religioners had prided themselves either upon their literature, or their love of learning. And the libraries which the Jesuits left, had, for the most part, disappeared; for books, in that country, unless they are carefully kept, are soon destroyed ⁴⁴ by insects.

Of the remaining Religioners, the Benedictines were the most respectable: the Mendicants had fallen into deserved contempt, and these pernicious orders were likely to be extinguished ere long, not by any act of the Government, but by the silent change concerning them in public opinion, which prevented them from recruiting their numbers. The landed Orders would, for obvious reasons, maintain their ground longer: and even a sincere Protestant, who detests the fables of Monachism, and the spirit of

44 One reason why it is supposed that S. Paulo will be the seat of the projected University in Brazil is, that books will not be so liable to this danger there, as in any other of the great cities. A series of experiments should be instituted, to discover by what odours, or by what ingredients, either in the paper or the binding, these destructive insects may be repelled. In justice to the present King of Portugal and Brazil, I must not omit to say, that he has opened his Library to the public: it contains sixty thousand volumes.

[page] 877

CHAP. XLIV.

Popery, may be allowed, when he remembers what Europe owes to the Benedictines, to wish for their reformation, not their extinction. They are kind masters, liberal landlords, and patrons of whatever art exists in their vicinity; and when literature shall be encouraged by the Government, as assuredly it will be, the Benedictines in Brazil may be expected to emulate their brethren in other countries, and to become themselves examples to their countrymen.

There was no class of men who stood higher in public estimation than the secular clergy; .. none, who possessed the same power of influencing the people, nor the same desire of doing good. At the commencement of the discoveries, the tythes in all the Portugueze conquests were granted to the Crown, which took upon itself the maintenance of the Clergy, and derived little to reimburse it for that charge, till the colonies became prosperous. The arrangement is now gainful to the Crown, but it is prejudicial to the country. The full tenth is exacted by Government. A feeling prevails among the Clergy, that they are unjustly dealt with, in being subjected to a most inadequate commutation: and perhaps parishes are neither divided so soon, nor so often, as they ought to be, because the erection of every new parish becomes a charge upon the Treasury, .. a consideration which would not exist, if the Clergy derived their maintenance from the land. But it is ill policy, in every point of view, to keep them poor. No wealth, in barbarous times and countries, was ever so beneficially employed, as that of the Church; .. witness Architecture, Arts, and Letters!

The greatest restriction under which Brazil laboured, was the monopoly of its trade, which the Mother Country Claimed and enforced so rigidly. That evil necessarily ceased upon the removal of the Court; and other evils will cease also. The press has been introduced: some errors of the old policy have been

[page] 878

CHAP. XLIV.

perceived, and others will not long survive them. The grievances of the people may easily be remedied; the abolition of slavery will follow the abolition of the slave trade; the remaining savages will soon be civilized; and Indians, Negroes, and Portugueze, be gradually blended into one people, having for their inheritance one of the finest portions of the earth. Fair prospects, and glorious ones, are before them, if they escape the curse of Revolution, which would destroy the happiness of the whole existing generation, bring on anarchy and civil war, and end in dividing the country into a number of petty and hostile states, who would have ages of bloodshed and misery to undergo, before they could recover from the state of barbarism into which they would be plunged. The Government must be blind indeed, if it does not pursue that generous system of true policy, by which, and by which alone, this curse may surely be averted. There will yet remain the evil of an idolatrous and corrupt religion; necessarily intolerant, because of its claims to infallibility; necessarily hostile to improvement, because of its intolerance; and necessarily injurious to morals, because of the practice of confession, and the celibacy which it has imposed upon its Clergy;.. a religion, which by its abuses provokes enquiring minds to infidelity and atheism, while it nurses up the ignorant in the grossest superstition. But even this evil, great and inveterate as it is, is not hopeless: the influence of Rome can never be felt in Brazil, as it has been in Portugal; the Inquisition has never been established there to draw down divine vengeance upon the land; and perhaps there is no part of the world in which that temperate reformation, which pious and judicious Catholics in all ages have desired, is so likely to begin:.. a reformation which might lead to the reform of Catholic Christendom, and render that reunion of the Church, which is so greatly to be wished, no longer an impossible project, and a vain desire. God, in his mercy, prepare the Brazilians for

[page] 879

CHAP. XLIV.

this happy change; and grant, that order, freedom, knowledge, and true piety, may be established among them, and flourish through all generations.

Thus have I accomplished one of those great undertakings, which, in mature manhood, I proposed to myself as the objects of a life devoted to literature in its highest and worthiest pursuits. How carefully it has been composed, and with what long and diligent research, the judicious reader may perceive: the most censorious one will not be so sensible of its inevitable imperfections as I myself. But if the value of an historical work be in proportion to the store of facts which it has first embodied, to the fidelity with which they are recorded, and to the addition which thereby is made to the stores of general knowledge, then may I affirm of the present History, imperfect as it is, that in these respects it has not often been equalled, and will not easily be surpassed. Popular it cannot be, because of the remoteness of the subject, and the extent of the work; fit audience however I know that it will find; and I deliver it to the world with proper indifference as to its immediate reception, in full reliance upon the approbation of those persons for whom it has been written, and of those ages to which it is bequeathed.

Keswick, June 23d, 1819.

FINIS.

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NOTES.

VOL. III. 5 U

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NOTES.

1. Harcourt, p. 11.] Robert Harcourt, of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, Sir Thomas Challener, and John Rowenzon, obtained letters patent from James I. to settle all the lands between the rivers Dessequebe, (Essequebo) and Amazons. Harcourt printed a relation of his Voyage in 1613, which is reprinted in the Harleian Collection, and is in every respect highly creditable to him. No adventurer of that age seems to have conducted himself so wisely and humanely. It is dedicated to Prince Charles, the author saying, "for as much as that part of the world which we now call America was heretofore in the year of our Lord 1170, discovered, conquered, and possessed, by Madoc, one of the sons of Owen Gwyneth, Prince of North Wales: I therefore in all humble reverence present the prosecution of this high action unto your gracious patronage, principally belonging of right unto you, being the honourable, true, and worthy successor to the principality of Wales."

Hārleian Miscellany, 8vo. edition, vol. 3, p. 170.

It was Harcourt's intent, "if God spared him, to make a perfect discovery of the famous river of Amazons, and of its several branches, and countries bordering upon it. He took out with him two Indians who had been in England some years, and were natives of Guiana, and he found one in the bay of Wiapoc who spoke our language well, having lived many years with Sir John Gilbert. Capt. Charles Lee had before taken possession of this country for England, and was buried at Wiapoc.

One of the vessels in which Harcourt carried out his colony to Guiana (1608,) was a shallop of only nine tons, carrying four men! His other vessels were a pinnace of six and thirty tons, and a ship of fourscore.

Harl. Misc. 8vo. v. 3, 176.

2. Clipt Money, p. 22.] Antonio Luiz says in his memorial, that in the city of Bahia alone the quantity of clipt money, when it was cried down, amounted to 900,000 cruzados; and this loss came upon the people at a time when by reason of bad years, bad seasons, and epidemics, the mortality among negroes, oxen, and horses, had been greater than could be told. He says, that when the money in Brazil past for more than its intrinsic value, all remittances were made to Portugal either in produce or in bills; but that the evil lay in having altered the current to the intrinsic value, at the rate of one testam for each outava of silver, as it was in Portugal. Immediately it was exported. Sugar hardly brought the price in Portugal which it cost in Brazil; and the merchant consequently preferred a return in specie: for although upon every mark of silver which was worth 6400 reis, he lost 400 at the mint, this was better than

[page] 884

paying duties upon produce, and taking the chances of slow sale and uncertain payment. In the year 1691, 80,000 cruzados had been sent from Bahia to Porto, .. a fact whereby it might be judged how enormous a sum went to Lisbon; and in the ensuing year, when the memorial was written, the drain was much greater. The scarcity of money, this Governor affirms, had occasioned an increase of price in all articles; copper, which used to be 240 reis per pound, was now from 360 to 400: iron, which had been three milreis the quintal, was now from four to five; and breu (the composition with which ships are payed) had risen from two milreis to between five and six: chests from 800 to 1200 reis; the tarefa of wood from 2000 to 2500; negroes from 50 to 60 milreis. For want of specie no person could rent the duties. Those on sugar were instanced, as perhaps the most important: here the contractor immediately stood in need of ten thousand cruzados for propinas, (gifts, or fees,) as many more for expences, and two thirds of the whole sum for which he rented them, to make his quarterly payments. This contract had fallen from 120,000 cruzados to 80,000.

The Governor recommended that the new coin should bear an increase of twenty per cent. upon its intrinsic value, fifteen of which should be for the owner of the bullion, and five for the expence of coinage. He advised that a million of cruzados should be coined for Bahia, 600,000 for Pernambuco, and 400,000 for the Rio: and he recommended that there should be silver pieces of 5 outavas, to pass for 600 reis, of 2½, to pass for 300, of 2, 1, and ½, at the proportionate rates of 240, 120, and 60. He advised also, that 40,000 cruzados should be issued in small money, of half testoens, 2 vintens and one vintem, in the proportion of 15,000 for Bahia, 9000 For Pernambuco, and 6000 for Rio de Janeiro: the remaining 10,000 to be in copper coin; 5000 for Bahia, 3000 for Pernambuco, and 2000 for the Rio. The want of small money, he said, was such, that the person who wished to purchase only ten reis worth, or at most a vintem's, of the commonest garden stuff, was compelled to buy two vintens' worth; and people must give two vintens to a poor mendicant in the street, or let him pass, as they more frequently did, without giving him alms. In support of this memorial, he observed, that the privilege which was now so necessary for Brazil, had always been enjoyed in India.

The Duque de Cadaval, in giving this memorial his approbation, says, tenho esta materia por muito grave e arriscada, e falando somente com Vossa Majestade, temo muito a dezesperaçam da gente da Bahia, muito cobiçoza e altiva, por huma inveterada natureza.

Copyador. MS. T. 9, ff. 201—207.

There appears a remarkable discordance between the statements of Antonio Luiz and Rocha Pitta. The latter satisfactorily accounts for the disappearance of the coin, by the fact, that it was intrinsically worth much more than it past for; the former refers to a time when it past for more than it was worth. I can explain this in no other way than by supposing that Antonio Luiz means the coin in its clipt state: for though no writer was ever entitled to less credit, either on the score of industry or judgement, than Rocha Pitta, on this subject he is likely to be well informed, having been nephew and heir to the person under whose direction the mint was placed.

3. Death of Vieyra. p. 34.] At the very hour and point of the night in which he expired, Heaven kindled up a new Star, or luminous torch, which was seen over the College, and observed by those without, .. a portentous sign and divine proclamation of the merits of the immortal Vieyra, (as had been displayed at the death of St. Thomas, the Angel of the Schools,) if indeed it was not his soul itself, which, giving forth a greater light at its departure, showed itself to be of the number of those who, because they have illuminated many, are to shine to perpetual eternities.

Vida do Antonio Vieyra pelo P. Andre de Barros.

4. Exequies performed for Vieyra at Lisbon. p. 34.] But here a rare event calls us, which appears a mystery of particular Providence. When our Count resolved to make such magnificent, exequies for the soul of the great Vieyra, he was dissuaded by many of his friends because of the great expence. But he resisted their arguments, carrying onward his own high ideas, in executing which he spent seven thousand Crusados. It happened then, that this most famous Count not being inclined to gaming, either because he was challenged to it, or to relax his mind from his continued studies, one day a little after the exequies were made, he took that diversion with a certain Fidalgo; and fortune was so propitious, that he gained exactly as much as he had expend-

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ed in that pious solemnity. He wished to repeat the game; but seeing that fortune changed, he stopped victoriously. Thus the Count himself related it with grateful acknowledgements; and in this manner the soul of the great Vieyra corresponded with him from Heaven.

Andre de Barros.

5. The golden age of Brazil arrived, p. 40.] Rocha Pitta has a remark upon the discovery of the mines, which he must have heard from some other person, being too sterile a writer to have brought forth so whimsical a conceit himself. The Sun, he says, engendered in the earth of Brazil a profuse plenty of gold, which nature hid there an immeasurable time, to produce a numerous and most fruitful birth at the end of the seventeenth century of our redemption and in the fifty-eighth from the creation of the world, tho' the creation of this precious metal may perhaps be older than that of the human race; for as it is an operation of the Prince of the Planets, which God created on the fourth day, the Sun might have immediately produced its effects two days before the sixth day, upon which the Lord made man. L. 8, § 58.

6. Depopulation of the Spanish Indies, p. 52.] The Indians in the Viceroyalty of Peru, do not at present amount to 700,000. In 1551. they were numbered at 8,255,000. The Viceroyalties of Santa Fe and Buenos Ayres were included in that numeration; still the depopulation has been dreadful. The diocese of Mexico contained, in 1600, 500,000 tributary Indians: in 1741 there remained only 119, 611. And the depopulation has been equal in every other district. The mines are admitted to be the main cause of this destruction; and where the tyranny of the Spaniards has not reached, the small pox, which they introduced, has found its way.

Mercurio Peruano. Abril 14, 1791. T. 1. ff. 274.

7. Emboabas, p. 74.] Cazal (1. 235) explains this word. It is the name of a bird whose legs are feathered down to the toes; and the Indians of S. Paulo applied it to the Portugueze, because they wore a covering for their feet and legs.

8. Ceremony of creating a town. p. 86.] The following full description of the ceremonies observed by the Spaniards when they founded a city in the New World, is translated from the Milicia Indiana, of Capt. Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, (Madrid, 1599,) one of the most interesting and valuable books respecting the conquest of Spanish America.

"In the middle of the largest piece of plain ground he shall order a large pit to be dug, having ready a large trunk of a tree, so long that after as much as is sufficient has been put in the ground it will be an estado and a half, or two estados above it, the which the Caciques and lords themselves without the help of any other Indians shall lift up, jointly with some Spaniards, our Captain placing his hands also on it, in order that that settlement may legally be made, having made his speech; the which post they shall put in the pit, and immediately they shall beat it down leaving it erect, and very firm; and making the people stand off, the Captain shall take a knife which for the purpose he shall have ready, and shall stick it in the post, and turning himself to all the Camp he shall say, Knights, Soldiers, and Companions, and you who are present, here I place a gallows and a knife. I found and establish the City of Seville (or whatever else it may be named) the which God preserve for many years (with a reservation of removing it, should it be found necessary to some more convenient spot) the which I people in the name of his Majesty, and in his royal name I will defend and maintain in peace and justice all Spaniards, conquerors, settlers and inhabitants, and strangers and all the natives; defending and doing as much justice to the poor as to the rich, and to the little as to the great, protecting the widows and the orphans. And immediately being armed with all his arms (as he should be for the occasion) he shall place his hand on his sword, and making a very wide space between the people he shall say rushing towards them with anger, Knights, now I have founded the City of Seville in the name of his Majesty, if there is any person who pretends to contradict it let him come with me to the field, where he may fight upon this quarrel, because in its defence I offer to die now or at any other time, defending it for the King my lord as his Captain, servant and vassal, and as a knight and hidalgo (which altho' such a Captain should not be by blood, he is by the privilige granted to such conquerors); the which he shall say three times, and all shall say and shall answer each time that he makes the Challenge, The city is well founded; long live the King our lord! and by interpreters he shall give it thus to be understood to the lords of the land. And in sign of possession he shall cut

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with his sword plants and grass of the same ground, informing the people present why he does this, and saying he makes it subject to such an Audience or to such a Government; or if it is made a capital: and with this he shall sheath his sword. And immediately he shall have a cross planted, which he shall have ready made at a corner of the plaza, which shall be at the part that already he shall have chosen for the church, the which the priest in his vestments shall plant, and at the foot of it he shall make an altar, and say Mass, all the soldiers assisting with all devotion and solemnity, for the example of the natives and to move their hearts; and making many salutes with the harquebusses, and celebrating this day with trumpets and drums. And the priest shall give the advocation of the church, jointly with the Captain. And mass being finished, our Captain shall draw out a list which he shall already have made of the election, without that any one should interfere in it to avoid scandals, envies, and parties: in the which he shall have named the officers of the Cabildo, conformable to the city if it should be a capital, or if it should be a suffragan, and as soon as he enters in the land he shall have named a secretary of the expedition before a Royal notary, to whom he shall give the list of election signed with his name, and he shall make him sign it in the presence of all; and immediately he shall take it, and having all his people and his Camp in a circle, he shall give the wands of justice to those whom he has chosen, the which election he shall make with the consideration that the people shall remain chosen for two years onward; and the first Tercio that shall be elected shall be in the persons of most weight, as being the first election. And with this account he shall call the two Alcaldes ordinarios, to whom in the name of his Majesty he shall deliver the wands of justice, giving it to the most ancient or the most noble first for priority, from whom he shall receive the oath with all solemnity, that they will discharge faithfully their offices, and that they will maintain in peace and justice that city, in the name of their Prince, the which they shall swear with due reverence; and our Captain shall go on calling the Regidores, Alguazil Mayor, Alcaldes de la Hermandad, and the Procurador general and the Mayordomos of the holy church and city, and the other officers whom it shall appear suitable to appoint, taking from them also the ordinary oath: and this being finished, the whole Cabildo shall retire to a place appointed, where they shall name and shall receive the notary as a public notary and as the notary of the Cabildo, the which shall have ready a book of the Cabildo, and shall enter in it, with the day, month, and year, the act of the foundation, declaring the limits of the jurisdiction, and to what Audience and district it is subject, or if it is a capital, or if it is a suffragan; extending the jurisdiction without prejudice: and after the said act he shall make an act also of the legal officers and of the Cabildo chosen by our Captain, and signed by him, and next his own appointment, and so on in order as affairs shall occur in the said Cabildo, our Captain being received as Captain and Justicia Mayor; and he shall give the ordinary sureties, and afterwards he shall receive his Lieutenant with the like sureties.

"And this being finished, immediately he shall make a proclamation, that all the soldiers and conquerors who wish to be inhabitants of the said city shall come to the Cabildo to sign the act of vicinage (el auto de la vezindad) and to make their oaths of sustaining the vicinage of the same city, from which they are bound not to depart without licence of the Justicia, protecting it and defending it in the name of their Prince. And when this is done, if it should be necessary, our Captain shall name Royal Officers until the King shall provide them. And this being finished, he shall make a proclamation, that all the settlers, people present, and inhabitants, shall make their tents and huts within the plaza, for that they may not disturb the laying out of the streets and of the town; and for security they shall make in the middle of the plaza the guard-house, where the soldiers shall collect themselves, and place their centinels, and guard the prisoners, measuring out the plaza in a right quadrangle, conformable to the disposition of the land, rough or plain, hot or cold, savannah or woody.

"And because this is at the election of our Captain, as who shall have the circumstances present, he shall see if it should be suitable to have the plaza narrow or wide, for its defence, and proportions; from the which plaza there shall go out eight level and straight streets, leaving an angle between two streets looking to the centre, middle, and point of the plaza; and the rest of the streets shall be made conformable to the quadra or square. The measure most common and in good proportion for each quadra is in front and breadth two hundred feet, and in length two hundred and fifty, and the streets at the mouth, twenty five feet, the which our Captain shall de-

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termine. And immediately that the plaza and quadras, solares or ground plots, and streets, have been measured out rightly, our Captain shall take a register, the original of which shall be placed in the book of the Cabildo, with attestations, and by it he shall allot the solares in such a manner that in the plaza in the highest part he shall appoint four solares in the front of a quadra for the great church, and the second solar at the back part, in the street, for the Curate and Chaplain, and in the remaining ground, in the front of the plaza, he shall appoint the houses of the Cabildo, and in the fourth he shall make the prison. After this they shall appoint six solares which shall remain with their fronts to the plaza, our Captain taking one for himself, and giving others to his Lieutenant and to the two Alcaldes ordinarios and Alcaldes de la Hermandad, and the solares at the back to the Regidores and Alguazil Mayor, and behind them shall follow for the inhabitants, as shall appear good to our Captain, having appointed parts convenient for monasteries and hospitals. Also he shall appoint a place for shambles and a slaughtering place. This being finished, he shall take a list of the lords of the land who are at peace, and shall divide them, charging to some the business of making the church, with the Indians and Spaniards who are for overseers; and to others the houses of the Cabildo and the prison, and to others to level the plaza, streets, and salidas, or roads, and to others to prepare and sow land in the name of the Christians in community, suitable and sufficient to the people: and it must be near the place, because the Spaniards may be able to bring the grain in. And in the mean time while these four employments are done by the hands of the Indians, our Captain shall have divided soldiers in four parts, who shall not loose their arms out of their hands, because he has to remember that at such times many great disasters have happened, because as they all go promiscuously and without arms, busied in the needful employments, and as the Indians will necessarily be joined and collected from all the land, at the least carelessness they will fall upon them, because they have inventions to conceal their arms; I have found them hid between the straw which they bring to roof the houses. And that they may be provided with some fortress before they begin these works, round the body of the guard they shall make a strong paling, of which they may avail themselves in any necessity. This being finished, they shall build the houses of the inhabitants, taking care that they give no more than one solar to each, because each quadra should be occupied by four inhabitants, which our Captain shall so design as that all four communicate within by false doors, or sally-ports, because if any alarm or disturbance happen by night, they can collect themselves to go out in greater strength, to seek the body of the guard, which ought to take care in such a time not to go out by any of the four gates, but leaping the wall and making a passage, because of the risk there would be in going out at the gates; and in order not to run this risk our Captain, besides the ordinary centinels, shall appoint patroles; and this shall last until the inhabitants have compleated their houses, which they shall make as strong as they can, and if they have nailing for wood work, they shall begin immediately to make them of mud, and in whatever manner they may make them, they shall apportion Indians with their Cazique or Captain to aid them; and in the mean time he shall take care that the Spaniards should not disperse themselves through the land, and if they go out necessarily they shall go out in parties under a Captain.

"And the settlement being now made and placed in order, and the church being erected, the Priest shall take possession of it in the name of the Bishoprick or Archbishoprick to which it is ascribed or to which they are nearest. Of all which the Captain shall dispatch writings to the Governor or Audience by whose authority he shall have peopled it, that the Prince may be advised thereof; and the same the Curate shall make to his bishop; and immediately he shall treat to send parties of soldiers to scour the land under a Captain, with guides and interpreters; and the Priest shall go with them to go taking possession of his church and doctrinas through the provinces, placing his crosses, saying his Mass, and baptising the lords and principal people who ask for the water of holy baptism; having his book to register them, with the day, month, and year, and the province, requiring a testimony of this from the notary, who for this effect Shall go, appointed by the Cabildo. And the Captain shall go taking possession of the province, and he shall take an account of the Caciques and lords who commanded the land at the time that the Spaniards entered: making a description and account of the Indians, with a relation of their rites, laws, and the manner of living of the Caciques, and the quality and situation of each one,

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and of the rivers and fish and game, and of the metals, mines, and notable things which they shall meet and discover, taking an interpreter from all the borders which they shall discover, and having particular care to examine the land in ravines and rivers, with clay and a washing trough, because if it is a land of gold the Indians may not seek to conceal it; and with artifices and gifts he shall procure to know all the capabilities and secrets of the land, as well in spices as in other things which time may bring to light, for by negligence years have passed before the people have enjoyed them in some parts."

Milicia Indiana. ff. 105, 110.

9. The English prepared to blockade Brest, p. 115.] The English, however, were at first greatly at a loss to divine the object of this expedition. Bolingbroke says, writing to his Amsterdam Correspondent, May 11, ldquo;is it impossible to penetrate the real design of Du Guay's equipment? Some intelligence we have, says his ships are victualled for eight months." This intelligence probably explained the problem. June 22, he says, "the French fleet is gone at last from West France; and I believe, as you do, to Brazil. That enterprize may very probably succeed, which it is by no means, our interest that it should; but we have too many irons in the fire to take care of every part of both worlds. The supposition of some people, that M. Du Guay was to follow Rear Admiral Walker, I do not look upon to be probable, since the destination of our squadron has been kept very secret; and since that of the enemy is fitted out at the charge of private persons, who are to look for profit and not for dry blows."

Bolingbroke's Correspondence vol. 1, p. 221. 257.

10. Contribution raised by the French at the Rio, p. 122.] The apportionment of the contribution is thus stated in the Patriota of Oct. 1813, p. 59.

	reis.
A Fazenda Real	67,697,344
A Casa da Moeda	110,077,600
O Cofre da Bulla	3,484,660
O Cofre dos Ausentes	6,372,880
O Cofre dos Orfaons	9,733,220
Francisco de Castro de Moraes	10,387,820
Lourenço Antunes Vianna	6,784,320
Francisco de Seixas da Fonceca	10,616,440
Rodrigo de Freitas	1,166,980
Braz Fernandes Rola	6,062,080
Paulo Pinto	3,031,040
Francisco da Rocha	1,356,000
Antonio Francisco Lustoza	859,600
Thomé Farinha de Carvalho	785,600
Os Padres da Companhia	4,866,000
O Prior de S. Bento	1,575,680
Christovam Rodrigues	1,643,200

11. The French unwilling to give up their pretensions upon the Orellana, p. 132.] Louis XIV. himself spoke upon this point to the Duke of Shrewsbury, saying that justice was not done him. "I have reason to believe, from the accounts that have come to my hands, of what has passed at Utrecht, that the demand made from Portugal will go very hardly down at the French Court; and yet, surely there was nothing more reasonable for France to consent to, than what the Queen proposes. Portugal was entitled to demand a considerable barrier, and whatever contempt the French Ministers may think fit to treat the Portugueze with, yet they ought to pay respect to this pretention; and since it was become her Majesty's pretention, by the engagement she entered into when she made the Treaty of 1703; this barrier is at once given up, and in lieu thereof, a promissory security only is demanded of France and Spain. Now, since the Portugueze do consent to accept of this security, in lieu of that which they had stipulated for themselves; and since the Queen's honour is concerned, not to oblige them to part with one, without making the other effectual to them; it is to be considered, that in Europe no attempt can be made upon this nation, which the crown of Great Britain will not be almost as much at hand to oppose, as France or Spain can be to carry it on; but in Brazil the case is not the same. The French have there slided themselves into the neighbourhood of the Portugueze; they are every day starting new pretentions, and making new encroachments upon them; the Queen is at a distance, and those feeble ill governed colonies may be overrun, before the news of their being attacked will arrive in London Nothing, therefore, can be more just, than for the Queen to expect that in consideration of what she yields, for that expression may be properly used in Europe, France should yield something in America. Farther, the navigation of the Amazones, cannot but give umbrage even to the Spaniard. Whoever is informed of the

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freshest accounts which have come from those parts, and of the latest discoveries which have been made, will easily perceive what reasons the Spaniards must have for apprehensions. In short, my Lord, the source of the river must belong to the Spaniards, the mouth of it to the Portugueze, and neither the French nor the English, nor any other nation, must have an avenue open into that country. I am almost ashamed to have used so many words upon this subject, when I consider that I am arguing against an advantage purely national, when I am not proving that the French ought to give up what they have had an actual possession of; but am barely desiring them to forego that, which they never enjoyed but in idea.

Bolingbroke's Letters, vol. 3, p. 435.

12. In trade language, Indian pieces, that is to say, negro slaves, p. 135.] "By Pieza de Indias, is meant a Negro from fifteen to twenty-five years old; from eight to fifteen, and from twenty-five to thirty-five, three pass for two; beneath eight, and from thirty-five to forty-five, two pass for one; sucking infants follow their mothers without accompt; all above forty-five years, with the diseased, are valued by arbiters."

Sir Wm. Godolphin, to Mr. Secretary Coventry, May 15, 1678.

13. England would not offend the Spaniards, note 138.] The Conde de Tarouca was confirmed in this opinion, because the Bishop of Bristol made no reply to him when he urged as a reason why England was interested in obtaining the restitution of Nova Colonia, and the north bank of the Plata, that if the English were ever to establish themselves in Buenos Ayres, they would find the advantage of having an ally there against the common enemy. In the manuscript which I possess of this old diplomatic correspondence, there is opposite to the passage a significant mark, with the date 1806.

14. Exclusion of foreigners from Brazil, p. 145.] Representation of Factory at Porto, in 1710. Complain of being hindered going to settle at Brazil, and apprehend those already settled will be recalled, which occasions the lessening the transportation of British commodities to those parts. Walpole Papers.

1714. Through the connivance of the Governors the French trade to Brazil. Almost every French ship that goes to the South Seas trades there, either going out or coming home. Do.

2 Aug. 1715. M. de Mendonza me vient de dire aujourd-hui, que l'Ambassadeur de France lui avoit dit dans une conference, qu'il avoit eu avec luy sur le commerce du Brazil, que le Roy son maitre ne desiroit autre avantage que ce que les Anglois et les Hollandois jouissoient; c'est a dire, d'avoir quatre familles dans les ports de Bahia, du Rio de Janeiro, et de Pernambuco; et que si le Roy de la Grande Bretagne, et les Hollandois vouloient convenir de rapeller les dites familles, le Roy son maitre feroit revenir le Consul, et Marchands François, qui y avoient été envoyés par la derniere flotte, et que pour l'avenir aucune nation y trafiqueroit, si non pour les Marchand Portugais. Qu'il ecrivoit la dessus a M. Brochado, et me prioit de communiquer le meme a ma Cour, dans une lettre particuliere; et en attendant la reponse, il entretiendroit l'Ambassadeur de France sur la permission qu'il avoit solicité d'envoyer quatre familles demeurer dans les dits ports, comme nous avons.

Je n'ai pas raisonné avec lui sur ce point, disant seulement, que je le communiquerois a vous, comme il avoit desiré; et que si un tel traité fut religieusement observé de part et d'autre, notre commerce ne souffriroit plus que celui des autres nations; mais insinuant en meme tems, que si la France se prevalut de notre bonne foi, et continuat de trafiquer au Brazil, comme elle a fait jusqu'a present au Peru, nous seulement serious les dupes, notre bonne foi deviendroit notre ruine, dont nous avons des exemples tous les jours.

Outre ce que j'ai dit a M. de Mendonza, permittes moi de vous dire, que la meme raison qu' oblige l'Espagne de conniver au commerce des François dans la Mer du Sud, seroit une raison plus forte icy (c'est a dire, la peur). De plus en retirant les quatre families, a qui peuvent nos Marchands consigner leur Marchandises au Brazil? lea Marchands Portugais sont pauvres, et d'une telle bonne foi, particulierement ceux du Brazil, qu'aucun Anglois n'ose se fler a eux. Ce privilege que nous avons dans le Brazil, est un avantage que l'Espagne ne nous a jamais voulu accorder dans la Mer du. Sud.

Mr. Worsley to Mr. Secretary Stanhope. Walpole Papers.

The Duke of Newcastle says, in a dispatch to the British Minister at Lisbon (29 March, 1726). "His Majesty very much commends your caution in the application you made in behalf of the merchants who had been defrauded by a Portugueze, not to say anything that should seem to give up our right of sending ships to

VOL. III 5 X

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Brazil. And it was, however, very lucky that the complainants found a way of sending forward the order you had obtained for them, without bringing on a fresh dispute upon this occasion. Walpole Papers.

15. Jesuits and Paulistas, p. 146.] The Jesuits, who might have spoken sufficiently ill of their old enemies the Paulistas, if they had confined themselves to the strict truth, continued to repeat the silliest and most outrageous calumnies against them to the last. Lozano, writing in 1745, says, that not only outlaws from Spain and Portugal flocked to that infamous settlement, but also Dutch, English, German, and French Heretics, and that there were many Jews there; and that all the numerous Jews and Heretics who were convicted and punished by the Inquisition at Lima, confessed they had entered by the Port of S. Paulo in Brazil! He even adds, that the Inquisitors of that city, in the hope of checking so great an evil, sent a Commissary to S. Paulo to publish their edicts, and arrest those persons who were denounced: but this most righteous vigilance, as he calls it, was frustrated, because S. Paulo being a Portugueze settlement, was not within the jurisdiction of a Spanish Inquisition. … As if the Inquisitor at Lima could have been ignorant of this! This Commissary, he adds, was obliged to content himself with stationing a Familiar in the Reductions, to see that no suspicious persons entered Paraguay in that direction.

Hist. de la Comp. en Paraguay. 6. 15, § 25.

16. A sort of leprosy covering the body with scales, p. 180.] A friend, to whose sound judgement this work has frequently been beholden during its progress through the press, reminds me that the libertine drinkers of ava, in the South Sea Islands, are covered with such a leprosy; and suggests that the disease of the Manicicas may proceed from the same cause.

Ava, or Kava, the liquor is called by the South Sea Islanders. It is remarkable, that a beverage made by the same filthy process should be called by the same name (Kawau, or Kawi) in Chili and in Brazil; and among the Manicicas it appears to produce the same disease. I believe, though the preparation was the same, the roots were different; is then the disease produced by the saliva, .. by the secretions of one human body taken into the system of another? The transfusion of healthy blood, and the transplantation of a sound tooth, have produced fatal consequences. These cases, indeed, are not strictly analogous; and in the Kava, fermentation has previously taken place.

Harcourt describes a Carib Indian of Guiana, as having a rough skin, like unto buff leather, .. "of which kind there are many in those parts, and I suppose proceedeth of some infirmity of the body." P. 201.

17. A decoction of roasted maize. p. 190.] This was as good a substitute for coffee as any which was devised upon the continent during Buonaparte's tyranny. The tribes by whom it was used were the Paunapas, Unapes, and Carababas, pueblos sobre manera salvages, de poco animo, y cobardes. They had the same superstition as the Manacicas, but differed from them in language and in manners. As the fact concerning their beverage is curious, I annex the original passage. When Cavallero came among them they promised to receive his religion, "con tal, que solo les permitiesse la chicha, bebida ordinaria sua, porquē el ague les causaba dolores agudos de estomagō. Es esta gente muy dada al trabajo, porque no tienen otro Dios à quien mas estimen que sus campos y sembrados, y tienen en poco al demonio, y solo le estiman, en quanto se persuaden les esta bien a sus interesses. No usan ir a cazar à los bosques, ni ir à coger miel, y solamente se apartan de sus casas aquel espacio de tierra, que les puede durar un frasco de aquel su vino, que es su unica provision, y matolage en los caminos. No tuvo el Padre, Lucas mucha dificultad en permitirles el uso de aquella bebida, porque no causaba en ellos embriaguez, unico motivo para desterrarla de las otros Reducciones. Tuestan el maiz hasta que se haze carbon, y despues bien pisado ò molido, le ponen à cocer en unas grandes calderas, o paylas de barro, y aquella agua negra y sucia que sacan, es toda la composicion de la chicha, de que ellos gustan tanto, que gastan buena parte del dia en brindis.

P. Juan Patricio Fernandez. Relacion Historial de las Missiones de los Chiquitos. pp. 297-8.

The Indians of New England used a similar mixture, for their expeditions. "Parched meal, (says good old Roger Williams,) is a ready very wholesome food, which they eat with a little water, hot or cold. I have travelled with near two hundred of them at once, near one hundred miles through the woods, every man carrying a little basket of this at his back, and sometimes in a hollow leather girdle about his middle,

[page] 891

sufficient for a man three or four days; .. with a spoonful of this meal, and a spoonful of water from the brook, have I made many a good dinner and supper." P. 11.

The hunters in the Isle of Bourbon take nothing but coffee with them, when they go into the woods. And we learn from Bruce that the Galla are enabled to perform their extraordinary expeditions, by taking no other food than a few small balls, or pellets, of coffee and butter. As this tonic property seems to be found in maize, as well as in coffee, it appears to belong less to the seed than to the manner of preparation; .. it is for chemists to enquire how the action of fire produces it.

