DOM PEDRO II AND THE PROTESTANTS: PROTESTANT

PENETRATION OF BRAZIL TO 1889

by

DONNA UPSHA:·i BLAND, B.A.

A THESIS

DJ

HIS70RY

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Approved

Accepted

May, 1976

ACKNO~VLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Professor David M. Vigness for

his direction of this thesis and to Professor Robert A.

Hayes for his helpful criticism.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. . . . . . • • • • • • . • • • • • • . ii

Chapters

I. INTRODUCTION .

II. DOM PEDRO II

III.

IV.

v.

VI.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE SECOND EMPIRE .•.••••••••

ENTRANCE OF THE PROTEST~~TS.

THE PRESBYTERIANS .•

CONCLUSIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . .

iii

1

4

. • • 19

• • • 34

• • 54

• • • 6 8

• • 77

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The chance of the·survival and acceptance of the

newly arrived Protestant missionaries to Brazil seemed

dim. A traveler to Brazil in 1846 had observed the Bra-

zilians and concluded that "The more I see of this people,

the more distant appears the success of any Protestant

1 missions among them... His opinion of Protestantism was

shared by other visitors to Brazil. Even twenty years

later a steamer captain wrote, "It seems impossible that

it should be the religion of this present Brazilian

people. 112

Yet, at the end of the reign of Dom Pedro II, an

American consular official could write, 11 The American mis­

sionaries to Brazil are exerting increased influence. 113

A book written in 1900 would list the .. aggressive work of

1Thomas Ewbank, Life in Brazil; or, A Journal of a Visit to the Land of the Cocoa and the-palm (New York: Harper &:Bros., 1856~ ~238. ------

2John Cadman, Ten Months in Brazil (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1867), p. 149.

3christopher C. Andrews, and Prospects, 3d ed. (New York: 1891) I P· 3.

1

Brazil: Its Condition D. Appleton & Co.,

2

Protestant missions" as one of the prominent gains in

Brazil during Dom Pedro's "liberal and progressive reign." 4

Considering the traditionally Roman Catholic character of

the country, modern historian Roger Bastide calls this

rapid progress "astonishing. 115

The introduction of Protestantism into Brazil did

not accompany the usual historical .models of religious

change. There was no military conquest or captivity, no

conversion of the ruling class and imposition of a new

state religion, and no revolutionary religious reform of

the sixteenth-century European variety. Indeed, the begin-

nings of Brazilian Protestantism share few similarities

even with the early missionary efforts in other Latin Amer-

ican countries. The entrances made were not as a result

of the usual Latin American pattern of violent revolutions,

followed by the declaration of religious toleration. There

were no bloody revolutions in mid-nineteenth-century Brazil.

Instead, Dom Pedro II, Emperor, ruled.

In understanding why Protestants, despite all the

early pessimistic predictions, gained admittance and even

a surprising degree of acceptance in Brazil, two influences

4Harlan P. Beach, Protestant Missions in South America (New York: Caxton Press, 1900), p. 61-.-

5Roger Bas tide, "Religion and the Church in Brazil, 11 in Brazil: Portrait of Half a Continent, eds. T. Lynn Smith and Alexander Marchant (New York: Dryden Press, 1951), pp. 348-49.

3

must be recognized. The first was Dam Pedro II. His

personality, his training, and his liberality--all these

contributed to his attitude of friendliness and even (in

promoting immigration) to his actual support of some

Protestant efforts. A second factor was the state of

the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil. Its personal and

political status with Dam Pedro and his government and

its spiritual status with the Brazilian people surely

were critical in determining the success of early Prot­

estant work. The initial investigation of these two

influences provides a basis for the later consideration

of the Protestant penetration of Brazil during the

Empire.

CHAPTER II

DOM PEDRO II

In 1831 Dom Pedro I abdicated his throne and

sailed for Portugal, leaving the empire to his five-year-

old son, Pedro II. In his last act he appointed a former

minister and advisor, Jos6 Bonafacio de Andrade e Silva,

as tutor and guardian for the child. The move must have

surprised many, for Bonaf~cio had earlier incurred the

Emperor's displeasure and had been deported, living in

exile for almost seven years. In the last moments of his

reign, however, Dam Pedro sought the "most upright, honor­

able and sincere person" 6 he knew to take charge of his

son's future.

Bonafacio was a good choice to begin the process

of education and training of the future "liberal and pro-

gressive" ruler. His title of "Patriarch of Independence"

came from his role as "the brains 11 behind the 1821 move-

7 ment. Politically, he was a proud man, ardent, combative,

and, at times, vindictive. Not only did his strong

6s~rgio Corr~a da Costa, Every Inch a King, trans. Samuel Putnam (New York: Macmillan Co., 1953) ,~p-)167.

7 Ibid. I p. 9 5.

4

5

personality make an impression on young Pedro, but his

nonpolitical interests as well were remarkably akin to

those of the Emperor during the latter's adult years.

Bonafacio was a poet, philosopher, man of law, and miner­

alogist with "a reputation throughout all Europe." 8

In the royal nursery, Dona Mariana, the first lady

of the Prince Imperial, served as a mother substitute and

guided Pedro's early religious training. In a little

booklet she prepared for him in 1830, she told him:

The Christian faith • always makes for the happiness of society; and though mankind has in­voked the name of religion while committing crimes, nothing can alter the purity and perfec­tion of the faith. A truly Christian sovereign must not fail to work for the happiness of the people who are his subjects. Piety, justice, and charity are virtues of special importance in a ruler.9

Manoel Ignacio de Andrade, the Marques de Itanhaem,

followed Bonaf~cio as royal tutor. He was a most pious

man who saw his chief concern to be the young Emperor's

spiritual welfare. He insisted on Mass every morning for

all in the Imperial household (Dom Pedro included) and

encouraged constant prayer on the behalf of poor souls

in Purgatory, especially "between dinner courses, on walks,

8Ibid., p. 94.

9Mary Wilhelmine Williams, Dom Pedro the Magnani­mous (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1

1937), p. 27,'citing Introduction to the Small Historical Catechism offered to His Imperial Hlghlless D. Pedro de Alcantara in Contribul£5es para a Biographia de D. Pedro II, Pt. I.

6

and during baths.u 10

The Marques, however religious, was not narrow or

bigoted. To broaden Dam Pedro's views, the tutor used two

methods. He instituted Sunday dinners to which he invited

a number of government officers, clergy, and foreign dip-

lomats. The conversation was to show Dam Pedro that people

often differ honestly on serious matters and thus nurture

in him a spirit of tolerance. Likewise, in the classroom,

the Marques' regimen included the use of newspapers. He

instilled in his young charge the lifelong habit of read-

ing the press, especially the publications of the provinces.

This early training in piety, mixed with tolerance

and curiosity, was not lost on Dam Pedro. As monarch, he

was bound by oath to support the Roman Catholic Church as

the state religion. He honored the oath, observing all the

ritual formalities. He attended Mass regularly and marched

in religious processions, even carrying the dais throughout

the Corpus Christi ceremony. Once a year, on Holy Friday,

in accordance with royal practice, he publicly washed the

feet of some (carefully selected) Brazilian poor. To his

subjects he transmitted modifications of Catholic ethics

as forwarded from Rome--balking neither at the immaculate

conception of Mary nor the Pope's infallibility (though he

10Bertita Harding, Amazon Throne (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1941), p. 236.

7

may have questioned them personally) • (The exception to

this--a refusal to publish the ban on masonry--came not

as a result of impiety, but rather from a desire to pre-

serve the peace and to uphold his own sovereignty, as will

be discussed in Chapter III.)

