Joseph of Anchieta

gigatos | January 31, 2022

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Summary

José de Anchieta or José de Anchieta Llarena, (March 19, 1534, San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Canary Islands – June 9, 1597, Anchieta, Brazil) was a Jesuit missionary from the Canary Islands, one of the greatest figures in the history and culture of colonial Brazil during the first century after its discovery by the Portuguese. He participated in the founding of the cities of São Paulo (January 25, 1554) and Rio de Janeiro (March 1, 1565). Writer and poet, recognized as the founder of the Brazilian literature. He composed the first grammar of the Tupi language. For his great contribution to the education and Christianization of the Brazilian Indians he was nicknamed “Apostle of Brazil”; he was numbered among the saints by the Catholic Church (2014). Anchieta Day (June 9) has been celebrated as a national holiday in Brazil since 1965.

Two Brazilian cities, one in Espírito Santo (formerly Reritiba) and one in Santa Catarina, are named after him.

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Family and Childhood

He was born on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands) into a wealthy family.

His father Juan López de Anchieta, a landowner from Urrestilla (Basque Country), fled to Tenerife because of his participation in a failed Comunero rebellion against the Spanish King Carlos I (Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). A cousin of Juan López de Anchieta was Beltran Jañez de Onyas y Loyola, father of Ignatius de Loyola.

Her mother, Mencia Díaz de Clavijo y Llarena, belonged to a wealthy family of Jewish origin (her father Sebastián de Llarena was a “new Christian” from Castile and also the nephew of Captain Fernando de Llarena, one of the first Spanish conquerors of Tenerife). By the time of her marriage to Juan López de Anchieta she was the widow of the bachelor Nuño Nuñez de Villavicencio, a “new Christian,” and the mother of two children.

Ten children were born to this marriage, among whom Jose was the third.

Jose received his elementary education with the Dominican friars. In his childhood years he first felt his religious vocation.

In addition to José, his half-brother Pedro Núñez and his brother Cristóbal were also ordained.

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Youth

His Jewish origins were the main reason for sending the 14-year-old José to Portugal rather than Spain to study, since the Inquisition was not as harsh there as it was in Spain. In 1548 Anchieta moved to Coimbra, where he began to study philosophy at the Jesuit College of Arts at the University of Coimbra. In keeping with the spirit of the time, he received at this institution a Renaissance education, mostly philological and literary.

In 1551 Anchieta took a vow of chastity before the statue of the Blessed Virgin in the Cathedral of Coimbra and, determined to devote himself to the service of God, joined the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at the University of Coimbra. He was unusually religious and spent many hours in prayer, vigils and self-torture, which further weakened his already weak body. In addition, he had an accident in which a step ladder collapsed on his back. The resulting spinal injury left him hunched over for life, and he never recovered from his back pain.

Activities in Brazil

At this time, requests began to come in from Brazil to send new missionaries urgently to evangelize the Indian population. As Father Manuel da Nobrega, abbot of the Jesuit mission in Brazil, stressed, he needed all kinds of workers, “even those weak in mind and sick in body. The young Anchieta, who had also been recommended by his doctors the climate of the New World to recover from an injury, was happy to go on a mission across the ocean.

The second group of Jesuits bound for Brazil, which included Anchieta, set sail with a squadron of the new Portuguese governor-general of Brazil, Duarte da Costa, on May 8, 1553, and arrived in Bahia on July 13. At that time Nobrega”s father was in the Capitania São Vicente, and his acquaintance with Anchieta (which later developed into a personal friendship) took place later.

During the acclimatization period Anchieta taught Latin to settler children and immersed himself in the study of the Tupi language. In October 1553 a group of 13 missionaries, including Nobrega and Anchieta, set out for San Vicente. After a perilous two-month voyage, during which they survived a shipwreck, the Jesuits reached San Vicenti (December 24). From there they traveled to the plateau of Piratinga, where on January 24, 1554, the group settled in a small, poor hut built for them by the Guayanas Indians on the orders of their cacique Tibirisá between the small rivers Tamanduatea and Anyangabau, tributaries of the Tiete River. The next day, January 25, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the first Mass was celebrated at Piratinga, and the new dwelling was dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles. At the Mass, in addition to Jesuits and Indians, the Portuguese Bandeirão João Ramalho (port.) and his wife Bartira, daughter of Casica Tibiris, were also present.