18. Rio Bermejo, p. 196.] Don Juan Adrian Fernandez Cornejo sailed down the Rio Bermejo into the Paraguay, in the year 1790, .. being the first person who attempted this route. He embarked at the confluence of the R. Bermejo and the Ceuta, and reached the Paraguay in forty-four days, having descended the stream three hundred and eighty-two leagues without meeting any difficulty.

Merc. Peruano, T. 2, c. 42.

19. Depreciation of Diamonds, p. 275.] When Emeralds were first discovered in America, a Spaniard carried one to a lapidary in Italy, and asked him what it was worth; he was told a hundred escudos: he produced a second, which was larger, and that was valued at three hundred. Overjoyed at this, he took the lapidary to his lodging, and shewed him a chest full; .. but the Italian seeing so many, damped his joy by saying, These, Señor, are worth an escudo.

Acosta, 4. 14.

A very large quantity of diamonds, which were sent from Lisbon about this time, were seized at Falmouth. The representation on behalf of the merchants, which was made by the British Ambassador Lord Tyrawley to the duke of Newcastle, contains some curious particulars concerning the trade in diamonds.

"They put this affair under two heads, first as a point of Law, Secondly as a point of Trade; As to the first, as I believe no body here has read the Act of Parliament concerning the importation of Diamonds, I cannot tell how it is possible to form any true judgment upon this seizure. The chief persons concerned in those Diamonds declare, they have no apprehension of a loss, insisting that it has always been customary to send them in that manner, and that they could not be seized in the Mail. They farther say, that it is publicly known that the Diamond Trade is, and has ever been carried on throughout Europe by the Post, being sent in that manner from one place to another, and backwards and forwards as there was a demand for them, and notwithstanding an Act of Parliament by which a duty has been laid on them in England, the same method of importing and exporting them has been continued in an open and public manner at the General Post-House in London, and no seizure has ever been made before. Those that receive them at the Post Office in London paid the common postage of the packet, by weight, besides one per cent. upon a favourable valuation, without shewing them; and when delivered at the Post House to be sent abroad, there is one guinea paid for each packet, for the registring the same, and postage when it is due. Now as our common Law in England is as much founded upon Customs and Precedents, as upon Statutes and Acts of Parliament, and in some cases Customs prevail; for I make no doubt there are some Laws which have never been repealed, that are entirely abrogated by a constant practise against them: Therefore it seems to them, that if this method of importing Diamonds can be proved (as they affirm it may), to have been always openly practised, and authorised at the Post House, those that were in the Mail at Falmouth, however regularly the Custom House Officers may have made their seizure according to the letter of the Laws, cannot be condemned, but only are liable to the Duty upon them; since, as well those who sent them from Lisbon, in that manner, as those to whom they were consigned in London, acted by precedents, upon the public faith of the Post House, and according to a custom practised time out of mind.

"As to the point of trade, they alledge that even the laying any Duty upon the importation of rough Diamonds is destructive to it, since the greater quantity of rough Diamonds are imported, the greater the benefit is to the nation; and that the Duty upon them with the penalty of confiscation, if not taken off very soon, will turn that rich channel out of ours into our neighbours country, and give them the advantage which we now have in that trade over all the rest of Europe.

"As Diamonds are worn and have a real value in all Europe, as well as in most other parts of

[page] 892

the world, and must be cut and polished before they are fit to be worn, of consequence, that country where the most Diamond Cutters are settled, and where the Fair or Market is kept for that commodity, from whence the rest of Europe must be supplied, must have a considerable gain.

"When Diamonds were only found in the East Indies, the settlement which our country has at Fort St. George had almost brought the whole Diamond Trade into the hands of the English, so that London, within these thirty Years, is become the first Market for them in Europe; and upon that account, the best Diamond Cutters having come over and settled there, it has also been for a long time the place where Diamonds, but especially Brilliants, are cut in the greatest perfection.

"The discovery of the Diamonds in the Mines of the Brazils, has put a stop for the present to that trade from the East Indies, tho' not to the London Market, on account of the advantage which England has over its neighbours in the Trade with Lisbon with the packets, men of war, and merchant ships, which are constantly going backwards and forwards between the two countries; so that the much greater part of the Diamonds that come from the Brazils have hitherto gone to London, from whence they are distributed to the rest of Europe. But should the seizure at Falmouth prove a loss, or should the Duty remain on Diamonds in England, it is very natural to suppose, that Merchants will trade to those places where they can do it with most safety and advantage. I am told they cut and polish Diamonds very well in Amsterdam; great quantities, especially of small ones, are cut in Antwerp. In Paris they cut Brilliants very well; there are also Diamond Cutters in Venice and in Hamburg; and in none of those places, I am informed, do the Diamonds pay any duty or run any risk of confiscation. And particularly Amsterdam seems to stand the fairest to rob us of that Trade, if any hardships are laid upon it in England, as being better situated by far than London to circulate them through the rest of Europe.

"The price of cutting and polishing of Diamonds, I find they allow to be at 20 shillings a caret, one with another, which our calculators here make amount to the sum of seventy-five thousand pounds a year. Was this the only profit, I should think it not to be despised; but there is besides, the freight, commissions, brokerages, and the gains that are made upon what is sold in London, both rough and cut, for foreign parts; all this is real profit to England, and is considerably encreasing every day, since the finding out the new Mines in the Brazils."

20. Cuyaba, p. 360.] The first couple of cats which were carried to Cuyaba, sold for a pound of gold; .. there was a plague of rats in the settlement, and they were purchased as a speculation, which proved an excellent one. Their first kittens produced thirty oitavas each; the next generation were worth twenty; and the price gradually fell, as the inhabitants were stocked with these beautiful and useful creatures. (Corografia Brazilica. 1. 258.)

Montenegro presented to the elder Almagro the first cat which was brought to South America, and was rewarded for it with six hundred pesos. (Herrera. 5. 7. 9) The story of Whittington's Cat, perhaps, is not a mere nursery tale, without any foundation.

21. A salt lake near the river Jauru, p. 361.] It is observed by Almeida Serra, that the same fish are found in this salt water as in the Paraguay. Even those fish who are not accustomed to migrate at certain seasons from the sea into the rivers, appear to derive pleasure from this change in their element. They are found to frequent those parts of the sea where there are fresh springs at the bottom.

In this part of the country, Almeida Serra says there are some wide and dry plains where there are grandes espaços circulares, fechados pela especie de palmeiras chamadas Carandas, cuyas superficies estam cobertas de alvas crostas de sal. (Patriota. T. 2. N. 2. p. 52.)

Of this tree (which bears a sweet date) Dobrizhoffer says, .. illud exploratum, palmas Caranday inter uberrimum, omnique pecori saluberrimum pabulum procreari. Aqua enim pluvia per earum ramos in terram defluens, nescio quid salsuginis contrahit, nitrumque quaquaversus generat, optimum jucundissimumque bestiis herbarum condimentum. (T. 1. 407.) In another part of his work, he says, .. nitro plures campi abundant; illi maxime quos palmæ Caranday dictæ circumsistunt. Aqua pluvia ex illarum foliis decidens per contractam ex iis salsuginem nitri videtur esse semen. (T. 1. 239.)

To the salt which is produced by and washed from these palms, and a shrub which the Spaniards call La Vidriera, he ascribes the salt-

[page] 893

ness of those lakes and streams which communicate with the river Salado, and by the predominance of their waters cause it to obtain that name. But to suppose that the soil derives its nitre from the plants, and not the plants from the soil, is a strange philosophy.

Mr. Barrow describes a similar formation of salt in the interior of the Cape Colony. "All the naked sandy patches were thinly sprinkled over with a fine white powdery substance not unlike snow: it was found in the greatest quantities where the cattle of travellers had been tied up at night; and it was observed almost invariably to surround the roots of a frutescent plant that grew here in great exuberance. I collected a quantity of this white powder, together with the sand, and by boiling the solution and evaporating the water, obtained from it chrystals of pure prismatic nitre. A small proportion of a different alkaline salt was also extracted from the liquor. The plant was a species of salsola, or salt wort, with very minute fleshy leaves closely surrounding the woody branches.

Travels in S. Africa, vol. 1, p. 91.

Adarce, in the Materia Medica of the Ancients; a saltish humour, concreting about the stalks of reeds and other vegetable matter, in form of incrustations. The Ancients speak of it as chiefly produced in Cappadocia and Galatia, though we also read of it in Italy; and also of a native kind produced in Indian reeds, much as sugar in the cane. Dr. Plot describes it in his Oxfordshire. Rees's Cyclopædia.

22. The Missions of the Spaniards from Quito, met those of the Portugueze from Para, p. 372.] I might perhaps have said from Lima also. A communication between Lima and the North Atlantic is pointed out in the account of Fr. Manuel Sobreviela's voyage, by which Para may be reached in forty-six days, and Madrid in three months.

	leagues.	days.
From Lima to Huanuco	60	8
to Playa Grande, where the Friar embarked	30	4
to the river Moyabamba	111	7
to Turimaguas	63	3
to the Pueblo de la Laguna	40	1
to Tefé, which is on the border		8
to Gran Para		15
		46

It is added, that the return may be accomplished in the same time; .. this is impossible. It is however probable, that the difficulty of ascending the stream may not be so great within the Spanish Demarcation, as in the Lower Orellana.

Merc. Peruano. T. 2, p. 243.

A subsequent notice in the same work, N. 81, states, that, large or laden boats, which sail only twelve hours in the day, will be twenty days going from Laguna to Tefé, and thrice as long in returning. The voyage back is thus stated

		days.
From Tefé	to Cáysará	1
	to Fonteboa	7
	to Maturá	8
	to S. Pablo	3
	to Yaguari	6
	to La Frontera de Tabatinga	1½
Thus far are Portugueze settlements.
	to Loreto	2
Here the Missions of the Maynas begin.
	to Camucheros	3
	to Pevas	4
	to Napeanos	5
	to Omaguas	3
	to San Negris	3½
	to Uraminas	9
	to Laguna	3
		59

From the Laguna to Quito the route is thus given:

		days.
By the river Huallaga into the Orellana, and to the mouth of the river Pastaza		4
Up the Pastaza to Puerto de Santander		1
	Pueblo de Pinches	12
	Andoas	2
One day's sail from Andoas, you leave the Pastaza and go up the Bobonaza.
	Canelos	20
From hence it is a land journey.
	Los Baños	8
	Hambato	1½
	Eacunga	1
	Quito	2
		51½

But from Quito to Laguna may be travelled in twenty-seven days.

[page] 894

23. The Calchaquis, p. 394.] Funes relates a fine story of this tribe. In the height of their struggle with the Spaniards, the inhabitants of Several hordes, who were assembled together for defence, and found themselves in danger, sent away their women and children. The boys, however, discovering the situation in which their fathers stood, determined to return and stand by them, and accordingly they left their mothers and turned back with this determination, sixty in number, the oldest not being more than fifteen. The dust which they raised alarmed the Spaniards and made them sally from their encampment and prepare for battle. This is one of the very few circumstances of American history which may be related in honour of human nature. When the Spaniards perceived who these enemies were, they caressed the brave boys, and dismissed them with presents. This conduct softened the fathers, and in consequence peace was made.

Historia de Buenos Ayres, &c. 1. 240.

24. Many women never had any name, p. 410.] Similar customs to these of the Abipones prevailed among the tribes of New England, and are thus described by Roger Williams. "Obscure and mean persons among them have no names, nullius numeri, &c. as the Lord Jesus foretells his followers that their names should be cast out, Luke 6, 22, as not worthy to be named, &c. Again, because they abhor to name the dead, Death being the King of Terrors to all natural men, and though the natives hold the soul to live for ever, yet not holding a resurrection, they die and mourn without hope. In that respect, I say, if any of their Sachims or neighbours die, who were of their names, they lay down those names as dead."

"If any man bear the name of the dead, he changeth his name; and if any stranger accidentally name him, he is checkt, and if any wilfully name him, he is fined; and among states, the naming of their dead Sachems is one ground of their wars: so terrible is the King of Terrors, Death, to all natural men." Roger Williams.

25. When an Abipone was hot, he would thrust a knife into his leg to bleed himself, p. 412.] The Guamos of the Orinoco, when they feel heated with liquor, cut their temples and foreheads to let the blood flow. Their neighbouring tribe, the Othomacos, always let themselves blood when they are heated at their sports, then plunge into the river. Gumilla. T. 1. c, 11.

26. The Portugueze regarded their allies with great contempt, p. 477.] The Dean of Cordoba frequently confesses the physical degeneracy of his countrymen, the moral causes of which, he says, are manifest. "The hardy and simple customs of our forefathers, their extreme frugality, which was satisfied with any thing, the estimation in which war was held, which was their profession, and in fine, the habit of defying death and making a sport of danger, .. all these causes are now superseded by effeminacy, luxury, intemperance, and indolence. Is it strange then that courage should cease to exist in the blood of the citizens?"

Historia de Buenos Ayres, &c. 1. 255.

The remarkable inactivity into which the Spanish Americans had degenerated during the seventeenth century, is noticed by Piedrahita, and accounted for, as he supposes, by the little reward which the Conquerors had received for their services. He says, "pero está ya en las Indias tan tibio aquel primer ardor de las armas Catholicas, que a nada se inclinan menos, que a nuevas conquistas: si la causa es el poco premio que han tenido las que las ganaron, diganlo sus descendientes, que la materia es muy peligrosa de proponer a los que no gustan de que aya servicios de la otra parte del mar, que corran con los mas cortos que desta se hazen; pues a mi solamente me basta para el assumpto reconocer quan desgraciadamente sirve, quien sirve lexos de la presencia de quien le puede premiar.

Hist. del Nuevo Reyno, L. 1, c. 2, p. 11.

The military service appears very soon to have fallen into disrepute. Before the end of the sixteenth century, old Bernardo de Vargas Machuca says, that a man who chose the army for his profession in Spanish America, was looked upon asa fool; .. El dia de oy, ya casi no ay ciudadano que no se ria del que sigue la milicia, y no solo le rien, pero aun le tienen por falto de juyzio. Milicia Indiana. ff. 11.

27. Those accursed Portugueze, p. 489.] One of the examples in the Guarani Grammar shows the feeling which was inculcated toward their Brazilian neighbours: .. "It is not enough to make ready when the Portugueze are on the point of arriving, you ought to be always on the alert." P. 166.

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28. Jesuits of the Seven Reductions, p. 500.] Mr. Moore says, in his Life of Pombal, "the Chevalier de Pinto, formerly Minister at the Court of St. James, afterwards Secretary of State for foreign affairs, in which situation he died a few years ago, and who commanded the Portugueze army sent against Paraguay, told a nobleman who was so good as to communicate the information to the author, that he found the Jesuits an inoffensive set of men, unarmed, and without money. P. 383.

Luiz Pinto certainly did not command the Portugueze army in Paraguay; .. he may have been attached to it (though his name does not occur in the Journal of the expedition); or it is possible that Jose Francisco Pinto Alpoym, who held the rank of Colonel in that army, may have been his kinsman, and that Luiz Pinto spoke upon his testimony. He himself might have been conversant with the Moxo Jesuits while he was Governor of Mato Grosso.

29. Jesuits at Bahia, p. 543.] In the Italian Anecdotes of Pombal (T. 2. 135. 146.) it is said, that Joze Mascarenhas Pacheco was one of the three Commissioners who were sent to Bahia to condemn the Jesuits, rather than to enquire into the charges against them. It happened upon the voyage (thus the story proceeds) that the ship was surrounded with a fiery meteor, which burst with a report louder than the discharge of twenty cannon, and this was followed by a tremendous squall. It so terrified the Commissioners that they immediately cleared their conscience to some Religioners on board, and promised not to act unjustly toward the Jesuits. Joze Mascarenhas, who had previously acted towards them with great inhumanity at Porto, was the only one who adhered to this penitent resolution. He refused to concur in the iniquitous measures of his colleagues; and for that reason was arrested, and sent from Bahia to the Rio, then to S. Catharina, where he was imprisoned in the Citadel de los Ratones.

A very different account of this person's imprisonment is given in the unprinted Portugueze Life of Pombal, (§§ 83. 88.) There it is said, that after he had punished the poor rioters at Porto with a barbarity resembling that of Judge Jefferies in the West of England, the Minister sent him to the Ilha das Cobras, to see that condign punishment was inflicted upon a state-culprit; .. (I suppose the Ilha das Cabras, close to that of S. Thomas, is meant) … farther his dispatches would inform him; but he was not to open them till he arrived at the island. Having reached it, he found sealed letters for the Governor. The Governor received him courteously, and informed him it appeared by these dispatches that he was sent to chuse a proper place of confinement for a public offender, and to appoint the treatment which was fit for him during his imprisonment. On the following day they proceeded to business, and the Governor accompanied Mascarenhas into all the dungeons. He fixed upon the worst, .. and that, he said, was not bad enough, but must be made so by loading the prisoner with heavy and tight irons. The Governor begged him not to pronounce a hasty sentence, nor to act with so little compassion: but he persisted in his opinion, saying, that there was too much lenity shown in such cases, and that for this reason the prisoner was sent so far from Portugal. The Governor then let him know that he had pronounced his own sentence, and that it should be rigidly observed, .. which accordingly it was for some 18 or 20 years, till the fall of the Minister.

Both these stories cannot be true: and it may reasonably be suspected that both are false. Mascarenhas was one of the many persons who disappeared during Pombal's administration, .. and perhaps was one of those, who, when they were released, thought it advisable to be silent upon the cause of their arrest.

The Payaguas, 618.] Dobrizhoffer (T. 1. p. 129.) relates an odd story of one of the Payaguas after the peace.

Mares splendide vestiti sibi videntur, si eleganter picti. Ut contubernia sua, sic et urbem et Hispanorum ædes nudissimi obambulaverant quondam. Qua nuditate christianam lacessi verecundiam ratus gubernator, Payaguarum mastix, Raphael de la Moneda, indusiorum ex rudi gossypio multitudinem consuendam curat, barbaris adultis mox distribuendam, addita hac lege; si quis illorum nudus urbem porro ingrediatur, ad infamem, quæ in foro est, columnam vapulet quinquaginta ictibus. Quanti apud eos ponderis fuerit hæc comminatio, ex uno collige eventu. Illorum quispiam venales pisces ad domaum matronæ Hispanæ attulerat, pretiique loco fructus quosdam ( mani vel mandubi vocant, amygdalorum saporem referunt) accepit. Illos, cum saccus ubi reconderentur deesset, extremitate ińdusii pubetenus elevati complexus est. Abiens cum ad cubiculi portam consisteret, secum cogitare cæpit, talem incedendi modum verecundiæ contrarium, a

[page] 896

gubernatore, si viderit, plectendum fustuario publico. Territus hac cogitatione ad matronam redit ceu facti pænitens, vocem Moneda minaci digito sibi ingeminat, demissa indusii parte anteriori fructus effundit humi, moxque in alteram, quæ a dorso est, indusii partem injectos lætus asportat, hac ratione decenter se impuneque foro urbis inambulaturum arbitratus.

31. State of the Forbidden District of the Diamonds, p. 638.] Vieyra forsaw the evils which such discoveries were likely to bring after them; and worse evils than what he anticipated from the gold mines have resulted from the diamonds. So strongly was he possessed with this foresight, that in one of his sermons he congratulated the people of Bahia that an expedition in search of mines had been unssuccesful. How many royal Ministers, says he, and how many Officers of Justice, of Property, and of War, do you suppose would be sent here for extracting, securing, and remitting this gold or silver? If you have experienced so many times that one alone of these powerful men is sufficient to depopulate the state, what would so many do? Do you not know how far the name of the royal service extends, contrary to the intention of the Kings themselves, how violent it is, and how insupportable? How many Administradores, how many Provedores, how many Treasurers, how many Almoxarifes, how many Secretaries, how many Accountants, how many Guards by sea and by land, and how many other Officers, of new names and jurisdictions, would be created and founded, for these Mines, to confound you, and to bury you in them! What have you got, what do you possess, what do you cultivate, what do you raise, which will not be necessary for the service of the King, or of those who make themselves more than Kings, with this specious pretext? In that day you will begin to be Factors, and not Lords of all your own property. Your own slave will not be yours, your own canoe will not be yours, your own cart will not be yours, and your own ox will not be yours, only to feed it and to serve with it. They would embargo your harvest for the maintenance of the mines; they would take your house for lodging for the officers, your cane-field would have to remain uncultivated because those who should cultivate it must go to the mines, and you yourself would not belong to yourself, because they would distress you for what you had, or for what you had not, and your Engenhos alone would have much to grind, because you and your children would have to be ground."

My Lisbonian friends must not be deprived of the pleasure of reading this passage in the original, which has all the force and character of Vieyra's inimitable manner. "Quantos Ministros Reaes, et quantos Officiaes de Justiça, de Fazenda, de Guerra, vos parece que haviam de ser mandados cà para a extracçam, segurança, e remessa deste ouro, ou prata? Se hum só destes poderosos tendes experimentado tantas vezes, que bastou para assolar o Estado, que farriam tantos? Nam sabeis o nome, da serviça Real (contra a tençam dos mesmos Reys) quanto se estende cà ao longe, et quam violento he, & insoportavel? Quantos Administradores, quantos Provedores, quantos Thesoureiros, quantos Almoxarifes, quantos Escrivaens, quantos Contadores, quantos Guardas no mar, & na terra, et quantos outros officios de nomes, & jurdiçoes novas se haviam de criar, ou fundir com estas minas, para vos confundir, & sepultar nellas? Que tendes, que possuis, que lavrais, que trabalhais, que nam ouvesse de ser necessario para seviço d' El Rey, ou dos que se fazem mais que Reys com este especioso pretexto? No mesmo dia havieis de começar a ser Feitores, et nam Senhores de toda a vossa fazenda. Nam havia de ser vosso o vosso escravo, nem vossa a vossa canòa, nem vosso o vosso carro, e o vosso boy senam para o manter, e servir com elle. A roça haviamvola de embargar para os mantimentos das minas: a casa haviamvola de tomar de aposentadoria para os Offtciaes das Minas: o canaveal havia de ficar em mato, porque os que o cultivassem haviam de ir para as minas; e vos mesmo nam havieis de ser vosso, porque vos haviam de apenar para o que tivesseis, ou nam tivesseis prestimo; et só os vossos Engenhos haviam de ter muito que moer, porque vòs, & vossos filhos havieis de ser os moidos. Sermoens. T. 4. 410.

32. Omaguas, p. 703.] Several tribes of the Nuevo Reyno flattened their heads, like the Omaguas; hence probably the notion, that the Omaguas possessed so extensive an empire; or perhaps these tribes may have originally been one nation. Piedrahita, (p. 12,) mentions the Coyaimas, Natagaymas, Panchez, and Pijaos.

33. They intermarried with the neighbouring tribes, p. 721.] The Panches of Bogota never married with those of their own horde; but the place, not consanguinity, made the forbidden relation, for brother and sister might intermarry,

[page] 897

if they happened to be born in different hordes.

Piedrahita, p. 11.

34. Chivalry of the Passés, p. 722.] In connection with this remarkable fact, it is worthy of notice, that the Yaios of Guiana used targets, very artificially made of wood, and painted with beasts and birds.

Harcourt's Voyage, Harleian Mis. 8vo. vol. 3. 186.

35. The Sumaumeira, p. 724.] Is this the same tree which Dampier describes at Bahia? "A cotton tree, yielding large pods, about six inches long, and as big as a man's arm. In September and October the cotton bursts out in a great lump, as big as a man's head; they gather them first, or it would all fly away; and they use the cotton for pillows and bolsters, for which it is much esteemed: but it is fit for nothing else, being so short that it cannot be spun. It is of a tawny colour." Vol. 3. p. 65.

36. Macapa, p. 734.] The Hyger, or Bore, upon this part of the coast, is thus described by Condamine: "Between Macapa and the North Cape, in the part where the great channel of the river finds itself most confined by the islands, and especially opposite to the great mouth of the Arawary, which enters into the Amazons on the north side, the flux of the sea offers a singular phenomenon: during the three last days nearest to the full and new moons (times of the highest tide), the sea, instead of taking nearly six hours to rise, attains, in one or two minutes, its greatest height: .. one may easily judge that this cannot happen quietly. A terrible noise is heard at one or two leagues distance, which announces the Pororoca. This is the name which the Indians of these cantons give to this terrible tide. By degrees, as it approaches, the noise increases, and soon may be seen a promontory of water, from twelve to fifteen feet high; then another, afterwards a third, and sometimes a fourth, which follow close, and which occupy all the width of the channel. This wave advances with prodigious rapidity, and breaks and sweeps away in its course every thing which resists it. I have seen, in some places, a great piece of land carried away by the Pororoca; large trees rooted up, and ravages of all sorts. Every where where it passes, the shore is as clean as if it had been swept with care. The canoes, the piroguas, the barks even, have no other means of preserving themselves from the fury of this bar, (this is the French name which they give it at Cayenne,) but by anchoring in a place where it is very deep. I will not enter here upon a greater detail of the fact, or of its explanation; I will only shew the causes, in saying, that after having examined it with attention in different places, I have always remarked, that it never happens except when the wave, rising and engaged in a narrow channel, meets in its progress a sand bank, or a shoal, which is an obstacle to it; that it was there, and no where else, that this impetuous and irregular movement of the waters began; and that it ceases a little beyond the bank, when the channel again becomes deep, or widens considerably." Condamine:

37. Vegetable wax, p. 764.] The myrtle wax from Louisiana, sold, in the French islands, the best sort, for one hundred sols the pound; the second for forty. It was preferred, for candles, to bees-wax from France, because the latter was softened by the heat, so as to consume as fast as tallow. Du Pratz, 2, 29.

38. They who were born upon the estates, were sometimes permitted to add one of the family names to their own, p. 780.] Almost all the Heritors (i. e. the landed proprietors) of Argyleshire, are Campbells, from a similar cause.

39. Convents at Bahia, p. 795.] When Pedro desired the Procurador da Coroa, Manoel Lopes de Oliveira, to inquire concerning the application made for founding a new Convent at Bahia, the Procurador replied, that it was much more expedient for his royal service to suppress those which were already established, than to establish any more. However, instead of rejecting the petition for one, leave was granted to found five. D. Luiz da Cunha, Carta ao Marco Antonio, MS.

40. Taboaté, p. ] The author of the Santuario Mariano is exceedingly indignant with this town. He says of it, "Villa populosa, porque ha nella grande numero de gente. Mas nam acho que seja merecedora, ainda assim de grandes augmentos; porque Villa grande aonde se nam ve' huma casa dedicada a Virgem N. Senhora, eu a tenho por Villa infeliz. T. 10, p. 182.

41. Isle of S. Sebastian, p. 851.] I am always unwilling to disbelieve a traveller when he speaks of what he has seen; but the following passage is so much in opposition to every thing I know

VOL. III. 5 Y

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concerning the superstition and arts of the Tupi tribes, that it appears to me quite incredible.

M. de B * * * who wrote an account of Roggewein's Voyage, describes an Idol which he saw in the Island of S. Sebastians. "Le Pere Prieur, nommé Thomas, nous y fit voir un Idole qu'on y conserve, que les anciens habitans adorerent. Cest une statue de la figure moitié Tigre, moitié Lion, haute de quatre pieds, et large d'un et demi. On nous dit que la matiere en etoit d'ur massif. J' ai de la peine à y ajouter foi, et crois qu' elle est simplement dorée. Ses pieds resembloient aux pattes de Lion. Sa téte etoit ornée d' une double couronne, herisée de douze fléches, de la figure des dards ou javelots Indiens, dont il y avoit de chaque cóté une brisée à demi. Derriere la téte il y avoit de chaque cóté une aile semblable a celles d' une cicogne. Dans l' interieur de la statue se trouve celle d' un homme armé de toutes pieces à la manière du païs, portant sur son dos un carquois plein de fleches, tenant de sa main gauche un arc, & de sa droite, une fuche. La queue de ce monstrueux idole, etoit fort longue, et entortillée trois ou quatre fois autour du corps de l' homme armé: sa pointe ou téte ressembloit à celle d' un dragon. Les habitans appelloient cette idole Nasil Lichma. Nous ne pumes le regarder sans etonnement. Outre cette statue, il y avoit plusieurs autres antiquités tant d' Europe que d' Amerique, dont ce Couvent etoit en possession.

Histoire de l' Expedition de Trois Vaisseaux, T. 1, 48.

I may farther observe upon this story, that if such an idol existed it could not have been of American origin, because there are no Lions in America, .. that gilding was not known to the natives, and that if the image had been of gold, it would have been considered as more properly belonging to the Mint, than to the Museum of a poor Convent in this little Island.

42. Vaccination, p. 857.] Mr. Koster (p. 282) mentions a singular fact concerning vaccination. It was introduced into the island of Itamaraca during his residence there; none of the persons who were vaccinated were in any danger: but the disease proved highly infectious. Of the persons who caught it, ten or twelve died; and the evil was only stopt by vaccinating great numbers of the inhabitants. The matter had been taken from a newly imported Negro at Recife.

43. Goitres, p. 857.] The swellings in the neck, which Mr. Mawe noticed in this province, were very different from those which he had seen in Derbyshire and other mountainous countries. "In the case of these Indians, (he says,) not only there appeared that protuberance from the glands, commonly called a wen, but lumps of from half an inch to three inches in diameter hung from it in an almost botryoidal form."

P. 64.

A colony of converted Lules moved their settlement, because the water produced swellings in the throat." "Aqua amnis, juxta quem oppidum positum est, ita erat crassa, ac pituitosa, ut omnibus propemodum Indis subnatæ sint ad collum strumæ de tonsillarum genere; puerique ab ipso matrum utero eas extrahebant, interque pariendum suffocabantur. Execrato igitur hospitali solo demigratum est. Peramas. P. J. Andrea Vita. § 34.

There is no snow in this country. It is also certain, that in countries where the people may be said almost to have nothing but snow water, the goitre is not known.

44. Longevity, p. 857.] "I know not, (says Sir W. Temple,) whether there may be any thing in the climate of Brazil more propitious to health than in other countries: for, besides what was observed among the natives upon the first European discoveries, I remember Don Francisco de Mello, a Portugal Ambassador in England, told me, it was frequent in his country for men spent with age or other decays, so as they could not hope for above a year or two of life, to ship themselves away in a Brazil fleet, and after their arrival there, to go on a great length, sometimes of twenty or thirty years, or more, by the force of that vigour they recovered with that remove. Whether such an effect might grow from the air, or the fruits of that climate, or by approaching nearer the sun, which is the fountain of life and heat, when their natural heat was so far decayed; or whether the piecing out of an old man's life were worth the pains, I cannot tell: Perhaps the play is not worth the candle."

" Of Health and Longevity."

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EXPLANATION

Of such Portugueze, Spanish, and other Foreign Words, as are used in the Text.

I have thought it better to use these words, where there were no corresponding ones in English, or where, as in official titles, the word which corresponds would convey an erroneous idea.

Alcaide, Portugueze; Alcalde, Spanish. Originally the Commander of a Castle, afterwards an officer of justice. The inferior officers of this appellation acted as Constables.
Aldea, a hamlet, or small village; .. in Brazil it is particularly applied to designate Indian settlements formed by the Jesuits, or since their time.
Alferes, a standard-bearer, an Ensign.
Alvara, a royal mandate, having the force of a law.
Arrayal, plural Arraiaes; properly a camp; used in the mining provinces for the first settlements of the miners, and now applied there to any place which has not been chartered as a town.
Assiento, a contract, an agreement; particularly applied to the contract for supplying the Spanish Indies with Negro Slaves.

Balsa, a double-boat. See Vol. 2, p. 174.
Boucan, a wooden frame upon which meat was broiled, or preserved by smoaking.

Cabildo, (Capitulus) a Chapter, or Corporation.
Cacimba, a pit or hole, dug in the sand or in marshy ground, to collect water.
Camara, the Chamber, or Corporation of a Town.
Capataz, a chief herdsman.
Cascalho, indurated soil, in which gold or diamonds are contained.
Comarca, the district within the jurisdiction of a Corregidor.
Corregidor, the chief magistrate of a district.

Desembargo do Paço, the highest court of justice.
Desembargador, a judge of the highest rank in the law.

Encomienda, an estate in Spanish America granted to a Spaniard, with all the Indians upon it.
Encomendero, the possessor of such a property. (Vol. 2, p. 259.)
Engenho, the establishment of a sugar-cane planter, with all its appendages.
Estallagem, an inn.
Estancia, a grazing estate.
Escrivam da Fazenda, a Secretary of the Treasury.

Farinha, meal, but generally used to signify the meal of the mandioc, or cassava-root.
Fazenda, a farm. Fazenda Real, the King's revenues.
Forasteiro, a foreigner.

Jangada, a kind of raft.
Juiz de Fora, a magistrate, who must not be one of the place or district in which he administers justice.
Jaguar, Port.; Yaguar, Sp. The American tyger. Jacaré, the American crocodile.

Macana, a kind of wooden sword.
Maraca, a kind of rattle used in the superstitious ceremonies of many tribes.
Meirinho, an inferior officer of justice.
Moqui, the name by which the Boucan, is called in some provinces.
Mocambo, a settlement of Maroon Negroes.

Ordenança, the permanent local militia of the country.
Ouvidor, literally Auditor, a Judge of higher rank than the Juizes Ordinarios, from whom an appeal lies to the Ouvidores.

Pantanal, plural Pantanaes, ground subject to periodical inundations.
Poderosos, men of great power and influence.
Poncho, a garment adopted from the southern Indians by the Spaniards and some of the Portugueze. It is a piece of cloth from eight to ten feet in length, with a cross-slit in the middle, through which the head is put.
Povoaçam, a village.
Procurador, (Procurator,) Proctor, a legal agent.
Pueblo, a village.

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Pulperia, a drinking-house.

Quilombo, another African word, of the same meaning as Mocambo; a fastness of run-away Negroes.
Quinta, a country-house, or estate.

Repartimiento, an allotment of Indians as serfs or slaves.

Sertam or Certain, plural Sertoens, the interior of a province, used to express what is still a wilderness, or less inhabited than other parts.
Sertanista, a person engaged in exploring the Sertam.
Sertanejo, an inhabitant of the Sertam.

Tabelliam, a notary.
Termo, the country within the jurisdiction of a town.
Terreiro, an open space in a town, generally in front of some great building.

Venda, a victualling or drinking house.
Vereador, a member of the Camara, who is overseer of the roads and markets.

TABLE OF WEIGHTS, MEASURES, AND MONEY.

WEIGHTS.

An Oitava is equal to 1 1/16 drachm, Avoirdupois.

8	Oitavas	=	1	Onça, or ounce.
16	Onças	=	1	Arratel.
32	Arrateis	=	1	Arroba.
2	Arrobas	=	1	Quintal.

LONG MEASURE.

A Polegada, or thumb's breadth, is the twelfth part of a geometrical foot.

8	Polegadas	=	1	Palmo, or span.
3	Palmos	=	1	Covado.
5	Palmos	=	1	Vara.
10	Palmos	=	1	Braça.

DRY MEASURE.

An Alqueire is equal to 1 3/6 peck

4	Alqueires	=	1	Fanega.
15	Fanegas	=	1	Moio.

MONEY.

The Portugueze money is computed by Reis, an imaginary coin, 1000 of which (the Milrea) are equal, at par, to 5s. 7 ½d.

20	Reis	=	1 Vintem.
100	Reis.	=	1 Testam.
400	Reis.	=	1 Cruzado.
480	Reis.	=	1 Cruzado Novo.
4,800	Reis.	=	1 Moeda de Ouro, .. the Moidore.
6,400	Reis.	=	1 Peça, or piece, .. the six and thirty, or half-dobloon.
1,000,000	Reis.	=	1 Conto.

