4
THE DIOCESE OF SANTIAGO:
UPPER GUINEA
4.3 The Capuchins (1634-1700)[1]
With the approval of Propaganda Fide two priests from the Capuchin province of Normandie, Alexis de Saint-Lô and Bernardin de Renouard, left on an exploratory mission to the west coast of Africa, arriving at Rufisque in October 1634. They also visited Porto d’Ale and Sereno, and from Joal in January 1635 sent to the bishop of Santiago a list of children they had baptized. In May they left for France. In a report to Lisbon the bishop expressed his happiness ath the Capuchins’ visit to an area so long neglected. But Lisbon was not happy at the Frenchmen’s intrusion into the territory of the Portuguese padroado, and ordered the bishop and governor to try to arrest the Capuchins.
The Capuchins’ report on the work they accomplished and the interest of the chief of Joal in becoming Christian encouraged Propaganda Fide to try again. The same two priests and two others left in 1636 and returned to Joal. Their coming was reported to Lisbon and orders went out to arrest them, but the Portuguese could do nothing because the Dutch and the French controlled the whole coast north of Cacheu. Disease did what the Portuguese could not do, and after one of the priests died the others, who were all sick, returned to France in 1639.
Propaganda Fide negotiated for more Capuchins to go but only in 1646 succeeded in getting a group of twelve from the province of Andalusia to go. On 23 December they arrived at Porto d’Ale where four of them took up residence. The rest continued on to Sangurigu, from which place the vice-prefect Manuel de Granada and two other priests went on to Cacheu and presented their credentials to the diocesan vicar and the captain. The Portuguese authorities were successful this time and sent the three of them as prisoners to Santiago, from where they were dispatched to Portugal. The Andalusian Provincial advised all the priests working in areas occupied by the Portuguese to leave, and 1647 all but two did so. Of these Antonio de Jimena worked in Gambia and even in Cacheu until his death in 1653. The other, Serafín de León, worked in the Tumba (Tombo) area near Sierra leone until, near seventy, he moved to Cacheu and while deep in prayer, as he often was, he died in 1657.
Protracted negotiations resulted in the coming of two more Capuchins, Augustín de Ronda, who worked in the region of Tumba until his death in 1665, and Juan de Peralta, who worked in many places along the coast until his death before 1665. Another group of Capuchins arrived at Tumba just before Agustín de Ronda’s death, but several of these died and two of the three surviving returned to Spain the next year. The province of Andalusia wanted to give up this mission, but Propaganda Fide insisted that it be kept. Pablo de Fregenal nevertheless was left alone in the country of Sierra Leone until he went home, half blind, in 1671. At his recommendation and the continued encouragement of Propaganda Fide a final group of Capuchins was sent.
This final group, comprising fourteen men from the provinces of Castile, Navarre and Aragon and led by Antonio de Trujillo, went to Tumba in 1678. Two of the fourteen died soon after arrival, while seven shortly went to work in the region of Cacheu. In 1684 the Capuchins submitted two reports to Propaganda Fide strenuously and categorically condemning the slave trade and asking for sanctions against the slave traders both from the Church and the king of Portugal. Just before 1687 another report, probably drawn up by Fr. Francisco de Mota, reiterated the previous protests, pointing out that if punishment for crime was the only possible justification for slavery, hardly one in 100 slaves were guilty of a crime and a large proportion of them were only children; moreover slavery was too severe a penalty for ordinary crimes. Propaganda Fide discussed these reports at a meeting on 17 February 1687 and, to give stronger backing to the Capuchins, handed their report over to the holy Office for an official pronouncement on the question of slavery. The Holy Office issued an eleven point reply condemning every aspect of the slave trade as raised in the Capuchins’ report.[2]
Armed with this quite thorough bill of rights, the Capuchins applied Church sanctions against the slave traders and denied them the sacraments. In retaliation the Portuguese expelled all the Capuchins but the prefect. The only effect this latest of many Roman pronouncements had on the Portuguese was that the Angolan traders restricted their sale of slaves to other Catholic countries, i.e. France. By 1688 most of the Capuchins on the Guinea coast had returned to Spain, although a few may have remained even up to 1700.[3]