Dam Pedro declared himself religious because, he

said, "Morality, which is a quality of intelligence, is

th f d t • f th 1' • • d II 11 e oun a lon o e re lglous l ea. He was an han-

orary member of a league against atheism, which (the

Emperor said) "debased humanity and menaced the social

order." 12 Although it did not come within the realm of

reason, he did not disparage religious sentiment, but even

admitted, "'I have even the good fortune to feel it, though

not to an exaggerated degree, thanks to education for which

I shall always be grateful to those to whom I owe it. '" 13

Dom Pedro, however, despite all his childhood

training and his adult statements and actions, was not an

orthodox Roman Catholic monarch. Admirers called him at

best a "limited Catholic." 14 Critics described his religion

as "superficial, skin-deep. It was an exterior and social

1 lwilliams, Dam Pedro, p. 169, citing Joaquirn Nabuco, Um estadista do Imperio.

12Ibid.

13Ibid., p. 170.

14Ibid. I p. 171.

8

th . th f . t. ..lS ca ol~cism, more from inheritance an rom conv1c 1on.

It was his attitudes and his friendships, his studies and

his interests in other faiths which did not fit the con-

ventional mold.

The Emperor•s love of learning led to a study of

American New England authors and poets. This included

William Ellery Chaning, the leader of the Unitarian move-

ment in the United States. Dom Pedro called him a "Prot­

estant saint ... 16 The Deistic First Cause of the Unitar-

ians, stressing reason and intellectualism, were, no doubt,

appealing to the scholar-king.

The Jews were included in Dom Pedro•s liberal

curiosity. He read the Old Testament, visited synagogues,

and learned Hebrew. Through the years, various Protestant

ministers helped him with this language study_ One of

them, J. C. Fletcher, praised his grasp of the Hebrew

language: "I have heard him read the Hebrew, without

17 points, as fluently as if he had been a Jew."

On trips abroad he pursued his investigations of

15Antonio Carlos Villaca, Historia de Questao Religiosa (Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves-,-1974), p. 27. Translation of: " . superficial, epid~rmico. Era urn catolicismo exterior e social, mais de heran~a do que de convic9ao. 11

16 '11' d 169 W1 1ams, Dom Pe ro, p. .

17oaniel P. Kidder and James and the Brazilians, 9th ed. (London: Searle, & Rivington, 1879), p. 233.

C. Fletcher, Brazil Sampson Low, Marston,

9

non-Catholic faiths. He read from the scrolls in San

Francisco and New Orleans synagogues. One Sunday in Salt

Lake City, Dam Pedro listened to a priest's sermon de-

nouncing Mormonism in the morning, and, in the evening,

attended a Mormon service, buying literature on the faith

afterwards and asking many questions about it.

A trip to New York included not only worship at

St. Patrick's cathedral, but also attendance at a revival

meeting at the Hippodrome, as well. Dam Pedro sat on the

stage between preachers Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey.

"On several occasions, when the orators espoused the cause

of Christianity as a whole in opposition to denominational

factions, he nodded with such vigorous approval that his

white locks became disarrayed." 18

In Europe Dam Pedro wanted to visit Wartburg, where

(as he reminded his wife), "You know, Nartin Luther trans-

lated the New Testament there under the protection of

Frederick the Wise of Saxony." (Dona Thereza had to remind

him, smiling, "You are a Catholic.") 19 In Luther's chapel

he asked the organist to play and dropped to his knees when

he heard the strains of "A Nighty Fortress.n 20

These seemingly unorthodox actions and studies may

18Harding, Amazon Throne, p. 288.

19Ibid., pp. 273-74. [No authority cited.]

20williams, Dam Pedro, p. 157.

10

have been prompted by the Emperor's personal search for

greater spiritual enlightenment. A more probable explana-

tion, however, is that they were yet another manifestation

of the intellectual curiosity which had been nurtured in

him since childhood and fed by his travels, acquaintances,

and correspondence. The clearest illustration of his

motives comes from an incident late in Dom Pedro's life,

during his exile in Portugal. His pious and strictly

orthodox daughter Isabel was shocked when her father an-

nounced his interest in attending a lecture on reform of

the Church by Jacinthro Layson, and she protested vigor-

ously.

'Why not?' retorted Dom Pedro. 'The ex-priest Jacinthro aims to regenerate the Church, not to destroy it. To go and listen to him does not signify that one subscribes to his ideas, or gives force to his propaganda. With full knowledge of the matter one can more easily combat it. Besides, he is an intelligent man, a celebrated orator, well­informed, and moved by earnestness of purpose. Don't you want to know about things? As for me. I would not hesitate to go to hear the Devil him­self if he undertook to give public lectures. •21

Dom Pedro's personality, education, and interests

were reasons, then, for his liberality toward, and encour-

agement of, Protestant beginnings in Brazil. Not to be

overlooked, however, are the practical considerations that

Dom Pedro must have had in efforts to foster immigration

21rbid., p. 372, citing Alfonso Celso, 0 Imperador 'l' no ex1. 1.0.

11

and education in Brazil. 11 Two types of circumstances

greatly favored foreign propaganda: the inclinations of

th E h . 1 h d f . . n 22 e mperor and the need t at Braz~ a or ~mm~grants.

Dom Pedro was following the same policy of en-

couraging immigration which was begun before he himself

assumed the throne. In 1810, Swiss workers had been con-

tracted to build the Ipanema Railroad. In 1824, German

immigrants, accompanied by a Protestant pastor 11 Com seu

sustento provide pelo Governor Imperial, .. had been ad­

mitted into Brazi1. 23

For Dom Pedro, the efforts to increase immigra-

tion after 1850 were not only due to the desires to in-

crease numbers in a sparsely populated land, but also to

help replace the dwindling supply of laborers as the

country made the gradual transition from the slave labor

to the free labor system. Coffee planters of Sao Paulo

were dissatisfied with the prospect of no new foreign-born

slaves. (Children born after September, 1871, were free.)

His agents ~n Europe recruited to fill the manual labor

gap, "only to find that immigrants were reluctant to come

22; . , Em~le G. Leonard, 11 0 Protestantismo Brasileiro.

Estudo de eclesiologia e de hist6ria social, .. Revista de Hist6ria 5 (Janeiro-Mar9o 1951): 135. Translation of: "Duas ordens de circumstancias favoreceram grandemente a propaganda estrangeira: as disposi9oes do Imperador e a necessidade que o Brasil tinha de imigrantes. 11

23 R'b. . '1 Boanerges ~ e~ro, Protestant~smo no Bras~ Monarquico (Sao Paulo: Livraria Pioneira Editora, 1973), p. 79.

12

because slavery debased the worker and gave Brazil a bad

name."24

Yet, the workers did come and, in 1888, for

example, as many as 131,000 entered the country through

the ports of Rio de Janeiro and Santos. 25

Immigrants were needed to help provide the tech-

nical expertise required in modernizing Brazil. Dam Pedro

was encouraging great expansion of railway and telegraph

lines. Inspired by his trips abroad, he supported new

lighting and sanitation projects for the capital city.

The need for educated foreign help in carrying out

these projects and others was obvious in the face of 90

percent illiteracy rates. Education was the prerogative

of those entitled by birth or position. As late as 1877

only 170,000 children were in any school. Secondary

schools were rare and poorly run. Entrance into the

country's two law schools and two medical schools was

governed more by family ties than by scores on entrance

examinations. "It seems clear that, in general, these

schools made a farce of education."26

Throughout his reign and even 1n the last Royal

24Richard Graham, Britain and the Onset of Modern­ization in Brazil 1850-1914 (Cambridge-:--Cambridge Univer­sity Press, 1968), p. 161.

25 Jorge Abel Camacho, Brazil; An Interim Assess-ment, 2d ed. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1972) 1 p. 40.

