Agony on the ZambeziTHE FIRST CHRISTIAN MISSION TO SOUTHERN AFRICAAND ITS FAILURE 1580-1759Rev. W. F. Rea, S.J.Department of History, University College of Rhodesia,Salisbury.In June 1860 David Livingstone, in the courseof his second great missionary journey, reachedZumbo at the junction of the Luangwa and theZambezi and came across a long abandoned andruined Chapel. In other parts of Africa he hadfound relics of the old Portuguese missionaries,1and on this occasion he commented, "One canscarcely look without feelings of sadness on theutter desolation of a place where men have metto worship the Supreme Being and have united inuttering the magnificent words 'Thou art King ofGlory, O Christ!' and remember that the nativesof this part know nothing of His religion, not evenHis name."2 He wondered why the failure hadbeen so complete and whether it might not bebecause the Missionaries had been associated withthe slave trade. He also regretted that there wasno literature on the subject similar to that of themore recent Protestant missions.In surmising that the failure might have beendue to a connection with the slave trade Living-stone was not correct; nevertheless the failurecould hardly have been more complete. Goncaloda Silveira, Zambezia's first missionary, hadarrived in 1560; Frei Antonio Nunes da Graca,who died at Tete in 1837 may perhaps be con-sidered its last. After he died the country remainedas if no missionary had ever set foot in it. Thecause of the failure is a sad but fascinating prob-lem. It is true that it cannot be quite divorcedfrom the general decline in Catholic missionaryendeavour, which began with the expulsion of theJesuits from Portuguese territory in 1759, whichsank to its nadir with Napoleon's suppression ofthe Congregation of Propaganda, and whichshowed signs of ending only a decade after Water-loo. Nevertheless the failure of the Zambezi mis-sions is a separate problem, because it seems fairlyclear that it had come about before the generalweakening of Catholic missionary endeavour. Itcan hardly be denied that the Jesuits had been themost effective missionaries on the Zambezi, andyet eight years before their expulsion their Pro-vincial could write sadly from Goa that he didnot consider Zambezia part of his Province, sinceall that was done there was the baptizing of afew children in times of famine and disease.Adults, he said, accepted baptism easily, but after-wards did not live as Christians, and so added totheir guiit and brought excessive grief on thosewho had worked for them.3 This is not isolatedevidence. Dr. Alexandre Lobato quotes thedesembargador, Morais Pereira, as writing to theKing two years later that in three days journeyfrom Quelimane towards Mozambique and in tendays on a boat between Quelimane and Sena hehad seen neither a church nor a cross; as thepopulation to the south was under Portugueserule, he had to conclude that the Africans wereas deprived of the light of the Catholic religion asthey had been before the coming of the Portu-guese.'1 Other evidence of the almost complete46failure could easily be given.Nevertheless until the last three years, it wasimpossible to do more than surmise, as Living-stone had done, about the reasons for the failure;and the difficulty was the one that had faced him,the lack of any comprehensive account of thesubject. Alexandre Lobato's work and to a lesserextent that of Fritz Hoppe3 touch on missionaryendeavour; their main concern, however, lies inthe administrative and economic spheres, andthough they throw much light on missionary his-tory, they only touch it incidentally. AntonioAlberto de Andrade's valuable collection of docu-ments6 also says much that is important about itbut it forms only one of the many subjects whichthe records describe or comment on. The samemay be said of the documents published by LuizFernando de Carvalho Dias.7 Those whose readingwas confined to English were particularly handi-capped and indeed still are. It is true that theyhave Theal's magnificent volumes8 which placedscholars everywhere in his debt, but there has beenlittle in English since then. The work of Welchwas