320 Reis = 1 Pataca. This coin is only known in Brazil.

Accounts in this money have the advantage of being kept in only one denomination.

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INDEX.

VOL. III. 5 Z

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INDEX.

Abamba, of the Reductions in Paraguay, ii. 335.
Abbeville, Claude, his remark on the death of three baptized Tupinambas, i. 654.
Abipones, their abhorrence of the shamelessness of the Mbayas, iii. 386; their language, 397; its capricious mutations, 399; their worship and singing, 400; their superstition and longevity, 401; customs of marriage, 402; dread of death, 403; mourning, 404; mode of travelling, 406; weapons, 407; distinctions of rank, 409; ceremonies at the birth of a Chief, 410; industry of the women, ib.; deliberate madness, 411; notions respecting food, 412; tobacco used for the teeth, 413; leathern boats, ib.; their success against the Spaniards, 414; pacified by the Jesuits, 440; similarity of their customs with those of the tribes of New England, 894.
Abreu, Antonio Fernandes de, discovers mines at Mato Grosso, iii. 308.
Abrego usurps the government of Asumpcion, i. 171; slain, ib.
Acaricoara, river, i. 596.
Acavan, the beak of that bird prescribed as an antidote to venom, iii. 357.
Acayaba-tree, fermented liquor prepared from, i. 235.
Acuña, Christoval de, embarks with Teixeira on his voyage down the Orellana, i. 585; his estimate of the length of the Orellana, 614.
Adarce, in the Materia Medica of the Ancients, iii. 893.
Adorno, Antonio, his expedition in search of mines, i. 313.
Adorno, Guiseppe, one of the first settlers in Brazil, i. 182.
Affonso VI. his mother Regent during his minority, ii. 243; assumes the reins of government, 590. (See Portugal.)
Affonso, Domingos, his discovery and conquest of Piauhi, ii. 567.
Agaces, tribe of, i. 67. 117.
Agua quente, a large piece of native gold found in the Arrayal of, iii. 596, note.
Aimbere, a savage Chief, assists in a conference with the Portugueze, i. 288.
Ajojos, canoes connected by a platform, iii. 792.
Ajuricaba, a Manao Chief, called the Slave-hunter, iii. 710.
Albuquerque, Antonio, succeeds to the command of his father Jeronymo, i. 430; resigns, 432.
Albuquerque Maranham, Antonio de, sent to Lisbon as Procurador of the Chamber of Belem, ii. 531.
Albuquerque, Coelho de Carvalho, Antonio de, Governor of Maranham, his disputes with the Chamber of Belem, ii. 594; sent as Commissioner to the insurgents in Maranham, 612. Governor of Maranham and Para, iii. 29; his dispute with the Governor of Cayenne, 29;

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retires to Lisbon, 71; Governor of the Rio, 82; goes to Minas Geraes, ib; his measures in the Mines, 143.
Albuquerque, Cavalcante, excluded from the succession as Governor of Maranham, i. 582.
Albuquerque, Duarte de, lord of the Captaincy of Pernambuco, i. 447.
Albuquerque, Gregorio Fragoso de, joins the expedition of his uncle Jeronymo, i. 403; his mission to Paris, 423.
Albuquerque, Jeronymo, his first expedition to the Orellana, i. 400; his second expedition, 403; joined by Diogo de Campos, 404; reaches the Presidio das Tartarugas, 405; the island of Peria, 406; his irresolution, 408; removal to Guaxenduba, 411; his presumption, ib.; duped by his prisoners, 414; the French defeated, 418; treaty, 420; takes Fort Louis, 426; dies, 430.
Albuquerque, Jeronymo Fragoso de, appointed to the Captaincy of Para, i. 432.
Albuquerque, Mathias, checks an insurrection of the Tupinambas, i. 429; appointed Governor of Bahia, 447; sent out from Madrid to defend Pernambuco, 463; loses Olinda and Recife, 468; determines to evacuate Pernambuco, 514; retreats to the Lagoas, 518.
Albuquerque, Pedro, comes out as Governor of Maranham, ii. 43; his shipwreck. ib.; and death, 44.
Alcanzias, hollow balls used in Portugueze festivals, ii. 2.
Alcobaça, fort, on the Tocantins, iii. 737.
Aldeas, or villages of the Christian Indians, ii. 602; regulations concerning, ii. 603; state of those in Para, iii. 364; system of the, 368; how supported, 369; exemption from servitude, 370; intercourse of the Portugueze with, 371; visit of Mendonça Furtado to, 508; converted into towns and townlets, 515; their decay, and degraded state of the Indians, 699.
Aldeias altas, on the Itapicuru, iii. 748.
Alemquer, town of, on the left bank of the Orellana, iii. 731.
Alexander VI. map containing his famous line of demarcation, where preserved, iii. 12.
Alfaro, Diego de, Superior of the Jesuit Missions, killed by the Paulistas, ii. 323:
Alfaro, D. Francisco, arrives from Spain as visitor to the Jesuits,. ii. 271; contrives to nullify his instructions, 272; introduces a new system of oppression, 273.
Alfarroba, a species of, its uses among the people of Santiago del Estero, iii. 439.
Almada, Lourenço de, Governor of Brazil, iii. 85.
Almeida, F. Joam d', life of, ii. 684; his covenant cited, 717.
Almeida, D. Lourenço de, Governor of Minas Geraes, iii. 160; state of affairs on his arrival, 246; diamonds discovered during his administration, 274.
Almeirim, town of, at the mouth of the Parú, iii. 733.
Almoxarife, at Maranham, salary of that officer, ii. 635.
Alpergatas, of the Brazilians, i. 265.
Alquiere, a Portugueze measure of capacity, i. 403.
Altamirano, F. Luiz, sent out as General of the Jesuits in South America, iii. 454.
Alvaras, respecting mines, remarks on several, iii. 45, note.
Alvarez, Diogo, first settler in Bahia, i. 30. (See Caramuru.)
Alvellos, town of, on the Coary, iii. 705.
Amaral Coutinho, Bento de, goes to the Rio das Mortes, iii. 77; massacres a party of Paulistas, 78.
Amaral, Melchior Estacio do, his account of the isle of Fernam de Noronha, iii. 303.
Amazons, report of a nation of, on Orellana's voyage, i. 85; march of Ribera in quest of, 158; information respecting, obtained by Acuna, on his voyage down the Orellana, 604; testimonies of the existence of a tribe of females, 605; report of, in the country of the Moxos, iii, 204.
Ambergris, found on the coast of Brazil, i. 322.
Anna, D., Casas de, defeat of the Dutch at, by Fernandes, ii. 125.
Anchieta, Joseph de, arrives in Brazil, i. 261; his labours, 264; attacked by savages, 266; treats for peace with the Tamoyos, 287; his vow to the Virgin, 290; fulfilled, 293; mira cles attributed to him, ii. 682.
Andoanegui, Governor of Buenos Ayres, memorials presented to, deprecating the cession of the seven Reductions, iii. 454; appeal of the Guaranies to, 458; advances into their territory, 467; retreats, ib.; his junction with Gomes Freyre, 477; slaughters the Guaranies at Caaibata, 483; letter from the Reductions to him, at the pass of Monte Grande, 488; his tardiness before the town of S. Miguel, 493; submission of the Guaranies, 495.
Andrada, Fernam Alvarez de, obtains a share of the Captaincy of Maranham, i. 48.
Angeja, Marquez de, Viceroy of Brazil, iii. 130; measures of his administration, 151.

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Angola, fruitless expedition of Heyne against, i. 444; expedition of Jol and Hinderson against, ii. 7; Portugueze expedition for the recovery of, ii. 207.
Angra dos Reyes, bay of, iii. 818.
Anhanguera, or Old Devil, a name given by the natives of Goyaz to Bartholomeu Bueno, iii. 305.
Anhaguiara, a female Payé on the side of the Dutch, ii. 162.
Anhembi, or Tieté River, its course, iii. 255.
Anta, remarks on that animal, i. 634.
Antequera y Castro, D. Joseph de, sent to Asumpcion as Judge, iii. 212; takes upon himself the government, ib.; threatens the Reductions, 213; prepares to oppose Garcia Ros, 224; deceives and slaughters the Guaranies, 226; advances against the Parana Reductions, 227; returns in apprehension of an attack, 228; flies, 230; sent prisoner to Lima, 232; condemned and put to death, 238.
Antonio, Prior of Crato, his attempt on Brazil, i. 316.
Ants, plague of, in Brazil, and on the savannahs of the Paraguay,i. 135, 319; methods proposed for destroying, 645; excommunicated for devouring altar cloths, iii. 334.
Ao, an amphibious beast of prey, ii. 287.
Aobaci, or Poncho, a garment of the Indians, ii. 351.
Aparia, an Indian Chief, his conference with Orellana, i. 86.
Apootoo, the club of the Indians of Surinam, i. 636.
Aprasse, a dance of the Tupinambas, i. 187.
Aquatic tribes, of Indians on the Paraguay, i. 130; their mode of life superior to that of the tribes on the Orinoco, and of the Maracaybo Indians, 631.
Ar, a disease in Brazil, i. 328.
Arabicus, the Peruvian poets, so named, ii. 700.
Aracaty in Seara, iii. 759.
Araguaya, route by the, from Goyaz to Para explored, 676.
Aranha. (See Vasconcellos.)
Araujo, Gonçalo Paes de, his expedition up the Orellana, iii. 6.
Arayechi, Miguel, a Guarani, curious epistle of, iii. 486, note.
Arce, Francisco de, arrested and imprisoned by Antequera, iii. 216.
Arce, F. Joseph, advised to go among the Chiquitos, iii. 167; arrives in time of pestilence, 171; accompanies Hervas up the Paraguay, 174; goes on a second expedition up that river, 193; reaches the Chiquitos, 194; his martyrdom, 195.
Archery, skill of savages in, i. 636.
Arcos, Conde dos, Viceroy of Brazil, iii. 692.
Argentina, extracts from, i. 648.
Arianicosies, tribe of, Gonzalo de Mendoza sent to, i. 146.
Arias, D. Fernando, Governor, interferes in the Jesuit Missions, ii. 279.
Arisuahy, river, famed for its gold and diamonds, iii. 285.
Arms, regulations respecting, in Minas Geraes, iii. 148.
Aroaquizes, tribe, on the Orellana, expedition against, iii. 7.
Arrayal do Principe, on the Itapicuru, when founded, iii. 749.
Arregui, Bishop of Buenos Ayres, his intrigues with the Commons of Paraguay, iii. 241.
Arroios, on the Tocantins, iii. 737.
Arruda da Camara, ordered to report what plants in Pernambuco might afford a substitute for hemp or flax, iii. 789.
Artaneses, tribe of, i. 137.
Artijoski, lands at Barra Grande and joins Nassau, i. 530; arrives in Brazil with a reinforcement, but returns in disgust, 564.
Assassinations frequent among the Portugueze in in Brazil, ii. 678.
Asseca, battery at Recife, won by the Dutch, ii. 205.
Assiento, arrangement of that contract between Spain and England, iii. 135; provision in, repecting British slave-traders in the Plata, 218.
Assú, town of, in Rio Grande do Norte, iii. 765.
Assumar, Conde de, Governor of Minas Geraes, iii. 155; insurrection on the establishment of smelting-houses, 157; temporizes with the insurgents, 158; seizes the ringleaders, 159; his severity on a second insurrection, 160.
Asumpcion, settlement of, i. 66; the Spaniards collect their force there on abandoning Buenos Ayres, 75; arrival of Cabeza de Vaca at, 114; disturbances at, 171; made a Bishopric, 332; Portugueze Jesuits invited to, ii. 252; college founded there, 254; attempts made against it, 256; effect of the Jesuits' preaching in, 274; entry of the Bishop Cardenas into, 387; his departure, 401; he returns and fortifies himself in the Franciscan Church, 417; he is deported, 419; state of the city according to his partizans, 427; the Bishop returns in triumph, 430; Antequera sent to, as Judge, iii. 211; he usurps the government, 212; Garcia Ros marches against, 223; the Jesuits expelled from, 224; triumphal return of Antequera to,

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228; Barrua appointed Governor ad interim, 230, the Jesuits restored, 232; arrival of Soroeta, 235; the Jesuits again expelled, 239; ceremony practised by the Payaguas at, 620.
Athanasio Theodoro, a Missionary at S. Maria Magdalena, iii. 326.
Auati, fruit of, how used by the Brazilian savages, i. 181.
Audience, Royal, of Chuquisaca, summon Cardenas to appear before them, ii, 426; appoint a Vice-governor of Paraguay, 437.
Autos, or sacred plays, in Paraguay, ii. 348.
Ava, or kava, a beverage of the South Sea islanders producing leprosy, iii. 890.
Avila, Garcia de, sent to form a settlement at Rio Real, i. 314.
Aymores, tribe of, i. 281; defeated by Mem de Sa, 283; their ravages, 383, 385; conciliated by Alvaro Rodriguez, 385; stationed in the isle of Itaparica, 386; pacified at Ilheos by Domingos Rodriguez, 387; their reappearance, iii. 600; denominated Botocudos by the Portugueze, 807.
Ayolas, appointed Governor of Buenos Ayres, i. 63; ascends the Paraguay, 64; seizes the town of Lampere and calls it Asumpcion, 66; goes in search of the Carcarisos, 67; Yrala's march in search of him, 72; his death ascertained, 73; remark on Azara's assertion that he penetrated to Peru, 630.
Azambuja, Count of, Governor of Mato Grosso, founds Villa Bella, iii. 572; goes to Conceiçam, 577; succeeds the Conde da Cunha as Viceroy of Brazil, 643; inhospitable treatment of ships in distress, ib.
Azara, ascribes the encomienda system to Yrala, ii. 261.
Azevedo, F. Ignacio de, appointed Provincial of Brazil, i. 306; he and his companions massacred by the French, 307, 309.
Azevedo, Marcos de, his discovery of mines in Brazil, iii. 45; conceals it, and dies in prison, 46.

B.

Baccurys, tribe of, near the sources of the Arinos, iii. 843.
Bagnuolo, commander of the succours sent to Pernambuco, i. 479; permits intercourse with the Dutch, 480; his embarrassment from repeated losses, 487; sent to defend Porto Calvo, 509; abandons it and retreats to the Lagoas, 510; succeeds Roxas in the command, 525; reoccupies Porto Calvo, ib.; abandons Porto Calvo, 530; pursued by Nassau to the San Francisco, 533; abandons Seregipe, 541; retreats to Bahia, 542; marches to St. Salvador, 549; Pedro da Sylva resigns the command to him, 553; exchange of prisoners, 554; measures for defence, 556; the siege raised, 559.
Bahia de todos os Santos, why so named, i. 29; first settler, 30; its fine harbour, 41; why called the Reconcave, 42; expulsion of the colonists, 43; tea and coffee indigenous in, 320; its abundant fishery, 322; its people, 323; taken by the Dutch, 442; recovered by the Spaniards and Portugueze under Don Fadrique de Toledo, 452; retreat of Bagnuolo to, 542; received by the Governor, Pedro da Sylva, 543; preparations of the Dutch against, 549; siege of St. Salvador, 551; raised, 559; a remarkable fish left on shore in 1584, 645; Spanish and Neapolitan troops sent from, ii. 7; Dutch deputation to, 61; embassy of the Dutch to, 117; troops in, take Serinhaem, 119; Carmelites established at, 553; the province infested by the Guarens, 562; diocese of, raised to the rank of a metropolitan see, 570; establishment of a nunnery, ib.; disorders in, during the administration of Menezes, 581; complaints sent to the King, 584; Marquez das Minas appointed Governor, 585; visited by pestilence, 586; population of in the seventeenth century, 659; commercial prosperity, 660; influx of silver from Buenos Ayres, 661; whale fishery, ib.; mutiny of the soldiers at, iii. 19; salt mines opened and abandoned, 23; decay of trade at, in consequence of mining, 64; Archbishop of, convenes the first synod in Brazil, 70; insurrection at, 126; concessions of the Governor, 128; the mob again assemble for the relief of the Rio, 128; office of Juiz do Povo abolished, 130; a Recolhimento founded at, 151; conduct of the Archbishop on the expulsion of the Jesuits, 543; seat of government removed to the Rio, 585; state of the Captaincy, 794; city of S. Salvador, ib.; cultivation of pepper, 797; internal trade of the bay, 799; Engenhos, 800; the number of convents at, declared by Oliveira to be excessive, 897.
Balsa, a double canoe used on the Paraguay, iii. 174, note.
Baptism, notion of souls infused at, ii. 708.

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Bardza, F. Cypriano, his labours among the Moxos, iii. 198; forms the first Reduction, 199; explores a way across the mountains to Peru, 205; he goes among the Baures, 206; his martyrdom, 208.
Barbalho, lands with a force north of the Potengi, i. 572; retreats and returns to Bahia, 573.
Barbalho Bezerra, Agostinho, compelled to accept the appointment of Governor by the insurgents of the Rio de Janeiro, ii. 552; his search for the mines discovered by Azevedo, iii. 46.
Barbote, or mouth-piece of the Guaycurus, iii. 387.
Barbosa, his expedition to the Paraiba, i. 351.
Barbosa, Manoel, killed by the Guerens, ii. 563.
Barboza, Manoel, heads the insurgents who take possession of Olinda, ii, 131.
Barbudos, or Bearded Indians, projected expedition of Vieyra among, ii. 484.
Barcellos, on the Rio Negro, iii. 714.
Barco, D. Martin del, embarks for the Plata, i. 343; cited respecting the fable of El Dorado, i. 372.
Barconos, tribe of, i. 165.
Barreiros, appointed Captain of Maranham, i. 434.
Barreto, Manoel Telles, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 317; hostilities of the English during his government, 352; his death, 357.
Barreto, de Menezes, sent out to take the command in Pernambuco, ii. 198; his capture and escape, 199; operations connected with the fleet, ii. 237.
Barreto, Ignacio do Rego, suggests to Vieyra an expedition to the Tocantins, ii. 484.
Barreto, Joam Paez, murdered by Andre Vieira, iii. 97.
Barreyro, Joseph Luis, President of the Government Junta in Paraguay, protects the Jesuits, iii. 236; arrests Mompo, 237; is compelled to fly, ib.
Barros, Joam de, obtains the Captaincy of Maranham, i. 48.
Barsena, Alonso, and Angulo, Jesuits sent from Peru to Paraguay, ii. 251.
Barua, D. Martin, appointed Governor of Paraguay ad interim, iii. 230; his misconduct, 231; resigns his office, 235.
Baures, tribe of, Baraza among, iii. 206; they kill him, 208.
Baures Missions, disputes with the Jesuits of, iii. 573.
Beard, remarks on the practice of eradicating, among savages, i, 643.
Beckman, Manoel, forms a conspiracy in Maranham, ii. 606; his proceedings on success of the insurrection, 609; attempts of the Governor to purchase his submission, 613; his danger, 615; applies to a pirate for assistance, ib.; proceedings of his friends on the arrival of Gomes Freyre the new Governor, 626; flight and apprehension of the ringleaders, 627; he is betrayed and taken, 628; condemned, 629; executed, 630.
Beira, Forte do Principe de, founded, iii. 624.
Belem, in Para, foundation of, i. 427; disturbances at, 430; arrival of Teixeira and Acuña at, 613, 614; emancipation of Indian captives at, ii. 502; Chamber of, remonstrate against the system of the Jesuits, 528; Vieyra's reply, 529; they dispute his power, 531; he calla upon them to maintain the laws, 534; insurrection at, 536; proceedings at, 542; Chamber of, oppose Sequeira's measures respecting the Indians, 592; their disputes with the new Governor Antonio de Albuquerque, 594; seat of government of Maranham removed to, 599; intercourse of, with S. Luiz, 634; expedition from, against the savages on the Orellana, iii. 7; its success, 9; prosperous state of, 364.
Belmonte, in Porto Seguro, iii. 810.
Bermejo, River, voyage of Cornejo down, in 1790, iii. 891.
Berredo, Bernardo Pereira de, Governor of Maranham, iii, 154.
Bertioga, a fort built at, i. 179, 180.
Benedict XIV. Pope, his bull against enslaving the Indians, iii. 511; appoints a visitor and reformer to the company of Jesuits, 537.
Bezerra Barbalho, a fidalgo of Pernambuco, executed for murder, iii. 18.
Biader, a lay brother of the Jesuits, strange effect of their sudden expulsion upon him, iii. 613, note.
Bicho, mal do, a disease in Brazil, i. 647.
Blaar, joins Haus, and prepares to attack the Portugueze insurgents, ii. 104; battle of Monte das Tabocas, 108; made prisoner by Fernandez, 127; murdered on the way to Bahia, 129.
Blende, accompanies Arce up the Paraguay, iii. 193; his martyrdom, 195.
Boles, Joam de, a Huguenot, put to death by the Portugueze, i. 303.
Bolingbroke, Lord, extract from his correspondence, respecting Du Guay Trouin's expedition, iii. 888; on the unwillingness of the French to relinquish the Orellana, ib.

[page] 908

Bolingbroke, Mr., remark on the speculation on cannibalism in his voyage to the Demerary, i. 653.
Bom Jesus, camp of, formed, i. 473; repulse of the Dutch from, 488; capitulates, 507; new camp of, formed, ii. 142.
Borba, town of, on the Madeira, iii. 725; settlement of the Muras at, ib.
Borba Gato, registers the mines of Sabara, iii. 56; assumes the government of the Mines, 73.
Bororos, tribe of, iii. 309; Antonio Pires becomes their chief, 598.
Botelho, Pedro, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 375; succeeded by Menezes, 390.
Botocudos, reappearance of the Aymores under that name, iii. 600; their hostility to the Portugueze, 692; origin of their new name, 807.
Boucan, a frame used by the Tupinambas, i. 207, 222.
Boypeba, bar of, ii. 558.
Braganza, Duke of, Brazil offered to him by Felipe II. of Spain, i. 315; recovers the throne of Portugal, 575.
Braganza, or Cayte, in Para, iii. 739.
Braganzan revolution, its effect on the Paulistas, ii. 327; its evil effects in Paraguay, 329.
Brandram, Fr. Caetano, Bishop of Para, laments the decay of the Aldeas, and the degraded state of the Indians, iii. 699.
Brant, Contractor for Brazilian diamonds, iii. 624; is ruined, 625.
Bratti, fish, in Brazil, called Lysses by the Portugueze, i. 181.
Brazil, its coast first discovered by Pinzon, i. 1; voyage of Cabral, 9; appearance of the savages, 11; possession taken for the crown of Portugal, 13; voyage of Vespucci, 14; cannibalism, 15; second voyage of Vespucci, 20; origin of the name, 21; criminals sent to serve there, 23; voyage of Pinzon and Solis, 25; the country divided into Captaincies, 32; sugar-canes, where first planted in, 35; Thome de Sousa appointed Governor General of, 212; Jesuit mission, 214; cannibalism of the savages, 217; customs of the Tupi tribes, 223; ceremonies at the birth of a child, 238; names, 239; (See Tupi tribes;) proceedings of the Jesuits, 252; opposition of the settlers, 254; first Bishop of Brazil appointed, 259; search made for mines, 260; Duarte da Costa succeeds Thome de Sousa as Governor, 261; Brazil erected into a Jesuit province, 262; disputes between the Governor and the Bishop, 266; the latter killed by the Cahetes, 267; Mem de Sa supersedes Duarte da Costa as Governor, 268; expedition of the French to, under Villegagnon, 270; they name it Antarctic France, 272; expedition against the French, 279; defeat of the Aymores, 283; Portugueze defeated by the Tamoyos, 286; peace concluded with the Tamoyos, 293; pestilence and famine, 293; expedition of Estacio de Sa, 296; the French finally defeated at Rio de Janeiro, 301; S. Sebastians founded, 302; the French expelled from Paraiba, 305; Brazil divided into two governments, 311; their re-union, 315; sovereignty of, offered to the Duke of Braganza, ib.; state of in 1581, 316; sugar-works, 318; fruits, 319; plants, 320; fishery, 322; diseases prevalent in, 327; disputes on the frontiers, 331; the French driven from Paraiba, 351; intercourse of the English with, 352; their first act of hostility, 355; Francisco de Sousa, Governor, 358; expedition of Cavendish, 359; Santos taken, ib.; St. Vicente burnt, 360; the English repulsed at Espirito Santo, 362; Lancaster's expedition, 364; Recife taken, 366; Pedro Botelho Governor, 375; expedition in search of El Dorado, ib.; success of the Jesuits among the savages, 389; Menezes Governor, 390; a Dutch fleet equipped against, 440; St. Salvador taken, 441; arrival of the Spanish and Portugueze fleet, under Fadrique de Toledo, 448; discomfiture of the Dutch, 450; still neglected by the Spaniards, 455; state of the Dutch Captaincies, 565; the Orellana explored by Teixeira and Acuña, 585, 613; its extent and magnitude, 614; tribes on its banks, 615, 619; Brazil, how affected by the loss of Loanda in Angola, ii. 10; Antonio Tellez appointed Governor, 20; embarrassment of the West India Company, 52; war with the Dutch, 53, 193; money raised by Vieyra the Jesuit, 194; Brazil Company formed by his advice, 227; feeble state of the Portugueze and Dutch in, 232; interference of England, and settlement of peace, 249; Jesuits from, invited by the bishop of Tucuman, 251; Paulistas, 300; destruction of the natives in, 305; tumults against the Jesuits in, 325; Paulistas upon the Braganzan revolution wish to elect a King for themselves, 327; Maranham in a worse state than the older Captaincies, 449; abolition of Indian slavery renewed by Joam IV. 455; Vieyra arrives in Maranham, 467; missionary board established, 494;

[page] 909

Barreto, Governor General of, 549; Rio de Janeiro separated from the general government, 551; Mascarenhas, Governor General, 553; Obidos, Governor General, ib.; ravages of the small-pox in, 554; Alexander de Sousa Freire, Governor General, 558; three Bishopricks established, 570; question respecting the boundary of, 572; foundation of Nova Colonia, ib.; Antonio de Sousa de Menezes, Governor, 581; superseded by the Marquez das Minas, 585; pestilence, 586; Indian slavery again abolished in, 603; view of its progress during the seventeenth century, 632; Maranham and Para, 636; Seara, 650; Rio Grande do Norte, 651; Pernambuco, ib.; Bahia, 659; Rio de Janeiro, 667; S. Paulo, 668; trade of strangers with, 670; state of manners, 676, 680; artifices of the clergy, 681; fables of the Jesuits, 682; life of Joam d' Almeida, 684; no printing in Brazil, 691; no distinction of casts, ib.; trespass of the French on the Portugueze territory, iii. 15; Mathias da Cunha, Governor General, 17; his death, 19; defenceless state of the country; 18; Antonio Luiz, Governor, 20; increase of trade, 21; state of the coin, 22; dispute with the French at Cayenne, 29; arrangement with France and Spain concerning the limits, 32; Municipal alterations, ib.; improved condition of the Indians, 33; discovery of the Minas Geraes, 40, 47; not injurious to the Indians, 51; first settlements called camps, 55; alteration of the laws respecting mines, 58; effect of mining upon the people, 63; decay of sugar trade, and depopulation, 64; vain attempt of government to prevent this emigration, 65; Rodrigo da Costa, Governor, 66; disputes concerning Nova Colonia, ib.; the Portugueze evacuate it, 68; Luiz Cesar de Menezes, Governor, 69; accession of Joam V. to the throne of Portugal, 70; civil war in the Minas Geraes, 76; invasion of the Paulistas, 83; the Minas and S. Paulo formed into a new Captaincy, 84; Lourenço d' Almada Governor General, 85; state of Pernambuco, ib.; disturbances, 86; attack on Rio de Janeiro by the French under Du Clerc, 109; expedition under Du Guay Trouin, 116; Vasconcellos, Governor, 126; tumults at Bahia, ib.; the Marquez de Angeja Viceroy, 130; alarms respecting the designs of England, 131; negociations at Utrecht, 132; difficulty respecting the commerce of Brazil, 133; measures in Minas Geraes, 143; S. Paulo made a city, 145; a recolhimento founded at Bahia, 151; Conde do Vimieiro, Governor, 152; the Paulistas defeated by the Spaniards of Santa Cruz, 172; restrictions upon emigrating to, 254; discovery of diamonds, 274; plans for regulating the extraction, 276; great drought in Mato Grosso, 360; Treaty of Limits, 442; Seven Reductions ceded in this treaty by Spain, 448; war against them, 462; delay in executing, and final annulment of the treaty, 501; law for the abolishment of Indian slavery, 513; expulsion of the Jesuits from, 541; Companies of Maranham and Pernambuco established, 548; whaling company, 553; salt contract, 554; Donatories extinguished, 555; laws enforced in Goyaz, 556; Rio Grande de S. Pedro taken by Zeballos, 564; proceedings on the Mato Grosso and Moxo frontiers, 571; Sitio das Pedras taken, 573; site of S. Rosa occupied, 574; called Conceiçam, 575; the Brazilians forbidden to send their daughters to the nunneries in Portugal, 586; laws respecting the new churches, 587; trade opened for single ships, 589; capitation abolished, and the fifths resumed, 592; gold fraudulently debased, 593; laws against the goldsmiths, 595; affairs of Goyaz, 596; war with the Cayapos, 597; some of the Guaranies from the Spanish Reductions fly into Brazil, 616; Praça dos Prazeres founded, 622; Nova Coimbra founded, 623; Diamond Contract, 624; regulations for the diamond districts, 626; Azambuja, Viceroy, 643; academy of natural history instituted, ib.; armament sent against, by the Spaniards, 644; S. Catharina vilely surrendered to the armament under Zeballos, 648; Colonia taken, 650; second treaty of limits, 652; extinction of the companies of Maranham and Pernambuco, 655; encroachments of the Spaniards, 658; peace with the Guaycurus, 662; the Cayapos reduced, 674; attempt to reduce the Chavantes, 675; route from Goyaz to Para by the Araguaya explored, 676; expedition against the Canoeiros, 677; Conde de Rezende, Viceroy, 678; conspiracy in Minas Geraes, 679; discovered, 682; salt contract abolished, 686; war with Spain, 687; Conde dos Arcos, Viceroy, 692; removal of the Court of Portugal to, 695; view of its progress during the 18th century, and of its state at the period of the Removal, 696; difficult communication of the northern provinces with the south by sea,

VOL. III. 6 A

[page] 910

751; mitigations of slavery in, 784; frequent emancipations, 785; free Creole Negroes, 787; mean level of the interior and mountainous provinces, 839; effects of the system of farming the taxes, 871; of the manner of raising regular troops, 872; vigilance of police, 875; want of a public press, before the Removal, ib.; clergy, 877; monopoly of trade, ib.; enormous quantity of clipt money formerly in, 883; difference between the intrinsic and current value of the coin, ib.; a whimsical conceit from Rocha Pitta, respecting its gold, 885; note on the exclusion of foreigners from, in 1710, 889.
Brazil Company, established at Vieyra's suggestion, ii. 228; sends out its first fleet, 231; the camp-masters resolve to solicit its aid, 235; operations concerted with, 236.
Brazil wood, when first known, i. 626.
Brazilian savages, no indecency in their dances, i. 654.
Brechier, Count of, report of his expedition to the Orellana, i. 579.
Bretigny, the Sieur de, his attempts to form settlements at Cayenne, Surinam, and Berbice, iii. 13.
Brink, defeated, in the second battle of Guararapes, ii. 229.
Brigniel, F. Joseph, his exertions in civilizing the savages of Paraguay, iii. 440.
Brito de Castro, Antonio, kills the Alcaide Mor of Bahia, ii. 582.
Brito, Luis de, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 310.
Broca, insect, a plague in Brazil, i. 319.
Brouwer, Henrik, sent against Chili, ii. 24; Cape Horn for the first time passed, 25; he dies, and the expedition fails, ib.
Bucarelli, appointed Governor of Buenos Ayres, iii. 601; superintends the deportation of the Jesuits from thence, 612.
Buena Esperanza founded, i. 63; besieged and abandoned, 71.
Bueno, Amador, a leader of the Paulistas in their invasion of the Mines, iii. 83.
Bueno, Bartolomeu, his expedition in search of gold, iii. 50; makes the first settlement in Goyaz, 305.
Bueno de Ribeira, Amador, refuses to be King of the Paulistas, ii. 328.
Buenos Ayres, foundation of, i. 59; famine at, 61; burnt by the savages, 62; abandoned by the Spaniards, 75; orders given to re-settle, 116; a second time abandoned, 126; re-cstablished, 348; first hides sent to Europe, 349; the name said to have arisen from an exclamation of Sancho del Campo, 629; influx of silver to Bahia from, ii. 661; measures of the Governor to expel the Portugueze from Monte Video, iii. 220; intrigues of the Bishop with the Commons of Paraguay, 240; first shipment of hides for Spain, 375; English expedition against, 694.
Bugres, savages so called, inhabiting the country between the Tieté and the Uruguay, iii. 854.
Bulhoens, Bishop of Para, suspends the Jesuits from their clerical functions, preparatory to their expulsion, iii. 541.
Buriti, tree, its fruit yields a beverage to the people of Piauhy, iii. 758.
Burton, John, his Eriander cited, ii. 713.

C.

Caa, or Herb of Paraguay, ii. 356. (See Matté.)
Caaibata, slaughter of the Guaranies at, iii. 482.
Cabedello, fort, near Paraiba, besieged by Lichthart, i. 481; force brought against, 502; surrenders, 504.
Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Nuñez, succeeds Mendoza in the Plata, i. 104; his ship saved by a grillo, 105; marches over land from S. Catalina, 106, 107; passage of the Parana, 113; arrival at Asumpcion, 114; danger of the sick and escort, 115; marches against the Guaycurus, 119; makes peace with them, 124; faction formed against him, 127; undertakes an expedition to the interior, 128; sends messengers to the Xarayes, 137; his march towards Peru, 142; Returns to Puerto de los Reyes, 145; scarcity, ib.; gold and silver heard of, 150; return of the Spaniards to Asumpcion, 151: they mutiny and send him prisoner to Spain, 152; his acquittal denied by Azara, 632.
Cabo do Norte, Captaincy of, erected for Maciel, ii. 14; he entrusts it to his nephew, Joam Velho do Valle, 15; adventurers of various nations attempt to settle there, iii. 12; fort of, seized by the French, 30; retaken by the Portugueze, 31.
Cabo Frio, settlement of, ii. 667,
Cabot, Sebastian, voyage of, i. 51.
Cabral, voyage of, i. 9; driven to the coast of Brazil, 10.
Cabral, Joam Paez, wounded at Monte das Tabocas, ii. 109.