Together with his fellow Jesuits, Anchieta worked for ten years there to Christianize, catechize, and educate the Indians. The collegia of São Paulo di Piratinha soon became the center of a flourishing settlement, in its first year of existence numbering 130 inhabitants, 36 of whom were baptized.

In 1563 Manuel da Nobrega chose Anchieta as his assistant for a very difficult peacekeeping mission. Unable to endure the cruelty of the Portuguese colonizers, the Indians along the coasts of the present-day states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Espírito Santo formed what became known as the Confederación Tamoyos, which soon allied with the French Huguenots, who proclaimed the colony of Antarctic France and established Fort Coligny (port. ) (Russian) in Guanabara Bay under the leadership of Vice-Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon. Beginning in 1562, Tamoyos attacks threatened the very existence of the Capitaine de San Vicente (port.

Nobrega and Anchieta traveled to the village of Iperoig (present-day Ubatuba, São Paulo State) and there entered into peace negotiations with the Tupinambas Indians (who dominated the confederacy) to prevent their further attacks on São Vicente. Anshieta”s excellent knowledge of the Tupi-Guaraní language played a key role in these negotiations. For five months Anshieta remained a voluntary hostage of the Tamoyos, while Nobrega returned to San Vicenti, accompanied by Cunyambebe, the son of the Tupinambas kasika, to complete the negotiations. While in Iperoiga, Anchieta narrowly escaped death several times at the hands of the Cannibal Indians. The negotiation process culminated in the Treaty of Iperoigua, the first peace treaty between New World Indians and Europeans, which effectively ended the Tamoyos confederacy and eliminated the Franco-Indian threat to the Portuguese colonies at that time.

While in Indian captivity, Anchieta composed his famous poem De Beata Virgine Dei Matre Maria, better known as the Poem to the Virgin. Having no paper, legend has it that he wrote the couplets every morning on the beach sand and memorized them by heart, only much later to be able to transcribe more than 4,000 verses to paper. Also, according to legend, while in captivity Anchieta performed a levitation session in front of the Indians, who, horrified, considered him a sorcerer.

In 1564 Estacio de Sa, nephew of the new governor-general, Mema de Sa, arrived in Brazil at the head of a military fleet with orders to finally drive out the French colonists. While the fleet was in San Vicente, Nobrega was active in helping to supply the expedition that went to war against the French in January 1565. Together with Estasio de Sa went and Anchieta, who participated in the laying of the fortress of San Sebastian (future Rio de Janeiro) at the foot of Mount Pan di Asucar in March 1565. Anchieta was subsequently involved in the hostilities between the Portuguese and the French and the Indian allies on both sides; he acted as surgeon and interpreter. In 1566 he went to Bahia to report to the governor-general on the progress of the war against the French and to request that reinforcements be sent to Rio de Janeiro. While in Bahia, the 32-year-old Anchieta was ordained a priest.

In 1567 he participated in the final, victorious battles against the French and was present at the last moments of Estasio di Sa, who was mortally wounded in the battle.

An undocumented account survives of Nobregui and Anchieta”s decisive involvement in the arrest of a Huguenot refugee, tailor Jacques Le Bayeux, by order of Governor-General Mena di Sa in 1559 and sentencing him to death for preaching Protestant heresies. In 1567 Le Bayeux was transported to Rio for execution. But the executioner refused to carry out the sentence and then, eager to put an end to heresy, Anchieta allegedly strangled Le Bayeux with his own hands. The most important biographer of Anchieta, the Jesuit Father Eliu Abranchesis Viotti, based on a number of documents contradicting this account, calls this episode apocryphal.