demolished by Professor Boxer in an articlewhich was as devastating at is was unanswerable;9similarly, the six pages which Duffy devotes tomissionary work in Mozambique from 1506 to1800 are too inept to be taken seriously.10In the last two years, however, the subject hasbeen brought into the open by two books whichexpressly treat of it and give a comprehensiveview, based on research which is wide andthorough. One is Paul Schobesta's Portugal'sKonquista Mission in Sudost-Africa, and the otherMentalidade Missiologica dos Jesuit as emMozambique antes de 1759 by Antonio da Silva,S.J."Schebesta's work spanned a lifetime. He cameto Mozambique when a young man in 1912 as amember of the Society of the Divine Word whichthe Holy See had ordered to take over the missionsof the Jesuits there after they had been driven outof Portuguese territories for the third time. How-ever, after working for four years he was internedas a German when Portugal entered the FirstWorld War. He was sent to Lisbon," where helearnt Portuguese, came to know Portuguese his-torians and also the libraries of Lisbon. The restof his life was spent as an ethnologist, and it wasas such that he made his reputation. But ethnologykept him in touch with history, and over thedecades he amassed much historical material. In1961 it was suggested that he should make use ofthis to write something to commemorate the arri-val of the Society of the Divine Word in Mocam-bique, but in fact his work went well beyond thisoriginal intention and developed into a generalhistory of missionary endeavour in South EastAfrica.Schebesta makes many mistakes in detail, eitherbecause he wrote the book when he was nearlyeighty, or because someone else had to see itthrough the press. It shows that his researchesinto the Lisbon archives were wide, but he admitsin his preface that they were not methodical,because he never thought that he would write abook on the subject. This presumably accountsfor some unexpected gaps in his otherwise veryfull bibliography. Nevertheless to him must begiven the credit for opening up the subject as awhole, and coming to at least some tentative con-clusions about the reason for the Mission's failure.Fr. Silva's work is longer and more thorough.It is largely based on letters, now in Rome,from the Jesuit missionaries on the Zambezi,and inevitably suffers from the drawback ofbeing slight where the letters are few. Thosefrom the first half of the seventeenth century arefairly abundant, those from the second half lessso, and those from the eighteenth century less sostill. The Jesuit Catalogues at Rome giving thepersonnel of each mission; and sometimes infor-mation about conditions and material resources,are a valuable supplement to the letters. Takentogether they form perhaps the best collection ofrecords on the history of Zambezia during thesecenturies, and Fr. Silva has done a service tostudents of African history in bringing them tonotice. He himself says that his work is not pri-marily historical; it is rather an investigation intomissionary outlook and method. But to clarifythese Fr. Silva uses an historical approach. Soin practice the work constitutes a history of theMission from 1610 to 1759, and it would appearto be a starting point for any further investigation.This article therefore puts forward tentativeopinions about the failure of the Mission, drawnfrom the evidence provided by Schebesta,Silva and previously published sources. It is con-cerned with the Mission only from the time of itspermanent establishment about 1580 until 1759when its failure was clear. Consequently it is notconcerned with Silveira's Mission in 1560-61 norwith the subsequent expedition of 1571-3 andFrancisco Barreto and Vasco Homem which wasaccompanied and described by the Jesuit Fran-cisco Monclaro.Schebesta singles out as perhaps the principalcause of the failure the identification of the mis-sionaries, notably the Dominicans, with the Con-47quista politics of the Portuguese. When the famousJoao dos Santos reached Sena on 22 August 1590he found two of his brethren there.12 This was thefragile beginning of Christianity; henceforwardit kept