[page] 911

Cabral, Pascoal Moreira, a Paulista, discovers the mines of Cuyaba, iii. 255.
Cabrera, Alonzo de, sent with reinforcements to the Plata, i. 71.
Caceres, Felipe de, Lieutenant to Zarate, at Asumpcion, i. 339; fights his way through the Itatines, 340; his disputes with the Bishop of Asumpcion, 342; arrested and sent to Spain, 343.
Cacimbas, pits for the filtration of brackish water, iii. 26.
Cacocies Chaneses, tribe of, domesticate ducks, to devour crickets, i. 127.
Caete, town of, in Minas Geraes, iii. 823.
Cahetes, tribe of, i. 44; kill the Bishop of Brazil, 267; driven into the interior, 324.
Calabar, Domingos Fernandes, deserts to the Dutch, i. 485; surprises and sacks Garassu, ib.; his expedition to the Lagoas, 491; lands reinforcements at Nazareth, 499; gets the Dutch ships out, 500; put to death, 517.
Calchaquis, tribe of, iii. 394; a story concerning them, from Funes, 894.
Caldeira, his expedition to Para, i. 427; appointed Capitam Mor of that territory, ib.; deposed by the people, 430.
Calvary, fort, taken by the Portugueze, ii. 28.
Cam, Diogo Martins, his expedition in search of mines, i. 314.
Camaragibe, post of, Joam Fernandes at, ii. 89.
Camaram, an ally of the Portugueze, i. 474; negociates with the Dutch, 563; marches to join Joam Fernandes, ii. 74; his movements, 85; joins him after the battle of Tabocas, 121; his victory over the Dutch at Potengi, 155; joined by Vidal, 161; his death, 206.
Camel, the introduction of, into the Sertoens of Brazil, suggested by Arruda, iii. 790; breed of, lost in Spain and Peru, 832, note.
Cameta, or Villa Viçosa, on the Tocantins, iii. 737.
Camp, of Bom Jesus, formed, i. 474; capitulates, 507; new camp formed, ii. 142; contagion in, 144; scarcity in, 163; supplies obtained, 166.
Campanario, a rocky peak on the isle of Fernam de Noronha, iii. 302.
Campbell, frequency of the name among the landed proprietors in Argyleshire, iii. 897.
Campo Mayor, town of, in Piauhy, iii. 754.
Camps, first mining settlements in Brazil so called, iii. 55.
Canafistula, abundant in Maranham, ii. 645.
Cananea, town of, southward of Bahia de Santos, iii 851.
Caniavieiras, Povoaçam de, the highest Portugueze settlement on the Pardo, iii. 694.
Canindé, portage to, from Vargem Redonda, iii. 792.
Canisianas, tribe of, their cannibalism, iii. 205.
Cannibal madness, among the North American savages, mentioned by Dablon, i. 637.
Cannibalism of the Brazilian savages, i. 217; ceremonies observed with a captive, 218; consequences deduced from their theory of generation, ib.
Canoeiros, expedition against the, iii. 677.
Canto, José Borges do, his expedition against the Seven Reductions, iii. 688.
Caoquira, a Chief of the Tamoyos, receives Nobrega and Anchieta as his guests, i. 287.
Caou-in, or Kaawy, liquor, two kinds of, i. 235.
Caoutchouc, or gum-elastic, obtained from the Omaguas, i. 589; mode of forming a floating lamp of, 658.
Capataz, or master-herdsman of the estancias in Paraguay, iii. 423.
Capitation tax, established in Minas Geraes, iii. 270; abolished, and the fifths resumed, 592.
Captaincies, Brazil divided into, i. 32.
Caraiba, of the Tupi tribes, 227, 229.
Caramuru, history of, i. 30; he goes to France, 31; assists in founding St. Salvador, 215.
Carapanatuba, the land of musquitoes, iii. 351.
Caravares, tribe on the Orellana, expedition against, iii. 7.
Caravels, how distinguished from gallies, i. 317, note.
Carcarisos, tribe of, sought by Ayolas, i. 68.
Carchuonos, tribe of, i. 165.
Carcokies, tribe of, i. 168.
Cardenas, Dr. cited on the practice of Spanish physicians, in cases of fever, i. 647.
Cardenas, D. Bernardino de, appointed Bishop of Paraguay, ii. 381; difficulty respecting his consecration, 383; goes to Asumpcion, 387; doubts concerning his authority, ib.; his conduct, 389; claims temporal as well as ecclesiastical power, 391; His first dispute with the Governor, 392; whom he excommunicates, 393; absolves him, 394; fresh contests with him, 395; again excommunicates him, 397; performs a public penance, ib.; seeks to excite an insurrection against the Governor, 399; reconciled, but again excommunicates him, 401; leaves Asumpcion, ib.; goes to Yaguaron and arrests two of the chapter, 403; his rapacity, 404; cause of his enmity toward the Jesuits, 407; endeavours to expel them from

[page] 912

Asumpcion, 409; the Governor goes with a Guarani force to seize him, 413; promises to submit, and secretly marches to Asumpcion, 416; fortifies himself in the Franciscan Church, 417; deposed from his see, and deported by the Jesuit party, 419; exhibits charges against the Jesuits, 421; appeals to the Bishop of Cordoba, 426; sets out for Asumpcion, but is sent back, ib.; returns in triumph, 430; on the death of the new Governor, is appointed to succeed him, 433; the Vice-governor marches against him, 438; taken and sent to the Audience, 441; sentence, ib.; his after-fate, 442; his letter to the Viceroy of Peru, 443.
Cardenas, F. Pedro, nephew of the Bishop of Paraguay, ii. 391; insults Hinostrosa, the Governor, 394; vindictive outrage of the latter, 397.
Cardiel, Joseph, a famous dancing-master in Paraguay, ii. 349.
Cardozo, Antonio Diaz, sent into Pernambuco by the Governor of Brazil, ii. 73; his meeting with Joam Fernandez and the insurgents, 75; his conduct at the battle of Monte das Tabocas, 100.
Caribs, their cannibalism, i. 637.
Carijos, tribe of, on the Rio Grande, their character, iii. 565; their jugglers, 566.
Carios, tribe of, i. 65; subdued by Yrala, 161.
Caripatenas, tribe of, on the Orellana, expedition against, iii. 7; its success, 10.
Carlos III. of Spain, annuls the Treaty of Limits, iii. 503.
Carmelites introduced into Brazil, i. 316; established at Bahia, ii. 553; their disputes with the Jesuits, iii. 366.
Carmo, Rio do, discovery of, iii. 55.
Carnauba, a most useful tree in Seara, iii. 763.
Caro, country, entered by the Jesuits, ii. 293; they are opposed by a confederacy, and two of them murdered, 294; confederacy defeated, 297.
Carilho, Fernam, Governor, pro tempore, at Para, iii. 71.
Carvajal, Fray Gaspar de, accompanies Orellana, i. 83.
Carvalho, Francisco Coelho de, his preparations against the Dutch, i. 453; proceeds to his new government of Maranham and Para, 459.
Carvalho, F. Coelho de, joint Governor of Maranham with Feliciano Correa, ii. 45.
Carvalho, Manoel de, his success against the Dutch in Maranham, ii. 41, 42.
Carvalho e Mello, Sebastiam Joseph de, iii. 505. (See Pombal.)
Carvoeiro, settlement of, on the Rio Negro, iii, 715.
Casa Tilly, Marques de, Admiral of the Spanish armament against Brazil, iii. 645.
Cascalho, mode of separating gold from, ii. 669; iii. 53.
Cascalho of the diamond streams, manner of washing, iii. 639; difference between that in the mountains and that in the rivers, 827, note.
Cashew-nuts, cast up on the Cornish shores, i. 641.
Cassar commands a marauding expedition of the French against Brazil, iii. 131.
Cassia fistula, Monardes cited respecting, i. 625.
Cassiquari river, its communication with the Rio Negro and the Orinoco, iii. 709.
Castello Melhor, the Conde de, Governor of Brazil, ii. 231.
Castrejon abandons the fortress of Paraiba, i. 352.
Castro, Caetano de, Governor of Pernambuco, iii. 23.
Castro de Caldas, Sebastiam de, Governor of Pernambuco, receives orders to make Recife a town, iii. 86; attempt to assassinate him, 88; his flight, 91.
Castro de Moraes, Francisco, Governor of the Rio de Janeiro, iii. 108; his conduct on the invasion of the French, 109; on the second invasion, under Du Guay Trouin, 117; ransoms the city, iii. 122; he is disgraced and superseded, 124.
Casts, no distinction of in Brazil, ii. 691.
Cata, in Brazilian mining, iii. 53.
Catalina, S. arrival of Senabria's expedition at, i. 175.
Cats, value of the first couple carried to Cuyaba, iii. 892.
Cattle, European, effects of the introduction of into Brazil, iii. 374; consumption of cattle at Bahia, 796, note.
Catuanixis, or Spotted Indians, tribe of, iii. 706.
Cavalcanti, Antonio, countenances the project of Joam Fernandes, i. 81; death of, ii. 121; curious letter of, cited, 698.
Cavallero, F. Lucas, goes among the Manacas, iii. 180; his miraculous adventures, 188; his martyrdom, 191.
Cavendish, his expedition to Brazil, i. 359; burns S. Vicente, 360; his attempt on Espirito Santo, 362; dies of a broken heart, 363;

[page] 913

affecting letter which he wrote when dying, 651.
Cayaguas, tribe of, in Paraguay, ii. 373.
Cayapos, war of the Portugueze with the, iii. 597; reduced, 674.
Cayenne, Labat cited on the French colony there in 1652, i. 644; named Port Howard by Keymiss, iii. 12; the French establish themselves there, 14; the Dutch occupy it for the West India Company, ib.; conquered by Count d' Estrées, 15; dispute of the Governor with the Portugueze, iii. 29.
Cayman, or crocodile of Paraguay, ii. 364, note.
Cayrú, note on the miracle in, ii. 707; settlement of, iii. 558.
Caysava attacked by the Portugueze, iii. 11.
Cayté, or Braganza, in Para, iii. 739.
Centeno, Diego, appointed Governor on the Plata, i. 170; dies, 173.
Cespedes, D. Luiz de, Governor of Buenos Ayres, receives a Guarani Chief from the Jesuit Reductions, ii. 285.
Chafalonia, a metal mentioned by Ribera, i. 159.
Chaneses, tribes of, i. 134.
Chareo, fish, a principal diet at Bahia, i. 322.
Charlevoix, his remarks upon a Jesuit miracle, ii, 277, note; instance of his falsehood, in his account of the siege of Colonia, iii. 292, note.
Charles II. of England, his marriage with a Portugueze Princess favourable to peace with Holland, ii. 249.
Charruas, tribe of, i. 345.
Chavantes, tribe, attempt of the Portugueze to reduce them, iii. 675.
Chaves, Joaquim Ferreira, accompanies Manoel Felix de Lima on his voyage down the rivers, from Mato Grosso, iii. 310; his return, 342.
Chaves, Nuflo de, deputed by Yrala to confer with the President of Peru, i. 169; enters the province of Chiquitos, 332; killed by the Chiriguanas, 339.
Chicha, or maize drink, how prepared, i. 234.
Chichas y Tarija, province of, a remarkable disease incident to Europeans in, i. 646.
Chiguas, or jiggers, a formidable plague in Brazil, i. 326; preservative against, practised in the island of S. Catharina, iii. 861.
Childbirth, custom of various savage nations relative to, i. 641.
Chinchon, the Conde de, Viceroy of Peru, orders a survey of the Orellana, i. 584.
Chiquitos, tribe of, and their territory, i. 333; entered by Chaves, ib.; their low doors, 639; expedition of the Jesuits among, iii. 167; tribes comprehended under that appellation, 169; attempt made to open a communication from the Guarani Missions to, 173; its failure, 176; second attempt on the side of the Chiquitos, 178; success of the Missions, 179.
Chiriaby river, passage of, defended by the Guaranies, iii. 491; abandoned, 492.
Chiriguanas, tribe of, in Paraguay, ii. 373; country occupied by them, iii. 162; reclaimed from cannibalism, 168; Jesuit Missions abandoned, 173.
Cholula, fine specimens of pottery in the markets of, i. 643.
Chomé, F. Ignace, his account of the Chiriguanas, iii. 165; cruelly treated on the expulsion of the Jesuits, 611.
Christian commonwealth, attempt of the Jesuits to form one in Paraguay, ii. 335.
Chuquisaca, Vergara accused and superseded at, i. 338; Cardenas summoned before the Audience at, ii. 426.
Cintra, in Para, iii. 738.
Cipotuva, or Zuputuba, river, i. 132.
Ciudad Real, on the Parana, founded, i. 332.
Clergy in the Minas Geraes, their misconduct, iii. 144; banishment of, 147.
Cochonilha sylvestre of Brazil, remarks on, ii. 649, note.
Cocke, Vice-Admiral, takes Santos, i. 359.
Cocoa, utility of that tree in Pernambuco, iii. 789.
Coelho de Sousa, Pedro, sent to discover El Dorado, i. 375.
Coelho de Carvalho, Francisco, Governor-General of Maranham and Para, i. 437; his measures against the English, 578; his death, 580.
Coelho da Silva, Ignacio, Governor of Maranham, ii. 601; directs an expedition against the Taranambazes, ib.
Coffee, indigenous in Brazil, i. 320.
Cohen, house of, at Amsterdam, their loss on a contract for the diamonds of Brazil, iii. 824.
Coimbra, Nova, founded, iii. 623.
Coin, state of, in Brazil, iii. 22; enormous amount of clipt money, 883.
Coire, or cordage of the canoe, when introduced, iii. 789.
Colaço, Joam Rodriguez, founder of the Captaincy of Rio Grande del Norte, ii. 651.
Coleridge, Mr. accounts for the effect of chalk in destroying ants, i. 645, note.
Coligny promotes the French expedition to Brazil, i. 271.

[page] 914

Colonia, Nova, territory of, disputes concerning, iii. 217; prosperity of, 286; attacked by Salcedo, 288; activity of the Portugueze Governor, 289; progress of the siege, ib.; converted into a blockade, 291; raised, 293; ceded to Spain by the Treaty of Limits, 445; annulment of that treaty, 503: besieged and taken by Zeballos, 558; defeat of an English and Portugueze squadron before, 560; restored to the Portugueze, 585; Zeballos proceeds against, 649; capture of, 650; ill treatment of the prisoners, 651.
Colour, free people of, in Pernambuco, iii. 787.
Comejou, a substance used in the Orinoco country as a plague against winged insects, i. 659.
Commons, of Paraguay, their faction under Mompo, iii. 233.
Commutation tax in Minas Geraes, iii. 150; raised, 156.
Conceiçam, name given by the Portugueze to S. Rosas, iii. 575; visited by Azambuja, 577; appearance of a Spanish force, and notice of war in Europe, 578; Azambuja resigns it into the hands of N. Senhora da Conceiçam, 580.
Condamine mistaken respecting the appellation of Rio dos Solimoens, iii. 142, note; his decription of the hyger, or bore, between Macapa and the North Cape, iii. 897.
Coniapuyara, a name supposed to designate the Amazons, i. 86.
Conjurors of the tribes on the Orellana, i. 621.
Conscience, Board of, at Lisbon, case referred to from Brazil, i. 294; approve the treasurer's opinion respecting the negociation with Holland, ii. 221.
Contas, Rio das, population of, in the seventeenth century, ii. 663.
Corbulon, Governor of Paraguay, his measures against the Portugueze, ii. 573.
Cordoba, Jesuit college founded at, ii. 255; appeal of Cardenas to the Bishop of, 426; seizure of the Spanish Jesuits in the college at, iii. 609.
Cordovil, Capitam Mor of Para, ii. 31.
Correa de Sa e Benavides, Salvador, commands the homeward bound fleet from Bahia, ii. 119; proceeds to Recife, 132; sails for Europe, ib.; sent to recover Angola, 207; lands and completely succeeds, 209, 211; appointed Governor of the Southern Repartition of Brazil, 551; insurrection against him, ib.; conciliates the Paulistas, and restores order, 553;
Correa, Agostinho, his unsuccessful attempt against the Neenghaibas, ii. 519.
Correa Cardozo, Manoel, heads a mutiny of the troops on the Rio Negro, iii. 517.
Correa, Feliciano, joint Governor of Maranham with Francisco Coelho de Carvalho, ii. 45.
Correa, Manoel, first explorer of Goyaz, iii. 305.
Cotton, the most abundant cultivated product of Maranham, ii. 647; its first exportation from Maranham created an alarm among the inhabitants, iii. 552, note; increase of its culture in Brazil, from the enormous demand in Great Britain, 768.
Couroq, oil of, its uses in Brazil, i. 327.
Courserac, second in command to Du Guay Trouin against Rio de Janeiro, iii. 110; lost on his return home, 123.
Coutinho, Francisco Pereira de, his settlement in Bahia, i. 41; expelled by the Tupinambas, 43.
Couto, José Vieira, recommends that the camel should be introduced in Brazil, iii. 832.
Covas, post of Joam Fernandes at, ii. 97.
Covenant of Joam d'Almeida cited, ii. 717.
Coya, an insect found on the Orinoco, i. 646.
Crato, town of, on the Madeira, iii 707.
Crato, in Seara, iii. 760.
Creole Negroes, free, of Brazil, iii. 787.
Croatá, thread of the, network made of, by the Indians, iii. 788.
Cromwell, Oliver, engages in war with Holland, ii. 235; Portugal thus delivered from a dangerous enemy, ib.
Cueremagbas, tribe of, i. 67.
Cunhata, succeeds Tyayaru in the command of the Guaranies, iii. 482; slain at Caaibata, 484.
Cunhau, massacre of Portugueze at, ii. 104.
Curacas, under the Encomienda system, ii. 260.
Curanderos, or medical practitioners in Paraguay, iii. 429.
Curara, a poison prepared by the Caverres of the Orinoco, its effects, i. 641.
Curculio palmarum, practice of the Guaranies of the Orinoco respecting, i. 630; grubs of, esteemed a dainty in Tucuman, iii. 439.
Curiciraris, tribe and territory of, i. 592.
Curipunas, tribe of, i. 598; remarkable for their skill in carving, ib.
Curupa, expedition to the, i. 435; transactions at, ii. 538; outrage against the Jesuits at, 510.
Curupatuba, river, i. 612.
Curytiba, in the Captaincy of S. Paulo, iii. 852.
Cuyaba, the Dutch penetrate thither in search of mines, i. 537, discovery of the mines of, iii, 254; route of the Paulistas to, 255; danger

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from the Payaguas, 257; settlement, 260; a land way opened to, 261; a communication opened to, from Goyaz, 309; high price of the first couple of cats introduced there, 892.
Cuyaba, Villa Real de, a flourishing town in Mato Grosso, iii. 839.

D.

Da Costa, Andre, his settlement on the river Macacu, iii. 817.
Da Costa, Duarte, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 261; his disputes with the Bishop, 266.
Da Costa, Joam Goncalez, his expedition down the Pardo, iii. 692.
Da Costa, Manoel Alvarez, Bishop of Olinda, takes part with the mal - contents, iii. 89; assumes the government of Pernambuco, 95; assents to the measures of the loyalists, 100; goes upon false pretences to Olinda, 102; takes part with the insurgents against Recife, 103; resigns the government, 105.
Da Costa, Rodrigo, Governor of Brazil, iii. 66.
Da Cunha, Aires, his expedition to Maranham, i. 48.
Da Cunha, Antonio, Conde, Viceroy of Brazil, instructed to fix his residence at the Rio, iii. 585.
Da Cunha, Luiz, recommends a capitation in Minas Geraes, iii. 265 note; his view of the probable consequences of the removal of the Portugueze Court to Brazil, 296, note.
Da Cunha, Mathias, Governor General of Brazil, iii. 17; his death, 19.
Da Cunha, Paulo, sent to ravage the Dutch possessions in Pernambuco, i. 575; recalled, ii. 5; takes Serinhaem, 120; compels two Jews to profess Christianity, 121; Nazareth delivered up to him by Hoogstraten, 131; his fruitless mission to Bahia, 201.
Dampier, his description of a cotton tree at Bahia cited, iii. 897.
Das Minas, the Marquez, Governor of Brazil, ii. 585.
Demarcation, line of, between the Spanish and Portugueze territories in America, as settled by the Treaty of Limits, iii. 443; Mendonça Furtado appointed Commissioner for the, 507; its ill consequences to the Indians, 698.
Desembargo do Paço, a Portugueze Court, analogous to that of the King's Bench, iii. 33.
Deserters, Dutch, formed into a regiment, ii. 141; their treachery, 147; the Dutch suspect them, 150; consequences, 151.
Desterro, Antonio de, Bishop of Rio de Janeiro, his conduct on the expulsion of the Jesuits, iii. 545.
Devil, in New Spain, Herrera's description of, i, 639.
Devil worship, among the Manacicas, described by the Jesuits, iii. 182.
Dews, of Brazil, why unwholesome according to Cardenas, i. 647.
Diamantes, districto defezo dos, mountains of, the source of the Paraguay, i. 131.
Diamond contract, iii. 624.
Diamonds, discovered in Serro do Frio, iii. 274; consequences of this discovery, 275; plans for regulating the extraction, 276; contract for extracting, 280; effect of the contract upon the trade, 281; description of Serro do Frio, and the Forbidden District, 284; Pombal's regulations for the District, 626; effect of these laws, 637; manner of working the mines, 639; effect of the system, 642; Tejuco the capital of the Demarcation, 824; diamond district in Mato Grosso, 841; curious particulars concerning the trade in diamonds from a representation by Lord Tyrawley, 891.
Dias da Costa, Ouvidor of Maranham, excommunicated by the Bishop, iii. 35; dies, 36.
Diaz Paez Leme, Fernando, pursues the search of Azevedo for mines, iii. 46; explores the country now called Minas Geraes, 47; his services and death, ib.
Diaz, Henrique, sent to ravage the Dutch possessions in Pernambuco, i. 575; recalled, ii. 5; marches to join Joam Fernandes, 74; his movements, 85, joins Fernandes after the battle of Tabocas, 121.
Diaz, Robeiro, offers to discover silver mines in Brazil, i. 358.
Dirk, the Dutch abbreviation for Theodorick, ii. 63, note. (See Hoogstraten.)
Distillation of spirits, measures for checking in Minas Geraes, iii. 149.
Dobrizhoffer, his exertions in civilizing the savages of Paraguay, iii. 420.
Doce, river, Tourinho's expedition up, i. 312; its two branches almost embrace the whole Captaincy of Minas Geraes, iii. 283.
Domingos Jorge, the Paulista, his expedition against the Negroes of the Palmares, iii. 25.
Donatories in Brazil, extinguished, iii. 555.
Dorado, (See El Dorado).
Dorados, fish abounding in the Paraguay, i. 131.

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Doria, Giuseppe, his intercourse with the English at Santos, i. 355.
Drake, effect of his hostilities in America, i. 355.
Dramas, religious, of the Indians, ii. 700.
Drunkenness, produced by snuff made from grains of the Yupa, i, 641.
Druses, of Syria, their mode of moulding the head, i. 657.
Du Clerc, leads a French squadron against the Rio de Janeiro, iii. 108; lands without opposition, 109; enters the city, 110; overcome by the Portugueze, 111; murdered, 113
Du Guay Trouin, commands a French expedition to Rio de Janeiro, iii. 114; enters the harbour, 116; takes the city, 120; accepts its ransom, 122; fate of the squadron, 123.
Ducks, kept to devour crickets, i. 127.
Duncane, a shrub mentioned by Stedman, as poisonous to sheep and kine, i. 627.
Dutch, trade to the Orellana, i. 428; a vessel of theirs burnt by Teixeira, ib.; establishment of their West Indian Company, 438; a fleet equipped against Brazil, 440; St. Salvador taken, 441; they strengthen the city, 442; meeting of their troops, 450; they capitulate, ib.; difficulty of sending them to Europe, 451; a fleet arrives, 452; prepare an expedition against Pernambuco, 462; obtain possession of Olinda, 468; and Recife, 469; their distress, 474; expedition against Itamaraca, 476; send Patry with a fleet to Pernambuco, 477; attack Paraiba, 482; their unsuccessful attempt upon Rio Grande, ib.; Calabar deserts to them, 485; they send out commissaries, 487; assault the Portugueze camp, and are repulsed, 488; reduce Itamaraca, 489; unsuccessful attempt to besiege the camp, 490; reduce Rio Grande, 493; make allies among the savages, 495; attack Nazareth, 498; receive fresh reinforcements from Holland, 500; attack Paraiba, 501; take it, 504; the camp capitulates, 507; their nefarious conduct, 508; take Nazareth, 512; Nassau sent out as General, 528; take Porto Calvo, 530; operations on the San Francisco, 535; seek for mines, 537; deliberations on the seat of government, 540; drive the Portugueze from Segeripe, 541; take S. Jorge da Mina, 545; take Seara, 546; proceedings at Recife, 547; preparations against Bahia, 549; enter the bay, 551; take four of the forts, 553; open their batteries, 555; battle in the trenches, 557; their cruelty, 558, raise the siege, 559; the Company in Holland open the trade to Brazil, 561; arms given to the Captaincies, 563; state of them, 564; want of colonists, 565; Jews, 566; Savages, ib.; missionaries, 567; military force, ib.; Mauritias built, 569; four naval actions, 571; lay waste the Reconcave, 574; a truce of ten years concluded with Portugal, ii. 2; their treachery, 4; surprize Segeripe, 6; their expedition against Angola, 7; take Loanda, 10; expedition against the island of St. Thomas, 11; mortality among them, 13; expedition against Maranham, 17; Maciel permits them to land and occupy part of S. Luiz, ib.; they seize the citadel, 18; conquer the island and send Maciel away prisoner, 19; their expedition against Chili, 23; their tyranny in Maranham, 26; insurrection, 27; loss of fort Calvary, 28; reduced to act on the defensive, 31; their cruelty in consequence of Teixeira's success, 37; they receive reinforcements, 39; are defeated by the patriots, 41; evacuate Maranham, 45; and are cut off in Seara by the Indians, 46; numbers return to Holland with Nassau, 50; union proposed between the East and West India Companies, 51; embarrassment of the latter, 52; general distress in Pernambuco, 53; their insolence and misconduct, 58; deputation to Bahia, 61; measures against the priests and religioners in Pernambuco, 64; Fernandes Vieira accused before the Council, 67; insurrection of the Portugueze, 82; precautionary measures of the Council converted into means of extortion, 90; commencement of hostilities, 93; Massacre of the Portugueze at Cunhau, 104; advance of the Dutch army, 107; battle of Monte das Tabocas, 108; their retreat, 116; embassy to Bahia sent before the battle, 117; seize the women in the Varzea as hostages, 124; who are rescued by Fernandes, 125; Haus and Blaar made prisoners, 127; amount of their loss, 128; Olinda lost, 130; Nazareth delivered up by Hoogstraten, 131; Lichthart destroys the Portugueze squadron, 132; insurrection in Goyana, 134; and Paraiba, 136; they surrender Porto Calvo, 137; abandon Rio S. Francisco, 138; Recife invested, 141; preparations for defence, 142; desultory warfare, 145; treachery of deserters, 147; transactions at the Potengi, 152; Rhineberg defeated by Camaram, 156; distress in Recife, 158; attempt to intercept the convoy from the Potengi, 166; are defeated at S. Lourençro, 167; orders sent to the camp-masters to relin-

[page] 917

quish Pernambuco to them, 169; state of negociations, 171; defence of Itamaraca, 177; remove their Indians, ib.; famine in Recife, 179; a fleet arrives from Holland, 180; negociations, 182; Schoppe returns to Brazil, 184; they propose to give no quarter, 186; Hinderson sent to the Rio S. Francisco, 189; Recife cannonaded by the Portugueze, 192; operations in the Reconcave, 195; are defeated at Guararapes, 203; win the Asseca battery, 205; lay waste the Reconcave, 206; Angola lost, 211; negociations in Holland, 212; their demands, ib.; second battle of Guararapes, 229; war with England, 234; Recife besieged and captured, 239; a fleet sent to the Tagus, 244; operations on the coast of Portugal, 246; peace, 249; they land heretical papers in South America, 293; their attempt in the Orellana, 450; their jealousy of the French in Brazil, 648; Pernambuco called by them New Holland, 651; their zeal for religion, 653; improvements introduced by them, 655; the climate injurious to their women and children, 656; few marriages between them and the Portugueze, 658; they acknowledge their misconduct in Brazil, 697; what became of their settlers when finally ejected from Brazil, 710.
Duranton, (perhaps Dorrington) note on his emigration to Brazil, ii. 698.
Du Tertre, cited respecting the Dutch settlers ejected from Brazil, ii. 710.
Duwy, the Tapuya Chieftain, exacts a peace-offering for the murder of Jacob Rabbi, ii. 179.

E.

Echauri, Martin de, appointed Governor of Paraguay, iii. 245.
Eclipse, mode employed by Gumilla to explain that phenomenon to the savages, i. 647.
Ega, town of, on the Tefé, iii. 704.
El Dorado, expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro in search of, i. 78; lure of, diverts English adventurers from Brazil, 371; origin of the fable, 372; expedition from Brazil in search of, 375.
Embira, plant, its uses in Brazil, i. 321.
Emboabas, Cazal's explanation of the word, iii. 885.
Emerald mines, remains of, at Bahia, i. 323.
Encabellados, Indians, met with on Orellana's voyage, i. 87; Mission from Quito to those on the Ahuarico, 581; proceedings of Teixeira among them, 586.
Encomienda, system, in Paraguay, ii. 259; regulations of Alfaro respecting, 272.
Encomiendas, Las Casas cited respecting, ii. 699.
Engenhos, in Brazil, state of, in the seventeenth century, ii. 674; number of Negroes, ib.; cruel treatment of them, 675; in Bahia, iii. 800.
England, her first intercourse with Brazil, i. 352; Fenton's expedition, 355; commencement of hostilities, ib.; Withrington's expedition, 356; Cavendish's expedition, 359; Lancaster's, 364; Ralegh's fable of El Dorado, 371; England at war with Holland, ii. 235; her interference between Portugal and Holland, 249; final settlement of peace, ib.; her designs upon South America cause apprehensions in Brazil, iii. 131; arrangement with Spain, called the assiento, 135; war with Spain, 299; the factory at Lisbon affected by the monopolies of the Brazil Companies, 550; defeat of an English and Portugueze squadron before Colonia, 560; England appealed to concerning the Rio Grande, 600; expedition against Buenos Ayres, 694; reason whyshe was interested in obtaining the restitution of Nova Colonia, 889.
English, their attempts in Para, i. 578; their fleet too late to blockade the armament of Du Guay Trouin, in Brest, 115; were at a loss to divine the object of his expedition, 882.
Eoban, the poet, notice on, i. 635.
Equestrian tribes of South America, iii. 377, 415; their ravages in the Spanish settlements, 437.
Ermida, or chapel, founded on the Morro de S. Paulo, ii. 560.
Eschwege, Colonel von, his remark on an earthquake in Brazil, iii. 840.
Espirito Santo, Captaincy of, i. 38; ravaged by the Tamoyos, 286; state of, in 1582, 326; repulse of the English at, 363; state of that district in the seventeenth century, ii. 665; Campos dos Goiatacazes, ib; first gold from Minas Geraes exhibited in, iii. 49; state of the Captaincy, 810; Porto de Sousa, ib.; Villa Velha, 811; Villa Nova d'Almeida, 812.
Estancias, or grazing estates in Paraguay, their average extent, iii. 423.
Estolica, or throwing-stick, of the tribes on the Orellana, i. 620.
Etoaca, footsteps of St. Thomas at, i. 640.
Europe, effects of the introduction of cattle from, into Brazil, iii. 374.
Exaltacion de S. Cruz, on the Mamore, some of the Portugueze in Manoel de Lima's party

VOL. III. 6 B

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proceed to, iii. 332; their return to Mato Grosso, 343.
Explosions held to be a sign of precious stones, i. 658.
Extraviadores (smugglers), an understanding between them and the contractors for diamonds, before the Government took the mines into its own hands, iii. 824, note.

F.

Fabro, Fernando, charged with the expedition against the Jesuit college of Cordoba, iii. 609.
Faca de ponte, a weapon commonly worn in Brazil, iii. 320, note.
Fagundes, character of, ii. 91.
Falmouth, seizure of diamonds at, and representation of the merchants on that subject, iii. 891.
Faro, D. Sancho de, Conde do Vimieiro, Governor-General of Brazil, iii. 152.
Faro, town of, on the left bank of the Orellana, iii. 730.
Fazendas, state of those in Piauhy, iii. 755.
Fazendeiros, wholesale graziers, iii. 867.
Feitoza, family of, outrages committed by, in Brazil, iii. 778; the Chief apprehended and sent to Lisbon, 779.
Felipe II. of Spain, offers Brazil to the Duke of Braganza, i. 315.
Fenton, Edward, his expedition to Brazil, i. 354.
Ferdinand VI. character of him and his Queen, iii. 442; concludes the Treaty of Limits, 443; cedes seven Reductions to Portugal, 448; his reasons for ordering the inhabitants to remove, 449.
Fernam Noronha, isle of, occupied by Cornelis Jol, i. 457; attempt of the French East India Company to occupy, iii. 300; description of the isle, 302.
Fernandes, Balthazar, Capitam Mor of Maranham, his indecision during the discontents, ii. 606; imprisoned by the insurgents, 612.
Fernandes Vieira, Joam, rise of, ii. 65; his liberality, 66; he is accused before the Council, 67; prepares his countrymen for insurrection, 68; opens his project to Vidal, 69; his representations to the Governor-General, 71; declares his intentions, 74; appointed General and Governor during the insurrection, 75; some of the Portugueze seek to deter him, ib.; and to make Cardozo return to Bahia, 76; the Governor promises to assist him, 79; his preparations, 80; plans a massacre of the leading men among the Dutch, 81; they seek to entrap him, 83; he takes to the woods, 85; summons the people to take arms, 89; money offered to him by the Dutch Council, 90; commencement of hostilities, 93; his movements, 95; crosses the Tapicura in sight of the enemy, 96; discontents in his army, 97; want of medical aid, 99; families of the insurgents expelled by the Dutch, 100; his counter-edict, 103; post at Monte das Tabocas, 104; murmurs in the camp, 106; battle, 108; marches to meet the reinforcements from Bahia, 121; his interview with Vidal, 122; marches to rescue the women seized as hostages in the Varzea, 124; defeats the Dutch at Cases de Dona Ana, 125; encamps before Recife, 141; attempt upon Itamaraca, 143; his mistrust of the Dutch deserters, 148; vigorous war of outposts, 160; secures the ports of Nazareth and Tamandare, 165; travels round the province to solicit donations, ib.; orders arrive on his return, for Pernambuco to be relinquished to the Dutch, 169; he determines to persist in the war, 170; attempt made to assassinate him, 175; his letter to the Dutch, respecting the insurrection, 186; arrival of Barreto, 199; troops called in, and operations contracted, 201; victory at Guararapes, 203; wounded in the second battle, 230; operations concerted with the Brazil fleet, 236; conducts the siege of Recife, 239; takes possession of the city, 241.
Fernandez, D. Andre, Bishop of Japan, favours Vieyra, ii. 517; his death, 532.
Fernandez, Antonio, employed to murder Calabar, i. 517.
Fernandez, Juan Patricio, cited respecting the Chiquitos, i. 334, note.
Fernandez, Pedro, cited on Cabeza de Vaca's transactions in Paraguay, i. 153.
Ferreiro, or the Blacksmith, a small bird so named in Brazil, ii. 287.
Ferrol, M. de, Governor of Cayenne, his dispute with the Portugueze, iii. 29.
Fevers, cold affusion used by the Brazilian savages in, i. 647.
Figen, the title of the elders among the Guaycurus, iii. 387.
Figueiredo, Andre Diaz de, arrested for an attempt to assassinate the Governor of Pernambuco, iii. 89.
Figueyredo, Governor of Rio Grande do Sul, fixes on Portalegre as its capital, iii. 865.
Filds, Thomas, a Scotch Jesuit, sent from Brazil to Paraguay, ii. 252.

