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The Conselho Ultramarino’s First Legislative Attempts to Solve the Indian Question in America, 1643–1647
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
The Conselho Ultramarino in Portugal was created by King João IV in 1642 although there is some doubt that it functioned effectively until the following year in December. Certain it is that the king despatched an alvará under date of December 22, 1643, directed to all parts of the empire, telling all officials to send directly to the Council all correspondence concerning overseas provinces.
The first order of business for the fledgling Council was to request the king to clear up certain vague remarks in the founding regimento concerning their power. This regimento of 1642 had been based upon that given by Philip II in 1604 at the founding of the short-lived Conselho da India but contained important omissions, which seemed to lessen the scope of the new council and led to innumerable questions of authority between the Conselho and the Mesa da Consciencia e Ordens in matters ecclesiastical.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1958
References
1 Caetano, Marcelo, Do Conselho Ultramarino ao Conselho do Império (Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1943), appendix, gives a facsimile text of the document of erection.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., pp. 25 ff.
3 Ibid., p. 29.
4 Ibid., appendix, documento no. 3, pp. 101–105.
5 The original document is in the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino [hereafter cited as AHU], Pará, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 1642.
6 Ibid. Transcription and translations from unpublished material in this paper are the author’s. On Frei Cristóvão de Lisboa see Kiemen, Mathias C., The Indian Policy of Portugal in the Amazon Region, 1614–1693 (Washington, D. C., 1954), pp. 28–45.Google Scholar
7 AHU, Pará, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 27 de novembro de 1643.
8 See “Memoria de Capitais e Governadores do Maranhão e Pará,” Biblioteca da Ajuda [hereafter cited as BA], 51-VI-46, no. 17, no pagination: “Pedro de Albuquerque, servio na guerra de Pernambuco, tomou posse do governo em 13 de julho de 1643 no reynado de d. João IV, e gouvernou 6 mezes e 17 dias. Em 30 de janeiro de 1644 nomeou para o substituir depois da sua morte a Feliciano Correa. Em 6 de fevereiro do mesmo anno falleceo, jaz enterrado na Capella Mor do Convento do Carmo do Pará”.
9 AHU, Consultas do serviço de partes de todas as conquistas, cod. 278, pp. 1 f. The king decided: “Como parece, e ao conselho da fazenda mando ordenar de o necessario para este negro. Lxa a 26 de dezembro de 643. Rey.” Similar grants of 20$000 each were given to the widows of three Indians killed in the war (AHU, Maranhão, Papeis avulsos, doc. 26 de novembro de 1644).
10 BA, “Memoria de Capitais …,” 51-VI-46, no. 17, no pagination. The inhabitants of São Luiz asked for freedom from paying dízimos for ten years on August 13, 1644 (AHU, Pará, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 9-XI-645).
11 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 19 de setembro, 1644. Italics mine. The king’s confirmation read: “Está bem. Lxa 28 de setembro de 644”.
12 Consulta of May 6, 1645. See Studart, Guilherme [Barão de], Documentos para a história do Brasil e especialmente a do Ceará (4 vols.; Fortaleza, 1904–1921), III, 122–137.Google Scholar
13 See Leite, Serafim, História da Companhia de Jesús no Brasil (10 vols.; Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, 1938–1950)Google Scholar, III and IV, passim. For a shorter account, see Kiemen, op. cit., pp. 48 ff.
14 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 20 de setembro de 1652. This document also contains a copy of the earlier decree of January 14, 1642, as quoted above.
15 Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo [hereafter cited as ANTT], Chancellaria de João IV, livro 2, fol. 188 ff.
16 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 24 de outubro de 1645.