pace with the advance of Portuguese trade,and, to a lesser extent of its armed forces, andamong the witnesses of the treaty by which theMonomotapa, Gatsi Rusere, on 1 August 1607granted the gold, silver and other mines in hislands to the King of Portugal was Frei Joao Lobo,Vicar of the Church at Luanze,13 who thus playeda role similar to that of Charles Helm when twohundred and eighty years later he witnessed theRudd Concession. The identification of Conquistapolitics and Christianity, Schebesta claims, is wellillustrated by a document written in the seconddecade of the seventeenth century by Franciscode Avelar, the Dominican friar. Avelar had ac-companied Diogo Sirnoes Madeira's troops in1609, when they tried to get hold of the silvermines which were supposed to exist at Chicoa; hehad then taken specimens of the silver found thereback to Lisbon where he wrote his "Relacao".14 Inthis he recommended sending troops to safeguardthe route to the mines, and young girls whom theymight marry. He advised too about the sendingof ships from Mozambique to Portugal, withcargoes of silver, gold, copper, iron, ebony andslaves. In return for being admitted as a brotherin arms of the King of Portugal the Monomotapashould hand over to him all the mines in hisKingdom, and allow the Portuguese to build fortsin it and make all chiefs in it acknowledge them-selves vassals of Portugal. As Schebesta remarks,15this is the crudest colonialism envisaging the ex-ploitation of the native peoples for the good of themother country.The outlook of Avelar, Schebesta claims,characterised the Dominican missionary effortthroughout. They thought that the Africans mustbe made subject to Portugal, and then they couldbe made into Christians. When, after the revoltof Kapararidze, the Dominican, Luiz do EspiritoSanto, managed to get his own candidate madeMonomotapa, he was obliged to acknowledgehimself a Portuguese vassal, and Dominicans be-came chaplains at his Zimbabwe. Christianitycould hardly have identified itself more completelywith the Portuguese Conquista.The identification need not of itself have beendisastrous, and indeed perhaps not very harmful, ifthe Portuguese had maintained the Monomotapaas a strong ruler, though admittedly a vassal. Butthey showed open contempt, both for Mavura,the first Christian Monomotapa, and for his suc-cessor who was baptized with great pomp on 4August 1652. His orders were ignored and he wasmade to look contemptible before his own vassals.Schebesta quotes from the Livros dan Mangoestwo petitions sent by the Monomotapa's Domini-can Chaplains in 1640 and 1645 deploring hisposition and describing the bad behaviour of thePortuguese, both to himself and to his subjects.16Twenty-two years later the well known report ofthe Jesuit, Manuel Barreto17 repeated the unhappystory. The Dominicans had hoped to convert theMonomotapa, and through him to impose Chris-tianity on the country. But though he was bap-tized, all his power was taken away and he couldnot have established Christianity, even if he hadhad the will to do so. Portuguese misconduct hadmade them and their religion disliked, so whenthe Rozvi chief. Changamire burst into Moca-ranga and destroyed Dambarare and other fairsin 1693, he was welcomed by the Africans, andPortuguese rule and such Christianity as there hadbeen in the north-east of the present Rhodesiaended completely.As the Dominicans seem to have consideredthemselves primarily as ministering to the Portu-guese, they do not seem to have done much directwork for the Africans. In 1696, after they hadbeen in the country over a hundred years, FreiAntonio da Conceicao, the Augustinian Adminis-trator of the Rivers, said in a Petition which hemade to the Conselho da Junta das Missoes atGoa that there was not a single missionary whoworked among the Africans and taught them.Christianity.18 When the Dominicans attemptedto answer his criticisms he spoke out more force-fully,19 saying that in spite of their high claims,there were no Christians on the Rivers, apart fromthe Portuguese, Goans and their slaves, whom outof the kindness of their hearts they had allowedto be baptised. The