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Filgueira, Manoel Dias, his house pillaged by the insurgents at Bahia, iii. 127.
Firebrands, a necessary precaution against wild beasts, i. 639.
Flax, plants, affording a substitute for, in Pernambuco, iii. 789.
Fleckno, his description of Rio de Janeiro in 1648, ii. 667, note; note on his travels, 713; adduces a curious proof of the truth of the Catholic religion, 717.
Fleury, Cardinal, his remark on the correspondence respecting Colonia, iii. 291, note.
Flies, the curse of Paraguay, iii. 376.
Flores de Valdes, expels the French from Paraiba, i. 351.
Florida Blanca, Count, (D. Joseph Moniño) minister of Spain, sends an armament against Brazil, iii. 644.
Forasteiros, in the Minas Geraes, jealousy between them and the Paulistas, iii. 73; they chuse Manoel Nunes for their head, 74; civil war, 76; repulse the Paulistas at the Rio das Mortes, 84.
Forbidden District of Diamonds, described, ill. 284. (See Diamonds.)
Forbidden District in Goyaz, iii. 836.
Forte do Principe da Beira, the S. Rosa of the Jesuits, iii. 841.
France, expedition from, to Maranham, i. 392; proposes to Spain to partition the Portugueze dominions, iii. 296; the French East India Company seek to occupy Fernam de Noronha, 300; engaged with Spain in alliance against England, 557; revolutionary war, 686; treaty of Madrid, between her and Portugal, 691. (See French.)
Fray, Roger, his attempt to establish a colony among the Tocujos, i. 579.
Freguezias, or parish-churches, number of, in the Reconcave, i. 318.
Freire, Brito, admiral of the Brazil fleet, ii. 236.
French, begin to trade to Brazil, i. 28; their expedition under Villegagnon to Brazil, 270; name the country France Antarctique, 272; expedition of Mem de Sa against theme 279; their works demolished, 280; finally defeated at Rio de Janeiro, 301; trade to Rio Real, 314; their treachery, 413; three of Jeronymo Albuquerque's ships taken by them, 415; invest the Portugueze, 417; are defeated, 418; treaty, 420; St. Louis unconditionally surrendered, 426; the French in Brazil, jealous of the Dutch, ii. 648; establish themselves at Cayenne, iii. 14; they trespass on the Portugueze territory, 15; dispute of the Governor of Cayenne with the Portugueze, 29; seize the fort of Cabo do Norte, 30; the Portugueze retake it, 31; expedition to Rio de Janeiro, under Du Clere, 109; they enter the city, 110; the Portugueze overpower them, 111; prepare a second expedition under Du Guay Trouin, 114; enter the harbour of the Rio, 116; take and pillage the city, 120; it is ransomed, 122; fate of their squadron, 123; marauding expedition under Cassar, 131; territorial claims in South America renounced in favour of Portugal at Utrecht, 132; contribution raised by them at the Rio, 888;, their unwillingness to relinquish the Orellana, ib.
Freyre de Andrada, Gomes, appointed Governor of Maranham, ii. 616; takes out with him persons connected with that province, 617; an insufficient force allotted to him, 618; court intrigues against him, 619; requires discretionary powers, 621; arrives at Maranham, 622; obtains information from the city, 623; attempts made to dissuade him from landing, 625; surprises the fort, and enters the city without resistance, 626; orders Beckman and other prisoners for trial, 629; interview of Beckman's wife and daughters with him, 630; restores to them his property after his execution, ib.; his measures at Maranham, iii. 1; sends an expedition against the savages on the Meary, 3; reforms the abuses of his predecessors, 5, convinces the Bishop of his imprudence, 6; his measures against the intrusions of the French, 16; is superseded, ib.; his spirited reply to the French minister at Lisbon, 32;, removed from the government of Rio de Janeiro to that of Minas Geraes, 268; appointed to the united governments of the Rio, and Minas Geraes, 304; cession of the seven reductions in the treaty of limits imputed to him, 450; advances to the Jacuy against the insurgent Guaranies, 470; makes a truce and retires, 471; second campaign, 476; junction with the Spaniards, 477; after the submission of the Guaranies, refuses to take possession of the ceded country, 497.
Fritz, Samuel, a German .Jesuit, produced the first authentic map of the Orellana, iii. 142.
Funchal, the native place of Joam Fernandes Vieira, ii. 697.
Furtado, Jeronymo, succeeds Vidal as Governor of Pernambuco, ii. 555; insurrection against him, 556; sent prisoner to Lisbon, 557.

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Furtar, Arte de, the author of, cited, on a mode of roguery in Brazil, ii. 708.

G.

Gaeta, a proverbial simile derived from his cow, iii. 374.
Gamellas, name given to the northern tribes in Maranham, iii. 746.
Garassu, siege of, i. 46; surprised and sacked by Calabar, 485; reoccupied by the Portugueze, but abandoned, 490; fortified by the Portugueze, ii. 144.
Garay, Juan de, sent from Asumpcion to colonize in the direction of Tucuman, i. 346; conducts an expedition to reestablish Buenos Ayres, 348, slain, ib.
Garay, D. Juan de, assists in subduing the tribes on the lake Ybera, ii. 325.
Garcia, Diego, his voyage, i. 54.
Garcia, the Portugueze adventurer, i. 130; farther accounts of, 136; some of his followers discovered, 149, 150.
Garcia Ros, D. Balthazar, instructed to reestablish Diego de los Reyes in Paraguay, iii. 215; goes to Corrientes, 217; returns to Buenos Ayres, ib.; marches against Asumpcion, 223; Antequera marches against him, 225; he flies to Buenos Ayres, 227.
Garoupa Fishery, at Porto Seguro, iii. 809.
Gasca, Pedro de la, President of Peru, his secret agreement with Yrala, i. 169.
Gectinhonha, river, its course, iii. 284; renowned for its riches in gold and diamonds, 285.
George I. interview of Portugueze ministers with, on his way through Holland, iii. 139.
Gerunas, tribe of, on the Orellana, expedition against, iii. 7.
Ginger, prohibited in Brazil, i. 320.
Ginipape, or Mapau, river, i. 613.
Giraldes, Francisco, Governor of Brazil, i. 357; superseded by Francisco de Sousa, 358.
Goarazes, sea-fowl so called, i. 183.
Goaynazes, account of the, i. 34.
Goaytacazes, account of the, i. 37.
Goes, Pedro de, his expedition to Paraiba, i. 37; captain of the fleet which took Don Thome de Sousa to Brazil, i. 213.
Goiatacazes, Campos dos, by what tribes inhabited, ii. 665; peace made with them, iii. 599.
Goitres, not known in some countries where the people have almost nothing but snow water, iii. 898.
Gold, of Minas Geraes, first exhibited in Espirito Santo, iii. 49; in Brazil, fraudulently debased, 193; state of the mines, 826.
Gold-mines, in Maranham, expedition in search of, ii. 452.
Gomara, the old translator of, records an instance of the contagious spirit of adventure to the West Indies, i. 628.
Gomes Lisboa, Manoel, his house sacked by the insurgents at Bahia, iii. 127.
Gonzales, F. Roque, forms a settlement at Itapua, ii. 279; goes to Buenos Ayres with some Guaranies, 285; invested with new powers, enters the Serra de Tapé, 286; murdered by the Caaroans, 294; honours of martyrdom paid to him, 298.
Good Friday, how observed by the Moxos Indians, ii. 706.
Goyambira, tree, its use among the Tupi tribes, i. 244.
Goyana, insurrection in, ii. 134.
Goyaz, first explored by Manoel Correa, iii. 305; first settlement made by Bartholomeu Bueno, ib.; the colony flourishes, 307; made a Captaincy, 308; communication opened with, 309; the laws of Portugal enforced in, 556; affairs of, 596; a diamond demarcation in, 625; route from, to Para, by the Araguaya, explored, 676; extent and boundaries of the Captaincy, 833; state of the Mines, 835; Forbidden District, 836; revenues, 837.
Gram, Luis de, appointed Provincial of Brazil, i. 262; becomes sole Provincial on the retirement of Nobrega, 294.
Grillo, (a ground-cricket) saves the ships of Cabeza de Vaca, i. 105.
Grubs used by the Indians for food, i. 110.
Guamos, tribe of, on the Orinoco, their custom of blood-letting, iii. 894.
Guanas, tribe of, in Paraguay, ii. 373.
Guapiaras, a term of the miners in Brazil, iii. 826.
Guapore, river, its source in the Campos dos Parecis, iii. 312; voyage of Felix de Lima, and his adventures down it, 313; intercourse with the Indians, 315; settlement of some Portugueze on Ilha Grande in that river, 349.
Guarana, a medicinal preparation of the Maues tribe, iii. 728.
Guaranies, expel the Spaniards from the Plata, i. 56; tribe of, found by Cabeza de Vaca, 107; tribe of, near Asumpcion, their mode of killing a captive, 116; their expedition towards Peru, 140; Guaranies, on the Parana, call on Yrala for protection, 331; insurrection of, 337; exertions of the Jesuit Lorenzana among, ii.

[page] 921

270; their language that of the Reductions in Paraguay, 345; the most numerous tribe of the Reductions, ii. 366; collected in defence of the Jesuits against the Bishop, 412; capture a shipwrecked crew of Portugueze, 574; a force raised against the Portugueze, 576; they are deceived and slaughtered by Antequera, iii. 226; the Guaranies of the seven ceded Reductions, ordered to remove, 449; places sought for new settlements, 452; the removal precipitated by the Spanish commissioners, 454; insurrection at S. Nicolas, 455; at S. Miguel, 456; their appeal to the Spanish Governor, 458; compel a party of the commissioners to retire, 461; hostilities on the Rio Pardo, 464; capture and escape of Sepe Tyarayu, 466; advance and retreat of the Spaniards, 467; advance of Gomes Freyre, 469; who makes a truce and retires, 471; second campaign, 475; their inactivity, 478; slaughter of, at Caaibata, 482; they still continue under arms, 484; abandon the passage of the Chiriaby, 491; town of S. Miguel destroyed, 495; they submit, ib.; the greater number take to the woods, 496; expulsion of the others, 497.
Guarani, attempt made to open a communication from, to the Chiquito Reductions, by the Paraguay, iii. 173.
Guarani Reductions, state of, before the expulsion of the Spanish Jesuits, iii. 604; delivered up to the Viceroy, 613; new system of government in, 614; some of the Guaranies fly into Brazil, 616; state of the Reductions, iii. 687.
Guararapes, battle of, ii. 203; second battle of, 229.
Guaxenduba, arrival of Jeronymo Albuquerque at, i. 411.
Guaycurus, tribe of, i. 117; hostilities of Cabeza de Vaca against, 119; their courage 121; peace made with them, 124; a mother among them rears only one child, 631; their alliance with the Payaguas, iii. 380; they fall upon the Portugueze, 381, the latter seek for peace, 384; practice of abortion among this tribe, ib.; their fashions and habitations, 385; their degrees of rank, 387; female boxing matches 388; different language for married and single, 389; haughtiness of their nation, 390; their funerals, 391; rupture between them and the Payaguas, 617; their treachery, 658; make peace with the Spaniards of Paraguay, 661; with the Portugueze, 662; their present state, 664; their women, 672.
Guayra, settlement formed in, i. 331; settlement of Jesuits in, ii. 265; first reduction, 266; the Jesuits compelled to evacuate, ii. 313.
Guazu, S. Ignatius, Reduction of, superintended by Gonzales de Santa Cruz, ii. 279.
Guazu, Wassu, Bussu, and other different forms of the Tupi word signifying great, iii. 48.
Guenbe, its filaments used for cordage on the Paraguay, iii. 175; note.
Guerens, tribe of, infest Bahia and the adjoining provinces, ii. 562; destruction of, 566.
Guiana, attempts of various nations to colonize in, iii. 11.
Guinea-grass, (panicum altissimum) proposed to be introduced into Pernambuco, iii. 790.
Gumanime, Monardes cited respecting, i. 625.
Gum elastic, of the Itatines in Brazil, i. 340; obtained from the Omaguas, i. 589.
Gurupa, once considered the key of the Orellana, iii. 736.
Gurupy, in Para, iii. 739.
Gypsies, in Pernambuco, iii. 787.

H.

Hammock, use of among the Indians, i. 634.
Hans Stade. (See Stade.)
Harcourt, Robert, claims all between the Orellana and the Orinoco for England, iii. 12, extract from the dedication to his voyage, 883.
Hard heads, of the Indians, i. 630.
Haus, marches against the Portugueze insurgents, ii. 94; Battle of Monti das Tabocas, 108; made prisoner by Fernandes, 127.
Hawkins, William, mentioned as the first English trader to Brazil, i. 352.
Hayti, knowledge of herbary in, said to have perished with the old inhabitants, i. 647.
Heliodorus, a friend of Hans Stade in Brazil, i. 182.
Hemp, plants affording a substitute for, in Pernambuco, iii. 789.
Henrick, Baldwin, arrives at St. Salvador with the Dutch fleet, i. 452.
Henrique, Cardinal, his imbecile government, i. 311.
Herkmann, succeeds Brouwer, in command of the expedition against Chili, ii. 25.
Herdsmen, Spanish, in Paraguay, their manners, iii. 421; their furniture and food, 423; employments, 424; drinking-houses, 425; state of religion, 426.
Herrera cited on the skill of the savages in archery, i. 636.

[page] 922

Herrera, J. F. de la Riva, appointed to one of the new governments of the reductions, iii. 614.
Hervas, Francisco, with a party of Jesuits ascends the Paraguay, iii. 174; attached to the Payaguas, 175; peace made with them broken, 177.
Heyne, Peter, admiral of the Dutch expedition against Brazil, i. 440; his expedition against Angola, 444; his exploit at Bahia, 456.
Hides, from Buenos Ayres, first sent to Europe, i. 349; notice on the early importation of, from Brazil, 649.
Hierocracy of the Jesuits in Paraguay, ii. 337.
Hinderson, sent to the R. S. Francisco, ii. 188
Hinostrosa, Gregorio de, Governor of Paraguay, his dispute with the bishop, Cardenas, ii. 392; is excommunicated, 393; absolved, 394; fresh contests, 395; his outrage against Pedro Cardenas, 396; is excommunicated with his agents, ib.; reconciled and again excommunicated, 401; submits and pays the fine, 404; again excommunicated, 405; his duplicity, 411; goes with a force of Guaranies to seize the bishop, 413; on his promise to submit sends back the force, 416; his government expires, 429.
Hocheri, title of Chief among the Abipones, iii. 409.
Holland, establishment of a West Indian Company in, i. 438; effects there, of the losses in Brazil, 454; state of the Company in Brazil after Nassau's recall, 51, negociations with Portugal, 172, 182, 212, 232; engaged in war with England, 284; (See Dutch.)
Hoogstraten, Dirk van, a Dutch deputy, offers his services to the Portugueze, ii. 63; sent on an embassy to Bahia, 117; delivers up Nazareth, 131.
Horn, Cape, first passage of, ii. 25.
Horses, rapid multiplication of in Paraguay, iii. 376; the use of, learned by the Mbayas, 378; great numbers of wild ones in Paraguay, 419; different species of, 420, note.
Horticulture, improvement of in Pernambuco, iii, 788.
Hyger, or Bore, off the river Meary, i. 7; between Macapa and the North Cape, iii. 897.
Iagoanharo, killed at Piratininza, i. 285.
Ibañez, his remark on the line of demarcation, iii. 445.
Ibiapaba, Serra de, attempt of Coelho upon, i. 376; Jesuits at, 383; arrival of missionaries at, ii. 514; visit of Vieyra to, 527; copper found in, iii. 760.

I.

Iça, river, its source, and junction with the Orellana, i. 591.
Idol, description of one in the isle of S. Sebastian, from Roggewein's voyage, iii. 898.
Idols, of the tribes on the Orellana, i. 620.
Igarape merim, S. Antonio do, population of that town in 1784, iii. 738.
Igarapes, natural canals in Brazil, iii. 737.
Ignacio, a Christian Indian, guides the party of Manoel de Lima down the Guapore, iii. 320.
Ilha Grande, its population in the seventeenth century, ii. 668; sitnation in the bay of Angra dos Reyes, iii. 818; its extent and population, ib.
Ilha Grande, in the Guapore, settlement of Portugueze on, iii. 348.
Ilha dos Joanes, its population in 1784, iii. 739.
Ilheos, Captaincy of the, i. 40; the Aymores pacified at, by Domingos Rodriguez, 387; progress of, in the seventeenth century, ii. 663; its inland navigation, ib.; state of the Captaincy of; iii. 803; interior still possessed by savages, 804; town of Ilheos, 805.
Imbuzeiro, a remarkable tree in Brazil, iii. 757.
Immensa Pastorum, bull, published, iii. 511.
Indians, their custom of flattening their heads, i. 657; laws respecting the slavery of, ii. 453; examination of the captives at Belem, 502; villainy of the Captains and Judges, 503; new edicts respecting, 591; suspended by Sequeira, 592; slavery of, again abolished in Brazil, 603; mortality among, 638; their horror of slavery, 639; the colonists depend upon their labour, 642; Pernetty cited respecting their unclean odour, 700; their improved condition, iii. 33; discovery of Mines in Brazil not injurious to them, 51; become beef-eaters, 377; effect of Pombal's regulations concerning them, 697; ill consequences of the Demarcation to them, 698; their miserable state in many places, 700; number kept up by fugitive hordes, 701; views of Pombal with respect to the, 512; law for the abolishment of slavery, 513; Pombal's regulations concerning them, 522; tribes of, on the Tefé, their mode of debauch with the leaves of the Ipadu, 705; spotted Indians, 706; state of those in Seara, 760; reduction of the last wild tribes of Pernambuco, 788; diminution of their numbers in the Spanish Viceroyalties, 885.

[page] 923

Inhuma, the beak of that bird an antidote to venom, iii. 357.
Inoculation introduced into Para, iii. 364.
Insects, plague of, during Acuña's voyage on the Orellana, i. 618; precautions for protecting the skin from, 659.
Ipadu, shrub, debauchery practised by the Indians with its leaves, iii. 705.
Ipajuca, S. Lourenço de, retreat of the Dutch to, after the battle of Monte das Tabocas, ii. 116.
Iperoyg, negociations of the Portugueze with the Tamoyos at, i. 287; peace concluded, 293.
Iron, in Maranham, ii. 636.
Itagybe, a leader of the Tabayares, i. 45.
Itamaraca, attempt of Fernandes upon, ii. 143; second enterprize against, 176; expedition of the Dutch against, 476; reduced by the Dutch, i. 489; vaccination introduced there, proves infectious, iii. 898.
Itanhaem, Portugueze settlement of, i. 179.
Itaparica, isle of, the Aymores stationed in, i. 386.
Itapicurú river, an important channel of commerce in Maranham, iii. 748.
Itatines, settlement of, i. 339; character of the tribe, 340; Jesuit reductions found among them in the Tapé, ii. 316.
Itinerancy, deliberations among the Jesuits concerning, ii. 256.
Ito-ho, an idol of the Tucunas, i. 590.
Iwara Pemme, a weapon of the Tupinambas, i. 183.

J.

Jacaranda, or holy wood, ii. 357.
Jacepo-caya, inner rind of, a substitute for hemp, iii. 352.
Jacoabina, mines of, discovered, iii. 150.
Jacob, Rabbi, cited respecting the Tapuyas, i. 380, note; murdered, ii. 179.
Jacobina, comarca of, iii. 802; town of, ib.
Jagoarari, an Indian Chief, his fidelity to the Portugueze, i. 494.
James I. of England, his grant of territory in South America to Robert Harcourt, iii. 12.
Jandicis, tribe of, harrass the Portugueze, i. 495.
Janeiro, Rio de, expedition of Villegagnon to, i. 271; the French works demolished by the Portugueze, 280; the seat of the new Government on the division of Brazil, 311; again made subordinate to Bahia, 315. (See Rio de Janeiro.)
Jangada, or raft used in Brazil, i. 413.
Japan, Bishop of, his death, ii. 232.
Japi, Wasu, Chief of the Maranham Tupinambas, his conference with the French adventurers, i. 397.
Japura, rìver, settlements on, iii. 719.
Jataiz, fruit and bark of, their uses, iii. 255.
Jauru, river, observations on the Salt Lake near it, iii. 892.
Jenipapo, juice of, used for staining the body black, i. 644.
Jericoacoara, Parcel de, i. 401; arrival of Jeronymo Albuquerque at, 405.
Jesuits, when first sent to America, i. 213; a mission appointed, 214; their conduct, 217; their conduct towards the savages, 252; martyrdom of forty, on their voyage to Brazil, 308; miracles attending the martyrdom, 309; their success among the natives along the coast of Brazil, 389; why few old men in their Company, 645; invited into Paraguay, ii. 252; college founded at Asumpcion, 254; deliberations concerning itinerancy, 256; attempts made to dispossess them of their college, 258; unpopular, for opposing the enslaving of the Indians, 261; empowered to act on their own system, 263; settlement in Guayra, 264; found the first Reduction, 287; miracles, 268; first of the Parana Reductions founded, 270; a visitor arrives from Spain, 271; introduces a new form of oppression, 273; effect of their preaching in Asumpcion, 274; a miracle, 276; the Provincial censured for admitting men indiscriminately into the order, 278; opposition to them, 280; government of Paraguay and the Plata separated, 283; they enter the Tapé, 286; Pindobe, a Chief, puts himself under their protection, 289; conversion of the Chief Tayaoba, 290; they enter the Caro, 293; confederacy against them, ib.; defeated, 297; their growing power, 299; enmity of the Paulistas, 308; who attack the Reductions, 309; effect of these ravages, 312; the Jesuits compelled to evacuate Guayra, 313; driven from their settlements on the Tapé, 318; settle their converts between the Parana and the Uruguay, 321; send representations to Madrid and Rome, 322; tumults in Brazil against them, 325; evil consequences to their settlements in Paraguay from the Braganzan revolution, 329; celebration of their secular year, 331; their system in Paraguay, 333; state of property in the Reductions, 335; hierocracy, 337; plan of the towns, 339; churches, 341; discipline, 343; education and employment of

[page] 924

children, 344; music, 346; dancing, 347; sacred dramas, ib.; festivals, 348; employment of women, 349; dress, 351; punishments, 352; system of inspection, 353; intercourse with the Spaniards, 355; matté, or herb of Paraguay, 356; trees cuitivated by the Jesuits, 359; the system suggested by what Anchieta and Nobrega had done in Brazil, 360; discomforts and dangers to which the missionaries were exposed, 364; tribes from which the Reductions were formed, 366; language, 377; difficulty respecting marriage, 379; enmity of Cardenas, Bishop of Paraguay, 407; his endeavours to expel them from Asumpcion, 409; Guaranies collected in their defence, 412; their party depose the Bishop from his see and deport him, 419; charges exhibited against them by the Bishop, 421; accused of working gold mines for their own benefit, 422; expelled from Asumpcion, 434; their property confiscated, 436; chuse two judge conservators, 437; sentence passed on the Bishop, 441; charge of heresy against them, 443; examined, 445; fresh reports of mines in Uruguay, 447; their success in Maranham, 507; expedition up the Tocantins, 508; outrage against them at Curupa, 510; remonstrance of the chamber of Belem against their system, 528; Vieyra's reply, 529; insurrection at Belem, seizure and expulsion of Vieyra, 536; Jesuits separated from Maranham, 537; their restoration effected by Sequeira, 546; deprived of their temporal authority in Maranham, 590; restored to all their former power, 602; their second expulsion, 613; audacious fables propagated by them in Brazil, 682; their desire to keep their converts in ignorance, 701; progress of the Spanish Jesuits, iii. 162; opposition made by the slave traders, 168; individuals from all nations in their society, ib. note; the Chiriguana missions abandoned, 173; ascent of the Paraguay, to open a communication between the Guarani and the Chiquito missions, 174; the party attacked by the Payaguas, 175; peace made with them and broken, 177; second attempt from the side of the Chiquitos, 178; F. Cavallero goes among the Manicicas, 180; mythology of this people as described by these missionaries, 181; falsehoods, 184; martyrdom of Cavallero, 191; disgrace brought on them by this romance, 192; second expedition up the Paraguay, 193; attempt by the Pilcomayo, 195; frustrated, 197; missions among the Moxos, 198; labours of Baraza, ib.; his martyrdom, 208; expelled from Asumpcion, 224; restored, 232; protected by Barreyro, 236; again expelled, 239; restored, 245; their disputes with the Carmelites, 366; their unpopularity, ib.; system of the Aldeas, 368; chain of missions throughout Brazil and the adjoining countries, 372; pacify the Abipones, 440; remonstrate against the cession of the seven Reductions in the treaty of limits, 451; resistance to their authority in those Reductions, 455; their perilous situation, 460; offer to resign their authority in the Reductions, 463; their hopes to procure a revocation of the treaty, 472; efforts of their enemies, 473; inquiry of Zeballos into their conduct, 499; their entire acquittal, 501; enmity of Pombal towards, 504; conduct of his brother Mendonça Furtado in Maranham, 507; accusations against them, 509; falsehood of the charges, 510; fresh accusations against them, 517; send home a memorial against the Governor, 518; charges against them presented to the Pope, 536; a visitor and reformers of the Company appointed, 537; condemned as accomplices in the plot for assassinating the King of Portugal, 541; they are deported from Maranham and Para, ib.; their fate, 546; state of the Spanish Reductions, 604; improvements introduced by them, 606; outcry against the Company, 607; orders for their expulsion, 608; seized in the college of Cordoba, 609; destruction of their papers, 610; cruel treatment of the missionaries, 611; sent to Italy, 613; number of expelled from all the Spanish Indies, 614, note; their calumnies against the Paulistas, iii. 890.
Jews, Portugueze, in Brazil, i. 566.
Joam III. desires the conversion of the Brazilian savages, i. 213; his death, 268.
Joam IV. proclaimed King of Portugal, i. 576; orders Pernambuco to be relinquished to the Dutch, ii. 169; motive for those orders, 173; audience of Antonio Vieyra with, 195; death of, 243; renews the abolition of slavery among the Indians, 455; appoints Vieyra his preacher, 459; prevents his sailing to Maranham, 461; repents the permission afterward given, 464; Vieyra's first letter to him, 468; another letter of advice, 486; interview of Vieyra with him, 491; his wish was to keep Vieyra in Portugal, 498; important paper found in his secret cabinet, 719.
Joam V. his accession, iii. 70.

[page] 925

Joanes, Ilha dos, its situation, ii. 518; unsuccessful war of the Portugueze against the islanders, 519; Vieyra treats with them, 522; ceremonies of their submission, 524.
Jozé, King, death of, iii. 655.
Jol, Cornelis, occupies the isle of Fernam Noronha, i. 457; expedition of, 562; dispatched against Angola, ii. 8; against the island of S. Thomas, 11.
Juiz do Povo, office of, abolished at Bahia, iii. 130.
Jupura, river, or Gran Caquéta, i. 594.
Jurimauas, tribe and territory of, i. 596.
Juru-mirim, a name given by the Carijos to the island of S. Catharina, iii. 647.
Juripariguazu, the great Devil of the Tapuyas, disappoints Jeronymo Albuquerque, i. 406.
Jurupariporaceitana, on the Rio Negro, iii. 715.

K.

Kaawy, liquor, two kinds of, i. 235.
Keulen, fort, defended by the Dutch, ii. 152.
Keymis points out the policy of colonization, i. 653.
Koin, Jan, takes St. Jorge da Mina, i. 545.
Konyan Bebe, Chief of the Tupinambas, i. 191; interview of Hans Stade with him, ib.; account of that Royalet, 635.
Koster, Mr. a cruel case of slavery mentioned by him, iii. 786, note; mentions a singular fact concerning vaccination, 898.

L.

Lagoa dos Patos, the largest lake in Brazil, iii. 564.
Lagoas, expedition of Calabar to the, i. 491; abandoned by Bagnuolo, 533.
Laguna, route from, to Quito, iii. 893.
Lamalonga, Povoaçam of, in the Captaincy of Rio Negro, iii. 709.
Lameira da Franca, Antonio, examined at Belem, respecting Indian captives, ii. 502.
Lampere, a town of the Carios, i. 65; won by the Spaniards, who call it Asumpcion, 66.
Lancaster, James, his expedition to Brazil, i. 364; arrival at Recife, 365; wins the town, 366; engages the Dutch in his service, 367; joined by a squadron of French privateers, ib.; attempts of the Portugueze to burn his ships, 369; sails home with his booty, 371.
Lancastro, Francisco Naper de, sent to reoccupy Nova Colonia, ii. 580.
Lancastro, Fernando Mascarenhas de, Governor of Rio de Janeiro, sends a commission to the Minas Geraes, iii. 75; goes thither, 79; persuaded by Manoel Nunes to retire, 80; is succeeded in his government by Antonio de Albuquerque, 82.
Lancastro, Joam de, Governor of Brazil, iii. 22.
Language, of the Reductions in Paraguay, ii. 367.
Languages, multiplicity of, on the Orellana, ii. 701.
Laris, Hyacinthio de, Governor of Buenos Ayres, enters Paraguay to enquire concerning mines, ii. 423.
Lavradores, farmers, a class distinguished from the Fazendeiros, iii. 867.
Leme da Sylva, Lourenço and Joam, their tyranny in Cuyaba, iii. 261; put to death, ib.
Lemons, introduced into Brazil, i. 319.
Lenguas, tribe of, hostile to the Spaniards of Paraguay, iii. 392; singular custom of, relative to sickness and death, 393.
Leon, Sebastiam de, appointed Vice-Governor of Paraguay, ii. 438; marches against the Bishop, 439.
Leprosy, produced by intoxication with the kava, or kawy, iii. 890.
Lery, Jean de, his account of a religious ceremony of the Tupinambas, i. 203; goes to Brazil, 275; returns, 277.
Leyhanos, tribe of, i. 165.
Lichthart besieges fort Cabedello, i. 481; seizes Porto Calvo, 511; sent against the Portugueze squadron, ii. 132; destroys it, 133.
Lima, Ortega thrown into the Inquisition at, ii. 258; communication traced, with Para and the North Atlantic, iii. 893.
Lima, Manoel Felix de, his expedition down the rivers from Mato Grosso, iii. 311; fourteen of the party turn back, 312; rash provocation of the Indians, 316; a Christian native undertakes to guide them, 318; they come to the Reduction of S. Miguel, 319; they land, 321; their departure, 325; enter the river Ubay, 326; their reception at S. Maria Magdalena, 327; its flourishing state, 328; the Jesuit makes a display of his force, 329; some of the Portugueze proceed to the Mamore, 331; Manoel dismissed from the Reduction, 332; voyage down the Madeira, 333; the canoe wrecked, 335; another found, 337; narrow escape from the Muras, 338; distress for food, 339; arrival at a Jesuit settlement, 340; he is sent to Lisbon from Para, 341; his extravagant demands, and miserable fate, 342; return of his companions from

VOL. III. 6 C

[page] 926

Exaltacion, 343; their second expedition to the Missions, 344.
Limits, American treaty of, between Spain and Portugal, iii. 442; Seven Reductions ceded in this treaty by Spain, 448; this cession imputed to Gomes Freyre, 450; arrival of Spanish commissioners in the Plata, 454; war of the Seven Reductions, 462; submission of the Guaranies, 495; annulment of the treaty, 502; second treaty of, 652.
Lip, custom of American savages of slitting the under-lip, i. 625.
Lisboa, Christovam de, head of the Missionaries in Maranham, i. 458.
Lisbon, British factory at, affected by the monopolies of the Brazil Companies, iii. 550.
Llanas, Ramon de las, a partizan of Antequera in his usurpation, iii. 212; arrested, 233.
Llorente, Antonio, his history of the Spanish Inquisition to be expected, ii. 699.
Loanda, the capital of Angola, taken by the Dutch, ii. 9; effects of the capture upon Brazil, 10.
Lobato, F. Joam, how regarded by the Portugueze, ii. 689, note.
Lobo, Manoel, Governor of Rio de Janeiro, instructed to found Nova Colonia, ii. 572; required to evacuate that settlement, 575; dies in captivity at Lima, 578.
Lobo, Bernardino da Fonseca, discovers diamonds in Serro do Frio, iii. 274.
Lobo da Silva, Governor of Recife, his kindness to the Jesuits on their expulsion, iii. 543.
Loncq, Henrick, commands the Dutch expedition against Pernambuco, i. 465.
Longevity, the climate of Brazil said to be propitious to, iii. 898.
Looking-glasses now becoming essential to the happiness of savages, i. 626.
Lop-eared Indians, note on, i. 631.
Lorenzana, Rector of the Jesuits, goes among the Guaranies, ii. 269; co-operates in establishing the system of the Jesuits in Paraguay, 360.
Loretto, the first Reduction or establishment of the Jesuits in Guayra, ii. 267; miracles at, 269.
Louis XIV. his unwillingness to give up his pretensions upon the Orellana, iii. 888.
Loyola, Ignacio de, year of his nativity, ii. 699.
Lugo, D. Pedro de, Governor of Paraguay, defeats the Paulistas, ii. 323.
Luiz, Antonio, da Camera Coutinho, Governor of Brazil, iii. 20.
Lules, a colony of, move their settlement because the water produced swellings in the throat, iii. 898.

M.

Macacu, river, settlement of Andre da Costa upon iii. 817, note.
Macamecrans, tribe of, in Maranham, iii. 747.
Macana, a weapon of the Tupinambas, i. 205; that word the name of the wood, and not of the weapon, ii. 701.
Macapa, town of, on the Orellana, iii. 734; description of a hyger, or bore, on the coast between Macapa and the North Cape, 897.
Macedo, Antonio de Sousa de, sent Ambassador to Holland, ii. 234.
Maceta goes to complain of the ravages of the Paulistas among the Jesuit Reductions, ii. 311.
Machado, Domingos da Costa, appointed coadjutor to Antonio Albuquerque, i. 432; succeeds him in the Captaincy of Maranham, ib.
Machado de Mendonça arrives in Pernambuco as Governor, iii. 106.
Machicuys, a horde of, their subterranean habitations, i. 631.
Machiparo, province of, visited by Orellana, i. 88.
Maciel, Bento, appointed assistant to Antonio Albuquerque, i. 430; sent to take the command against the Tupinambas, 432; his cruelty, ib.; appointed Capitam Mor of Para, 435; his barbarous treatment of the Tupinambas, 460; appointed Governor of Maranham, ii. 14; Captaincy of Cabo do Norte created for him, ib.; his misconduct, 15; permits the Dutch to land, 17; they conquer the island, and send him away prisoner, 19; he dies at Potengi, 20.
Maciel, Bento, the younger, his kidnapping expedition, i. 610.
Maciel, Pedro, demands the government of Para, ii. 33; summons his brother Velho to aid him, 34; they join the insurgents in Maranham, 35; they forsake Moniz's successor, Teixeira, 38.
Madeira, river, i. 601; formed by the Mamore and the Guapore, iii. 333; voyage of Manoel de Lima down, ib.; former navigation of this river, 340; low unhealthy country near the termination of its course, 351; settlement on the, 843.
Madrid, treaty of, in 1801, iii. 691.
Magalhaens, Pedro Jaques, Admiral of the Brazil Company's first fleet, ii. 231; sails from Lisbon as General, 237.