26 Graham, Britain, p. 17.

13

Pronouncement (fala do trona) in 1889, Dam Pedro called

for more technical schools and more universities. Perhaps

he recognized the possibilities of help from immigrants in

this effort. Although the immigrants, in building schools,

sought primarily to keep language and native customs alive,

and the missionaries sought to teach new converts to read

the Bible, their work eventually would be a significant

help in reaching the Brazilian unschooled.

The effort to attract immigrants also helped to

encourage religious toleration. Representatives of the

crown, sent to Europe to encourage immigrants, reported

that when they "invited emigrants to come to Brazil, the

only question raised in every case was that of religious

27 guarantees." Although Article 5 of the Constitution of

1824 guaranteed freedom of worship (in a house with no

external symbols) , the problems of marriage outside the

Church, registration of children, burial in public cerne-

teries, and property rights were all causes of concern to

prospective emigrants. Broadened rights for non-Catholics

not only would help to attract new immigrants, but also

would make newly arrived ones more secure. Darn Pedro

recognized the 11 Well-established fact that the German

colonies prospered and became permanent wherever churches

27Erasrno Braga and Kenneth G. Grubb, The Republic of Brazil: A Survey of the Religious Situation-(London: World Dominion Press,-r932), p. 48.

14

and parochial schools were erected ... 28

During his reign, Dom Pedro pushed (albeit some-

what slowly) for liberalized laws regarding non-Catholic

marriage and burial. By 1863, in Decree 3.069, he ruled

that non-Catholics could have deaths certified and that

all public cemeteries would have a separate place (lugar

separado) for burial of non-Catholics. The same decree

.. extended to tolerated religions the right to grant mar-

riages with legal sanction 11 (estendeu as religioes

toleradas o direito de celebrar casamento com efeitos

1 . ) 29 ega~s . Pastors could get certificates authorizing

them to marry persons who did not profess the state

religion.

The actions of the Emperor encouraged (or, perhaps,

were encouraged by) outspoken support for religious toler-

ation. In 1865, in the Anglo-Brazilian Times (edited by

a Roman Catholic) a reader's letter declared:

If religious disabilities are hurtful in old and densely-populated countries, they are a hundred­fold more mischievous in a new and thin-settled one like Brazil; for they tend to repel instead of attracting immigration, and they deprive those who are subjected to them of that feeling of equality of rights and interests which it should be the great endeavor of a people to inculcate among those citizens of other lands who come among them to be of them and with them .... Does the legal restriction of a cross or steeple render the

28 b'd 49 I ~ . I P· .

29 . b . p . 114 R~ e~ro, rotestant~smo, p. .

15

heretical house of prayer less a temple of that God whose worship was first carried on in upper roams, in caves, in groves? Will the sight of heretical peristyles and decorations uproot from the minds of the faithful the precepts of a Church whose claim it is to possess the keys of heaven and hell, to loose and unloose?30

In 1866, in a speech to the newly formed Inter-

national Emigration Society, Dr. Furquim d'Almeida told

the group:

I am a Catholic, I was educated in this religion, I intend to belong to it until death; but my rea­son tells me that it is needful to give to all the right of adoring God according to their con-science. . The tendency to emigration only exists in the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic races. If, then, we seriously wish to people our country, we should open its gates to all races and religions, abolishing all the religious embarrassments that still exist in our laws relative to Dissenters.31

When a Monsignor Bedim preached in Petr6polis

against mixed marriages, declaring the children of such

marriages to be illegitimate, a storm of indignation arose

in Petr6polis and Rio. Even the DiArio do Rio de Janeiro

(a quasi-organ of the government) denounced him in "firm

32 but respectful language ...

3°Fletcher and Kidder, Brazil and the Brazilians, 7th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.,-r86~reprinted, New York: AMS Press, 1973), pp. 625-26, citing "Religious Disabilities," Anglo-Brazilian Times, (Rio de Janeiro) 24 October 1865.

31Ibid., pp. 597-98, citing "Extracts from a Speech Made by Dr. Furquim d'Almeida at the Exchange of Rio de Janeiro, on the occasion of forming the International Emi­gration Society, January 26, 1866."

32Ibid. I p. 142.

16

That Dom Pedro was sympathetic toward moves legal-

izing civil marriages is apparent from correspondence with

his daughter Isabel:

If my advice had been followed, the civil mar­riage bill presented to the Congress by the Ministry in 1875 would already have been voted on. I completely endorse the ideas of that project. A Catholic should be married in a catholic ceremony; but he [the catholic] should not be obliged to do so by civil law in order for that act of civil life to have civic effects.33

Yet, when native Brazilians asked, "If for out-

siders, why not civil rights for us?, .. Dom Pedro would not

or could not move with the same haste for Catholic Brazil-

ians as he did for Protestant immigrants. At the end of

his reign, the issue of civil marriage remained to be

resolved. In 1889, a conservative message from the throne

disappointed one young member of Parliament. When Dom

Pedro asked what he had found objectionable, the deputy

replied, "'It didn't say anything about civil marriage,

nothing of religious liberty, etc.,' to which the old

33Heitor Lyra, Historia de Dom Pedro II, 1825-1891, vol. 2 (Sao Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1939), p. 354, citing "Notas a princeza Isabel, no arquivo da familia imperial." Translation of: "Se setivesse seguido o meu parecer, ter-se-ia votado j~ o projeto de lei do casamento civil, apresentado as Camaras pelo Ministerio de 1875. Adoto inteiramente as id~ias desse projeto. 0 cat6lico deve casar-se cat6licamente; mas nao pode ser obrigado a isso pela lei civil, para que esse ato da vida civil tenha efeitos civios."

17

monarch replied wearily, 'One must go slowly. '" 34

Dom Pedro knew that even as he had sworn to "work

for the general good of Brazil to the extent of my power,"

he had also sworn to "maintain the Roman Catholic apostolic

1 . . "35 re ~g~on. Political sensitivity, if not personal reli-

giosity, would demand that he "go slowly." If the "vast

majority of the population" was "indifferent to religious

matters" 36 and (therefore) to the entrance of the Prates-

tants, the high authorities of the Roman Catholic Church

were not.

Ironically, the state of the Catholic Church (as

suggested by Williams and others) ·may have been influential

in Dom Pedro's decision to permit Protestant entry. The

Protestants not only might help in the educational and

technical needs of the country, but also might give needed

impetus to Church reform. One writer of the times (a United

States consul in Rio) predicted:

One effect of the increase of Protestant churches in Brazil will be an awakening of the Catholic Church. There is nothing more beneficial than competition. At present the Catholic Church in Brazil is in a feeble state.37

34Phi lip Norman Evanson, "The Liberal Party and Reform in Brazil, 1860-1889" (Ph.D. dissertation, Univer­sity of Virginia, 1967), p. 48, citing Affonso de Escragnolle Taunay, Pedro II.

35williams, Dom Pedro, p. 57, citing Pallas do throne.

36 Andrews, Brazil, p. 54.

37Ibid.

18

Many of the Brazilian liberals who pushed for

religious toleration for immigrants and themselves ap-

plauded the growing influx of Protestants and the possible

reform it might bring. Thomas Ewbank, writing in 1856,

found "many native statesmen" who believed that "Romanism"

in Brazil was a "barrier to progress, compared to which

other obstacles are small." 38 Perhaps these liberals

found attractive the theory that "Protestantism tended to

accompany the movement of the propagation of the faith and

of Christian ideas by an intellectual movement." 39 They,

like Dam Pedro, sought greater educational gains and

recognized probable Protestant contributions in that area.

The sad state of educational standards in Church schools,

and even in the scholastic requirements for parish priests,

was obvious to all.

Whether or not Dam Pedro actually recognized and

purposely sought the Protestants as agents of reform is

not proven. What is certain is that the foothold secured

by the Protestants through Dam Pedro's liberal disposition

and his push for immigration was also aided by the weakened

state of the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil.

38Ewbank, Life in Brazil, pp. viii-ix.

