2
THE DIOCESE OF SÃO SALVADOR:
CONGO AND ANGOLA
2.4 Continued contact with Angola
In 1587 the Jesuits led by Fr. Baltasar Barreira began a school in Luanda which Paulo Dias endowed with feudal revenues from nine districts. The revenues consisted of farm produce and 300 slaves per year. The Jesuits would keep 100 slaves for the building and maintenance of the school, sell 150 in exchange for needed supplies, and free 50 after teaching them the faith.[1] The Jesuit visitator Pedro Rodrigues in 1593 strongly criticized this practice,[2] but the people of the provinces themselves settled the problem by revolting and stopping payment. With the promised government subsidies not forthcoming the Jesuits avoided closure of their school only by sending small numbers of the slaves they already had to the schools of their brethren in Brazil in exchange for basic supplies. This compromising solution avoided wholesale selling of slaves at the low Luanda prices until in 1604 revenues from farm endowments allowed the Jesuits to be free from slave trafficking once and for all.[3] An endowment in 1619 by Gaspar Álvares, a Portuguese trader who became a Jesuit novice in 1623, helped to stabilize the school further. Although open to all, the school had no African students, but only Portuguese, because the Africans “are not interested and do not bring food but search for it day by day.”[4]
The Jesuits continued to build churches and evangelize the Sobas and Yakas. Since the creation of the diocese of São Salvador in 1596 many diocesan priests came from Portugal)there were 24 in 1619)and some Africans and mulattoes were ordained. The Franciscans began a church in Luanda in 1606. But the slave trade and continued warfare prevented any real progress. In a four year period up to 1607, 15,768 slaves were exported from Angola to the Indies.[5] To expand the slave trade plans were made in 1612 to invade Benguela.[6] Manuel Cerveira Pereira began the invasion in 1618. The slaves were few because the people fled, but some copper mines were found. Two Jesuits moved to Benguela in 1620 and more were sought.[7] More ambitious schemes were proposed but never realized, such as the Portuguese proposal in 1616 to conquer Mwanamutapa to connect the east and west coast territories,[8] and the Jesuit plan to find an overland route from Congo to Ethiopia.[9]
The Jesuits’ efforts in evangelization resulted in the baptism in 1622 of Ana Nzinga, who succeeded her brother in 1623 as ruler of the diminished independent kingdom of Angola in Ndongo and Matamba.[10] In 1626 the governor of Angola sent an expedition against her because she refused to hand over run-away slaves. She escaped to some islands on the Cuanza river but one of her chief ministers was captured and executed.[11] A new king, Aidi Filipo de Sousa, was installed in Ndongo and baptized along with his wife in 1627.[12] Francesco Pacconio SJ, who baptized him, also wrote an Ambundu catechism and grammar which were published in Lisbon in 1642.[13]
Portuguese independence from Spain in 1640 exposed the colonies to the brunt of Holland’s attacks. In 1624 the Dutch failed in an attempt to take Luanda. They took Brazil in 1636 and then set eyes once more on Angola, the source of Brazil’s slaves. They took Luanda in 1641, while the Portuguese retired to Bengo, a little town a short ways to the north. The Dutch also took São Tomé and Benguela and in 1642 the Portuguese retreat of Bwengo, from which the Portuguese fled to Massangano, up the Cuanza river. There Bishop Soveral died, leaving São Salvador without a bishop for thirty years because the king of Portugal claimed the right to nominate the bishops and his independence from Spain was not recognized by Rome for a long time.
The Portuguese recovered Luanda and the surrounding territories in 1648. In the meantime the Jesuits baptized the king of Ndongo, Henrique, in 1643.[14] The Discalced Carmelites began working in Angola in 1659,[15] but more dramatic action was taking place with the arrival of the Capuchins in Congo.
[1]Jadin (1973), 441.
[2]MMA, III, 476.
[3]Jadin (1973), 443.
[4]MMA, VII, 140.
[5]MMA, V, 487.
[6]MMA, VI, 77.
[7]MMA, VI, 511.
[8]MMA, VI, 263.
[9]MMA, VI, 277; VII, 226 etc.
[10]MMA, VII, 248.
[11]MMA, VII, 359, 417, 426, 526; VIII, 92.
[12]MMA, VII, 494, 557.
[13]Jadin (1973), 446.
[14]MMA, IX, 39.
[15]Jadin (1973), 446.