[page] 927

Magdalena, in Pernambuco, iii. 772.
Maiegoni, tribe of, i, 165.
Maize, origin of the term, i. 630; a principal article of food to the tribes on the Orellana, 615; decoction of roasted maize, used by some Indian tribes, iii. 890.
Mamalucos, Mestizos in Brazil so called, i. 257; those of Pernambuco superior to the Mulattoes, iii. 787.
Mambubake, burnt by the Tupiniquins, i. 193.
Mamoens, a sort of bread fruit, iii. 317.
Mamore, excursion of some Portugueze to, from S. Maria Magdalena, iii. 332; strength of the stream at its confluence with the Guapore, 333.
Manari, a dialect of the Chìquitos, iii. 169, note.
Manacicas, tribe of, Mission of the Jesuit Caballero among, iii. 180; mythology of this people as described by the Jesuits, 181; leprosy produced among them by intoxication with the kaivi, 890.
Manaos, a once powerful tribe on the Rio Negro, iii. 710.
Mandioc, or cassava, its uses, i. 230, 231; culture, 233; fermented liquor from, ib.; a principal article of food to the tribes on the Orellana, 615; Pauw's account of the use of this root, 640; abundant in Maranham, ii. 647.
Mandubi, account of the shrub producing it, i. 631.
Manoa, Gumilla's explanation of the word, i. 652.
Mansilla, his exertions for the deliverance of the converts from the Paulistas, ii. 311.
Manso, Llanos de, i. 339.
Manuas, tribe of, kill Garay, i. 348.
Martim Affonso, an Indian Chief, defends St. Sebastians against the French, i. 305.
Mapau, river, i. 613.
Maraba, designation of certain children among the Tamoyos, i. 293.
Maraca, an oracle of the Tupinambas, i. 187; found also on the Orinoco, 635; and in Florida, ib.
Maranham, river, discovered, i. 5.
Maranham, Captaincy of, obtained by Joam de Barros, i. 48; expedition of Diego de Ordas to, 76; attempt of Luiz Mello da Sylva to settle at, 102; attempts on the side of, to discover El Dorado, 375; French expedition to the isle of, 392; foundation of St. Louis, 397; conduct of the French, 399; colonists arrive from the Azores, 433; Maranham constituted, with Para, a separate state from Brazil, 437; proceedings of the Jesuits in, 458; attempts of the Dutch, 459; affairs of, in 1630, 578; Vieyra cited respecting the name, 625; Maciel appointed Governor of, ii. 14; expedition of the Dutch against, 17; they conquer the island and send Maciel away prisoner, 19; their tyranny in, 26; the inhabitants determine to revolt, ib. first successes of the insurgents, 27; death of Moniz and success of the new commander Teixeira, 37; cruelty of the Dutch in consequence, 38; the patriots re-enter Maranham and defeat them, 41; Pedro de Albuquerque comes out as Governor, 43; evacuated by the Dutch, 45; in a worse state than the older Captaincies, 449; death of the Governor, Coelho, 452; laws respecting the slavery of the Indians, 453; the missionary, Vieyra, 461; arrives at S. Luiz, 467; state of the inhabitants, and system of oppression, 489; Vieyra's first sermon at S. Luiz, 474; the people consent to an arrangement respecting slaves, 482; the Capitam Mor evades the laws, 484; Vieyra returns to Portugal, 490; his interview with the King, 491; a Missionary Board established, 494; decree in favour of the Indians, 496; question respecting the Government of Maranham, 497; Vidal appointed Governor, 498; Vieyra obtains permission to return, 500; proceedings respecting slavery in, 501; insurrection at S. Luiz, 533; deportation of the Jesuits from, 537; Ruy Vaz de Sequeira appointed Governor, 540; made a Bishoprick, 570; charges and disturbances in, 589; triumphs of the slave party, 590; new edicts suspended by Sequeira, 592; the Chamber of Belem oppose him, 593; Antonio de Albuquerque, Governor, 594; Pedro Cesar de Menezes, Governor, 596; expedition to the Tocantins in search of mines, 598; seat of government removed to Belem, 599; the Jesuits restored to all their former power, 602; restrictions concerning trade, 603; slavery again abolished, ib.; establishment of an exclusive Company, 604; discontents, 605; conspiracy formed by Beckman, 606; insurrection, 609; deputy sent by the insurgents to Belem, 611; expulsion of the Jesuits, 613; Gomez Freyre de Andrada appointed Governor, 616; his arrival, 622; attempts made to dissuade him from landing, 625; enters the city, 626; flight and apprehension of the ringleaders, 627; Beckman taken, 628; executed, 630; boundaries and population of, 632; privileges of the settlers, 633; revenue, 634; intercourse between S. Luiz and

[page] 928

Belem, ib.; expenditure, 635; iron in Maranham, 636; mortality among the Indians, 638; their horror of slavery, 639; colonists dependant upon their labour, 642; fallacious defence of slavery, 644; wild produce, 645; cultivated produce, 647; distress of the settlers, ib.; note on the reconquest of, 695; propensity of the people to lying, 708; measures of Gomes Freyre at, iii. 1; monopoly abolished, 2; general distress in, 3; way explored to Bahia, 5; expedition from Belem against the savages on the Orellana, 7; success of the enterprize, 9; troubles in, with the Bishop, 85; Diaz da Costa, the Ouvidor, excommunicated by the Bishop, ib.; his death, 36; Manoel Rolim de Moura Governor of, 71; disputes with the Ouvidor, ib.; misconduct of the Capitam Mor, 72; the lord of Pancas, Governor, 73; expedition against the Indians in Piauhy, 153; Mendonça Furtado, Governor, 506, Jesuits deported from, 541; exclusive trading company established, 548; good effect produced by it, 551; extinction of the company, 655; difficult communication with the south by sea, 751; state of the Captaincy, 744; city of S. Luiz, ib.; tribes of the interior, 746; internal trade, 747; communication by the Tocantins, 749.
Marcgraff, cited respecting the mandioc, i. 232.
Marequas, birds on the banks of the Madeira, iii. 334.
Maria Barbara, Queen of Spain, her character, iii. 442.
Mariana, origin of the city of, iii. 55.
Marianna, diocese of, in Minas Geraes, iii. 818; statements concerning its population in the Correio Braziliense and the Patriota, 819, note; episcopal city of, 821.
Marriage, doctrine of the Moravians respecting, ii. 706.
Marronos, tribe of, i. 165.
Martins, Sebastian, a pilot in Jeronymo Albuquerque's expedition, i. 407.
Mascarenhas, D. Fernando, Conde da Torre, sent as Governor to Brazil, i. 570; his misfortunes and return to Europe, 572.
Mascarenhas, D. Jorge, Marquez de Monte Alvam, sent as Viceroy to Brazil, i. 574; sent home prisoner, 576.
Mascarenhas, Manoel, his success against the savages in Rio Grande, i. 482.
Mascarenhas Pacheco, Joze, account of his imprisonment, iii. 895.
Mascarenhas, D. Vasco, Governor General of Brazil, ii. 553.
Matapalos, a term for parasite plants in Brazil, i. 321.
Matador, of the Brazilian savages, his office, i. 221, 222.
Mato Grosso, advance of the Portugueze into, iii. 304; mines discovered at, 308; sufferings of the first adventurers, 309; expedition of Manoel Felix de Lima down the rivers, 310; the Spaniards push their settlements on the side of, 347; expedition from Para to, 350; intercourse with Para, 359; drought in, 360; great distress from the want of salt in, 361; proceedings on the frontier of, 571; Antonio Rolim de Moura, Governor, 572; its extent and boundaries, 838; decline of trade with Para, ib.; Forbidden District, 841; state of the Indians, 843.
Matos, Joam de, killed at Monte das Tabocas, ii. 108.
Matté, or herb of Paraguay, ii. 356; manner of preparing it, 357; how gathered, 358; how cultivated by the Jesuits, 359.
Matto, capitaens do, or bush captains, established in Minas Geraes, iii. 247.
Mattos, Jozé Botelho de, Archbishop of Bahia, his conduct on the expulsion of the Jesuits, iii. 543.
Mauritias, founded by Nassau, i. 569.
Mauritz, Prince, anecdotes respecting, ii. 695. (See Nassau).
Mauritz, fort, erected on the river San Francisco, i. 535; taken by the Portugueze, ii. 139.
Mawe, Mr. remark on his estimate of the annual product of the Diamond District, and of the expences, iii. 824, note; his description of the goitres in the province of S. Paulo, 898.
Maya da Gama, Joam, Governor of Paraiba, his assistance requested against the insurgents of Pernambuco, iii. 91.
Mayurunas, tribe of, i. 590.
Mazagam, its fall closes the history of Portugueze Africa, iii. 589; the inhabitants removed to Para, ib.
Mazagam, in Para, town of, its unhealthy situation, iii. 733.
Mbayas, tribe of, obtain horses, iii. 377; their mode of fighting, 379; practice of abortion among them, 384; their fashions and habitations, 385.
Meary, expedition against the savages on the, iii. 3; course of that river, 750.
Measures, table of, iii. 900.
Meiaponte, town of, in Goyaz, iii. 834.
Melgaço, town of, its population, in 1784, iii. 736.

[page] 929

Melgarejo, Ruy Dias, founds the settlement called Ciudad Real, i. 332.
Mello da Sylva, Luiz de, his attempt to settle at Maranham, i. 102.
Mello, D. Pedro de, succeeds Vidal as Governor of Pernambuco, ii. 517; encourages the discontented party against the Jesuits, 531; succeeded by Ruy Vaz de Sequeira, 540; seeks to counteract Sequeira's measures, 543.
Mello, Lazaro, betrays Beckman, ii. 628; loses his reward, ib.
Mem de Sa. (See Sa.)
Mendes de Almeida, Dr. Joam, his opinion on the regulations respecting diamonds, iii. 278.
Mendieta, successor of Zarate, his cruelty, i. 347; deposition and death, ib.
Mendonça, Amaro de, his perjury respecting an Indian captive, ii. 503.
Mendonça Furtado, Francisco Xavier de, brother of Pombal, appointed Governor of Maranham and Para, iii. 507; his injudicious conduct on his arrival at Belem, ib.; visits the Jesuit Aldeas, 508; his accusations against the Jesuits, 509; publishes the bull Immensa Pastorum, 512; fresh accusations, 517; the Jesuits send home a memorial against him, 518; regulations concerning the Indians promulgated by him, 522.
Mendoza, Francisco de, beheaded by Abrego, i. 171.
Mendoza Furtado, Governor General of Brazil, i. 434.
Mendoza, Gonzalo, sent to the Arianicosies, i. 146.
Mendoza, Don Pedro de, his expedition, i. 57; obtains a grant of the conquests on the Plata, 58; founds Buenos Ayres, ib.; dies on the passage to Spain, 63.
Menezes, Antonio de Sousa de, Governor of Brazil, ii. 581; tyranny and disorder of his administration, 582.
Menezes, Diogo, succeeds Botelho as Governor of Brazil, i. 390; forms a settlement at Seara, 391.
Menezes, Francisco, a friar, his exertions for the defence of Rio de Janeiro against the French, iii. 110.
Menezes, Manoel de, commands the Portugueze reinforcements to Brazil, i. 446.
Menezes, Pedro Cesar, Governor of Angola, defends Loanda against the Dutch, ii. 8; retreats to the fort of Santa Cruz, 9.
Menezes, D. Pedro Cesar de, Governor of Maranham, ii. 596.
Menezes, Rodrigo Cesar de, Governor of S. Paulo, orders a land-way to be explored to Cuyaba, iii. 260.
Mermen, or sea-apes, said to exist in the Brazilian seas, i. 323; Dr. Pinckard produces testimony to their existence, 646.
Mesner, Hans, an aged missionary, cruel treatment of, iii. 612.
Mina, D. Juan de, supports the usurpation of Antequera, iii. 225; beheaded, 239.
Minas Geraes, discovery of, iii. 40—47; explored by Fernando Diaz, ib.; first gold exhibited at Espirito Santo, 49; smelting house established at Taboate, 51; first method of mining, 53; origin of the city of Mariana, 55; Villa Rica, 56; mines of Sabara, ib.; second code of laws, 58; influx of adventurers, 63; jealousy between the Paulistas and the Forasteiros, 73; civil war in, 76; the Governor of Rio de Janeiro goes thither, 79; the people refuse to admit him, ib.; formed with S. Paulo into a new Captaincy, 85; measures of Albuquerque in, 143; foreigners expelled from, 145; regulations concerning grants of land, 146; all religioners banished from, ib.; regulation respecting arms, 148; distillation of spirits, 149; commutation for the fifths, 150; progress of the mines, 154; errors of the Governors, 155; commutation tax raised, 156; smelting houses ordered, 157; insurrection, ib.; a second, 159; order restored, 160; the country made a separate Captaincy, 161; fifths established, 246; danger from the Negroes in, 247; laws respecting fugitive slaves, 248; improved method of mining, 250; laws respecting water, 251; advance of salaries, 252; restraints upon mining, 262; relaxation of the laws, 263; coiners and false mints, 264; capitation again attempted, 265; introduced, 270; discovery of diamonds, 274; contract for extracting, 280; description of this Captaincy, 282; its four districts, 283; Serro do Frio and the Forbidden District, 264; commencement of the decay of the mines, 593; peace made with the Goiatacazes, 599; conspiracy in, 679; plans of the conspirators, 681; discovery, 682; sentence, 684; extent and population of the Captaincy, 818; Villa Rica the capital, 820; S. Joam d'El Rey, 822; Sabara ib.; Serro Frio, 823; Forbidden District of the Diamonds, ib.; destruction of the woods, 825; state of the mines, 826; state of society, 828; improvement, 831.
Mines, search made for in Brazil, i. 260; first code of regulations concerning, iii. 40.

[page] 930

Minion, English ship, one of the first traders to Brazil, i. 353.
Minuanes, tribe, an extraordinary custom of, iii. 417.
Miranda, Lucia, story of, i. 57, note.
Missionaries, Jesuit, in Paraguay, dangers and discomforts to which they were exposed, ii. 364; laws for depriving them of temporal power, iii. 514. (See Jesuits.)
Missionary board, established at Lisbon, ii. 494.
Missions, chain of, throughout Brazil and the adjoining countries, iii. 372.
Misteco, people of, their strange nomenclature, i. 642.
Mitayos, under the encomienda system, ii. 260.
Mocambo, or Negro hiding-place in the woods, movement of Joam Fernandes to a, ii. 95.
Mocambos, villages of the Palmares, i. 495.
Mocobis, an equestrian tribe, iii. 397.
Mompo, D. Fernando, excites a faction of the commons in Paraguay, iii. 233; arrested by Barreyro, 237.
Money, clipt, enormous amount of in Bahia, iii. 883.
Money, table of, iii. 900.
Moniño, D. Joseph, minister of Spain, iii. 664. (See Florida Blanca.)
Moniz Barreiro;, Antonio, heads the insurgents in Maranham against the Dutch, ii. 27; fort Calvary taken, 28; advances against S. Luiz, 29; joined by Maciel and Velho, 35; dies and is succeeded by Teixeira, 37.
Mongoyos, tribe, friendly to the Portugueze, iii. 692; tribes of, in Ilheos, 804.
Monkeys, bearded, inhabiting the savannahs of the Paraguay, i. 132.
Montalegre, town of on the Gurupatuba, iii. 731.
Monte Alvam, Marquez de, sent as Viceroy to Brazil, i. 574; sent home prisoner, 576.
Monte Grande, pass of, iii. 485.
Monte Video, acknowledged to be within the Portugueze line of demarcation, iii. 67; the Portugueze expelled from, by the Spaniards, 220; foundation of the town by the latter, 222; growing importance of, 299.
Monteiro, Fernandes, chief treasurer of Joam IV. his opinion relative to the negociation with Holland, ii.214; approved by the Council, 221.
Monteiro Bravo, Ou vidor of Maranham, his disputes with the Governor, iii. 71.
Monteiro da Vide, Sebastiam, Archbishop of Bahia, his exemplary conduct, iii. 70.
Montoya, Rodriguez de, the earliest historian of the Jesuit Missions, ii. 275; a miracle related by him, 276; his narrow escape from the Guaranies, 289; baptizes Tayaoba and other converts, 291; sent to Madrid, 321; one of the founders of the commonwealth in Paraguay, 360.
Moon, circumstances respecting the, on the shipwreck of the Santiago, i. 635.
Moore, Mr. remark on a passage in his life of Pombal, respecting the Jesuits of the Seven Reductions, iii. 895.
Moraes, Manoel de, a converted priest, reconverted, ii. 106; his expedition against Ajuricaba the slave-hunter, iii. 710; captures him, 711.
Moreira, town of, on the Rio Negro, iii. 710; insurrection of the Indians in 1757, 712.
Moreno, Diogo de Campos, his expedition to Maranham, i. 401; joins Jeronymo Albuquerque on his second expedition, 404; his advice respecting the attack on Maranham, 409; plan of desertion communicated to him, 415; defeats the French, 418; appeases a tumult among the Tupinambas, 422; goes to Lisbon. 424; returns with reinforcements, 426; invested with the command of fort Louis after its surrender, it.
Moreno, Martim Soares, appointed Captain of Seara, i. 391; sails for Spain, 402; troops from Bahia sent under him and Vidal, ii. 119; joins the force against Nazareth, 123; obeys the Governor's order to retire from Pernambuco, 170.
Morgan, Capt. killed in the assault of Espirito Santo, i. 363.
Morro de S. Paulo, bar of, ii. 558; Ermida or Chapel, founded on, 560, note.
Morro, Ignatius, instances of his self-mortification related by Peramas, iii. 605.
Moto, Joam da, his measures against the insurgents in Pernambuco, iii. 103.
Moura, Alexandre de, sent with reinforcements to Maranham, i. 426; arrives at Bahia with the Spanish and Portugueze fleet, 448; is superseded by Oliveira, 455.
Moura, a town on the Rio Negro, iii. 717.
Moxa, N. Senhora da Victoria da, founded as capital of the new Captaincy of Piauhy, iii. 151.
Moxo, the great, the imaginary Emperor of El Dorado, i. 372.
Moxos, province of, Jesuit Missions in, iii. 198; labours of Baraza, ib.; manners of the tribes, 200; report of Amazons in the country, 204; a way explored by Baraza across the mountains to Peru, 205; flourishing state of the

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Missions after his death, 208; progress of the Portugueze towards the Missions, 304; proceedings on the frontier, 569; state of the Indians at the close of the eighteenth century, 841.
Mules, numbers of, bred in Paraguay, iii. 423.
Mundrucus, an Aldea of, on the Tapajos, iii. 735.
Muras, tribe of, narrow escape of Manoel de Lima and his party from, iii. 338; increase in numbers and audacity, 723; take shelter at Borba on the Madeira, 725.
Muratori, cited, on the signal trumpets of the Itatines, i. 341.
Murocoça, a voracious fly in Brazil, iii. 732.
Mussurana, of the Brazilian savages, i. 219.
Muzica, Antonio de Vera, leads a force against the Portugueze at Nova Colonia, ii. 576.
Myrtle wax of Louisiana, preferred in the French islands to bees' wax from France, iii. 897.

N.

Nabbidagan, the name of a rank among the Guaycurus, iii. 387.
Nabidrigui, an aged chief of the Mbayas, his extraordinary height, iii. 385, note.
Nakaiketergehes, a sort of deliberate madness among the Abipones, iii. 412.
Nandu, the ostrich of South America, ornaments made of its plumes, i. 643.
Napo, river, voyage of Missionaries from Quito, down, i. 581.
Nassau, Karel, killed at Porto Calvo, i. 533.
Nassau, Jan Mauritz, Count de, sent out General to Brazil, i. 528; his measures, 529; marches against Porto Calvo, 530; pursues Bagnuolo to the San Francisco, 533; erects Fort Mauritz, 536; his wise measures, 538; sends an expedition to St. Jorge da Mina, 545; takes Seara, 547; his preparations against Bahia, 549; his unsuccessful siege of St. Salvador, 551-559; his representations to the Dutch West Indian Company, 560; builds a palace, 568; founds Mauritias, 569; honoured with the title of Patronus, 570; the revolution in Portugal announced to him, ii. 1; his advice to the Company respecting the Island of St. Thomas, 13; his remonstrance against the parsimony of the Company, 22; obtains his recall, 47; his last advice to the Council, ib.; he sails for Europe, 49; his popularity injurious to his successors, 60.
Natal, city of, in Rio Grande do Norte, iii. 765.
Natural History, Academy of, instituted at Rio de Janeiro, iii. 643.
Nazareth, Pontal de, north of Recife, its importance, i. 483; attacked by the Dutch, 499; they pass the bar and win the town, ib.; Fernandes sends troops against it, ii. 123; Hoogstraten delivers it up, 131; the port secured by the Portugueze, 165.
Neenghaibas, tribe of, attempts of the Portugueze to reduce, ii. 519; Vieyra proposes to treat with them, 521; ceremonies at their submission, 524.
Neenguiru. (See Nicolas Neenguiru.)
Negreiros. (See Vidal de Negreiros.)
Negro, river, its junction with the Orellana, i. 598.
Negroes, number of, in Bahia, ii. 674; cruel treatment of, 675; note on the price of, in Brazil, 696; dangers apprehended from, in Minas Geraes, iii. 247; laws respecting fugitives, 248; free Creole Negroes of Brazil, 787; condition of Negroes in Minas Geraes, 830; explanation of the term Pieza de Indias, 889.
Nelareykate, a title among the Abipones, iii. 409.
Netergo, wood, weapons of the Abipones made of, iii. 408.
Nicknames, their currency in Portugal and Brazil, iii. 679.
Nicolas Neenguiru, Chief of the Guaranies, iii.468; fable announcing him King of Paraguay, 473.
Niezu, a Guarani Chief from the Jesuit Reductions taken to Buenos Ayres, ii. 285; joins a confederacy in Caro against the Jesuits, 295; unbaptizes certain converts, 297; his death, ib.
Nisibis, siege of, said to have been raised in consequence of a plague of gnats, i. 659.
Nobrega, Manoel de, chief of the first Jesuit Mission to South America, i. 214; his proceedings for the conversion of the savages, 253; appointed Provincial of Brazil, 262; establishes a school at Piratininga, ib; treats, for peace with the Tamoyos, 287; goes to S. Vicente, 290; dies, 330; instance of his mode of begging, 637.
Nogueira, town of, on the Orellana, iii. 703.
Nolasco, Pedro, appointed Judge Conservator to the Jesuits in Paraguay, ii. 437; sentence passed on the Bishop, 441.
Nose, custom of crushing, among svages, i. 642.
N. Senhora do Desterro, capital of the island and of the province of S. Catharine, iii. 859.
Nova Colonia, foundation of, ii. 572; Portugueze required to evacuate it, 575; the fort taken, 578; Spain resigns all title to, in favour of

[page] 932

Portugal, iii. 32; disputes respecting, 66; besieged by the Spaniards, 68; evacuated by the Portugueze, ib.; ceded by Spain to Portugal, 140; whimsical manner of signing the treaty, ib. note.
Numerals, of the American savages, i. 638.
Nunes, Diogo, a Jesuit, provides a force of Pitagoares against the Aymores, i. 383.
Nunes Viana, Manoel, chosen as head of the Forasteiros in the Minas, iii. 75; war with the Paulistas, 76; persuades the Governor of the Rio to retire, 80; prepares the restoration of order, 81.
Nunneries, under certain modifications, how far beneficial, ii. 571.

O.

Obidos, Conde de, Governor General of Brazil, ii. 553.
Obidos, town of, on the left bank of the Orellana, iii. 730.
Odemira, Conde de, his opinion respecting the demands of the Dutch, ii. 213.
Oeyras, town of, on the Xingu, iii. 736.
Oeyras, in the Captaincy of Piauhy, its population, iii. 753.
Oeyras, Conde de, iii. 558. (See Pombal.)
Oitava, in Brazil, a quarter of a moidore, iii. 53.
Olinda, its name and origin, i. 44; state of, in 1582, 324; menaced by the Dutch, 464; taken, 468; burnt by the Dutch, 479; taken by the insurgent Portugueze, ii. 130; recovered by Schoppe, 205; reoccupied by the Portugueze, ib.; discontent at, 556; flourishing state of, before the war, 657; people of, oppose the measure of making Recife a town, iii. 86; the Bishop takes part with the discontented, 89; occupied by the insurgents, 93; the Bishop assumes the government, 95; on his arrival takes part with the insurgents against Recife, 103; he resigns the government, 105; arrival of Machado, and end of the insurrection, 106; view of the state of, 771
Olivares, sends out the Conde de la Torre as Governor of Brazil, i. 570.
Oliveira, Diogo Luiz de, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 456.
Olivenza, town of, on the Orellana, iii. 702.
Omaguas, tribe of, i. 88; territory of, 587; their use of the caoutchouc, or gum elastic, 589; remains of that nation, 703.
Oñate, F. Pedro de, succeeds Torres as Provincial of the Jesuits, ii. 278.
Ontiveras, settlement at, i. 332.
Opossum, one brought from Brazil by Pinzon, i. 8, note.
Oquendo, commands a fleet for the relief of Pernambuco, i. 477; naval action, 478.
Oranges, introduced into Brazil, i. 319.
Ordas, Diego de, his expedition, i. 76.
Orellana, Francisco de, appointed Lieutenant General by Gonzalo Pizarro, i. 79; his voyage, 83; undertakes the conquest of his discoveries, 99; dies, 101, 102; reasons for restoring his name to the river he explored, 102.
Orellana, river, i. 5, 48, 76; Gaspar de Sousa ordered to colonize towards, 400; Maciel's expedition to explore, 436; Teixeira ordered to explore it up to Quito, 582; reaches Quito, ib.; its sources, 585; Teixeira reembarks with Acuña to explore it, ib.; its various tributary rivers, 587—598; its communication with the Orinoco known by the natives at this period, 599; Tupinambas on an island in the river, 602; estimate of its length, 614; food of the tribes on its banks, 615; mode of fishing, 617; animals, ib.; plague of insects, 618; number of tribes, 619; the throwing-stick, 620; their idols, ib.; their conjurors, 621; attempt of the Dutch on Belem, ii. 450; death of the Governor Coelho, 452; multiplicity of languages on the river, 701; infested by hostile tribes, iii. 6; expedition against them from Belem, 7; attempt of the French to enter, 15; towns on the left bank of, under the immediate government of Gram Para, 730.
Orinoco, its communication with the Orellana already known at the time of Acuñs voyage, i. 599; this communication is by the river Cassiquari, which joins the Rio Negro, iii. 709.
Ortega, Manoel de, a Jesuit, sent to Paraguay, ii. 252; adventure of, 255; thrown into the inquisition at Lima, 253.
Osorio, Diego Escobar, succeeds Hinostrosa as Governor of Paraguay, ii, 430; dies, and is succeeded by the Bishop, 433.
Osorio, Commander of S. Teresa, put to death, iii. 569.
Ostreiras, tribes so called in Brazil, i. 36.
Ouro Podre, In Goyaz, discovery of gold at, iii. 836.
Ouro Preto, war between the Forasteiros and the Paulistas at, iii. 77.
Outeiro, town of, near the Orellana, iii. 732.

[page] 933

P.

Pacheco, F. de Mello, seat to explore the river Madeira, iii. 341.
Paez, Esteban, sent as visitor to the Jesuits in S. America, ii. 256.
Paico, term for tea in Paraguay and Peru, i. 320.
Paiva, Manoel de, superintends the colony of Jesuits at Piratininga, i. 263.
Pajauarú, a liquor formed from mandioc, iii. 739.
Palacios, Juan de, escorts a Mission from Quito to the Indians on the Ahuarico, i. 581; murdered, ib.
Palmares, Negroes of the, harass the Portugueze, i. 495; acquire strength and audacity, iii. 23; their government and institutions, 24; resolution of the Pernambucan Government to subdue them, 25; their chief settlement, 26; they compel a force of Paulistas to retire, 27; the Portugueze besiege them, ib.; and capture the place, 28.
Palometa, a fish more dreaded than the American crocodile, i. 122; its terrible voracity, 631.
Palos, D. Joseph, appointed coadjutor of Asumpcion, arrives at Buenos Ayres, iii. 223; goes to Asumpcion, 229; proceedings there, 230, et seq.
Pancas, Lord of, Christovam da Costa Freire, Governor of Maranham and Para, iii. 73; succeeded by Bernardo Pereira de Berredo, 154.
Pantanaes, or flooded savannahs of the Paraguay, i. 132.
Papanazes, account of the, i. 39.
Papel en verso, a romance so called, ii. 706.
Papel forte, or strong memorial of Viers to Joam IV. ii. 222.
Para, Caldeira's expedition to, i. 427; Captaincy of, founded, ib.; disturbances at Belem, 431; constituted, with Maranham, a separate state from Brazil, 437; attempts of the English in, 578; Stedman's derivation of the word, 656; affairs of, ii. 31; proceedings respecting slavery in, 501; insurrection at Belem, 536; transactions at Curupa, 538; great sense of insecurity in the settlement, 649; jealousy of the French and Dutch, ib.; expedition from, to Mato Grosso, iii. 350; arrival of the party at S. Rosa, 353; at S. Miguel, 354; misfortunes at Ilha Grande, 356; return, 359; intercourse with Mato Grosso, ib.; progress of the Portugueze from, 362; course of savage emigration from south to north, 363; prosperous state of Belem, 364; state of the Aldeas, ib.; Mendonça Furtado, Governor of, 506; regulations concerning the Indians promulgated at, 522; Jesuits deported from, 541; the inhabitants of Mazagam removed to, 589; route to, from Goyaz, by the Araguaya, explored, 676; view of the general state of that Captaincy, 697; state of the city of, formerly called Belem, 741; population, 742; cruel treatment of slaves, 743; happy condition of the better colonists, 744; decline of the trade of Mato Grosso with, 838.
Paraguay, Cabot's voyage up the, i. 53; Ayola's voyage up, 64; aquatic tribes of Indians on the river, 130; source of the river, 131; progress of the colony, 331; the Jesuits invited into, ii. 251; government of, separated from that of the Plata, 283; the Governor of, defeats the Paulistas, 323; evil effects of the Braganzan revolution in, 329; secular year of the Jesuits celebrated in, 331; system of the Jesuits in, 333; state of property in the Reductions, 335; public tribute, 336; municipal government, 337; religious fraternities, 338; plan of the towns, 339; early marriages, 342; discipline, 343; amusements, 346; employments of women, 350; punishments, 352; system of inspection, 353; intercourse with the Spaniards, 355; the Caa, or Matté, the chief article of export, 356; tribes from which the Reductions were formed, 366; Guaranies, ib.; Chiriguanas, 373; Cayaguas, ib.; Guanas, 374; language, 377; difficulties respecting marriage, 379; Cardenas appointed Bishop, 380; (see Cardenas.) his disputes with the Governor Hinostrosa, 392; his enmity towards the Jesuits, 407; endeavours to expel them from Asumpcion, 409; they are accused of working mines for their own benefit, 422; tumultuously expelled from Asumpcion, 434; are restored, 440; sequel of the dispute, 441; fresh report of mines on the Uruguay, 447; parties from the Reductions sent to reconnoitre the Portugueze on the Plata, 573; note on the herb of Paraguay, 706; attempt made to open a communication between the Guarani and the Chiquito Reductions, iii. 173; navigation of, 174; the Jesuits attacked by the Payaguas, 175; failure of their attempt, 176; a second expedition up, 193; troubles in, 211; usurpation of Antequera, 212; he threatens the Reductions, 213; Montevideo founded by the Spaniards, 222; the Jesuits expelled from Asumpcion, 224; Antequera marches against Garcia Ros, 225; advances against the Parana

VOL. III. 6 D

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Reductions, 227; returns, 228; his flight, 232; rebellion of the commons, 233; Antequera put to death, 238; the Jesuits again expelled from Asumpcion, 239; murder of the Governor, 243; subjugation of the insurgents, ib.; the Jesuits reestablished, 245; first introduction of cattle into, 374; infested by the Mbayas on the west and north, 392; manners of the herdsmen of, 421; state of the agricultural population, 427; schools, 429; state of the towns, 431; Guarani language spoken more than Spanish, ib.; smoking, 432; education, 433; decay of military spirit, 435; defenceless state of the people, 436; war of the Seven Reductions, 462; the Jesuits lose their authority and influence, 473; fable of King Nicolas,ib.; persecution of the Jesuits, 502, 547.
Paraiba, river, settlement on the, i. 37; the French driven from, 305; they again attempt to settle there, and are expelled, 350; attack of the Dutch on Paraiba, 480; Fort Cabedello besieged by Lichthart, 481; siege raised, 482; again attacked by the Dutch, 501; taken, 504; insurrection in, ii. 136; evacuated by the Portugueze, 185; state of the Captaincy in the 18th century, iii. 766; city, 767; town of Pilar, 768; increasing culture of cotton, ib.
Paraiba do Sul, river, iii. 818.
Paraipeba, a mint of coiners discovered at, iii.265.
Parana, passage of, by Cabeza de Vaca, i. 113; settlement on the, 332; the southern boundary of Guayra, ii. 264; first reductions of, formed, 270; falls of the, 315; its sources and course, 318; advance of Antequera against the Reductions, iii. 227; his return, 228.
Paranagua, in the Captaincy of S. Paulo, iii. 852.
Pardo, Rio, its course, iii. 256; expedition down that river, 692.
Parecis, Campos dos, the highest tract in Brazil, iii. 312.
Parica, feast of the, among the Indians, iii. 723.
Parnaiba, town of, in Piauhy, iii. 753.
Parobios, tribe of, i. 165.
Parrot, Brazilian, curious story of one, ii. 695.
Parrots, once eaten medicinally, i. 627.
Passés, tribe of, their Copernican system, and their chivalry, iii. 722.
Pataca, in Portugueze currency, its variable value, ii. 53, note; a coin known only in Brazil, iii. 900.
Patry, Hadrian, Admiral of the Dutch expedition to Pernambuco, i. 477; drowned, 478.
Paulistas, ii. 300; foundation of their city, 301; their expeditions in search of slaves and of mines, 306; at enmity with the Jesuits, 308; attack the Reductions, 309; effects of their ravages upon the converts, 312; drive the Jesuits from the Tapé, 318; kill the Jesuit Alfaro, 323; are defeated by the Governor of Paraguay, ib.; on the Braganzan revolution, wish to elect a king for themselves, 327; defeated by the Indians of the Reductions, 330, favour the insurrection at Rio de Janeiro, 552; Salvador Correa conciliates them, 553; called in against the Guerens, 564; discovery and conquest of Piauhy, 568; tribes on the Tocantins apply for protection against them, 597; expedition to that river in search of mines, 598; their adventurous spirit, 668; a party of them reach Quito, ib.; their manner of searching for gold, 669; a detachment of, sent against the Palmares Negroes, iii. 25; their rivalry with the men of Taboate in quest of gold, 54; jealousy between them and the Forasteiros in the mines, 73; civil war, 76; a party of, massacred by Amaral Continho, 78; invade the mines, 83; rage of their females, ib.; approach the settlements among the Chiquitos, 171; are defeated by the Spaniards of Santa Cruz, 172; their discovery of the mines of Cuyaba, 255; spread themselves into Goyaz, 304; and Mato Grosso, 309; their lofty spirit, 847; their dreadful sufferings from the small pox, 856; calumnies of the Jesuits against them, 890. (See S. Paulo.)
Payagoaes, tribe of, i. 73; offer to restore to Cabeza de Vaca what they had taken from Ayolas, 128; they fly into the interior, 129.
Payaguas, tribe, attack a party of Jesuits on the Paraguay, iii. 175; peace with them made and broken, 177; dangerous to the Paulistas on their route to Cuyaba, 258; their alliance with the Guaycurus, 380; rupture between them and the Guaycurus, 617; their arts and customs, 618; ceremony which they practise at Asumpcion, 620; an odd story from Dobrizhoffer concerning one of them, 895.
Payés, or jugglers of the Tupinambas, i. 202, 227; Harcourt cited respecting them, ii. 699.
Payva, Jeronymo de, conveys reinforcements to Pernambuco, ii. 119; his squadron destroyed by Lichthart, 133.
Payzunoes, tribe of, i. 148.
Pedrero, a destructive piece of artillery, iii. 117.
Pedro II. of Portugal, death of, iii. 69.
Peionas, tribe of, i. 165.
Peisenos, tribe of, i. 165.
Penedo, port of, iii. 792.