only Dominican who hadever known an African language was himself anAfrican. Not a single Dominican, he claimed,had ever shed his blood for the faith. Goncalo daSilveira was the only true martyr of Zambezia.Presumably the implication is that the others hadbeen killed because they were assisting the invad-ing Portuguese. If the Dorminicans regarded them-selves primarily as ministering to the Portuguese,one can appreciate the grounds for these criti-cisms, excessive though they appear at first sight.Too much identification with the PortugueseConquista may largely exnlain the failure ofChristianity to strike any root in Mocarangawhere, after all, the Portuguese were only strongfrom about 1610 to 1693. Tt would appear, how-48ever, that additional reasons explain its failurein the Zambezi valley from Quelimane to Zumbo,for in most of this area Christianity had someinfluence from about 1580 to 1837.One such reason was poverty. Portugal wasanxious to help, made promises and tried to fulfilthem, but the authorities in Goa found the taskbeyond their means. Fr. Silva, drawing on the'Documentos Remetidos da India' in the Torre doTombo at Lisbon, shows how during the decade1620-1630, though the reasonable endowment of100 cruzados a year was made for every religious,the money was frequently not received.20 As timewent on and as the embarrassments of the Portu-guese crown increased, payments became smallerand more irregular and the result was seen in theproposals of Frei Antonio da Conceicao at theend of the century. After six years in Zambeziaand his experience as Administrator, he attributedthe small progress made by Christianity there tolack of missionaries, and their lack of resources.This forced them to trade in order to live, and somade them neglect their pastoral duties and actin a way out of keeping with them. He wantedsufficient means to be guaranteed to them, andthen the enforcement of the Bulls excommunicat-ing any cleric who took part in trade.21By the time that Frei Antonio da Conceicaohad made his suggestions Mocaranga had beenlost to the Portuguese, but had they been putinto effect the history of the missions along theZambezi which were left to them might have beenvery different. Little effective was done, however,and religion went from bad to worse. Forty-sevenyears later Frei Joao de Nossa Senhora, one ofthe greatest Dominicans ever to come to EastAfrica, became Administrator, and the picturewhich he gives in his letters about the state ofChristianity is a shocking one. Churches are des-cribed as ruinous, clergy are few and remiss andlittle is done or perhaps can be done for the laity,black or white. One of the major causes of thedevastation is, again, material poverty. In theorythe Dominicans could rely on tithes and on theirincome from the crown. In practice both werefailing them: the prazeros would not pay tithesand money was not coming from the royal treas-ury.22 Other sources confirm what Joao wrote inhis letters. After the criticisms made of them byAntonio da Conceicao, the Dominicans made aconsiderable attempt to improve and their lateVicar General in Goa, Frei Francisco da Trin-dade, came to Zambezia as their Superior. Hebrought reinforcements and tried to ensure thatthey got some knowledge of the local language.He himself produced some books in it, four beingattributed to him.23 Unfortunately the improve-ment was not lasting, and in 1719 there occurredan incident which was symptomatic of the generaldecline, the abduction by a Dominican of adaughter of the Monomotapa.24 Twenty yearslater the King of Portugal was reporting to Goathat in view of the bad conduct of the Dominicanstheir places might be taken by Jesuits or by secu-lar priests.25A report, that preceded these strictures was,however, written by one of the Dominicans them-selves, the Administrator, Frei Simao de S.Tomaz, a man worthy to rank with Joao de NossaSenhora; the manuscript is in Goa but the sub-stance has been given by Schebesta.26 Hearing badreports of his subjects on the Zambezi he decidedto visit them, but the Governor of Mocambique,it was thought at their instigation, tried to stophim, and