r/AmericanHistory

He led the longest and most stable period in the history of Brazil, fighting and winning in the Paraguayan war, patronizing education, abolition and development, beloved by the people, he and his daughter and the monarchy were deposed in the military coup of November 15th 1889, giving place to the "coffee and milk republic" in a day in which the Brazilian population watched "bestialized".

"This Mexican language [Nahuatl] is the common tongue spoken throughout the provinces of New Spain—even though there are many distinct languages ​​specific to each province, and even to parts of individual towns, for they are countless. Yet everywhere there are interpreters who understand and speak Mexican, for it is the language that circulates throughout the land, just as Latin does across the kingdoms of Europe."

– Jerónimo de Mendieta, Spanish Franciscan friar and historian (1525–1604)

Source(s):

.- Mendieta, Gerónimo (1997). Historia eclesiástica indiana, Vol. 2, p. 239, Book 4.

.- Wright Carr, David Charles (2007). "La Política Lingüística en la Nueva España" by Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Guanajuato.

He and his wife Maria Bonita terrorized northeastern Brazil and killed over 1,000 for 16 years until their killing by the police in 1938. Despite their brutality, Lampião and Maria Bonita are seen as heroes by many people in Brazil.

In 1556, during his missionary work among the Indians of the São Paulo Plateau, José de Anchieta was troubled by terrible news: the ritual murder of two children, aged 3 and 10, whom he had baptized days before in a village a few kilometers from the Pátio do Colégio.

Anchieta attributed the children's martyrdom to the actions of "sorcerers," the Tupi shamans, who were the main obstacles to religious missions among the indigenous people: "The sorcerers persecute us, whenever they can they prevent us from baptizing children and the sick, they hate us because we always discover their tricks."

Anchieta wrote in a letter to Manuel da Nóbrega. While investigating the ritual of human sacrifice against children, the Jesuit realized that they were mutilated but not devoured. “The sorcerers said that Christian baptism was a curse and therefore the children needed to die, but their bodies should not be consumed.” After discovering their bodies, Anchieta buried them in the Church of the Pátio do Colégio.

Nóbrega (Letter XXIX) recounts that he was going to baptize a sick boy, but the parents opposed the idea, out of consideration for the sorcerer. In another case, after a chief lost one of his sons without baptism, he was “severely reprimanded,” with the recommendation “that he be taken to the governor in chains.” This did not happen due to the acclamation of other Indians who knelt down, but the author concludes that “in this way their custom is being removed, and they are gaining obedience and becoming annoyed with the sorcerers.”

With their deceptions and lies, the shamans sought to resist catechization. Anchieta (Letter XVIII) acknowledged the rivalry between the missionary work and the karaí, "whom everyone follows and venerates as a saint," and who allegedly intended to destroy the Catholic Church. Nóbrega (Letter IV) accused the shamans of spreading the rumor that baptismal water caused diseases.

Incidents like this helped the Jesuits reinforce the idea of ​​creating missionary settlements, where baptized Indians would have protection against attacks from shamans hostile to the Jesuit Missions.

In Brazil, the Jesuit priest primarily used the curumim, the indigenous boy, for the catechization of the villages, and collected from his mouth the material with which he formed the Tupi-Guarani language – the most powerful instrument of intercommunication between the two cultures.

Source(s):

.- Casa-grande & senzala: formação da família brasileira sob o regime da economia patriarcal, by Gilberto Freyre.

.- Os Índios nas Cartas de Nóbrega e Anchieta. Filipe Eduardo Moreau e Anchieta, by Celso Vieira.

Image: A Morte do Indiozinho (The Death of the Little Indian). Drawing by Álvaro Marins, the "Seth". Book: Anchieta. Renato Sêneca Fleury.