[page] 935

Penoquin, a dialect of the Chiquitos, iii. 169, note.
Penrose, extract on the defeat in La Plata, from his poems, iii. 562, note.
Pepper, cultivation of, in Bahia, iii. 797.
Peralta, appointed Judge Conservator to the Jesuits in Paraguay, ii. 437: sentence passed on the bishop, 441.
Peramas, his anecdotes of the Jesuit Ignatius Morro, iii. 605, note; describes the seizure of the Jesuits at Cordoba, 609, note.
Pereira, Duarte Coelho, obtains the Captaincy of Pernambuco, i. 44.
Pereyra de Mello, Miguel, acting as Governor of St. Thomas, ii. 11: capitulates to the Dutch, 12.
Peria, island of, arrival of Jeronymo Albuquerque's expedition at, i. 406.
Pernambuco, Captaincy of, established, i. 44; state of, in 1582, 324; expedition of the Dutch against, 462; Olinda and Recife taken, 468; emigration of Portugueze from, 514; second emigration, 527; flood and pestilence at, ii. 21; general distress in, 53; measures of the Dutch against priests and religioners in, 64; rise of Joam Fernandes Vieira, 65; orders sent from Bahia to burn all the sugar-canes in, 157; orders sent from Telles, for the Portugueze troops to retire from, 169; command in, entrusted to Barreto de Menezes, 198; Jeronymo Furtado succeeds Vidal as Governor, 555; discontents at Olinda, 556; insurrection, ib. made a bishoprick, 570; called New Holland by the Dutch, 651; antiquities in, 652; zeal of the Dutch for religion, 653; improvements introduced by them, 655; climate injurious to their women and children, 656; flourishing state of Olinda before the war, 657; few intermarriages between the Dutch and Portugueze, 658; infested by the Negroes of the Palmares, iii. 24; measures for subduing them, 25; civil war in, 85; Recife made a town, 86; opposition of the people of Olinda, ib. arrest of some nobles, 88; attempt made to assassinate the Governor, ib.; insurrection, 90; measures of the insurgents after occupying Recife, 93; counter revolution, 99; determined conduct of the loyalists, 105; arrival of Machado as Governor, 106; exclusive trading company established, 548; extinction of the company, 655; its flourishing state, 768; Recife ib.; improved quality of its cotton, 769; Iguarassú, 772; the Lagoas, ib.; the Sertam, 773; trade of the interior, 775; great families in, 779; state of slaves upon their estates, 780; slaves on the conventual estates, ib.; usual state of the slaves, 783; free creole Negroes, 787; gypsies, ib.; reduction of the last wild Indians, 788; improvement of horticulture, ib.; boundaries, 790.
Pernilongo, an insect infesting the banks of the Madeira, iii. 333.
Peros, an appellation applied by the Brazilians to the Portugueze, i. 50.
Peru, expedition of Cabeza de Vaca towards, i. 124; the Viceroy of, orders a survey of the Orellana, 584; Jesuits from, invited by the bishop of Tucuman, ii. 251; a way to, from the Moxos, explored by Baraza, iii. 205,
Perus, or Yanapuary river, i. 597; productive of cacao or cocoa, salsaparilla, and copaiba gum, ib.
Pessas, slaves so denominated in Brazil, ii. 709.
Pestilence, in Brazil, in, 1686, 586; note on, from Rocha Pitta, 707.
Philip II. of Spain, offers Brazil to the Duke of Braganza, i. 315.
Philip V. of Spain, rejects the proposal of France for a partition of the Portugueze dominions, iii. 296.
Piauhy, discovery and conquest of, ii. 567; Portugueze settlers at, help to clear Seara of savages, iii. 18; expedition against the Indians in, 153; that country made a Captaincy, 154; view of the state of the Captaincy in the 18th century, 752; Indians in, 754; state of the Fazendas, 755; trade in cattle, 757.
Pilam Arcado, salt trade from, to Minas Geraes, iii. 791.
Pilar, town of, in Paraiba, iii. 768.
Pilcomayo, attempt of the Jèsuits to ascend that river, iii. 195; its course, 196; the expedition frustrated, 197.
Pindobe, a Guarani chief, puts himself under the protection of the Jesuits, ii. 289.
Pindobuzu, negociates with the Portugueze, i.289.
Pine-apple plant, in Brazil, fibres to be obtained from, as a substitute for flax, iii. 790.
Pinoco, a dialect of the Chiquitos, iii. 169, note.
Pinzon, Vicente Yañez, discovers the coast of Brazil, i. 1; and the river Maranham, 5; his voyage with Solis, 25.
Piqui, a tree of great utility in Piauhy, iii. 758.
Piratininga, Jesuit establishment at, i. 262; campo, or fields of, ii. 301; city of S. Paulo founded, 303; height of the plains above the level of the sea, 845; ascent to from Santos, 849.

[page] 936

Pires, his expedition to the Rio Negro, ii. 517.
Piso, cited on the poisons known to the Tupi tribes, i. 237; his observation on the climate of Brazil, 327.
Pitagoares, tribe of, i. 350; brought against the Aymores, 383.
Pium, a terrible insect on the Orellana, i. 618.
Pizarro, Gonzalo, his expedition in search of El Dorado, i. 78; lasting remembrance of his cruelty among the Indians, 629.
Plata, river, Cabot's voyage up, i. 53; when named Plata, 56; government of, separated from that of Paraguay, ii. 283; expedition of the Portugueze, to form a settlement on the left bank of, 572; the Portugueze determine to seize the north bank, iii. 219; compelled by the Spaniards to withdraw from Monte Video, 220, that fortress founded by the Spaniards, 222; manners and condition of the herdsmen near the Plata, 421; state of the agricultural population, 427; schools, 429; state of the towns, 430.
Poderoso, Jeronymo, a Paulista, challenged by Manoel Nunes, iii. 75.
Poison, Gumilla's account of that used by the Indians, i. 641.
Pombal, Marquis de, his enmity to the Jesuits, iii. 502; his character, 505; his views with respect to the Indians, 512; story from an unpublished life of him, 519, note; his regulations concerning the Indians, 522; remark of a French philosophist on, 524, note; causes charges to be presented to the Pope against the Jesuits, 536; laws respecting the new Christians, 587; opens the trade to Brazil for single ships, 589; sends colonists to Brazil, 590; laws against vagabonds, 591; his regulations for the Forbidden District of Diamonds, 628; his disgrace after the death of King Jozé, 655; effect of his regulations concerning the Indians, 697.
Poncho, an Indian garment, ii. 351.
Pororoca, a phenomenon on the Brazilian coast, i. 7.
Portalegre, in Rio Grande do Norte, iii. 765.
Portalegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, iii. 865.
Portel, town of, on a lake of the river Annapu, iii. 736.
Porto Calvo, Bagnuolo sent to fortify, i. 509; abandons it, 510; recovered by the Portugueze, 516; taken by the Dutch, 530. 532; surrendered by them, iii. 137.
Porto Seguro discovered, i. 12; Captaincy of, to whom first allotted, 39; state of, in 1582, 326; ravaged by the savages, ii. 664; the scene of a curious story, 711; discords in, quelled, iii. 20; state of that Captaincy in the eighteenth century, 807; town of, 808.
Porto de Sousa, military station at, iii. 810.
Portugal, possession taken of territory in Brazil for the Crown of, i. 13; Brazil divided into Captaincies, 33; Thome de Sousa appointed Governor-General, 213; death of Joam, III. 268; inattention of the Government to the settlement of the French in, 278; its subjection to Spain involves Brazil in hostilities with the English, 352; Braganzan revolution, 575; King Joam IV. proclaimed, 576; the revolution announced to Nassau, ii. 1; truce for ten years concluded with Holland, 2; state of negociations with Holland, 171; deliberations in the cabinet respecting Pernambuco, 213; a Brazil Company established at Vieyra's suggestion, 223; capture of Recife, 242; death of Joam IV. 243; a Dutch fleet sent to the Tagus to dictate terms, 244; conferences at Lisbon, 246; operations of Ruyter on the coast, 247; interference of England, and settlement of peace, 249; effects of the Braganzan revolution among the Paulistas, 327; and in Paraguay, 329; independence of Portugal formally acknowledged by Spain, 558; new edicts respecting the Indians, 590; exclusive company established of traders to Maranham and Para, 604; Aitzema cited on the debts of, 697; monopoly of trade to Maranham abolished, iii. 2; war with Spain, and seige of Nova Colonia, 67; dispute concerning the territory, 217; Colonia attacked by the Spaniards, 288; siege raised, 293; cessation of hostilities, ib.; annulment of the Treaty of Limits, 502; character of the minister Pombal, 505; his views with respect to the Indians, 512; law for the abolishment of slavery among them, 513; law for depriving Missionaries of temporal power, 514; Mutiny of troops on the Rio Negro, 516; regulations concerning the Indians, promulgated at Para, 522; charges against the Jesuits presented to the Pope, 536; attempt to assassinate the King, 540; the Jesuits condemned as accomplices, and deported from Para and Maranham, 541; conduct of the Archbishop of Bahia, 543; different conduct of the Bishop of Rio de Janeiro, 545; Companies of Maranham and Pernambuco established, 548; the British factories affected by these monopolies, 551; whaling company,

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553; laws enforced in Goyaz, 556; war of 1762, with France and Spain, 557; English and Portugueze squadron defeated before Colonia, 560; the Brazilians forbidden to send their daughters to the nunneries in Portugal, 586; war of 1777 with Spain, 645; second Treaty of Limits, 652; death of King Jozé, and disgrace of Pombal, 654; war with Spain, 687; treaty of Madrid between Portugal and France, 691; boundary fixed after the overthrow of Buonaparte, ib., note; Removal of the Court to Brazil, 695.
Portugueze, their first settlement in Brazil, i. 20; Jesuit Mission appointed, 214; opposition of the settlers to the Missionaries, 257; defeat the French at Rio de Janeiro, 301; drive them from Paraiba, 351; defeat them in Maranham, 418; break their treaty with them, 424; obtain the unconditional surrender of S. Louis, 426; rally against their Dutch invaders, 442; their zeal for the deliverance of St. Salvador, 446; recover it, 450; disasters of their fleet on its return to Europe, 454; liberality of the King of Spain to them, ib.; their oppressive conduct in Maranham, 460; their ill success against the Dutch in Pernambuco, 468; they rally, 472; bush companies formed, 473; their distress, 474; a fleet sent out from Lisbon under Oquendo, 477; frustrate the attempt of the Dutch on Paraiba, 482; Calabar deserts to the Dutch, 485; defeat an attack on their camp, 489; prevent the intended siege, 490; attempt to surprise Recife, 497; the camp of Bom Jesus capitulates to the Dutch, 507; their attempts to relieve Nazareth, 509; it capitulates, 513; emigration from Pernambuco, 514; recover Porto Calvo, 516; reinforcements arrive under Roxas, 521; Bagnuolo succeeds to the command, 524; Predatory system of warfare, 526; second emigration from Pernambuco, 527; pursued by Nassau to the San Francisco, 533; retreat to Bahia, 543; loss of St. Jorge da Mina, 544; Seara taken by the Dutch, 546; proceedings at Recife, 547; Bahia entered, and St. Salvador besieged, 551; letters intercepted, 556; battle in the trenches, 557; siege raised, 559; state of the Dutch, Captaincies, 564; the Conde de la Torre comes out, 570; four naval actions, 571; retreat of Vidal and Barbalho, 573; the Reconcave desolated, 574; the Marquez de Monte Alvam, Viceroy, ib.; revolution in Portugal, 575; the Viceroy sent home prisoner, 576; affairs of Maranham, 578; measures against the English, 579; Teixeira sent to explore the Orellana up to Quito, 582; Acuña returns with him and surveys its course, 585; the men want to make slaves, 600; interposition of the Jesuits, ib.; arrival at Belem, 613; tribes on the river, 615; their number, 619; Seregipe surprized by the Dutch, ii. 6; Loanda in Angola taken, 9; the island of St. Thomas taken, 12; Maranham conquered, 19; insurrection for its deliverance, 26; successes of the patriots, 27; affairs of Para, 31; success of Teixeira in Maranham, 37; defeat of the Dutch, 42; debts fraudulently contracted by the Portugueze, 54; vexed and oppressed by the conquerors, 56; Hoogstraten offers his services to them, 63; rise of Joam Fernandes Vieira, 65; his projects, 69; declares them, 74; preparations against the Dutch, 80; the people summoned to arms, 89; battle of Monte das Tabocas, 108; reinforcements sent to Bahia under Vidal and Martim Soares, 119; Serinhaem taken, ib.; Qlinda taken, 130; Nazareth delivered up by Hoogstraten, 131; squadron destroyed, 133; insurrection at Guyana, 134; and Paraiba, 136; Porto Calvo recovered, 137; new camp formed before Recife, 142; attempt upon Itamaraca, 143; massacre at the Potengi, 145; transactions at, 152; Camaram's victory, 155; distress in Recife, 158; stratagems and jubilee, 160; scarcity in the camp, 163; ports of Nazareth and Tamandare secured, 165; victory at S. Lourenço, 167; Camp Masters ordered to retire from Pernambuco, 169; Martim Soares obeys, but Vidal persists in the war, 170; again fail at Itamaraca, 176; evacuate Paraiba, 185; their imprudent attack of Schoppe, 190; cannonade Recife, 192; misconduct of their fleet, 195; request succours from Bahia, but in vain, 199; contract their operations, 201; their force diminished, 202; battle of Guararapes, 203; re-occupy Olinda, 205; injury sustained by their commerce, 207; Angola recovered, 209; a Brazil Company established, 227; second battle of Guararapes, 229; state of negociations, 232; blockade Recife by sea, 238; its seige and capture, 239; fruitless expedition in search of mines in Maranham, 510; their unsuccessful war against the tribes of the Ilha dos Joanes, 519; Nova Colonia founded, 572; they are required to evacuate the settlement, 575; the fort taken, 578; adjustment of the dispute, 579; a slave party of,

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cut off by the Indians, 591; vengeance taken by them, 592; few marriages between them and the Dutch, 658; dress and fashion of the Portugueze in Brazil in the seventeenth century, 676; state of manners, 677; jealousy, 678; frequent assassinations, ib.; corruption of manners, 680; superstition, 681; corruption of Christianity, 689; merciless task-masters in the seventeenth century, 709; trespass on their territory by the French, iii. 15; besiege the Palmares Negroes, 27; the place captured, 28; dispute with the French Governor of Cayenne, 29; retake from them the fort of Cabo do Norte, 31; negociations with Spain, 137; concluded, 140; eject the Spanish Missionaries on the Orellana, 142; alarm of the Portugueze at Rio de Janeiro on the invasion of the French, 108; expel them, 111; cruel usage of prisoners, 112; negligence of their commander on the invasion of Du Guay Trouin, 116; wretched conduct of the Governor, 117; they abandon the city, 119; alarm in the cabinet at the operations of the French, 125; their alarm respecting the designs of England against South America, 131; negociations with France at Utrecht, 132; difficulty respecting the commerce of Brazil, 133; jealous of the Assiento Treaty between England and Spain, 137; their progress toward the centre of the continent, 210; disputes with Spain concerning Colonia, 217; begin to fortify Monte Video, 219; compelled by the Spaniards to withdraw, 220; their discovery and settlement of Goyaz and Mato Grosso, 304; reach the Moxo Missions, ib.; settlement of some desperadoes on Ilha Grande in the Guapore, 348; progress of the Portugueze from Para up the Orellana and tributary streams, 362; their intercourse with the Aldeas, 371; attacked by the Guaycurus and the Payaguas, 381; fit out flotillas against them, 382; seek for peace, 383; their hostilities with the insurgents of the Seven Reductions on the Rio Pardo, 464; their advance to the Jacuy, 468; truce, 471; junction with the Spaniards, 477; slaughter of the Guaranies at Caaibata, 482; their hardships at the pass of Monte Grande, 485; passage of the Chiriauhy, 492; come in sight of S. Miguels, ib.; their first occupation of Rio Grande, 568; the Spaniards expel them from S. Pedro, 569; occupy Sitio das Pedras, 573; take possession of the site of S. Rosa, 574; the Governor of S. Cruz remonstrates, 575; their activity and confidence, 581; attack and plunder S. Mignels, 582; repossess themselves of Rio Grande by force, 601; peace made with the Guaycurus, 662; their present system toward the Indians upright and humane, 844.
Potariva heads a confederacy against the Jesuits, ii. 293.
Potatoes eaten by the tribes on the Orellana, i. 615; used early in the Azores, 630.
Potengi, river, the native name for the Rio Grande do Norte, i. 479, note; state of the population, 656; massacre at, ii. 145; transactions at, 152; victory of Camaram, 155; attempts of the Dutch to intercept a convoy from, 166; state of the settlement, 651. (See Rio Grande do Norte.)
Pottery, of the Tupi tribes, i. 243.
Poty, Pieter, a savage Chief, devoted to the Dutch, ii. 153; his capture and death, 230.
Poyares, on the Rio Negro, iii. 715.
Praça dos Prazeres, founded, iii. 622; destroyed, 657.
Prado, town of, on the lake Curubiu, iii. 731.
Prado, Manoel de, Governor of Buenos Ayres, calls upon the Portugueze to fortify Monte Video against the Danes, iii. 67.
Prado, Gaspar de, Missionary at the Reduction of S. Miguel, iii. 321; his precarious condition, 323.
Pratz, Sieur de, a commander of the French at Maranham, i. 413.
Printing, none in Brazil in the seventeenth century, ii. 691.
Provedor, of mines, his duties, iii. 44.
Pulperias, or drinking-houses of the herdsmen of Paraguay, iii. 425.
Putumayo, or Iça, river, its source and junction with the Oreliana, i. 591.

Q.

Quecuéné, the Brazilian name of the Rio Branco, iii. 716.
Quenoas, tribe of, iii. 415; their customs, 416.
Quilombo, of the Negroes, meaning of the term, iii. 243.
Quirandies, their war with the Spaniards, i. 59.
Quito, missionaries from, to the Indians on the Ahuarico, i. 581; reach Belem, ib.; Teixeira ordered to explore the Orellana up to Quito, 583; his arrival, ib.; Province of Quito visited by a party of Paulistas, ii. 668; Missions of Spaniards from, meet those of the Portugueze from Para, iii. 893.

[page] 939

R.

Raimundo Jacome, intrudes into the succession as Governor of Maranham, i. 581; sent to Lisbon and there absolved, ii. 15.
Ralegh, fits out a privateer for Withrington's expedition to Brazil, i. 356; his tempting lure to English adventurers in the fable of El Dorado, 371; the delusion fortunate for Brazil, 374; his motives for propagating it, 652.
Ramalho, his settlement in the Piratininga, ii. 301.
Ramusio, a remarkable passage from, quoted by Bandini respecting a prohibition for Italians to settle in Brazil, i. 628.
Rangel, Belchior, reconnoitres the isle of Maranham, i. 409; and the isle Das Guayabas, 416.
Rapaduras, cakes of sugar so called in Seara, iii. 764.
Raphael de Jesus, denies the authenticity of a letter from the King of Portugal to his resident minister in Holland, ii. 194, note.
Rasilly, joins the expedition to Maranham, i. 393; returns to France, 399.
Rattles, of the Indians, specimen of noticed, iii. 720, note.
Ratton, Jacome, his account of a speculation in Maranham cotton, iii. 553.
Ravadière, his expedition to Maranham, i. 393; his warfare with the Portugueze, 415; takes three Portugueze ships, ib.; defeated, 418; opens a correspondence with Jeronymo Albuquerque, 419; treaty, 420; surrenders fort Louis, 426.
Raynal, Abbé, speech from an ex-jesuit cited from, ii. 701; his remark on the regulations respecting the Indians in Brazil, iii. 533, note.
Real, Rio, settlement of the Portugueze at, i, 314; abandoned, 315.
Rebello, Francisco, killed in an imprudent attack on Schoppe's encampment, ii. 190.
Recife, the port of Olinda, i. 44; taken by Lancaster, 366; taken by the Dutch, 469; attempt of the Portugueze to surprize, 497; proceedings of the Dutch at, 518; reform at, 537; new edicts and regulations enacted, 457; encampment of Fernandes before, ii. 141; preparations of the Dutch for defence, 142; attempt upon Itamaraca, 143; contagion in the camp, 144; treachery of the deserters, 147; distress in the town, 158; stratagems and jubilee, 160; scarcity in the camp, 163; famine in, 179; relieved by a fleet from Holland, 180; cannonaded by the Portugueze, 192; the Asseca battery won by the Dutch, 205; blockaded by sea, 238; siege and capture of, 239; its growth in the seventeenth century, 658; Schoppe brought to trial for surrendering, 698; made a town, iii. 86; the measure opposed by the people of Olinda, ib. they protest against it, 87; entered by the insurgents, 91; arrival of Bernardo Vieira, 96; who heads the republican party, 97; the loyalists roused by his designs, 98; a counter-revolution in, 99; increase of its population, 769; destitute of inns and lodging-houses 772.
Recolhimento, founded at Bahia, iii. 151; such an institution desirable in England, ib.
Reconcave, of Bahia, revolutions in the, i. 42; ravages of the small pox in, 294; force of, in 1581, 317; sugar works in, 318; laid waste by the Dutch, i. 574; ravaged by Schoppe, ii. 206.
Reconcave, of the Rio de Janeiro, its advantages for commerce, iii. 817.
Rede, or hammoc, a beautiful piece of furniture in the houses of the opulent in Brazil, iii. 848.
Reductions, settlements of the Jesuits so called, ii. 267; state of, 275; system established by the Jesuits, 335; tribes from which they were formed, 366; language, 377; difficulties respecting marriage, 379; cession of seven reductions by Spain to Portugal, in the Treaty of Limits, iii. 418; state of the Reductions previous to the expulsion of the Spanish Jesuits, 604; are delivered up to the Viceroy, 613; new system of government in, 614.
Reiter, F. Joseph, missionary at S. Maria Magdalena on the Ubay, iii. 326.
Repartimientos, divisions of the Spanish conquests so called, i. 172.
Revenge, shocking spirit of, among the inhabitants of Brazil, i. 638.
Reyes, Diego de los, appointed Governor of Paraguay, iii. 211; compelled to fly on the usurpation of Antequera, 212; seized at Corrientes and put in prison, 216.
Rhineberg, defeated by Camaram, ii. 156.
Ribera, Francisco de, his journey to Tapuaguazu, i. 145; his return, 147.
Ribera, Hernando de, his expedition, i. 156; marches in quest of the Amazons, 157, 158; returns to the Xarayes, 160; misconduct of the Spaniards, 161.
Ribeiro Pessoa Montenegro, P. Joam, his name will hold a disastrous place in the future history of Brazil, iii. 797, note.
Rifault, his expedition to Maranham, i. 392.

[page] 940

Rimbach, succeeds to the command of the Dutch in Brazil, i. 488; falls in an assault on the Portugueze camp, 489.
Rio Branco, its course, iii. 716.
Rio do Carmo, discovery of, iii. 55.
Rio de Contas, Villa do, iii, 803.
Rio Fermoso, surprized by the Dutch, i. 486.
Rio Grande do Norte, or Potengi, unsuccessful attempt of the Dutch upon, i. 482; reduced by them 493; massacre at, 145; transactions at, 152; the Dutch defeated, 155; state of the settlement, ii. 651; extent and boundaries, iii. 765.
Rio Grande de S. Pedro, or do Sul, advance of Zeballos against, iii. 563; Carijos, 568; first occupation by the Portugueze, ib.; the Spaniards expel them from S. Pedro, 569; forcibly retained by the Spaniards, 584; appeal to Great Britain concerning, 600; the Portugueze repossess themselves of it by force, 601; state of the province, 865; Portalegre its capital, ib; population, 866; destruction of cattle, ib.; state of grazing farms, 867; mules, 868.
Rio de Janeiro, expedition of the French against, ii. 279; defeated, 281; city of S. Sebastian founded, 302; this Captaincy separated from the general government of Brazil, 551; made a bishoprick, 570; population of, in the seventeenth century, 667; the Governor of, goes to suppress the civil war in the Minas Geraes, iii. 79; persuaded by Manoel Nunes to retire, 80; alarm of invasion at, 108; landing of the French under Du Clerc, 109; they enter the city, 110; the Portugueze overpower them, 111; cruel usage of the prisoners, 112; second invasion under Du Guay Trouin, 114; wretched conduct of the Governor 117; the city abandoned by the Portugueze, 119; taken and pillaged, 120; ransomed, 122; conduct of the Bishop on the expulsion of the Jesuits, 545; seat of government removed to the, 585; academy of natural history instituted at, by the Viceroy Azambuja, 643; progress of the Captaincy in the eighteenth century, 813; city of the Rio, ib.; climate, 815; slaves, 816; population of the Captaincy, 817.
Rio das Mortes, settlements formed by Fernando Dias in, iii. 47; war between the Paulistas and Forasteiros at, 77; the Paulistas repulsed at, by the Forasteiros, 84; one of the four districts of Minas Geraes, 283.
Rio Negro, mutiny of troops on, ii. 516; expedition of Jesuits to, 517; Captaincy of, its rapid improvement 709; communication with the Orinoco, ib.; town of, 718.
Rio Pardo, hostilities on, in the war of the Seven Reductions, iii. 464.
Rio de la Plata, discovery of, i. 26. (See Plata.)
Rio Real, i. 314.
Robles, F. de, his reply to Antequera's demand of indemnities from the Parana Reductions, iii. 228.
Rodeio, in the grazing farms of Rio Grande, iii. 867.
Rodriguez, Alvaro, conciliates the Aymores, i. 385.
Rodriguez, Domingos, pacifies the Aymores at Ilheos, i. 887.
Rodriguez, a Jesuit, murdered by the Caaroens, ii. 294; honours of martyrdom paid to him, 298.
Rodriguez Paez, Garcia, appointed Guarda Mor of the Mines, iii. 54.
Roiz Arzam, Antonio, exhibits the first gold at Espirito Santo, iii. 49; Bartolemeu Bueno inherits his papers, 50.
Rolim de Moura, Manoel, Governor of Maranham, iii. 71; his disputes with the Ouvidor, ib.
Rolim de Moura, Antonio, Governor of Mato Grosso, iii. 572. (See Azambuja, Count of.)
Romero, F. Juan, Superior of the Jesuit Missions in Paraguay, ii. 254; undertakes to explore the Parana, 285; assists in subduing the tribes on the lake Ybera, 325.
Roque da Costa Barreto, Governor of Brazil, ii. 571.
Rosario, the Presidio do, attacked by the French, who are repulsed, i. 401, 402.
Roxas y Borja, D. Luiz de, sent out to Brazil with reinforcements, i. 520; his rashness, 521; defeated and slain, 522.
Royville, the sieur de, settles with a number of adventurers at Cayenne, iii. 14; murdered by them, ib.
Ruier, Claude, succeeds Alfaro as Superior of the Jesuit Missions, ii. 324.
Ruiloba, Agustin de, Governor of Paraguay, iii. 242; murdered by the insurgents, 243.
Ruyter, Admiral, ordered to take the command of the Dutch fleet sent to the Tagus, i.244; his operations on the coast of Portugal, 247.
Ruyz, Francisco, his misconduct at Asumpcion, i. 69, 70.

S.

Sa, Estacio de, his expedition against the French, i. 296; prevented by Nobrega from abandoning the attempt, 297; his victory, and death, 301.

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Sa, Salvador Correa de, appointed Chief Captain on the death of Eustacio, i. 301.
Sa, Francisco Nunez Marinhode, appointed to command against the Dutch, i. 447.
Sa, Mem de, Governor of Brazil, i. 268; outcry against his attempts on behalf of the natives, ib.; his measures against the refractory natives, 269; his expedition against the French, 279; against the Aymores, 283; after the defeat of the French at Rio de Janeiro, founds St. Sebastian's, 302; puts a Protestant to death, 303; dies, 310.
Sa de Menezes, Artur de, sent to supersede Gomes Freyre at Maranham, iii. 16.
Sa de Menezes, Francisco de, Governor of Maranham, ii. 604; his indecision, 606; his fruitless measures against the insurgents, 612; attempts to purchase Beckman's submission, 613.
Sabara Bussu, explored by Fernando Dias, iii. 48.
Sabara, mines of, by whom registered, iii. 56; one of the four districts of Minas Geraes, 283; Villa Re al do Sabara, its capital, 822
Saboris, tribe of, i. 165.
Sacocies, tribes of, i. 134.
Sacramento, Timotheo do, Bishop of Maranham, excommunicates the Ouvidor, iii. 35; the matter referred to Portugal, 36; his insolence, 37; returns to Lisbon and is disgraced, 39.
Salazar, Juan de, sent in search of Ayolas, i. 63.
Salcedo, D. Miguel, his-attack on Nova Colonia, iii. 287; raises the siege, 293.
Saldanha, Francisco de, Cardinal Patriarch at Lisbon, appointed Visitor and Reformer of the Company of Jesuits, iii. 537; his mandate concerning their trade, ib.
Salema, Dr. Antonio, appointed to one of the two governments of Brazil, i. 311.
Salivas, tribe of, on the Orinoco, never rear, twins, i. 645.
Salt, great distress from the want of, in Mato Grosso, iii. 361; observations on that produced by certain shrubs, 892.
Salt contract, obtained by the Whaling Company of Brazil, iii. 554; abolished, 686.
Salt-mines, in Bahia, opened and abandoned, iii. 23.
Salt trade, from Pilam Arcado to Minas Geraes, iii. 791.
Salvador, F. Manoel do, protests against a breach of faith by the Dutch Government, ii. 71; intercedes for the families of the Portugueze insurgents, 100; embellishes the capture of Fort Mauritz by a miracle, 139, note; cited on Vieira's history, 697.
Sampayo, Jorge de, a ringleader in Beckman's conspiracy, apprehended, ii. 627; condemned, 629; executed, 630.
Sande, Francisca de, her heroic charity during the pestilence in Bahia, ii. 587.
St. Amaro, settlement of, i. 36; Hans Stade appointed gunner at, 180.
Santa Ana, Mendoza's ship, purchased by Fernando de Soto, its magnitude, i. 629.
S. Anna, the Arrayal de, in Mato Grosso, its elevated situation, iii. 839.
S. Antonio, chapel of, miracles at, ii. 86.
S. Antonio, settlement of, on the Japura, iii. 721.
S. Antonio o Velho, junction of the Spaniards and Portugueze at, against the Guaranies, iii. 478.
Santarem, on the Tapajos, iii. 735.
St. Catalina, sufferings of Zarate's expedition by a famine at, i. 344.
S. Catharina, island of, iii. 646; vilely surrendered to the Spaniards, 648; province of, 858; state of the isle, ib.; N. Senhora do Desterro, 859; slaves, 861; climate and diseases, ib.; inhabitants on the mainland, 862; whale fishery, 863; population of the province, ib.
St. Catherine, clay image of, preserved at Santos, i. 360.
Santa Cruz, name given to the land in Brazil, discovered by Cabral, i. 13.
Santa Cruz, the Paulistas defeated by the Spaniards at, iii. 172; the Governor of, remonstrates against the occupation of S. Rosa by the Portugueze, 575.
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, superstitious account of the name, i. 648; province of, 333; town of, founded, 337.
San Francisco, river, operations of the Dutch on, i. 534; Fort Mauritz erected, 535; abandoned by the Dutch, ii. 138; sources and course of the river, iii. 791.
S. Francisco, island of, north of S. Catharina, iii. 862.
S. Gabriel, isles of, claims of Spain to, resigned to Portugal, iii. 32.
Santiago, ship, circumstance which occurred in the shipwreck of, i. 635.
Santiago del Estero, people of, resist the ravages of the equestrian tribes, iii. 439.
S. Joam d' El Rey, capital of Rio das Mortes, iii. 283, 822.
St. Jorge,-fort, taken by the Dutch, i. 470.