39 Blanche Henry Clark Weaver, "Confederate Immi-grants and Evangelical Churches in Brazil," Journal of Southern History 18 (November 1952): 457, citing Fernando de Azevedo, Brazilian Culture.

CHAPTER III

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND

THE SECOND EMPIRE

During his reign, Dom Pedro's freedom to exercise

his liberality and to permit and encourage Protestant im­

migrants was due (at least in part) to the weakened posi­

tion of the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil. Although the

Constitution of 1824 recognized the Church as the official

religion and expected the Emperor ·to observe and defend

it, the Church had to function under the imperial Padroado,

the right of ecclesiastical patronage. Pedro, as an heir

of Portuguese royalty, could claim this right.

As received from the Pope in the sixteenth century

and extended and enlarged upon through the years since,

the Padroado included the power to nominate to Church

benefices, to control the establishment of churches, and

to regulate the publishing of communications from Rome

within the Empire. In return, the Church would expect

personal and financial support from Dom Pedro. "In short,

the Church as a corporation has been transformed into a

19

20

40 servant of the secular power as a department of state ...

Although it sprang from a common source, the church

which Dom Pedro 11 inherited11 with his crown was not the

strong, rich, powerful church common to other Latin Amer-

ican countries. The clergy had accommodated themselves

to the subservient role.

In fact it seems fair to generalize that in Brazil the priest often was merely one of the dependents of the country squire and the Church an adjunct to the planter's palatial home. This is a far cry from the situation in Spanish America where the sacerdote was absolute master of all that he saw, and the church the repository of all that was of value in the community.41

The subservient Church of mid-nineteenth century

Brazil was characterized by four obvious conditions: the

decayed state of many churches, a shortage of priests, the

laxity of moral standards among the clergy, and a largely

either apathetic or superstitious population. The lavish

old cathedrals stood as monuments to the past fervor of

believers, but the erection of any new churches was an

event of which one seldom heard. Travelers to the country

remarked upon the crumbling state of religious images in

the streets, indicating, claimed one, 11 that their devotees

40 1 . . . B '1 A N C arence H. Har1ng, Emp1re 1n raz1 . ew World Experiment with Monarchy (Cambridge: Harvard Uni­versity Press, 1958; reprinted., New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1968), p. 113.

41 T. Lynn Smith, Brazilian Society (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, [1974]), p. 128.

21

[ ] d ' ' h ' urnb ' 1 II 42 were ecreaslng elt er ln n er or ln zea .

In the interior of the country, the poverty of the

churches matched the general poverty of the people. Seeing

the poor conditions, William Herndon (an early explorer of

the Amazon Valley) was prompted to vow that he would appeal

for funds from Roman Catholics upon his return to the

United States.

The priestly vestments were in rags. The lava­tory was a gourd, a little earthen pitcher, and a jack towel of cotton. It grieved me to see the host taken from a shaving box and the sanc­tified wine poured from a vinegar cruet.43

A lack of priests and great difficulties ln admin-

istration added to the Church's problems. The large country

was served by only one archbishop and eight bishops. Effec-

tive ecclesiastical administration was impossible in such

enormous bishoprics. The bishopric of Rio de Janeiro, for

example, included not only the city of Rio and the province,

but also the provinces of Espirito Santo, Santa Catarina,

and the eastern section of Minas Gerais. The many peti-

tions for creation of new bishoprics went unheeded.

Indifferent bishops (perhaps overwhelmed at the

size of their territories) rarely, if ever, visited the

42oaniel P. Kidder, Sketches of Residence' and Travels in Brazil, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Sarin & Bell, 1845) ' p-.-74.

43william Lewis Herndon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon (Washington, D.C.: R. Armstrong, 1853; re­printed., New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1952), p. 137.

22

parishes of the interior of the country. This problem

was compounded by a severe shortage of local priests.

Government reports told of backland churches which had

been without pastors for over a decade. In 1843, the

province of Maranhao listed over twenty-five churches

in need of priests. The whole large diocese of Rio was

ordaining only four or five new priests per year.

The shortage of priests could have been, at least

in part, due to the low salaries approved by the Treasury.

The pay was not enough to make the parochial ministry very

attractive. The main reason, however, for the too few

priests and even for their lack of influence and stature

seems to be the people's reaction to the widespread moral

laxity of the clergy. Local priests generally were not

held in awe or reverence and were not accorded the con-

sideration enjoyed by the Catholic priests in Spanish

America or even in Protestant countries. "No one wants

44 to be a monk" was a common remark.

From all perspectives--Protestant or Roman Cath-

olic, Brazilian or foreigner--writers concur on the general

low state of clerical morals. Protestant North Americans,

traveling in Dam Pedro's land, were quick to attack and to

report clerical moral depravity. Brazilian priests, said

44Kidder, Sketches, val. 2, p. 191. Translation of: "Ninguem quer ser frade ...

23

one traveler, "carried their love for the family to pater­

nity."45 "In Brazil," said another, "a virtuous priest is

the exception." 46

The Protestants' views might be labeled as preju-

diced if they were not supported by equally strong attacks

by Roman Catholics also. A Sao Paulo priest of Dom Pedro's

day described his Church and his fellow priests by saying,

11 We are in darkness, behind the age, and almost aban­

doned."47 Some modern Catholic historians do not disagree

with him. George Boehrer cites many examples of clerical

excesses (including the priest who had the Mass sung for

the soul of his mother and the mother of his mistress) and

concludes, "More than anything else, the moral laxity of

the clergy contributed to the low state of Catholicism in

48 the nineteenth century. 11

Gilberta Freyre admits that 11 it was rare for

ecclesiastics to remain sterile; the great majority of

them contributed liberally to the increase in population. 11

45Thomas B. Neely, South America: Its Missionary Problems (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1909), p:-161.

46Herbert H. Smith, Brazil: The Amazons and the Coast (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879) ,~ 54.

47Kidder, Sketches, vol. 1, p. 316.

4 8George C. A. Boehrer, 11 The Church in the Second Reign, 1840-1889," in Conflict and Continuity, ed. Henry H. Keith and S. F. Edwards (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969), p. 121.

24

With Brazilian diplomacy, however, he softens the revela-

tion by asserting that although the priests kept concubines,

they lived "discreetly, without sin, as it were, .

rearing and educating with care their 'godsons' or 'nephews'"

which were "of superior quality." 49

While the morals of the priests moved some Brazil-

ians to speak out in disapproval, the majority of the

population--at least, the majority of Brazilian men--viewed

the Church with the greatest apathy. The almost complete

absence of men in worship services was noticed by many

foreign visitors to Brazil. One wrote, "It is an age of

almost complete religious indifference, at least among the

men of Brazil." 50

Most of the better educated people yielded only a

discreet assent to the forms and observances of the Church.

Although a few of the more devout made occasional visits

to the confessional and liberal contributions to the

church treasury and to the poor, the rest usually had

little use for the priest other than for the baptism and

burial.

One non-missionary American observer of the times

49 Gilberto Freyre, The Mansions and the Shanties, trans. and ed. Harriet de OlliS (New York-:--Alfred A. Knopf, 19 6 3) 1 PP o 4 4 8 1 4 SQ •

50Nevin 0. Winter, Brazil and Her People of Today (Boston: L. C. Page and Co., 1910_)_,-p~302-3.

25

decided that the Church's main use to the upper classes

was as an "amusement. Rio de Janeiro would be the dullest

city on earth without it," he wrote. 51 The festivals and

the imposing ceremonies connected with them were enjoyed

by believers and non-believers alike. Sundays were a day

of relaxation and games--of boating and horse racing.

The younger generation followed the parents' ex-

ample. Kidder found little respect for religion among the

well-to-do youth.

