The Jesuits, 1534-1921. Thomas J. Campbell

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СКАЧАТЬ missionary work was begun in the Portuguese possession of Brazil. After Cabral had accidentally discovered the continent in 1500, a number of Portuguese nobles established important colonies along the coast; and when subsequently some French Calvinists, under Villegagnon, attempted a settlement on the Rio Janeiro, Thomas da Sousa was commissioned by the king to unite the scattered Portuguese settlements and drive out the French intruders. He chose the Bay of All Saints as his central position, and there built the city of San Salvador. Fortifications were thrown up; a cathedral, a governor's palace and a custom house were erected, and a great number of houses were built for the settlers. Unlike France and England, Spain and Portugal lavished money on their colonies. With da Sousa were six Jesuit missionaries, chief of whom was the great Nobrega. They were given an extensive tract of land some distance from San Salvador, and there in course of time the city of São Paolo arose. There was plenty to do with the degenerate whites in the various settlements, but the savages presented the greatest problem. They were cannibals of an advanced type, and no food delighted them more than human flesh. To make matters worse, the white settlers encouraged them in their horrible practices, probably in the hope, that they would soon eat each other up.

      Nobrega determined to put an end to these abominations, he went among the Indians, spoke to them kindly, healed their bodily ailments, defended them against the whites, and was soon regarded by these wild creatures as their friend and benefactor. At last, concluding that the time had come for a master stroke, he one day walked straight into a group of women who were preparing a mangled body for the fire, and with the help of his companions carried off the corpse. This was sweeping away in an instant all their past traditions, and as a consequence the whole tribe rose in fury and swarmed around the walls of the city determined to make an end of the whites. But Sousa called out his troops, and, whether the Indians were frightened by the cannon or mollified by the kind words of the governor, the result was that they withdrew and promised to stop eating human flesh. This audacious act had the additional effect of exciting the anger of the colonists against Nobrega and his associates. The point had been made, however, that cannibalism was henceforth a punishable offence and great results followed. Tribe after tribe accepted the missionaries and were converted to Christianity. But it was very hard to keep them steady in their faith. A pestilence or a dearth of food was enough to make them fall into their old habits; and they were moreover, easily swayed by the half-breeds who, time and time again, induced them to rise against the whites. But da Sousa was an exceptional man, and had the situation well in hand. He pursued the Indians to their haunts, and, as his punitive expeditions were nearly always headed by a priest with his uplifted cross he often brought them to terms without the shedding of blood.

      Another obstacle in this work of subjugation was found in the remnants of Villegagnon's old French garrison. At one time they had succeeded in uniting all the savages of the country in a league to exterminate the Portuguese. Villegagnon's supposedly impregnable fort was taken and battle after battle was won by the Portuguese, but the war seemed never to end. At last Nobrega took the matter in his own hands. "Let me go," he said, "to see if I cannot arrange terms of peace with the enemy." It was a perilous undertaking, for it might mean that in a few days his body would be roasting over a fire in the forest, in preparation for a savage banquet. But that did not deter him. He and his fellow-missionary Anchieta set out and found the Indians wild with rage against the whites. Plea after plea was made, but in vain. At last, he got them to make some concession, and then returned to explain matters to the governor, leaving Anchieta alone with the Indians. They did him no harm, however; on the contrary, he won their hearts by his kindness and amazed them by his long prayers, his purity of life, his prophecies and his miraculous powers. Month after month went by and yet there was no news from Nobrega. Finally the governor, accepting the conditions insisted on by the Indians, yielded, and peace was made.

      It is interesting to learn that the lonely man who had stayed all this while in the forest, José Anchieta, was a perfect master of Latin, Castilian and Portuguese; besides being somewhat skilled in medicine, he was an excellent poet and even a notable dramatist. He composed grammars and dictionaries of the native language, after he returned to where pen and ink were available; and it is said he put into print a long poem which he had meditated and memorized during his six terrible months of captivity. He died in 1597; but before departing for heaven, he saw the little band of six Jesuits who had landed with Nobrega increased to one hundred and twenty, and when his career ended one hundred more rushed from Portugal to fill the gap.