In 1567 he returned to Rio and later that year was appointed rector of the Jesuit houses in São Vicente and São Paulo. In 1569 he founded the settlement of Reritiba (Irithiba), the present-day city of Anchieta in the state of Espirito Santo.For three years (1570-1573) Anchieta was rector of the Jesuit College of Rio de Janeiro, succeeding Manuel da Nobrega, who died in 1570. On April 8, 1577, the general of the Society of Jesus, Everardo Mercuriano, appointed him provincial of the Society of Jesus in Brazil. Anchieta held this position for 10 years.

Beginning in 1570, despite his poor health and the hardships of a long journey by land and sea, Anchieta traveled extensively, covering vast distances within the territory of the present-day states of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Espírito Santo, and São Paulo, visiting each of the Jesuit missions. In spite of snakes and wild animals, he undertook numerous expeditions through uncharted forests in search of Indian tribes not yet embraced by Christian preaching.

In 1587 he was relieved of his post at his own request, but then he was still head of the Collegium in Vitoria (Espírito Santo) until 1595.

Death

In 1595, due to deteriorating health, Anchieta was finally able to retire to Reritiba, where he died two years later. He was mourned by 3,000 Indians, who appreciated his efforts to protect their lives and human dignity.Buried in Vitoria. Two Brazilian towns, one in Espirito Santo (formerly Reritiba) and one in Santa Catarina, as well as many other places, roads, institutions, hospitals and schools are named after him.

An educator and apostle of the Indians, Anchieta invariably acted (often to his own detriment) as their defender against the atrocities of the Portuguese colonizers, sharply condemning them for not considering the natives as human beings. His work in Brazil, as he saw it, was to benefit the simple and defenseless indigenous peoples. He studied their language, their customs and their way of thinking, tried his best to get close to them and take part in their life, and in the end contributed much to their material and spiritual culture and to their personal and public safety.At the same time he was far from idealizing the Indians and in his works he pointed out their defects, which had to be eliminated: laziness and idleness, drunkenness and debauchery, cruelty and cannibalism, etc. During his life and after his death Anchieta remained for the Indians almost a supernatural being. Many legends were formed around him, such as the one about how he was able to stop an attacking jaguar by the word of God. According to a popular belief still in use today, praying to Anshiet helps against attacks by wild animals.

Although the campaign for the beatification of José di Anchieta began as early as 1617 in the capitania of Bahia, it was not carried out until June 1980 by Pope John Paul II. It seems that the expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil and Portugal by the Marquis di Pombal in 1759 prevented this process, which began as early as the seventeenth century.

Anchieta was canonized on April 3, 2014, by Pope Francis. He became the second saint from the Canary Islands after Pedro Betancourt.

At one time Anchieta was known among the Indians as abarebebe, which means Holy Father of the Flying Man (or Holy Father of the Flying Man). As a result of his regular travels, he traveled twice a month along the coast from Reritiba to Vitoria Island, making brief stops for prayer and rest in Guarapari, Setiba, Ponta da Fruta and Barra do Jucu, a distance of approximately 105 kilometers nowadays traveled on foot by pilgrims and tourists, modeled on the Santiago Way in Spain.

The scope and variety of the literary legacy of the Apostle of Brazil, considered the first Brazilian writer, are striking. He was a grammarian, poet, playwright and historian and wrote in four languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Latin and Tupi.

He was also an astute naturalist who described several new species of plants and animals, as well as an excellent physician and surgeon.

Poetry

His poem De gestis Meni de Saa (c. 1560), which preceded Camões” Lusiads, recounts the struggle between the Portuguese and the French Huguenots in Brazil; it was the first work of epic poetry in the New World.

His famous poem De Beata Virgine Dei Matre Maria, better known as the Poem of the Virgin, composed by him in Indian captivity and numbering 4,172 stanzas.

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Playwrights

Anchieta created religious hymns and dramas to teach the Indians the basics of morality through music and theater. His most famous dramatic work is Auto de São Lourenço or Na Festa de S. Lourenço, a trilingual play in Latin, Portuguese, and Tupi Guaraní. The plot of the play is rich in characters and dramatic situations, and the theme of the saint”s martyrdom is revealed in song, struggle, and dance.