one of the Jesuits overcame his opposi-tion. All he saw confirmed his worst impressions.Though warned of his coming, the Dominicanchaplain at the Monomotapa's Zimbabwe leftbeforehand to go off trading at a gold-mine four-teen days' march away. Satisfied that he hadneglected his duties Frei Simao removed himfrom office, but the recalcitrant friar refused togo. Another one of the Administrator's subjectshad only spent fourteen days on his Mission intwo years. In all, his subjects only amounted toseven and they were keener on trading than onpastoral duties.Judgment on them must not be too harsh.The royal congrua and other payments in Zam-bezia were made, not in coin, which hardlyexisted, but in cloth, and the recipient, eventhough a cleric, had to find a market in order tolive. The gold, ivory or other commoditieswhich he received in exchange would then beused to buy what he needed. He had to be anitinerant salesman; but it is not hard to see theappalling effect that this would have on mission-ary life.However, that this was not the fundamentalreason for failure is seen by a consideration ofthe Jesuit missionaries during the same period.There is indeed one condemnation of them, thatof Inacio Caetano Xavier, Secretary to theGovernor of Mocambique from 1758-1761.27 Hesays that in common with other religions theyencourage vengeance, hatred, discord, ambitionand immorality. They are worse than the othersin that they spread fire and sword through theirKaffir dependants. They also pile up riches bymeans of trade which is their business. He asks49the Governor to make sure that no Jesuit heardof what he had said because he had got intotrouble with them before for revealing somedishonesty of theirs, and what he had to sufferin consequence still made him shudder. If theygot to know what he had revealed about themthey would put him in their Green Book in pur-suance of their Monita Secreta, and that wouldbe like having hell in this life.The day before Xavier wrote this, anotherletter was being sent to Portugal by the DominicanPrior of Mocambique accusing him of embezzle-ment, of not paying his debts, and of makingtrouble; after three years as Governor's Secretaryhe was dismissed for taking bribes and othermisconduct.28 I have given his words at somelength because they are the only categorical con-demnation I have met of the Jesuits in Zambezia.Almost all other references are embarrassing intheir unanimity and the extent of their praise.I have already mentioned the King's suggestionthat they should take over the Dominican Mis-sions. Reports sent to or from Goa and Lisbon,and quoted by Schebesta, Theal and AlcantaraGuerreiro, are uniform in their praise. Antonioda Conceicao was critical enough of the Domini-cans, but he had no blame for the Jesuits, andattributed everything he had been able to do inZambezia to the example of the Jesuit, SebastiaoBerna.29 Neither had Simao de S. Tomaz any-thing bad to say about the Jesuits. Indeed, itseems to have been they who made his Visitationpossible.There must be some reason for this surprisingcontrast, and it may well throw some light onthe history of the Mission and its failure. Onereason perhaps was that by a decision made about1623 the Monomotapa, and with him the wholeof Mocaranga, were left to the Dominicans. TheJesuits may have regretted this, but it was prob-ably a blessing; as they were less involved withthe Monomotapa they were less involved inPortuguese Conquista politics, and so were betterable to keep to purely missionary work. Thereis one great exception, the Infarma^ao do Estadoe Conquista dos Rios de Cuama of Manuel Bar-reto,30 which Schebesta pronounces as havingbeen written in the same spirit as the "Relacao"of Avelar. But he says that Barreto was hardlytypical. During the period 1610-1759 this charac-teristic was not prominent among the Jesuits.31However, a more important reason was thatfrom the start they seem to have placed lessreliance on the income granted to them by thecrown, and have realised that they would haveto depend on such lands as were given to themor that they could acquire. Fr. Gaspar Soares,the actual founder