The apology for almost any license was, 'I am a bad Catholic.' The people generally assented to the dogmas of the Church, but seldom complied with its requirements, except when obliged to do so by their parents, or prompted by the immediate fear of death.52

If the upper classes were characterized by indif-

ference to religion, in the lower classes "fetishism mixed

with badly digested Catholicism was the rule." 53 Although

Masses were well attended (again, mainly by women) , the

attendance was considered by many as a sort of "charm."

Protestants called their religion "baptized paganism." 54

Catholics, with no greater charity, described the worship

51codman, Ten Months, p. 170.

52Kidder, Sketches, val. 1, p. 319.

53 Grah~a, Britain, p. 18.

54James E. Bear, Mission to Brazil (Nashville: Board of World Missions, Presbyterian Church in the United S tate s , 19 61) , p . 2 .

26

as "'practices not only idolatrous and heathenish but even

of an absurd fetishism. '" 55

The celebrations of the Saints' days and other

church festivals provided entertainment for the peasants'

hard lives. The masses were not dreary, solemn affairs,

but were often enlivened with popular folk music. When

asked by an English railroad man why the missa cantada had

no sacred music, but only "dance music," a country priest

replied that "the people were not educated up to it yet,

but he hoped in time to introduce it." 56

Although it was made long after the days of Dom

Pedro, a statement by Getulio Varg·as in 1924 aptly sum-

marizes the relationship of the Church and the majority

of the Brazilian people in the nineteenth century:

'Such a statement [that the Catholic Church is the church of the majority of the Brazilian people] is very disputable. In order that a person might call himself a Catholic, he should know the doc­trine, accept it and live it. ~vith such conditions only an ~lite, a select minority, comply. The high circles in social life have adopted a Catholicism rather sceptical and elegant. And the vast igno­rant masses are still in the age of the fetishist worship of saints with several miracle-working specialities. •57

55Braga and Grubb, Republic, p. 34, citing "Cathol­icism in Brazil," 0 Oriente, 2 December 1866.

5G . h 1 . B . 1 (L d Hast~ngs C ar es Dent, A Year ~n raz~ on on: Kegan Paul, Treach & Co., 1886), p. 71.

57Braga and Grubb, Republic, p. 35, citing an in­terview with Get~lio Vargas in 0 Paiz, 29 August 1925.

27

To the list of all the problems plaguing the Roman

Catholic Church in Dom Pedro's reign, some observers have

been quick to add that of Dom Pedro himself. To be sure,

Dom Pedro (as has been noted previously) was dutiful in

his outward observances of Church ritual. Also, the evi-

dences are not lacking of some inner, personal devotion to

Christian beliefs. Yet, Dom Pedro's actions in at least

two instances roused the Church hierarchy to question his

orthodoxy.

One branch of the Church which could not count on

Dom Pedro's support was that of the religious orders. The

Emperor, like the general public, seemed to view the

wealthy regular clergy as indolent and lacking in morals

and discipline. He supported the efforts of Nabuco de

Araujo to try to reform the convents and monasteries. A

preliminary step was a law prohibiting the admission of

novices. The law was provisional, but it remained in effect

almost to the end of the monarchy.

In his diary, Dom Pedro noted,

It pains me to see how the resources in the religious orders are not being utilized . . . and approving the ideas contained in the Nabuco report, that a portion of these resources be used for the education of the secular clergy, I am opposed to the entrance of novices (male and female) , so the religious orders will gradually disappear.58

58Lyra, Hist6ria, p. 355, citing Dom Pedro II in Di~rio do Imperador, 1861. Translation of: "Doe-me v~r como sao-desaproveitados os hens das ordens religiosas,

28

These views received support from the legislative body.

One deputy rose to voice strong opposition to an effort

to grant admission to novices:

The measure [a proposal to allow admission of novices] is contrary to Nature, unsupported by policy, and alike opposed to morality, to our financial interests, and to the Brazilian Con­stitution.59

The greater cause for questioning Dom Pedro's

orthodoxy came not from his dislike for the orders, how-

ever, but from a contest of wills variously described as

the 11 Masonic Question .. or the 11 Religious Question. Ob-

servers of Dom Pedro's day (as well as today) pounced upon

the incident to demonstrate that Dom Pedro's support of

the Roman Catholic Church and even his own professed reli-

gious vows were merely good public relations work. His

critics saw him allied with the radical liberals and the

Masons, against a Church struggling under monarchial domi-

nation./'Dom Pedro and his supporters viewed the matter as

essentially one of maintaining the honor and dignity of

the Crown.

The Masons found themselves both a cause and a

. e aprovando as id~ias contidas no relat6rio de Nabuco, para que o valor de parte desses bens sirva para a educayao do clero secular, oponho-me a entrada de

.w

novi~os e novi9as, afim de que as ordens se vao extinguindo.

59Kidder, Sketches, p. 202, citing Deputy Senhor Cesar de Menezes.

29

victim of the dispute. Masonry, which had reached a high

state of development in Portugal under the ministry of the

Marquis of Pombal, had sprung up in Brazil at the end of

the colonial era. After independence came the establish-

ment of numerous lodges and considerable support from in-

fluential people. Dom Pedro I, himself, served as the

Grand Master of more than one group.

Masonry in Brazil did not carry the antireligious

or anti-Catholic tones which it had in the Old World. It

was considered primarily a political and patriotic society,

aloof from philosophical and religious contentions. Many

priests, bishops, and monks were members. In the Third

Order of Saint Francis, admission of novices actually

depended on Masonic affiliations.

With such widespread support for the movement and

with its rather innocuous appearance, there is little

wonder that when Pope Pius IX's encyclical of 1864 de-

nounced the Masonic Order, Dom Pedro never gave the paper

the requisite Imperial sanction to allow the circulation

of it in Brazil. His own Council of State President was

Visconde de Rio Branco--Grand Master in Brazil. Pedro

(whose own ties with Masonry are debatable) did not find

the order irreligious and once wrote a friend:

It is at this point that there exists a mis­understanding. Masonry among us is a society

30

that is in no way contrary to religion. What I think is bad is that it is secret, but it is not irreligious.60

The confrontation began to build in 1872 in Rio de

Janeiro when a bishop ordered a priest not to celebrate a

mass ordered by a Masonic lodge. The priest did not comply

and was suspended. The Masons attacked the Church hier-

archy in pamphlets and the press, denouncing the bishop.

Soon the Bishops of Recife and Pare! joined the

dispute by ordering the expulsion of Freemasons from the

religious orders and the brotherhoods (irmandades). The

Brotherhood of the Santfssimo Sacramento refused to comply

and was placed under interdict. Others which defied the

Bishops also had the churches closed to them. Instead of

taking their case to the supreme religious authorities,

the irmandades appealed to the Crown. The conflict had

begun.

As has been shown, the Council of State certainly

was not anti-Masonic. Neither was it anti-brotherhoods,

for the irmandades were well-known for the valuable social

service work they performed. Composed mostly of laymen,

the associations sought bequests and contributions from

members and, with the money, cared for the poor and the

60villa9a, Hist6ria, p. 28. Translation of: "Nisto .I . A . ~.I 'dd e que va~ o engano. ma9onar~a entre nos e uma soc~e a e que nada tern de contrario a religiao. 0 que eu acho mau ~ que seja secreta, mas nao e irreligiosa.

31

sick, gave burials to paupers, and even founded some

hospitals and churches.

The Council of State ruled that the Bishops, as

state-appointed functionaries, had exceeded their rights,

since the papal authority upon which they had based their

bans on Masonry had not been approved by the civil power.

The Council ordered the ban removed. The Bishops retorted

that they had acted exclusively within their spiritual

jurisdiction and continued to place disobedient brother­

hoods under interdict.

The press exploited the furor over the incident.