      As for Nobrega, the day before he died, he went around to call on his friends. "Where are you going?" they asked him. "Home to my own country," he answered, and on the morrow they were kneeling around his coffin. Southey says that "so well had Nobrega and Anchieta trained their disciples that in the course of half a century, all the nations along the coast of Brazil, as far as the Portuguese settlements extended, were collected in villages under their superintendence" (History of Brazil, x, 310). "Nobrega died at the close of the sixteenth century," says Ranke, "and in the beginning of the seventeenth we find the proud edifice of the Catholic Church completely reared in South America. There were five arch-bishoprics, twenty-seven bishoprics, four hundred monasteries and innumerable parish churches." Of course, with due regard to Ranke, all that was not the work of Jesuits, but men of his kind see "Jesuit" in everything. It may be said, however, that they contributed in no small degree to bring about this result.

      In 1570 Azevedo conducted thirty-nine Jesuits from Madeira to Brazil. Simultaneously, thirty more in two other ships set sail from Lisbon for the same destination. But the day after Azevedo's party had left Madeira, the famous Huguenot pirate, Jaques Soria, swooped down upon them, hacked them to pieces on the deck, and then threw the mangled remains to the sharks. The amazing Southey narrates this event as follows: "He did by the Jesuits as they would have done by him and all their sect: – put them to death." When the news reached Madeira, the brethren of the martyrs sang a Te Deum which Southey informs us, "was as much the language of policy as of fanaticism." Four days later, one English and four French cruisers which Southey fails to tell us were commanded by the Huguenot Capdeville, caught the other missionaries and did their work so effectually, that of the sixty-nine splendid men whom Azevedo started out with, only one arrived in Brazil. The struggle did not end with the massacre. Sixty years afterwards the same enemy attacked the missions of Pernambuco in Brazil where, "one hundred and fifty tribes" – a Protestant annalist calls them "hordes" – had been brought into alliance with the Portuguese, and were rapidly making progress both in Christianity and civilization; on Good Friday in the year 1633 the freebooters, passing at midnight through the smoking ruins of Olinda, attacked Garassu in the early morning, while the inhabitants were assembled at Mass, with the result, says Southey, that "the men who came their way were slaughtered, the women were stripped, and the plunderers with cruelty tore away ear-rings through the ear-flap, and cut off fingers for the sake of the rings that were upon them. They then plundered and burnt the town."

      Similar heroism was shown in other parts of the world about this time. Thus in 1549 Ribeira was poisoned at Amboina; a like fate overtook González in 1551 at Bazaim, India; in 1555 three Jesuits were wrecked on a desert island while on their way to the East, and died of starvation; in 1573, Alvares, the visitor of Japan and four companions were lost at sea; and in 1575 another Jesuit died at Angola in Africa after fourteen years' cruel imprisonment.

      Over all this splendor, however, there rests a shadow. Simon Rodriguez, who was so to speak the creator of all this apostolic enthusiasm, came very near being expelled from the Society. He was the idol of Portugal and the intimate friend and adviser of King John III, who was untiring in promoting missionary enterprise in the vast regions over which he held sway, both in the Eastern and Western world. This association, however, involved frequent visits to the court, and the attractions of the work soon grew on Rodriguez, though with his characteristic unsteadiness he was writing to Xavier and others to say that he was longing to go out to the missions, a longing he never gratified. Moreover, his judgment in the choice of missionaries was of the worst. Untrained novices were sent out in great numbers and were naturally found unfit for the work with the result that they had to return to Europe. Meantime another influence was effacing the real spirit of the Society from the soul of this chosen man whom Ignatius himself had trained. A craze for bodily mortifications had swept over Portugal, and Brou СКАЧАТЬ