17 Bento Maciel Parente the Elder was capitão môr of Pará until 1626, after which he spent some years in Spain where he counselled the king to give out private captaincies in Maranhão and Pará, a suggestion the king followed. In 1636 he was named governor of Maranhão and Pará, and in 1637 he was granted the captaincy of Cabo do Norte (See ANTT, Chancellaria de Filipe III, Livro 34, fl. 2, doc. 14 de junho de 1637). In 1635 he had asked for 3,000 families of Indians, 1,000 of them for six lives, and 2,000 for one life (AHU, Pará, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 10 de janeiro de 1635); on September 3, 1636, he asked for 1,000 Indian families under the same conditions (AHU, Códices de Consultas de Partes, Num. 41, pp. 226–229. Both requests were refused.
18 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 24 de outubro de 1645. “… under condition that each Indian should give him every year a pataca [300 reis] or a sack of meal”.
19 Ibid. “… refusing private property, and every kind of business, thus they have no necessity of the sweat of the miserable Indians.”
20 This office of Pai dos cristãos would be the equivalent of the “Defender of the Indians” in Spanish America. It was created in India to protect the Hindu converts. In India this official attained great power, especially in lawsuits. Jesuits usually held the post there. See Grande enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira, XIX, art. “Pai dos cristãos”.
21 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 24 de outubro de 1645.
22
“… e 
ao supplicante Alvaro de Souza, e a outras pessoas benemeritas, lhe faça V. Mgde merce (quando for servido) darlhe privilegio para o ditto Pay dos Christãos lhe de os Indios que tam somente lhe forem necessarios para o seu serviço, a elle primeiro que a outrem, pela taxa dos lugares em modo que por falta de trabalhadores as suas terras não fiquem por aproveitar….” Doc. cit.
23
“… possão elles livremente servir a quem quizerem, e as justiças da terra a requerimento do Pay dos Christãos, ou dos mesmos gentios, lhe faça paguar verbalmente o seu jornal, com o os Indios ficarão contentes, e servirão de boa vontade e os Portuguezes terão quem os sirva com a mesma; e V. Mgde ficará por este modo mandando administrar justiça, e seus vassalos como custuma, e cessarão de todo os inconvenientes que de haver administradores se siguirão até o prezente; ….” Doc. cit.
24 Doc. cit.
25 AHU, Cod. 275: Registo de cartas oficiais para todas as conquistas e mandadas do Ultramar, ff. 121–121v.
26 Ibid., ff. 121v.; on Governor Carvalho, see ANTT, Chancellaria de João IV, Livro 19, f. 115, which gives his nomination for governor in March, 1646; see also BA, “Memoria dos capitais e governadores do Pará e Maranhão,” 51-VI-46, No. 17, no pagination.
27 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 7 de março de 1652.
28 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 19 de dezembro de 1646. “Ask information of the governor and with this return to me for consultation of this matter.”
29 AHU, Maranhão, Papeis Avulsos, doc. 27 de novembro de 1646.
30 For a complete discussion of all facets of these replies, see Kiemen, op. cit., pp. 60–65. It seems to me that the most experienced official consulted concerning this problem was Frei Luis da Assunção, Franciscan Guardian of the convent in Belém, who had spent twenty-four years in Maranhão and Para and knew the country and its problems well. See ibid., p. 61 f. The opinion of Frei Cristóvão de Lisboa, O. F. M., Franciscan Custos during twelve years in Maranhão (1625–1636), has been published by da Fonseca, D. Luiza under the title “In defense of the Maranhão Indians of Colonial Brazil. A report of Frei Christóvão de Lisboa, O. F. M., to the Conselho Ultramarino,” in THE AMERICAS, VII (1950), 218–220.Google Scholar
31 Copying the wording of the Council’s reports in royal alvarás and decrees became common practice later on, and the king’s “lazy” habit of so doing has often been criticized by later historians. However, it seems to me that from the Council’s viewpoint the practice must have been gratifying as manifesting to all concerned its part in colonial legislation.
32 Text given in Arthur César Ferreira Reis (ed.), “Livro Grosso do Maranhão,” Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Vol. LXVI, la Parte (2 vols.), I, 17f. See above pp. 13 f. for the words of the Conselho report.
33 Livro Grosso, I, 18. The borrowed passages are again underlined. See above, pp. 16 f. for the Conselho’s words.