Street demonstrations were held, supporting or condemning

the bishops. Finally, both bishops were brought to Rio,

tried by the Supreme Court, found guilty (with the Em­

peror's approval) of violating the Constitution and the

Criminal Code, and sentenced to four years' imprisonment

at hard labor and costs.

While the Brazilian Catholic faithful (of Pedro's

day and today) were stunned by the harsh sentence and were

quick to attack Pedro and the question of his faith, the

Emperor himself saw the dispute as clearly a question of

upholding the honor and dignity of the Crown. He resented

the disturbances of civil peace and the inflaming of public

passions along religious lines in a matter which he re­

garded as only the rightful protection of the Constitution,

Imperial authority, and national dignity.

32

In the end--September of 1875--after diplomatic

efforts failed to persuade the Pope to order the Bishops

to restore things as they had been, Pedro was forced to

issue a decree of amnesty to avoid ecclesiastical anarchy

in the country. Although it continued to condemn Free-

masonry, the Papacy responded by promptly ordering the

lifting of the interdicts and the restoration of the

irmandades to their previous status. Bitter resentments,

however, were slow to heal.

S~Atl From all sides, the Emperor was attacked. The

clergy and the conservatives were scandalized by all that

had taken place. Liberals deplored the Emperor's submis-

sion to the Papacy. The Republicans (although certainly

not pro-clerical) cheered any events which embarrassed the

Crown. The Masons suffered loss of prestige and influence

and never again regained their former position. $1t:if Throughout the fracas, the Protestants in Brazil

watched attentively from the sidelines. Although some

were Masons and almost all opposed any Vatican authority

in Brazil, there is no real evidence that Protestants took

highly active roles in inflaming governmental or public

sentiment against the Bishops and the Church. 61 While

61For some interesting, but nonetheless unconvinc­ing, arguments that the Protestants did take an active role, see David Gueiros Vieira, "Some Protestant Missionary Letters Relation to the Religious Question in Brazil: 1872-1875," The Americas 24 (April 1968): 337-53.

33

Protestants were later likely to regard Masons as friends

(indeed, the Masons had, at times, protected Protestants

persecuted by fanatical mobs) , they recognized that the

£riendship with the Masons was often but 11 a willingness

to use the missionary movement as an instrument against

the political power of the clerical power." 62 The Prot-

estants were encouraged to 11 Steer clear of entangling

alliances .. and to emphasize strictly religious and

spiritual enterprises. 63

For the Protestants, the whole dispute must have

been at least an encouragement. The State Church, already

weak in money, priests, and morals, could not always be

confident of the Catholic Emperor's complete support.

While Dam Pedro and the Church argued, the Protestants

continued to enter and to thrive.

62 ub . Am . H ert W. Brown, Lat1n er1ca (New York.: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1891), p. 255.

63Ibid., p. 256.

CHAPTER IV

ENTRANCE OF THE PROTESTANTS

The Protestants entered unimpeded into a nation

in which a liberal monarch eagerly encouraged immigration

and the State Church suffered internal problems and quar­

rels with the Emperor. It was not Dom Pedro II, however,

who actually opened the doors and permitted the first

ones to enter. The initial Protestant arrivals came much

earlier--in 1555. The Reformed religion was first pro­

claimed on the Western Continent in the territory of

Brazil some seventy years before the pilgrims landed at

Plymouth Rock.

French Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon sailed

into the Bay of Rio de Janeiro in 1555 and occupied a fort

and erected a place of worship. He was looking for a place

of asylum for the persecuted Huguenots. On the next trip

to Brazil, the vessels carrying more colonists also car­

ried two ordained ministers and fourteen seminary students.

The Church of Geneva, led by John Calvin and Theodore de

Beza, had sponsored the Christian group to the New World.

Calvin's orders were that prayers be said every evening

after work was done and that one sermon be preached every

34

35

weekday and two on Sunday. The colony was well supplied

with copies of the New Testament in French. It was one

of the earliest instances of Protestant missionary endeavor.

The final outcome of the mission was tragedy.

Villegaignon showed a change of allegiance and avowed him­

self a Roman Catholic. The Huguenots were again persecuted.

Some, by great hardship, returned to France; others fled

into the wilderness. One of these was an early martyr for

the Reformed faith. Jean de Boileau (John Boles) did work

among the Indians. When he attracted the attention of the

Jesuits, he was imprisoned for eight years and finally

brought to Rio by the Jesuit priest, Anchieta, for execu­

tion.

The next Protestant influence came to Brazil when

in the 1630s the Dutch captured Brazil's northeast coast.

Whatever the motives of the commercial Hollanders who

attacked Brazil, the Christians of the small country were

quick to follow them and to establish missionary stations

and classes in Pernambuco and the vicinity. In 1636, eight

ministers and five elders met to form the first "classes"

of the Dutch Reformed Church in Brazil. They sponsored

the publication of a few religious books in Portuguese

and a catechism 1n an Indian language. The work, however,

came to an end with the restoration of Portuguese rule in

36

1654, and the last remnants of this church were erased. 64

No new inroads of lasting value were made by the

Protestants in colonial Brazil in the eighteenth century.

The activities of the Inquisition and the Crown's highly

restrictive legislation made it almost impossible for any

person to land in Brazil who was not in the service of the

Crown or the Church. A few English merchants (who evi-

dently did not seek to proselyte) were admitted under

special treaty agreements between Great Britain and

Portugal in 1661 and 1703, but most foreigners were ex-

eluded. Baron von Humboldt was refused a visit to the

country when government authorities worried he might "in-

feet the minds of the people with 'new ideas and false

principles. "' 65 The great missionary, Henry Martyn, on

his way to India in 1805, could only pray from the deck

of a ship in the harbor of Bahia that a blessing of a pure

gospel would descend upon Brazil--"'Crosses there are in

abundance; but when shall the DOCTRINES of the cross be

held up?'" 66

Protestant penetration could begin anew when the

country was opened to international commerce in 1808 with

64some of the clergymen who were driven out did not return to Holland, but went to New Amsterdam to found Dutch Reform churches in North America.

65Braga and Grubb, Republic, p. 47.

66Fletcher and Kidder, Brazil, p. 486.

37

11 friendly .. nations--with England, in effect, since it was

the only important country that was not under Napoleonic

rule. Treaties of Alliance and Friendship (Alianga e

Arnizade) and Commerce and Navigation (Com~rcio e Navaga9ao)

included provisions protecting foreigners from the Inqui-

sition and promising freedom of worship to foreigners pro-

viding they did not 11 preach or declare publicly against

the Catholic religion or try to make proselytes or conver-

. '' 6 7 s1ons.

Under the provisions of the treaty, Protestants

soon arrived to care for the spiritual needs of the for-

eign communities in Brazil. In 1812, R. E. Jones disem-

barked in Rio to minister to the British Anglicans. The

efforts of Jones and others like him were confined almost

solely to the English community- Attempts were not made

by these chaplains to attract Brazilians to their churches.

Notices in newspapers of worship services were almost al-

ways published only in English. Anglican churches subse­

quently placed in Recife, Salvador, and S~o Paulo followed

the same example.

On August 12, 1819, the cornerstone was laid for

the Church of St. George and St. John the Baptist. This

first Anglican church was in accordance with the 1810

67Ribeiro, Protestantismo, p. 114. Translation of: 11

• • • pregar au declarar pUblicamente contra e religiao Cat6lica au procurar fazer pros,litos au conversSes ...

38

treaty which limited corporate Protestant worship to

private residences and to chapels which had the external

appearance of private houses. King Jogo VI (Dam Pedro

II's grandfather) himself had some changes made in the

plans to ensure that the plain building to be erected

would not suggest a religious purpose.

The German evangelical churches in southern Brazil

likewise did not have their origins in missionary work.