VOL. III 6 E

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St. Jorge da Mina, taken by the Dutch, i. 544, 545
S. Joze, town of, near Tabatinga, iii. 702.
S. Jozé dos Marabytaunas, in the Captaincy of Rio Negro, iii. 709.
S. Lourenço, Dutch defeated at, ii, 167.
S. Luiz, in Maranham, founded, i. 397; surrendered by the French, 426; arrival of Vieyra at, ii. 467; his first sermon at, 474; religious ceremonies at, 483; intercourse of, with Belem, 634; view of the state of that city, iii. 745.
S. Maria Magdalena, Reduction of, reception of Manoel Felix de Lima at, iii. 327; its flourishing state, 328.
S. Mathias, Povoaçam de, on the Japura, iii. 720.
S. Miguel, Reduction of, arrival of Manoel Felix de Lima and his party at, iii. 319; state of the Reduction, 322; precarious condition of the Missionary, 323; arrival of the expedition from Para at, 354; arrival of the Spaniards and Portugueze before, 492; the town destroyed by the inhabitants, 495.
S. Miguel, Pouso de, attacked and plundered by the Portugueze, iii. 583.
S. Nicolas, insurrection at, iii. 455.
S. Paulo, settlement of Jesuits at, i. 263; city of, founded, ii. 301; (See Paulistas.) population of the city in the seventeenth century, 668; manner of searching for gold, 669; formed with the Minas into a new Captaincy, iii. 84; Minas Geraes separated from, 161; method of travelling from, to the mines of Cuyaba, 255; a way opened by land, to Cuyaba, 260; extent and boundaries of the Captaincy, 845; situation of the city, ib.; character of the people, 847; Santos, the port, 849; S. Vicente, 850; Island of S. Sebastian, 851; Cananea, ib.; Paranagua, 852; Curytiba, ib.; Thaubaté, 853; Sorocaba, ib.; Hitu, 854; savages in the Captaincy, ib.; manner of travelling, 855; small pox, 856; revenue, population, 857.
S. Pedro d' El Rey, the Arrayal de, in the district of Cuyaba, iii. 840.
S. Rosa, settlement of, on the right bank of the Guapore, iii. 345; arrival of the expedition from Para, 353; state of, 354; site of, occupied by the Portugueze, 574; they give it the name of Conceiçam, 575.
St. Salvador, in Bahia, founded, i. 213, 215; state of, in 1581, 317; taken by the Dutch, 441; they strengthen the city, 442; make a successfnl sally, 449; they capitulate, 450; the city besieged by Nassau, 551; the siege raised, 559. (See Bahia.)
S. Salvador, town of, on the river Paraiba do Sul, iii. 818.
S. Sebastian, founded, i. 302; (See Rio de Janeiro.)
S. Sebastians, isle of, near the Bay of Santos, iii. 851; description of an idol in, from Roggewein's Voyage, 898.
S. Teresa, the commander of, put to death, iii. 570.
S. Thomas, traced by the Jesuits in Brazil, i. 229; Vieyra's reason why Brazil fell to his lot, 639; some traces of his preaching recognized by the Jesuits among the Manacicas, iii. 182.
St. Thomas, island, expedition of the Dutch against, ii. 11; the Governor capitulates, 12.
S. Vicente, Captaincy of, possessed by Martim Affonso de Sousa, i. 33; state of, in 1582, 325; town burnt by Cavendish, 360; gradually depopulated, ii. 301; seat of Government for the Captaincy transferred to S. Paulo, 304; the oldest town in the province of S. Paulo, iii. 850.
Santos, intercourse of the English with, i. 353; taken by the English, 359; the port of S. Paulo, iii. 849; road from, to that city, ib.
Santuario Maritimo, a marvellous book so called, iii. 575, note.
Saraca, river, i. 601; the natives near it provided with Dutch tools, 602.
Sarare, river, its source in the Campos dos Parecis, iii. 312; width at its mouth, 359.
Sardinha, D. Pedro Fernandez, first Bishop of Brazil, i. 259; killed by the Cahetes, 267.
Sarracoll, cited on the expeditions of the English to South America, i. 356, note.
Sarsaparilla, abundant in Maranham, ii. 645.
Savages, course of their emigration from south to north, iii. 363. (See Indians.)
Schmid, Martin, introduces useful arts among the Chiquitos, iii. 606.
Schmidel, Hulderick, an adventurer in Mendoza's expedition, i. 72; cited on Cabeza de Vaca's transactions in Paraguay, 153; his inaccuracy in names, 168, note.
Schoppe, Sigismundus van, reduces Itamaraca, i. 489; and the Captaincy of Tamaraca, 507; commands at Fort Mauritz, 538;-returns to Brazil as Commander-in-chief, ii. 184; sails for the Reconcave, 189; attacked by the Portugueze, 190; recalled from Bahia, 194; takes the field, 202; defeated and wounded at Guararapes, 204; wins the Asseca battery, 205; lays waste the Reconcave, 206; his effort against the Portugueze homeward bound

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fleet of 1652, defeated, 235; note on his expedition, 698; brought to trial for surrendering Recife, ib.
Sea-apes, Paracelsus cited respecting, i. 646.
Seara, settlement formed at, i. 391; taken by the Dutch, 546; the Dutch cut off by the Indians in, ii. 46; Vieyra seeks to open a communication with, 511; view of its condition during the seventeenth century, 650; cleared of the savages, iii. 18; state of the Captaincy in the eighteenth century, 758; its capital, 759; state of the Indians, 760; productions of, 763.
Sebastian, King, appoints Luiz de Vasconcellos Governor of Brazil, i. 306; cut off with the flower of his kingdom, 315; fine answer of Gomes Freyre de Andrada to, before the battle of Alcacer, iii. 268, note.
Seio d' Habraham, harbour of, in Ilha Grande, iii. 818.
Senabria, Juan de, Hans Stade sails in his expepedition, i. 173.
Senegal, instance of devotion in women married to European settlers, i. 627.
Sepé Tyarayu, Chief of the Guaranies, his capture and escape, iii. 466; his death, 479; letters found upon him, 480.
Sequeira, Ruy Vaz de, appointed Governor of Maranham, ii. 540; his temporizing policy, 541; effects the restoration of the Jesuits, 546; suspends the new edicts respecting the Indians, 592; his government expires, 594.
Seregipe d' El Rey, Captaincy of, i. 540; abandoned by Bagnuolo, 541; progress of that province in the eighteenth century, iii. 793; city of Seregipe, ib.; lawless state of the people, 794.
Serinhaem taken by the Bahian troops, ii. 120.
Serpa, town of, on the Orellana, iii. 727.
Serpent, great, a fable respecting, repeated by Charlevoix, i. 629.
Serro do Frio, diamonds discovered in the, iii. 274; one of the four districts of Minas Geraes, 282; its capital Villa do Principe, ib.; laws of the Diamond District of, applied to the demarcation in Goyaz, 625; Pombal's regulations for the Forbidden District, 626; population of Villa do Principe, 824.
Sertam, meaning of the term, ii. 565, note; regulations respecting the trade of the,iii. 528; signs in the Sertoens indicatingthe vicinity of savages, 747; state of its inhabitants in the eighteenth century, 773; trade, 775; itinerant priests, 776; improvement of manners, 777; Sertoens of Bahia, 802; ways opened into Goyaz through the Sertoens of Cuyaba, Minas Geraes, Bahia, and Pernambuco, 835.
Seven Reductions, cession of, by Spain to Portugal, iii. 448; sullen acquiescence of the inhabitants, 452; insurrection at S. Nicolas, 455; emigration from S. Miguel, begun, 456; revolt of the inhabitants, ib.; the people of the other Reductions determine not to give up their towns, 457; war declared against them, 462; second campaign, 476; slaughter at Caaibata, 482; letter to the Spanish General at Monte Grande, 488; submission of the Guaranies, 495; Gomes Freyre refuses to take possession of the ceded country, 497; expedition of Borges do Canto against them, 688; remark on the Jesuits of, from Mr. Moore's Life of Pombal, 895.
Seyxas Coutinho, Balthazar de, commands in Maranham during the absence of Gomes Freyre, iii. 5.
Sick, sometimes buried by the Indians before death, i. 643.
Silveira, Balthazar da, Governor of Minas Geraes, iii. 155.
Silver Arm, an appellation given to Antonio de Sousa de Menezes, ii. 581.
Silver Mines, rumour of, in Brazil, i. 358.
Simanes, tribe of, i. 165.
Sitio das Pedras, occupied by the Portugueze, iii. 573.
Slave-trade, of England to the Spanish Indies under the Assiento contract, iii. 135.
Slave-traders, discourage the attempts of the Jesuits among the Chiquitos, iii. 168.
Slavery, of the Indians, laws respecting, ii. 453; the people of Maranham consent to an arrangement respecting slaves, 482; slavery reestablished in Maranham, 590; a kidnapping party cut off by the natives, 591; fallacious defence of, 644; law for the abolishment of, iii. 513.
Slaves, denominated Pessas in Brazil, ii. 702; state of slaves on the estates of the great families in Pernambuco, iii. 780; on the conventual estates, ib.; slaves of the small proprietors, 782; usual state of the slaves, 783; mitigations of slavery in Brazil, 784; frequent emancipations, 785; difficulty of escaping from slavery, 786; state of slaves at the Rio, 816.
Small-pox in Brazil, in 1665, Rocha Pitta cited respecting, ii. 706; its ravages in Para, iii. 364; inoculation introduced, ib.

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Smelting-houses established in Minas Geraes, iii. 157.
Smoking prevalent among the females in Paraguay, iii. 432.
Snakes attracted by fire; ii. 701.
Snuff of the Yupa used by the Othomacos to produce drunkenness, i. 641.
Soares, Gabriel, his expedition from Brazil in search of El Dorado, i. 375.
Sobrino, Lorenzo, Rector of the Jesuits in Paraguay, ii. 400; his measures for defending the estate of St. Isidro against the Bishop, 409.
Soldiers, during the age of conquest and discovery, described by Villagra, i. 633.
Solimoens, Rio dos, a name given by the Portugueze to a part of the Orellana, iii. 143; mistake of Condamine on this matter, ib. note.
Solimoens, province of the, iii. 701; its extent and boundaries, 707; its natural advantages, ib.
Solis, Juan Diaz de, his voyage with Pinzon, i. 25.
Soroeta, Inigo de, sent to supersede Barna, as Governor of Paraguay, iii. 233; arrives at Asumpcion, and is compelled to withdraw, 235.
Soria, Jaques de, massacres forty Jesuits, i. 308.
Sorocaba, in the Captaincy of S. Paulo, iii. 853.
Sotto-mayor, Joam de, his exertions at Belem, ii. 472; accompanies an expedition in search of mines, 510; dies, 511.
Sotto-mayor, Manoel da Vide, brother of Joam, his memoirs on Maranham cited, ii. 511.
Sousa, Francisco de, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 358.
Sousa Coutinho, Francisco de, Portugueze Minister in Holland, ii. 182; audacious artifice employed by him, 183; progress of his negociations, 233.
Sousa Freire, Alexander de, Governor-General of Brazil, ii. 558.
Sousa, Balthazar de, Capitam Mor of Maranham, his dispute with Vieyra, ii. 472; receives him, and evades the laws, 484.
Sousa, Gaspar de, Governor of Brazil, ordered to colonize toward the Orellana, i. 400.
Sousa, Hilario de, commands the expedition from Belem against the savages on the Orellana, iii. 8.
Sousa, Luiz de, Governor of Brazil, i. 431.
Sousa de Eça, Manoel de, Capitam Mor of Gram Para, i. 459.
Sousa, Maria de, heroism of, i. 511.
Sousa, Martim Affonso de, takes possession of the Captaincy of S. Vicente, i. 33.
Sousa, Pero Lopez de, i. 33; his settlements, 36.
Sousa, Thome de, appointed Governor-General of Brazil, i. 212; takes out with him the first Jesuits to South America, 213; succeeded by Duarte da Costa, 261; anecdote respecting him, 636.
Souto, Sebastiam de, his treachery towards the Dutch, i. 515; his predatory warfare, 527; ravages the conquered provinces, 541; his exploit on the San Francisco, 550; his death, 557.
Spain; Felipe II. offers the sovereignty of Brazil to the Duke of Braganza, i. 315; measures of the Government on the invasion of Brazil by the Dutch, 445; proceedings for delivering Pernambuco from them, 476; alarm of the Court on the proceedings of the Dutch at Recife, 518; reinforcements sent out, 520; acknowledges the independence of Portugal, ii. 558; arrangement of the Assiento with Great Britain, iii. 135; jealousy of the Portugueze, 137; discussions, 139; odd conclusion of, 140, note; Missionaries on the Orellana ejected by the Portugueze, 142; progress of the Spanish Jesuits, 162; Chiquitos Missions, 169, 178; extravagant falsehoods of the Jesuits, 184; Cavallero's miraculous adventures, 188; Reductions formed among the Moxos, 199; progress of Baraza across the mountains to Peru, 205; uncertain boundary between her possessions and those of Portugal, toward the centre of the South American continent, 201; disputes with Portugal respecting Colonia, 217; Monte Video founded, 222; war with Portugal in America, 286; proposition of France to partition the Portugueze dominions, 296; war with England, 299; Treaty of Limits, 442; war of the Seven Reductions, 462, annulment of the Treaty of Limits, 502; engaged with France in alliance against England, 557; an armament sent against Brazil, 644; S. Catharina taken, 646; capture of Colonia, 650; second Treaty of Limits, 652.
Spaniards discover the Plata, i. 26; found Buenos Ayres, 59; settlement of Asumpcion, 66; voyage of Orellana, 81; march of Cabeza de Vaca, 104; expedition of Ribera, 156; of Senabria, 173; settlement in Guayra, 332; establishment of the Jesuits in Paraguay, ii. 350, 357; an expedition sent against Nova

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Colonia, 576; the fort taken, ib.; temporary adjustment of the disputes, 579; their Missionaries on the Orellana ejected by the Portugueze, iii. 142; push their settlements on the side of Mato Grosso, 347; communication of their Missions with those of the Portugueze, 372; success of the Abipones against them, 414; manners of the herdsmen in Paraguay and La Plata, 421; Spanish language less spoken than the Guarani in Paraguay, 431; decay of military spirit, 434; enter the territory of the Seven Reductions, 467; retreat, ib.; junction with the Portugueze, 477; slaughter of the Guaranies at Caaibata, 483; arrive at the pass of Monte Grande, 485; letter from the Reductions to the General, 488; effect the passage, 491; cross the river Chiriaby, ib.; their inactivity before the town of S. Miguel, 493; submission of the Guaranies, 495; their retreat from S. Miguel, 583; they forcibly retain Rio Grande, 584; ejected by the Portugueze, 601; their encroachments on the Brazilian limits, 658.
Spanish Americans, their remarkable degeneracy in the seventeenth century, iii. 894.
Spanish Indies, depopulation of, iii. 52. 885.
Spices, attempt to introduce the culture of, into Brazil, ii. 671.
Spranger, Guerin, commands in the Dutch settlement at Cayenne, iii. 14.
Stade, Hans, his origin, i. 46; sails in Senabria's expedition, 173, 174; arrives at S. Catalina, 175; wrecked at S. Vicente, 178; appointed gunner at St. Amaro, 180; caught by the Tupinambas, 181; ceremonies used with him, 136; pleads that he is not a Portugueze, 188; a French interpreter decides against him, 189; swims off to a French boat, and is refused admittance, 201; escapes, 210.
Stedman cited respecting the Palometa, i. 631; respecting sea-apes, 646; mode of avoiding the mosquitos in one of his marches, 659.
Stone-pine, flour made from, i. 109.
Sucurys, and Sucurius, enormous reptiles infesting the Lagaos Feia and Verde, in Minas Geraes, iii, 823.
Sugar-canes, where first planted in Brazil, i. 35; found to be indigenous, 321; orders for burning all those in Pernambuco, sent from Bahia, ii. 157
Sumacas, or smacks of the Dutch in Brazil, i. 493.
Sumaumeira, tree, iii. 724; query whether it be that which Dampier describes at Bahia, 897.
Sumidouro, of the river San Francisco, i. 534; meaning of the term, iii. 48.
Sylva, Duarte do, with another merchant, advances a loan for Brazil, ii. 197.
Sylva, Pedro da, Governor of Bahia, i. 541; receives Bagnuolo on his retreat to St. Salvador, 543; resigns the command to Bagnuolo, 553;
Sylveira, Duarte Gomez de, his treachery, i. 505
Sylves, settlement of, in the Captaincy of Rio Negro, iii. 728.
Syphilis, opinion of Piso on its origin, i. 328.

T.

Tabatinga, a white clay used for plastering houses, iii. 321; appears to be found throughout Brazil, 838.
Tabatinga, fort, iii. 701, 702.
Taboate, Antonio Arzam of, his successful search for gold, iii. 50; smelting-houses established at, 51; rivalry of the Paulistas, 54; indignant mention of the town in the Santuario Mariano, 897.
Tabocas, Monte das, battle of, ii. 108.
Taboleiro, a term of the miners in Brazil, iii, 826.
Tabyra, a leader of the Tobayares, i. 45.
Tabyreça, his residence at Piratininga, i. 262, note.
Tacwarasutibi, a settlement of the Tupinambas, i. 209.
Tagus, a Dutch fleet sent to the, ii. 244.
Talho aberto, a term of the miners in Brazil, iii. 827.
Tamandare, port of, secured by the Portugueze, ii. 165.
Tainhas, fishery of, on the coast of Ilha dos Joannes, iii. 740.
Tamaraca, settlement of, i. 36.
Tamoyos, tribe of, i. 284; ravage Espirito Santo, 286; Nobrega and Anchieta treat with them for peace, 287; peace concluded, 283; their final defeat, 312.
Tao, a dialect of the Chiquitos, iii. 169, note.
Taño, Diaz, sent to Rome on behalf of the Jesuits in Paraguay, ii. 322; his return, 325; sails for Buenos Ayres, 327; one of the founders of the Commonwealth in Paraguay, 360.
Tapajos, river, and tribe of that name, i. 609; towns and settlements on the river, iii. 734.
Tapé, Serra de, entered by the Jesuits, ii. 287; Reductions formed among the Itatines, 316.
Tapicura, crossed by Joam Fernandes, in sight of the enemy, ii. 96.

[page] 946

Tapuaguazu, rock of, i. 143.
Tapuyas, race of, i. 378.
Taranambazes, tribe of, an expedition against, ii. 601.
Tarapecocies, tribe of, i. 148.
Tardes, weapons of the Quirandies described, i. 60.
Tarija, foundation of the town of, iii. 163.
Tarring and feathering, practised by some of the Orinoco tribes, i. 637.
Tartarugas, arrival of Jeronymo Albuquerque's expedition at, i. 405.
Tayaoba, a Guarani Chief, his enmity to the Spaniards, ii. 288; is converted, 290.
Tea, indigenous in Brazil, i. 320.
Tebiquari, arrival of Soroeta at, iii. 235; the Guaranies ordered to defend it against the insurgents, 240,
Techo, cited on Cabeza de Vaca's transactions in Paraguay, i. 153.
Tefe, river, i. 596; route from Laguna to, iii. 893.
Teixeira, Bishop, appointed to command against the Dutch, i. 443; is superseded, and dies, 448.
Teixeira, Pedro, burns a Dutch vessel, i. 428; ordered to explore the Orellana, 582; arrives at Quito, 583; reembarks, 585; reaches Belem, 614; dies, ii. 16.
Teixeira de Mello, Antonio, succeeds Moniz as commander of the insurgents in Maranham, ii. 37; retreats to the mainland, 38; P. Maciel and Velho forsake him, ib.; receives supplies, 39; his successes against the Dutch, 42.
Tejuco, capital of the Diamond District, iii. 284; rivers in its vicinity, 285; regulations respecting settlers at, 628; number of its inhabitants, 824.
Tellez da Sylva, Antonio, appointed Governor of Brazil, ii. 20; representations of Joam Fernandes to him, 71; sends Cardozo to Pernambuco, 73; promises to assist Fernandes in the deliverance of Pernambuco, 79; sends troops from Bahia under Vidal and Martim Soares, 119; sends orders that Pernambuco shall be relinquished to the Dutch, 169; returns to Portugal, 231.
Telles de Menezes, Alcaide Mor of Bahia, ii. 581; killed by Brito de Castro, 582.
Temembos, or Macamecrans, tribe of, in Maranham, iii. 747.
Temple, Sir William, cited respecting the climate of Brazil, iii. 898.
Tertre, du, cited respecting the Dutch settlers ejected from Brazil, ii. 710.
Thaubaté, in the Captaincy of S. Paulo, iii. 853.
Thomar, in the Captaincy of Rio Negro, iii. 711.
Throwing-stick, of the tribes on the Orellana, i. 620.
Tickquarippe, sacrifice of a Margaian slave at, i. 197.
Tieté, river, its course, iii. 255.
Timbiras da Matta, tribe of in Maranham, iii. 746.
Timbo, term for parasite plants in Brazil, i. 321.
Timbues, tribe of, i. 62, 63.
Tipoya, a garment of the converted Indians, iii. 318.
Tobacco, culture of, once considered destructive to the Indians in Brazil, ii. 647.
Tobas, an equestrian tribe, iii. 397.
Tobatinga, bar of, why so called, ii. 558, note.
Tobayares, tribe of, i. 45; etymology of the name, ii. 706.
Tocantins, river, expedition of the Jesuits up the, ii. 508; outrage against them at Curupa, 510; tribes on the, apply for protection against, the Paulistas, 597; settlements on, iii. 737; country between it and the sea, 738; communication of Maranham with Para by, 749.
Tocon, the bow-string of the Tupinambas, i. 205.
Tohannas, tribe of, i. 164.
Toledo, Fadrique de, sent with a large armament to Brazil, i. 447; recovers St. Salvador, 450; disasters on returning to Europe, 451; anecdote of, 656.
Torre, the Conde de la, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 571; his disastrous return to Lisbon, 572.
Torres, Diego de, Provincial of Chili and Paraguay, ii. 262.
Torre, Pedro de la, appointed Bishop of Asumpcion, i. 332; his disputes with the Governor, 341.
Tourinho, Pedro de Campo, obtains the Captaincy of Porto Seguro, i. 39.
Tourinho, Sebastian Fernandes, his expedition in search of mines, i. 312.
Town, ceremony observed by the Spaniards in creating one, iii. 885.
Trade and hostilities, instance of their being carried on at the same time, i. 636.
Trees, method of the Indians for finding their way by examining the barks of, i. 644.
Trinity, diabolical, of the Manacicas Indians, iii. 182.
Tristam da Cunha Gago, accompanies Manoel Felix de Lima on his expedition down the

[page] 947

rivers from Mato Grosso, iii. 311; turns back with fourteen of the party, 313.
Trombetas, river of, i. 609.
Troquano, a remarkable musical instrument of the Indians, iii. 721.
Trouin. (See Du Guay Trouin.)
Trumpets, signal, of the Itatines, i. 341.
Truxillo, arrives at Asumpcion as Vice-provincial of the Jesuits, ii. 403.
Tucuman, Jesuits invited from Brazil and Peru, by the Bishop of, ii. 251; the Jesuits unpopular in, 262; the province infested by the Mbayas, iii. 378, 392.
Tucunas, tribe of, i. 590.
Tupa, how explained by Dobrizhoffer, i. 639.
Tupaayqua and Tabolia, two women of the Manuas, remarkable combat between, i. 349.
Tupamba, a territorial term in Paraguay, ii. 336.
Tupi language, its prevalence among the Indians in Brazil, iii. 372.
Tupi tribes, their customs, i. 223; language, ib.; meaning of the word Tupa, 227; mandioc, 229; fermented liquors, 233; knowledge of poison, 237; ceremonies on child-birth, 238; names, 239; social harmony, 240; women, 241; mechanic arts, 243; pottery, ib.; canoes, 244; domestic animals, 245; treatment of strangers, 246; of the sick, 247; burials, 248; mourning, 249; longevity, ib.; their frequent change of place, 250; their improvement retarded by their Payés, 251; conduct of the Jesuits toward them, 252; opposition of the settlers, 257.
Tupinambas, state of the tribe in Bahia, i. 42; they expel Coutinho, 43; hostile to the Portugueze, 179; capture Hans Stade, 182; their ceremonies with the prisoner, 186; sickness of a family imputed to his prayers, 194; their mode of trading during war, 199; ceremonies before they go to war, 201; religious ceremonies, 202; their weapons, 204; affairs of the Tupinambas of Maranham with the French and Portugueze, 412; tumult among them after the treaty, from dread of being enslaved, 422; insurrection of the Tupinambas of Para, 429; Tupinambas on an island of the Orellana, 602; fables reported of them, 603; adorn themselves with the feathers of the Nandu, 643; account of six who were brought to Falmouth, 654.
Tupiniquins, tribe of, account of the, i. 39; friendly to the Portugueze, 179; make war on the Tupinambas, 192; Jan de Laet cited respecting, 627.

U.

Ubay, river, Manoel de Lima and his party enter it from the Guapore, iii. 326.
Ucayali, anxiety of the Spaniards to exclude the Portugueze from, i. 657.
Ullòa, cited on the grubs used for food by the Indians, i. 110, note.
United Provinces. (See Dutch, and Holland.)
Upupiara, the sea-apes of Brazil, i. 323.
Uratinge Wassu, a Chief of the Tupinambas, i. 187.
Uriximena, river, or Rio dos Trombetas, i. 609.
Urtueses, tribe of, i. 159.
Uruguay, river, the southern boundary of Guayra, ii. 264; its sources and course, 320.
Utrecht, representations of the Portugueze Ambassadors at, concerning Brazil, iii. 125; negociations, 132; their strange finale, 140, note.
Uwattibi, a town of the Tupinambas, i. 185; Hans Stade brought thither a prisoner, ib.

V.

Vaccination, in the island of Itamaraca, a singular fact concerning, iii. 898.
Valdelirios, Marquis of, sent to Buenos Ayres to carry into effect the Treaty of Limits, iii. 450; precipitates the removal of the inhabitants of the Seven Reductions, 455.
Valdes, Alonso, Governor of Buenos Ayres, besieges Nova Colonia, iii. 68.
Valentoens, knights errant of vulgar life, in Brazil, iii. 777.
Valo, a term of the miners in Brazil, iii. 827.
Vampire bat, i. 134; its mode of attacking the horse, 631; its ravages among the cattle at Montalegre, iii. 732.
Vancouver, cited on the custom among Amerirican savages of slitting the under lip, i. 625.
Vandort, Hans, commands the Dutch land forces against Brazil, i. 440.
Vargem redonda, village of, iii. 791.
Varzea, plain of, proceedings of Joam Fernandes in, ii. 80, 81; the women of, seized as hostages, 124; Fernandes marches to their rescue, ib.
Vasconcellos, Antonio Pedro de, Governor of Colonia, iii. 288; his activity in defending it against Salcedo, 289; marches out and surprizes the Spanish camp, 293.
Vasconcellos, Francisco, fate of succours brought by him from Lisbon, i. 491.
Vasconcellos, Luis de, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 306.

[page] 948

Vasconcellos, Luis Aranha de, cited respecting the Tapuyas, i. 378, note; appointed to explore the Orellana, i. 435.
Vasconcellos, Miguel de, misfortune occasioned to the Portugueze squadron through his measures, i. 571.
Vasconcellos e Sousa, Pedro de, Governor General of Brazil, iii. 126; yields to the demands of the insurgents in Bahia, 128.
Vaux, Des, his project for colonizing the isle of Maranham, i. 393.
Vaz, Lopez, cited on the English expeditions to Brazil, i. 356, note.
Vegetable wax, of Louisiana, iii. 897.
Veiga, Diogo Lourenço da, appointed Governor of Brazil, i. 315.
Veiga, Sebastiam da, evacuates Nova Colonia, iii. 68.
Veio, a term of the miners in Brazil, iii. 826.
Vello do Valle, Joam, entrusted by Maciel with the Captaincy of Cabo do Norte, ii. 15; called to the assistance of Belem, 31; demands the government, ib.; it being refused, he returns, 32.
Vellasco Molina, Joam de, Capitam Mor of Para, his misconduct, iii. 72.
Vellozo, Francisco, his expedition to the Rio Negro, ii. 517.
Veranico, or little summer, of Minas Geraes, iii. 283.
Verdugo, Alonso de, Governor of S. Cruz, remonstrates against the occupation of S. Rosa by the Portugueze, iii. 575.
Vergara, Garcia Rodriguez de, forms a settlement on the Parana, i. 332; marches to Peru, 337; accused and superseded, 338.
Vergara, F. Manoel de, cited on the abuses of the Corregidores in Cuzco, ii. 699.
Vergara, Ortiz de, chosen President of the General Junta of Paraguay, iii. 243.
Vertiz, Juan Joseph de, Governor of Buenos Ayres, proposes to cooperate with Zeballos against Colonia, iii. 649; displaced, 650.
Vespucci, Amerigo, sent to survey the coast of Brazil, i. 15; his second voyage, 18; first settlement made by him, 21.
Viana, Joseph Joaquim, Governor of Monte Video, dispatched against the Guaranies of the Seven Reductions, iii. 479.
Vicente, S., Hans Stade shipwrecked on, i. 178. (See S. Vicente.)
Vicuña, the fleece, but not the flesh of, used by the Chiriguanas, iii. 164.
Vidal de Negreiros, Andre, sent to ravage the Dutch provinces in Brazil, i. 571; action with the Dutch Admiral, 572; retreats, 573; one of the bravest and wisest of the Portugueze, ii. 69; Joam Fernandes opens his project to him, ib.; troops from Bahia sent under him and Martim Soares Moreno, 119; his interview with Fernandes, 122; goes to join Camaram, 159; returns from Paraiba, 161; persists in the war after the Governor's order to retire from Pernambuco, 170; goes to Portugal with tidings of the capture of Recife, 242; appointed Governor of Maranham, 498; his arrival, 501, promoted to the government of Pernambuco, 517; succeeded by Jeronymo Furtado, 555.
Vigia, in Para, iii. 738.
Vimieiro, the Conde do, Governor General of Brazil, iii. 152,
Vieira. (See Fernandes Vieira.)
Vieira de Mello, Bernardo, besieges the Palmares Negroes, iii. 27; goes to Recife, 96; case of jealousy in his family, and deliberate murder, ib.; he acts as leader of the republican party, 97; the loyalists roused by his designs, 99; he is arrested, 100.
Vieyra, Antonio, the Jesuit, extract from his sermon on the arrival of the Viceroy Monte Alvam, i. 574, note; extract from his sermon upon St. Barbara, 656; money raised by him for Brazil, ii. 195; he is sent to Holland, 197; his Papel forte, or strong memorial to the King, 222; exposes the weakness and danger of Portugal, 223; a Brazil Company established at his suggestion, 227; his early history, 456; envied for his favour at Court, 460; prepares to embark secretly for Maranham as a Missionary, 461; the King prevents him, ib.; obtains permission to follow the fleet, 463; powers granted to him, 464; consents to remain in Portugal, 465; sails for Maranham without intending it, 466; arrives at S. Luiz, 467; his first letter to the King, 468 state of the inhabitants and system of oppression, 469; his dispute with the Capitain Mor, 473; his first sermon at S Luiz, 474; religious ceremonies, 483; he is deceived by the Capitam Mor, 484; writes to the King 486; his voyage home, 490; interview with the King, 491; arrangements respecting slavery reported to a Junta, 498; decree in favour of the Indians, 496; the king wishes to keep him in Portugal, 498; obtains permission to return to Maranham, 500; seeks to open a communication with Seara, 511; his preparations

[page] 949

respecting the Ilha das Joanes, 518; proposes to treat with the islanders, 521; goes to the Serra de Ibiapaba, 527; his reply to the remonstrance of the Chamber of Belem, 529; his letters to the Bishop of Japan made public 532; calls upon the Chamber of Belem to maintain the laws, 534; seized and expelled, 536; cited on the multiplicity of languages on the Orellana, 701; a fine passage from, on the rapacity of people in office, 716; represents the defenceless state of Brazil, iii. 19; dies at Bahia, 34; a new star appears at the moment of his death, 884; extraordinary event after his exequies at Lisbon, ib.; extract from one of his sermons, on the evils resulting from the discovery of gold and diamonds, 896.
Vilhena, his embassy to Recife, ii. 4.
Villa da Barra do Rio Grande, its population and trade, iii. 791.
Villa Bella, capital of Mato Grosso, founded, iii. 572; decline of its trade with Para, 838.
Villa Boa, capital of Goyaz, iii. 834.
Villa Franca, town of, on the Tapajos, iii. 735.
Villa Maria, on the left bank of the Paraguay, iii. 840.
Villa Nova d' Almeida, in Espiritu Santo, iii. 812.
Villa Nova d' El Rey, its population in 1784, iii. 738.
Villa Pouca, Count de, arrives in Brazil as Governor-General, ii. 195; orders the Camp-Masters to deliver up the command to Barreto, 199; instructions taken out by him respecting the recovery of Angola, 208.
Villa do Principe, capital of the Serro do Frio, iii. 283; its population, 823.
Villarica, in Paraguay, establishment of Jesuits at, ii. 254; villainy of the Spaniards of, 291.
Villa Rica, the capital of Minas Geraes, iii. 56; gives name to one of the Comarcas, 283; view of the state of, 820.
Villa Velha, formerly Espiritu Santo, iii. 811.
Villa Verde, in Porto Seguro, iii. 809.
Villa Viçosa, on the Tocantins, iii. 737.
Villa Viçoza, in the Serra di Ibiapaba, iii. 760.
Villa Vistoza, on the Orellana, iii. 733.
Villagra, Gaspar de, extract from his poem on New Mexico, i. 633.
Villegagnon, his expedition to Brazil, i. 270; enters Rio de Janeiro, 271; conspiracy against him, 276; his conduct towards the savages, 275; his treachery, 277; returns to France, 280.
Vine, introduced into Brazil, but destroyed by the ants, i. 329.
Violete, pao de, or violet-wood, produced in Ibiapaba, ii. 512.
Virgin, extract from Anchieta's poem to the, i. 293; said to have fought at the head of the Portugueze against the French, 655; said to have assisted in the victory of Monte das Tabocas, ii. 116; a mutilated image of, employed to rouse the vengeance of the Pernambucans, 127.
Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuits, sends a reinforcement of Missionaries to the Plata, ii. 281.

W.

Wardenburg, Col. commands the Dutch troops against Pernambuco, i. 465; takes Olinda and Recife, 468; resigns his command, and sails for Holland, 488.
Weights, table of, iii. 900.
Werle, Thomas, with 6000 Guaranies, joins Salcedo before Colonia, iii. 288.
Whale fishery, note on, ii. 711.
Whales, a story related by Monardes, on the Way of catching, i. 645.
Whaling Company established by Pombal, iii. 553; salt contract obtained by, 554.
Whithall, an English settler at Santos, i. 353; his letter to Richard Staper from Santos, in 1578, 649.
Willekens, Jacob, commands a Dutch fleet against Brazil, i. 440.

X.

Xaquesses, tribes of, i. 134.
Xarayes, lake, i. 132; tribe of, ib.; Cabeza de Vaca sends messengers to the, 137; their habits, 140.
Xavier, St. Francisco, invoked to stay the pestilence in Bahia, ii. 587; becomes its tulelar saint, 588.
Xavier, S. Francisco, Arrayal of, founded in Mato Grosso, iii. 308.
Xeres, a Spanish settlement near the Tapé, its fate, ii. 317.
Xingu, river, towns and settlements on the, iii. 735.
Xomanas, tribe of, iii. 722.

Y.

Yacu, birds so called on the banks of the Guapore, iii. 313.
Yaguar, said to prefer carrion to living food, ii. 364.

VOL. III. 6 F

[page] 950

Yaguarete, the fiercest beast in South America, ii. 315; mode of hunting it, 320.
Yaguaron, Cardenas goes to, from Asumpcion, ii. 403; arrests two of the Chapter there, ib.
Yaios, of Guiana, used targets, iii. 897.
Yanaconas, the slaves or helots of Peru, ii. 260.
Yanapuary, or Perus, river, i. 597.
Yapaneme, river, i. 129.
Yapeyu, one of the Seven Reductions, proceedings of the Spaniards at, iii. 468.
Yapirues, tribe of, i. 123.
Yapochi, a title among the Abipones, iii. 409.
Yaros, tribe of, their ravages, iii. 415.
Ybera, lake, tribes of, subdued, ii. 323.
Ybirajurds, or Barbudos Indians, projected expedition of Vieyra among, ii. 484.
Ybira Paye, resin of, used by the Guaranies in fumigating their huts, ii. 371.
Yeppipo Wassu, a Chief of the Tupinambas, i. 186, 193.
Yguana, a species of lizard, i. 88; odd theory of Gumilla respecting the, 629.
Yguatu, stream of, i. 133.
Yguazu, river, i. 111; falls of, 112; its junction with the Parana, ii. 319.
Yperen, Van, co-operates in the capture of St. Jorge da Mina, i. 545.
Yquiari, or River of Gold, i. 593.
Yrala, Domingo Martinez, commands under Ayolas, i. 68; returns to Asumpcion, ib.; marches in search of Ayolas, 72; returns, 127; subdues the Carios, 161; his second attempt to march across the country, 163; reaches the Spanish conquests, 168; his secret agreement with Gasca, the Spanish President, 169; returns, ib.; sends colonists to Guayra, 331.
Yucunas, tribe of, iii. 720.
Yuma, a term applied by the Curiciraris, to gold, and iron, i. 593.
Yutay, river, its course, i. 591.
Yurua, river, i. 592.
Ywara pemme, the slaughter-club of the Brazilian savages, i. 220.

Z.

Zarate, Juan Ortez de, appointed to succeed Vergara, i. 339; sails for Spain, ib.; embarks from thence, 343; misconduct and sufferings of his armament, 344; his death, 347.
Zavala, Bruno Mauricio de, Governor of Buenos Ayres, expels the Portugueze from Monte Video, iii. 220; founds the town, 222; goes to Asumpcion to reduce the rebels, 229; returns to Buenos Ayres, 230.
Zavala, F. Bruno de, appointed to one of the new governments of the Reductions, iii. 614.
Zamuco, a dialect of the Chiquitos, iii. 170, note.
Zchera, Wasu, a Chief of the Timbues, i. 63.
Zea, F. accompanies Hervas up the Paraguay, iii. 174; his labours among the Chiquitos, 194, 196.
Zeballos, D. Pedro, sent to the Seven Reductions with reinforcements, iii. 498; inquires into the conduct of the Jesuits, 499; succeeds Andoanegui in the government of Buenos Ayres, 504; besieges and takes Colonia, 558; advances against Rio Grande, 563; superseded by Bucarelli, 601; recalled, 603; appointed Viceroy of La Plata, 645; the island of S. Catharina capitulates to him, 648; proceeds against Colonia, 649; captures it, 651.
Zehmie, tribe of, i. 164.
Zombi, title of the Chief of the Palmares Negroes, iii. 24; his palace, 26.
Zuputuba, or Cipotuva, the most northerly source of the Plata, i. 132.
Zurinas, tribe of, i. 598; remarkable for their skill in carving, ib.

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