of the Mission, wrote in 1610that they would have to be content to live onAfrican food, that is, on meal, rice and vege-tables, in which the land was very productive,as it would be for all crops if they were planted.32Some time before 1624 the crown gave thema prazo at Chemba, two and a half days' journeyupstream from Sena, for their support.33 Anotherat Caia followed, two days downstream fromSena, and another at Marangue, near where theZambezi is joined by the Ruena. These they pro-ceeded to develop; and Lobato says that, althoughagriculture was a secondary activity in Zambeziaas a whole, it was clearly promoted strongly bythe Jesuits.34 What he says is confirmed by thepraise given in 1636 to the Jesuit plantations atLuabo by Pedro Barreto de Rezende, theArchivist of Goa and Secretary to de Linhares,the Viceroy,35 and by the comment of the desem-bargador, Morais Pereira, in 1752 about the cropscultivated at Marangue and the commerce fromthere into the surrounding bush.36 During thecourse of time other prazos were acquired, andsome idea of their extent can be gained from thelist given by Antonio Pinto de Miranda in his"Memoria Sobre a Costa de Africa" which hewrote about 1766.37 This shows that in Queli-mane they had two prazos. In Sena they hadCaia which Antonio da Conceicao found poorand which was poor in 1766,38 and Chemba. InTete they had six prazos in Portuguese territoryand seven referred to as in terras de fatiota,that is, in the territory of native rulers.Taking Zambezia as a whole, they were amongthe prominent landholders, but were far andaway from being the greatest. These were amongthe prazo holders of Sena, where, for example,Dona Ignez de Almeida Castelo Branco held theprazos of Gorongoza and Chirimgoma, either ofwhich would have been sufficient to swallow upall the Jesuit prazos put together.However, while the Jesuits had seventeenprazos, the Dominicans had at most seven andthey were all small. So they could not rely onthem to the same extent, and when royal supportfailed them they were forced to become traders,with the consequences we have seen. The Jesuits,on the other hand, had a sufficiency.Whilst the Jesuits were not pre-eminent in theirholding of land, they were in the number ofslaves possessed; no less than 5,100. Only DonaIgnez de Almeida Castelo Branco with her hugeprazos at Gorongoza and Chirimgoma had more.50"The Dominicans only had 1,400. It must be em-phasised that this was only domestic slavery. Atthis period there was little overseas slave tradein Zambezia. The few who were deported hadbeen condemned to it as a punishment for somecrime, and the prospect was so loathed that some-times they preferred to be condemned to deathand even committed suicide to escape it.In Zambezia the slave was fairly sure of beingprotected and fed, and that meant much, becausefor the contemporary African murder and star-vation were far more real than were the politicaltheories of Locke and Rousseau. Some becameslaves voluntarily. Mauriz Thoman thought thatthe work imposed on them was not very heavy;indeed, ten times less so than that imposed onthe peasantry of Europe. Their master had totreat them with some consideration, because flightwas easy and recovery impossible.39The missionary had a strong reason for havingas many slaves (perhaps, indeed, they had betterbe called dependants) as possible, because in thisway he could hope to build up self-containedChristian communities. He would teach anddirect; they would provide the labour from whichthe produce would come, which would feed allalike. We can see a coherent and intelligibleplan. Inevitably it was said that the Jesuits piledup riches, notably by Inacio Caetano Xavier andlater by Captain Nunes, the great-grandson ofthe man who got orders from Pombai to arrestthe Jesuits and who met Livingstone.40 But. asLobato says, their wealth could not be realised,It took the form of buildings, prazos and well-behaved, well-disposed Africans.41 This accordswith what was said by Mauriz Thoman. one ofthe Jesuits expelled in 1759, that when theirproperty was seized all the money that was foundwas 3,000 guilders (about £250) at