They began and continued as churches admitted by special

permission of the Crown to minister to the spiritual needs

of the European immigrants. In 1824 the first evangelical

worship service in a Protestant colony was held in Nova

Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro. The government, ~n some cases,

guaranteed (as has been previously mentioned) the salary

of the pastors and made grants of land to the congregations

for the erection of churches, parsonages, and schools.

The few well-trained pastors paid by the Brazilian

government were not, however, able to attend to the needs

of the numerous communities scattered over large areas.

Many communities had to elect lay preachers to serve them

when the home churches in Prussia and Switzerland could

not (or would not) send more trained pastors. The situa­

tion was not alleviated until 1863, when, in response to

an urgent plea from the German Protestants in Brazil, the

mother church organized a committee to look after the

Brazilian churches' needs and began to supply pastors

39

from the seminaries 1n Basle and Barmen.

Between 1824 and 1870, forty or more German evan­

gelical churches were organized. The first Lutheran church

building in Brazil was constructed in 1830 in the state of

Rio Grande do Sul--the Igreja de Campo Born. Restrictions

against having steeples and bells were often ignored. A

church was built in Petrop6lis in 1852 with the land and

funds the believers had gained as a result of petitioning

Dom Pedro in a private audience with him.

While the Protestants in Brazil of the diplomatic

and commercial communities and the Protestants in the new

immigrant colonies did not conduct missionary efforts,

their demands for religious freedom guarantees did help

pave the way for the first real missionary effort--the

Bible colporteurs (traveling agents) . The Bible Societies

in England and the United States began to send their agents

in the 1850s, but their work of distributing the Word was

begun many years before.

From 1804 to 1817, the British and Foreign Bible

Society issued 20,000 New Testaments in Portuguese. Many

of these were shipped to Brazil. Christian businessmen

and masters of merchant ships helped in the distribution

of the Scriptures. Over 2,000 Bibles and New Testaments

were distributed in 1822 by British merchants in Recife.

One British merchant, Mr. Thorton, was able to distribute

over 3,000 Bibles throughout Rio, Bahia, Macei6, and Para.

40

By 1825, large consignments of Scriptures in Portuguese,

French, and German (to serve the Swiss and German immi­

grants) were being sent from London.

From its organization in 1816, the American Bible

Society provided copies of the Scriptures to foreign mer­

chants residing on the coast of Brazil. A special com­

mittee was organized for the purpose of establishing

contact with merchants and ship captains who might be

interested in receiving and distributing Bibles.

Agents officially appointed by the Societies began

work in 1854. Included on the list of those who worked

to distribute scriptures are the names of many "giants"

in early Protestant missionary efforts, such as A. L.

Blackford, James C. Fletcher, Daniel P. Kidder, and H. C.

Tucker. These men, joined later by agents of the National

Bible Society of Scotland and other smaller independent

groups, laid the invaluable groundwork for the denomina­

tional missionary work soon to begin. Protestant mission­

aries in later years would be amazed to find small groups

in the interior meeting regularly without a minister to

read the Bible and to pray. 11 Many an old copy of the

Scriptures, kept as a souvenir of a loved one who may have

bought it from one of the pioneer colporteurs, has been

instrumental in the conversion of souls." 68

68Braga and Grubb, Republic, p. 72.

41

From 1836 on, Rev. Daniel P. Kidder traveled ex­

tensively throughout Brazil, distributing Bibles to all

ranks of society. While native colporteurs in later years

were inclined to confine their efforts to the middle and

lower classes, Kidder's habit was to approach the out­

standing citizens in the towns he visited. He gained a

request from a minister of the government for copies of

Bibles for an entire public school and fulfilled the de­

sire of the Sao Paulo legislative assembly for copies of

the New Testament for all the primary schools.

In the early years of distribution, the colporteurs

found an eager market for their books which were sold at

cost or below. When a supply of books was offered for

sale and advertised in the newspapers, a rush of people

of all ages and conditions came from Rio and distant prov­

inces to buy them. In the Appendix to his book Sketches

of Residence and Travels in Brazil, Kidder gives many

charming examples of the notes from parents or masters

which children and servants carried to him, requesting a

copy of the Bible. Not only government officials, but

even some priests (although somewhat excited and jealous,

Kidder claims) came to ask for the Scriptures.69

This distribution of the Bible in a Roman Catholic

country was not without some opposition. The earliest

69Kidder, Sketches, vel. 1, pp. 138-39.

42

polemics against the Societies came in 1837 and 1839 in

books written by Father Lu!z Gon9alves dos Santos.

Colporteurs in later years were careful to make at least

a small charge for all Bibles, afraid that otherwise the

people would soon beg the entire supply, "ostensibly to

read, but in reality to deliver them up to their masters,

70 the priests, to be destroyed." Kidder found, however,

that the articles and speeches against him often worked

for the good of his efforts:

This species of opposition almost always had the effect to awaken greater inquiry after the Bible, and many were the individuals who, on coming to procure the Scriptures, said their attention was first called to the subject by the unreasonable and fanatical attempts of certain priests to hin­der their circulation. They condemned the idea, as absurd and ridiculous, that these men should attempt to dictate to them what they should or should not read, or to set up an inquisitorial crusade against the Bible. They wished it [the Bible], and if for no other reason, that they might show that they possessed religious liberty, and were determined to enjoy it.71

The earliest beginnings of actual denominational

missionary work in Brazil can be traced back to 1834, when

the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church in

the United States issued a call for volunteers for mission-

ary work in South America. Reverend Fountain E. Pitts

answered the call and landed in Rio de Janeiro on

70william Azel Cook, Through the Wilderness of Brazil (New York: American Tract Society, 1909), p.~70.

71K'dd Sk t h 1 l 140 ~ e r , e c e s , vo . , p . .

43

August 18, 1834. After preaching in private residences

for a few months, he returned to the United States with

such encouraging reports that in March, 1836, Reverend R.

Justin Spaulding sailed for Rio. There he organized a

congregation of some forty foreigners, chiefly from among

English and American residents. Some Brazilian children

attended the day-school and Sabbath-day schools which he

conducted. On Sunday mornings his usual practice was to

devote his efforts to the spiritual needs of seamen,

preaching on board ships and distributing tracts and

Scripture portions.

Spaulding was joined in 18.37 by Reverend Daniel P.

Kidder, who (as has been previously noted) was very active

in distributing great quantities of Bibles. The work which

he and Rev. James C. Fletcher (agent of the American Bible

Society from 1854 to 1856) did as missionary colporteurs

had two results. Not only was the cause of Protestant

missions well served, but also their labors provided them

with material to write two books which have become classics

on nineteenth-century Brazil. (One admirer observed, "What

these two missionaries did not know about the Brazil of

their day was not worth knowing.") 72 The books were in-

spiration to future missionaries to Brazil and were

72 Roy Nash, The Conquest of Brazil (New York: Harcourt Brace & World, Inc., 1926; reprinted., New York: Bible and Tannen, 1968), p. 400.

44

instrumental in many of the decisions of Southerners from

the United States after the Civil War to go to Brazil.

The pioneer Methodist work was closed in 1842.

From that time until 1855 (the early years of Dam Pedro's

reign) , the Protestant movement in the count!Y was repre­

sented only by the Protestant immigrants and their minis­

ters and by the few converts whom the early missionaries

or the Bibles left by the colporteurs had made. Bible

societies still made occasional consignments of Scriptures

to Brazil, but the next establishment of regular, orga­

nized work did not take place until Dr. Robert Reid Kalley,

a Scottish physician, landed in Ri~ on 10 March 1855.

Dr. Kalley's ministry in Brazil forms a unique

episode in the history of the Protestant movement in

Brazil. Although he had come from a Scottish Presbyterian

family and later was to send his workers to study at British

Baptist schools, Kalley claimed complete freedom from de­

nominational ties. With no affiliation with any established

ecclesiastical body abroad, however, he effectively began

the Congregational Churches in Brazil.