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Grammar of the Tupi Language

The Art of Grammar of the Most Used Language on the Brazilian Coast (Arte da gramática da língua mais usada na costa do Brasil) is the first work to contain the basics of the Tupi language. On his arrival in Brazil, Anchieta was commissioned by Manuel da Nobregui to master the indigenous language; he completed it after six months, and after a year had already mastered it fully and subsequently wrote many of his works in it. The Art of Grammar was published in Coimbra in 1595 by António de Mariz. Two copies of this edition are now extant (two of them are in the National Library of Rio de Janeiro). It is the second of Anchieta”s published works and the second work devoted to the Indian languages (after the appearance in Mexico in 1571 of Brother Alonso de Molina”s Art of the Mexican and Castilian Language).

Historiography

José de Anchieta”s most important historical writings are his Letters, as well as a number of Messages. These documents describe the events Anchieta witnessed and participated in during his 30 years of missionary activity in Brazil. Anchieta”s clear and detailed descriptions are still important today for understanding the way of life, the knowledge and customs of the Indians and Europeans of his day, as well as discoveries about Brazilian wildlife and geography.

A Report on Brazil and its Capitans, 1584

In 2010, O. Diaconov made the first translation into Russian of the work of José de Anchieta – Messages about Brazil and its capitania – 1584.

The document is among several historical communications (Communications on Brazil and its Capitania – 1584, Communications on the Province of Brazil for Our Father and Historical Fragments) first discovered in the library of the Portuguese city of Évora by the Brazilian historian and diplomat Francisco Adolfo de Warnhagen, Viscount Porto Seguro (1816-1878), who forwarded them to the Brazilian Institute of History and Geography (IHGB).

The manuscript, written in 16th-century Portuguese, was published in the Journal of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute (RIHGB), vol. VI, no. 24, in 1844. Later one of the greatest Brazilian historians, João Capistrano Honorio de Abreu (1853-1927), who found a more accurate copy of the Message in the same library of Évora, already quite confidently established the authorship of Anchieta (first proposed by Warnhagen). This is evidenced, in particular, by the author”s detailed account of the events related to the foundation of São Paulo, and in general by his increased attention to and awareness of the affairs of the southern coast, and, in contrast, by his rather superficial description of events in the north.

From a copy of Capistrano di Abreu, published in 1933 in the fundamental collection of writings of Anchieta, Letters, communications, historical fragments and sermons of Father Joseph de Anchieta, S. I. (1554-1594) (Cartas, Informações, Fragmentos Historicos e Sermões do Padre Joseph de Anchieta, S. J.), was translated to Russian by O. Diaconov. The translator has also tried to indicate all major semantic differences, as well as differences in the spelling of names contained in the manuscript of Varnhagen of the RIHGB edition of 1844, because it often contains some additional words and fragments missing in Capistrano di Abreu version, or presents an alternative (sometimes clearer) reading of certain places in the text.

Report on Marriage among the Indians of Brazil, 1560s

A copy of José de Anchieta”s account of the marriages of the Indians of Brazil was first presented to the Brazilian Institute of History and Geography (IHGB) in 1844 by the historian and diplomat Francisco Adolfo de Warnhagen, who found this document in the Évora Library, cod.CXVI.

Warnhagen described his find as follows: “A very valuable book of 215 leaves, bound in parchment and now in the Évora Library, contains papers related to the Jesuits of Brazil at the end of the 16th century, written in the hand of the time; on page 130 we find a report on the subject mentioned (i.e., the position of women among the Brazilian Indians), covering six pages, and in the margin there is a note in the same handwriting that Joseph Anchieta wrote it. This report is of the utmost importance in the light of the facts it contains…”.

According to Varnhagen”s description of the original, there is only the author”s name, but no date. However, the Message most likely belongs to the 1560s, since the historical persons mentioned are directly related to Piratinga and the making of peace in Iperoig. Taking into account that Anshieta is quite well aware of the details of the “personal life” of such Kasiks as Kunyambebe and Aimbire, perhaps he wrote this already after his 5 months captivity in Iperoiga (when he knew them all well), therefore, after 1563, but hardly much time later, as memories of these chiefs were still fresh in his mind.

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Translated into Russian

Sources