Sena, theMission headquarters, and debts in all the otherhouses.42In short, there would appear to have been inthe Jesuit prazos good conditions for missionarywork, Africans fairly permanently settled, ade-quate but not super-abundant material resources,missionaries who made good attempts to masterthe language, who opened a school at Sena andwho were never reproached with lack of devotion.Yet the failure was almost complete. In 1777the number of Christians in Sena, Tete andQuelimane was stated to be 249, 478 and 163respectively.43 Numbers had certainly gone downsince the expulsion of the Jesuits eighteen yearsbefore, but even if we assume that they hadgone down by half we are left with only 1,780.Clearly only a small proportion even of the5,100 slaves in the Jesuit prazos were Christians,44How are we to account for this almost completefailure after 150 years?Climate and sickness played their part, as didthe consequent lack of permanency among themissionaries, who either gave up their lives orreturned to India to save them. But more im-portant than anything was that the Africansseemed impervious to Christian teaching. Mis-sionary after missionary repeated that they wouldaccept baptism readily enough, but would soongive up living as Christians. In particular theywould not give up polygamy. Christianity hadnot sufficient appeal for them. They had littleof the sense of sin which as the Psalms show sopenetrated the Jews of old. After death theirspirits could expect continual association bothwith living members of their family and withother family spirits like themselves. So theGospel fell on deaf ears. It demanded muchand seemed to offer so little.Theologically this is sound enough. The Gospelis to be preached to all men, but it is for Godto decide when they shall listen to it. He gaveHis revelation to the Jews through Moses; butthe Gentiles were left outside. Their day cameafter Pentecost. We do not know whether thetwentieth century is to be for Africa what thefirst three centuries were for the peoples ofEurope. But we do know that the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries were not, and accordingto human judgment could not have been.It must finally be added that owing to ourconduct of human affairs it is the bad that tendsto get reported, so that it may be remedied. Thegood is taken for granted. We hear of FreiNicolau de S. Jose scaling the walls of a houseto run away with the Monomotapa's daughter.We do not hear of the dozens who, lonely andremote, away from all familiar comforts, oftenill with fever, struggled with little-known languagesin the Zambezi heat to teach Christ to those whounderstood Him so little. Only if that could beknown would our idea of the old Zambezi Mis-sion be a true one.51REFERENCES1. LIVINGSTONE, D. 1857 Missionary Travels in South Africa. London, J. Murray, pp. 382, 643, 661,2. LIVINGSTONE, D. 1865 The Zambesi and its Tributaries. London, j. Murray, p. 204,3. ARQUIVO HISTORIC© ULTRAMARINO, LISBON, Correspondencia do Marques de Castel Novo, Cod. 1649,p. 538. This letter is printed, but without any reference to its origin, in THEAL, G. M. 1898-1903 Records ofSouth-Eastem Africa, vol. 5. London, for the Government of the Cape Colony.4. LOBATO, A. 1957 Evolugao Administrative! e Economica de Mozambique 1752-1763, Lisbon, Agenda Geral doUltramar, p. 149.5. HOPPE, F. 1965 Portugiesisch-Ostafrica in der Zeit des Marques de Pombal 1750-1777. Berlin, Colloquium Verlag.6. ANDRADE, A. A. DE 1955 Relacoes de Mozambique Setecentista. Lisbon, Agenda Geral do Ultramar.7. CARVALHO DIAS, L. F. DE ed. 1954 Fontes para a Historia Geografia e ComSrcio de Mozambique (S6c.XVIII). Anais, 9, passim.8. THEAL, G. M. 1898-1903 Records of South-Eastern Africa, 9 vols.9. BOXER, C. R. 1960 S. R. Welch and Ms History of the Portuguese in Africa, 1495-1806. /. Afr. Hist., 1, 55-63.10. DUFFY, J. 1959 Portuguese Africa. