3 - The Diamond Contractors

Summary

Ah, those that owned the riches

that gush from the District

without descending from their horses …

without setting foot in the rivers …

THE OLD SERGEANT MAJOR

In August 1753 the young chief judge João Fernandes de Oliveira arrived in Tejuco to represent his father, who had managed to secure his fourth diamond contract with the Realm. He was a young man basking in glory whose career, carefully planned by Sergeant Major João Fernandes de Oliveira, was a reflection of the rise to notability and social standing the elderly diamond contractor had sought to establish for his family as he grew steadily richer. João Fernandes de Oliveira the elder, despite the fortune he had accumulated since sealing his first diamond contract in 1740, had never risen beyond the rank of sergeant major, a title that always accompanied his name to distinguish father from homonymous son.

Born in Santa Maria de Oliveira, a village belonging to Vila de Barcelos in the Archdiocese of Braga in the captaincy of Minho in northern Portugal, it was in the first decade of the eighteenth century that the elder João Fernandes de Oliveira, already of age, left the small village and embarked for Brazil. His saga was one shared with countless others from the region whose predominantly agriculture-based economy was in crisis. The eighteenth century saw the emigration of a significant parcel of the young male population of the captaincies of Minho and Douro.