C. R. Boxer

Four centuries of Portuguese expansion, 1415-1825 : a succinct survey

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The problem of the native clergy in the Portuguese and Spanish Empires from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries

A learned Jesuit historian of the Japan mission recently observed: ‘The aim of Christian missionary activity in every mission land is to establish the Church. The goal of the foreign missionary is primarily to prepare the ground and lay the foundation of the future Church. What he envisages, therefore, is the idea of a fully matured hierarchy of native-born bishops and priests capable of carrying on the work of the Church without foreign assistance.’ Identical sentiments have been voiced by other erudite Jesuit historians of Portuguese India and the Spanish Philippines; but their own well-documented works show very clearly that, however much this was a consummation devoutly to be wished, the road to its achievement was a long and an arduous one. Indeed, at times this objective was actively opposed by those very missionaries who should have been most anxious to attain it. Whatever the theory may have been, in practice the indigenous clergy were apt to be kept in a strictly subordinate condition to the European priests, particularly where these latter were members of the Regular clergy. How this discrimination arose, and the length of time for which it endured, is the theme of this paper.

When the Twain First Met: European Conceptions and Misconceptions of Japan, Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries

As Peter Gay has observed in his stimulating and standard work on the European Enlightenment: ‘Even the most genial Christian had to regard his religion as absolutely true (and therefore all others as radically false), and heathens as unwitting precursors, or unregenerate enemies, or miserable souls in need of light.’ This conviction was held by the great majority of Europeans for centuries, and not least by the Roman Catholic Portuguese and the Calvinist Dutch who were successively the main intermediaries between Japan and the Western World. Of course, there were always some exceptions, such as the Portuguese fidalgo in the Moluccas, c . 1544, who commented that in spite of racial and cultural gaps, differences, and prejudices, ‘still, as the proverb says, the whole earth is one, and all its peoples are basically alike.’ However, as a general rule, many, perhaps most, Europeans were either hostile or else indifferent to Asian cultures. The Italian Jesuit Visitor Valignano stated that this applied especially to the Portuguese ‘who often termed even the Chinese and the Japanese “Niggers”.’ He also noted on one occasion that the Portuguese merchants from Macao seldom or never ventured further inland than Nagasaki and the Kyushu ports. ‘And because of the great difference in language, manners, and customs, the Japanese think very little of them, and they still less of the Japanese.’ This was written in 1583, and was probably an exaggeration even then. By the end of the century, it was quite inapplicable.

S. R. Welch and His History of the Portuguese in Africa, 1495–1806

The lack of an adequate work in English—or indeed in any other language—on the history of the Portuguese in Africa before the nineteenth century has long been felt by those interested in what is still, in many respects, the Dark Continent, in so far as its past is concerned. In Africa as in Asia, the Portuguese pioneered the expansion of Europe; and their accounts of the indigenous peoples whom they successively discovered will always be of value as showing the state of those peoples before they were affected by contact with white rule. The reactions of the Portuguese to the African environment, whether in Morocco, Guinea, the Congo, Zambesia, or in Abyssinia inevitably affected not only the inhabitants of those regions but set precedents which were followed to a greater or lesser degree by the other Europeans who came after them.

South China in the Sixteenth Century : being the narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P., Fr. Martín de Rada, O.E.S.A (1550-1575)

First published in 1953, the linguist and historian C.R. Boxer translates, edits and presents three narratives of South China as it appeared to Portuguese and Spanish visitors in the years 1550-1575. It provides detail of the people, culture and conditions in Ming China, from a Western perspective. First published in 1953 the eminent linguist and historian, C.R. Boxer translates, edits and presents in a readable form three narratives of South China as it appeared to Portuguese and Spanish visitors in the years 1550-1575. It provides considerable detail of the

Einige Aspekte der westlichen Geschichtsschreibung über den Fernen Osten, 1500–1800

Für den größten Teil der Periode, mit der sich dieser Aufsatz befaßt, kann die westliche Geschichtsschreibung über den Fernen Osten ohne weiteres in zwei Gruppen eingeteilt werden: die der Jesuiten und jene anderer Autoren. Die Gründe hierfür sind ziemlich klar. In China waren, mit wenigen und vorübergehenden Ausnahmen, die jesuitischen Missionare (und Mandarine) die einzigen Europäer, die sich mit einer gewissen Freiheit im ganzen Mittleren Blütengleichen Reich bewegen konnten. Sie studierten die Spradie und standen in enger Berührung mit chinesischen Büchern und Gelehrten, besonders jene, die mit dem Hof in Peking in Verbindung standen. Nur sie hatten Zugang zum Urquell der chinesischen Gelehrsamkeit und konnten (in der Regel) auf den Beistand qualifizierter chinesischer Mitarbeiter und Dolmetscher zählen. In Japan konnten die Jesuiten nur in der Zeit von 1550 bis 1614 ihre Tätigkeit frei ausüben und genossen in dieser Zeit Erleichterungen beim Studium japanischer Bücher, vergleichbar jenen, die ihnen in China ofienstanden — obgleich die Unruhen der sengoku-jidai historische Forschungen kaum begünstigten, bevor Hideyoshi im Jahre 1590 das Reich einigte.

Captain João Ribeiro and his History of Ceylon, 1622–1693

The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , vol. x, nr: 36, pp. 263–309 (Colombo, 1890), contains an article by Donald Ferguson entitled “Captain Joao Eibeiro: his work on Ceylon and the French translation thereof by the Abbe Le Grand”. The present article summarizes what has been discovered about Ribeiro and his work since that date, and makes a brief comparison of his Fatalidade Historica da ilha de Ceilao with the more celebrated Historical Relation of the island of Ceylon by Captain Robert Knox.

Isaac Titsingh, 1745–1812

Isaac Titsingh was the son of Albertus Titsingh and his second wife, Catharina Bitter. He must have been born at Amsterdam at the end of 1744, or early in the following year, judging from the fact that his baptism at the Amstelkerk in that city is recorded as having taken place on the 21st of January, 1745.

A Fidalgo in the Far East, 1708–1726: Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho in Macao

If the average foreign visitor to Macao were asked what historical figure he would associate with the little Portuguese colony, he would probably think only of the poet Luis de Cam s, though if he were better informed than most, he might add the painter George Chinnery and the pioneer Protestant missionary, Robert Morrison. Yet there is no lack of interesting characters connected with the “City of the Name of God” during its three and a half centuries of existence, and the present article deals with the story of one of them. Its perusal may help to recall those picturesque days when Macao formed the sole breach in the Great Wall of Chinas political exclusiveness, save for the “Thirteen Factories” at Canton.

Portuguese and Spanish Rivalry in the Far East during the 17th Century

“Quanta sea la aversion entre Portugueses, y Castellânos, es cosa tan sabida, que no necessita testimonios,” wrote the Spanish Friar, Juan Francisco de San Antonio, O.F.M., in his Chronicas of the Franciscan Order in the Philippines, China, and Japan, printed at the Convent of Our Lady of Loreto, at Sampaloc, a suburb of Manila, in 1738–41 (vol. ii, book i, ch. xv, page 81). Although, like most ex-cathedra pronouncements, this sweeping statement does not hold good for all times and places, it was undoubtedly correct for the region and century with which this essay is primarily concerned.