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press.11. SCHEBESTA, P. 1966 Portugal's Konquista Mission in Siidost Africa. St. Augustin, Steyler Verlag. SILVA, A.DA 1967 Mentalidade Missiologica dos Jesuitas em Mozambique antes de 1759, 2 vols. Lisbon, Junta de investi-gafoes do Ultramar.12. THEAL, vol. 7, pp. 158, 346.13. THEAL, vol. 3, pp. 279, 369.14. AVELAR, F. DE 1617 "Reiagao das Minas de Prata da Ethiopia Oriental." This document was first publishedby Frei Pedro Monteiro in Claustro Dominicano, Lisbon, 1729. It was printed again by the Portuguese Governmentin Memoria e Documentos acerca dos Direitos de Portugal aos Territories Machona e Nyassa, Lisbon, IrnprensaNacional, 1890, pp. 92-101; this work was an attempt to give historical backing to the Portuguese territorial claimsagainst the British. The manuscript was later rediscovered by Jeronymo de Alcantara Guerreio and Jos6 de Oliveirain the Public Library at Evora and published again in 1944 in Mocambique, 39.15. SCHEBESTA, p. 109.16. IBID., pp. 150-151.17. THEAL, vol. 3, pp. 436495.18. CONCEICAO, A. DA 1696 "Peticao que fez o Admmistrador da Christandade de Mocambique e Rios ao Conselhoda Junta das Missoes." This was printed in 1867 in O Chronista de Tissuary, 2.19. SCHEBESTA, pp. 190-191.20. SILVA, vol. 2, pp. 149, 154. It has been estimated that a cruzado at the beginning of the seventeenth century wasworth 4 shillings in English money of the time.AXELSON, E. 1960 Portuguese in South-East Africa 1600-1700. Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press,p. 209,21. CONCEICAO, A. DA 16% "Tratado dos Rios de Cuama"; this was printed in 1867 in O Chronista de Tissuary,2, 89-90.22. ANDRADE, pp. 72-91.23. STREIT, R. and DINDIGER, J. 1952 Afrikanische Missionsliteratur 1600-1699: Bibliotheca Missionum, vol. 16.Freiburg, Verlag Herder, No. 5074.24. THEAL, vol. 5, pp. 45, 48.25. IBID., pp. 184-186.26. SCHEBESTA, pp. 205-206, quoting GOA MS Codex B/16, "A Sempre Illustre e Catholica Pessoa, C. de Deos."27. XAVIER, I. C. 1758 "Notfcas dos Dominios Portuguezes na Costa de Africa Oriental"; this is printed in Anais,1954, 9, 171-215, and by ANDRADE, pp. 139-188, where the passage about the Jesuits is at pp. 143-144.28. ANDRADE, pp. 559-560, 575-576.29. SCHEBESTA, pp. 132, 133; THEAL, vol. 4, p. 489; GUERREIRO, A. 1954 Quadros da Historia de Mocam-bique. Lourenjo Marques, Imprensa Nacional de Mocambique, pp. 260, 278; CONCEICAO, 89.30. THEAL, vol. 3, pp. 436-508.31. SCHEBESTA, p. 165.32. SILVA, p. 147.33. 1627 Lettere d'Etiopia, Malabar, Brasil e Goa, dall' anno 1620 fin' a! 1624. Al Molto Rever in Christo Mutio Vitel-leschi, Proposito Generate della Compagnia di Giesu, Rome, Francesco Corbelleti, p. 321.34. LOBATO, p. 238.35. SCHEBESTA, p. 161.52- i..36. LOBATO, p. 137. PEREIRA, M. 1752 "Memorias da Costa d'Africa Oriental" MS No. 826 Fundo Gerai, Lisbon,National Library. This document was published as anonymous by ANDRADE, pp. 189-224, and in Anais, 1954, 9,217-249; but LOBATO, pp. 137, 138, 145 identifies the author as Morais Pereira. Comercio may mean no morethan sale of what was grown or made on the property; it would therefore not constitute trade as defined, and con-demned, by Canon Law, namely, the purchase of commodities so as to sell them unchanged at a higher price.37. Printed by ANDRADE, pp. 231-302. There are at least two other published lists of prazos dating from the sameperiod: "Relacao das Terras que possuem os moradores establecidos nos Rios de Sena" printed in Anais, 1954, 9,and another in the book published by the Portuguese Government in 1890, Memoria e Documentos acerca dosDireitos de Portugal aos Territorios Machona e Nyassa. Pinto de Miranda's list is the fullest and is followed here.38. ANDRADE, p. 258.39. THOMAN, M. 1788 Reise und Lebensbeschreibung, Augsburg, Matthaus Riegers sel. sohnen, p. 138.40. LIVINGSTONE, Missionary Travels in South Africa, p. 643.41. LOBATO, p. 56.42. IBID., p. 138.43. HOPPE, pp. 74-75.44. It has recently been claimed that Pinto de Miranda's figures of the number of slaves in the prazos are certainlyexaggerated by at least half, NEWITT, M. D. D. 1969 The Portuguese on the Zambezi: an Historical Interpreta-tion of the Prazo System, J. Afr. Hist., 10, 77. This would give a more favourable picture of the Jesuit missionaryeffort; but it does not upset the general conclusion that its success was very limited.53