Kalley had been the former leader of the Protestant

community on the Portuguese island of Madeira (where he

had gone in 1839 for the sake of his wife's health). Along

with dispensing free medical aid, he had preached to the

community--sometimes to over a thousand listeners. Severe

persecution developed, and in 1845 he and his adherents

45

were forced to flee the mobs. When some of his converts

settled in Rio de Janeiro, he joined them in 1855.

With the help of these friends from Madeira, his

work prospered. In 1858, a church was incorporated in Rio

with a small group of converts--the first real church for

Brazilian Protestants. (Today it is the Igreja Evangelica

Fluminense.) By 1871, the church had over 150 members and

two years later it had helped to organize a second congre­

gation in Pernambuco. The pulpit in Rio was filled in

1875 by a Brazilian convert, J. M. Gon9alves dos Santos,

whom Kalley had sent to Spurgeon's College in London for

training in theology and pastoral technique.

The intriguing aspect of Kalley's work, however,

was not the success he realized without actual denomina­

tional backing, but the relationship he had with the Bra­

zilian nobility and even with Dam Pedro himself. Kalley

had a house in Petropolis, next door to that of the United

States ambassador. After introductions had been made, Dam

Pedro became a frequent visitor in Kalley's home. The two

had many common interests; both had studied Greek and

Hebrew and had traveled in the Near East and the Holy

Lands. The Emperor was making translations into Portu­

guese of various poems and prose (mostly New England

authors) into English. Kalley had translated Pilgrim's

Progress into Portuguese and had serialized it in a Rio

de Janeiro newspaper.

46

Kalley's friendship with Dom Pedro did not rouse

the ire of the Roman Catholic Church, but Kalley's success

in converting members of the royal Court did. On January

7, 1859, he baptized two ladies of the nobility--Dona

Gabriela Augusta Carneiro Leao, sister of the Marquis of

Parana and of the Baron of Santa Maria, along with her

daughter, Dona Henriqueta. The Church responded through

the Papal Nuncio with a demand that the Foreign Minister,

the Viscount of Rio Branco, request that the British au­

thorities put a stop to Kalley's open preaching of Prot­

estantism in Brazil. The Catholic press made a violent

attack against the missionary. On the other side, three

prominent lawyers (Nabuco, among them) argued that Kalley

had not violated the law.

The Viscount finally did make a rather half­

hearted complaint to the British authorities, but the sting

was taken out of the complaint when, at the height of the

furor, Dom Pedro chose to make a two-hour visit to the

bedside of Dr. Kalley, who was ill. The missionary con­

tinued to preach and later made other converts within the

nobility. He continued to suffer also occasional perse­

cutions, however, and, at times, had to endure threats

and insults, the rocks and even excrements which were

thrown at him.

Dr. Kalley's faithfulness and endurance prepared

the way for the arrival of the next denominational

47

missionaries--the Presbyterians. Ashbel Green Simonton

arrived in August of 1859 to begin the work. After first

mastering the Portuguese language thoroughly, he traveled

extensively throughout the provinces of Rio de Janeiro

and Sao Paulo. Although he and Dr. Kalley were friends,

Simonton (an eager young man in his twenties) felt that

Kalley was confining himself too closely to the upper

class. The Presbyterian chose to be more aggressive in

his preaching and desired to appeal more openly to the

73 public 1n general.

After the Civil War in the United States, three

more groups of missionaries arrived in Brazil--the Southern

Presbyterians, the Methodist Episcopal (South), and the

Baptists. The Methodist Episcopals sent Reverend J. J.

Ransom in 1876 to Rio. Later he joined with a Brazilian,

Dr. Joao Correia, in evangelistic work in the state of Rio

Grande do Sul. At the other end of the country, Methodist

work was begun in the state of Amazonia in 1883.

Although few in number, the Methodists' effects

were far-reaching. Ransom's first converts in 1879 in­

cluded an ex-priest, Father Ant6nio Teixeira de Albuquerque

(who later was of great help to the Southern Baptist mis-

sionaries). Ransom recruited four new missionaries from

73The Presbyterian missionary efforts--the first enduring work of national scope--will be discussed 1n greater detail in the following chapter. The account of Kalley's work is based on Braga and Grubb, Republic; Graham, Britain; Ribeiro, Protestantismo; and Vieira, "Some Protestant Hissionary Letters."

48

the United States; one of them, Miss Martha Watts, estab-

lished the first Methodist school in the country in 1881.

Some seeds sown by the Methodist missionaries

during the reign of Dom Pedro did not bear their fruit

until years later. Reverend J. E. Newman, originally sent

to minister to the southern American immigrants, moved to

Piracicaba, Sao Paulo, in 1880. There, his daughters

established a private school. Among the friends the

Methodist missionary made in the town was a young lawyer,

Dr. Prudente de Moraes Barros, who was later (1894) to

become President of the Republic of Brazil. The friendship

between these two men and the favorable impression made by

the small Protestant school on the future President "did

much to open the country to the Protestant missions, and

was a powerful factor in the great changes in education

d h bl • • 1174 un er t e repu lean reglme.

Baptist work in Brazil had a poor start in 1859 when

Reverend T. J. Bowen was transferred from Yoruba in Africa

to Brazil. The Brazilian people "suspected him of being

an insurrectionist when he spoke to their African slaves

in their own Yoruba tongue." 75 In poor health, Bowen soon

left for the United States, reporting to his American

74Braga and Grubb, Republic, pp. 62-63.

75aelen Bagby Harrison, The Bagbys of Brazil (Nashville: Broadman Press, 195~ pp. 19-20.

49

Baptist Board of Missions that conditions in Brazil were

not favorable for mission work.

Nonetheless, Baptist representatives later returned

to Brazil. Some were sent to minister to the southern

American colonists. Others--beginning with Reverend W. B.

Bagby and Reverend z. c. Taylor in 1881--were authorized

by the Southern Baptist Convention to begin work among the

Brazilians. By 1882, the first Brazilian Baptist church

had been organized. It reported seventy-five members by

the next year. The first Baptist school opened in 1890,

only shortly after Dom Pedro's reign ended.

As has been mentioned earl.ier, the American Civil

War (1861-1865) had a far-reaching effect on the evangel-

ical work in Brazil. The last churches to send representa-

tives during Dom Pedro's reign were "products" of the War--

newly formed southern evangelical churches. Their interest

in Brazil was in great part due to the work of Confederate

General A. T. Hawthorne. Very much concerned with the

plight of those whose lives had been ruined by the War,

the General visited Brazil to investigate the possibilities

for immigration. He was introduced to Dom Pedro, who was

enthusiastic about the plans and later offered 11 free trans-

portation from Rio to the interior, guides and interpreters

and land at 22 cents an acre." 76

76 . . 5 Bear, M1ss1on, p. •

50

The promise of cheap land and a good climate in a

country where slavery was still legal sounded very good to

many of the defeated, discouraged Southerners. As the

former Confederates read avidly of this tropical "paradise,"

new editions of Fletcher and Kidder's Brazil and the Brazil-

ians had to be run in 1866, 1867, and 1868. The book,

Brazil, The Home for Southerners, by Ballard S. Dunn, en-

couraged many more to consider going. Dunn, rector of

Saint Phillip's Church in New Orleans and formerly of the

Confederate Ar~y, printed exciting, optimistic reports of

the new land:

We have the best system of government known to men; while it combines all the elements of strength requisite to insure its stability against every emergency, it guarantees PRACTICAL EQUALITY to ALL its citizens, and administers justice with a firm and willing hand. We have a monarchy (thank God!) in name, and a TRUE Republic in practice; and under the wise administration of our good Emperor, our destiny must be onward and upward to a degree of prosperity unknown to other countries.77

In the next years following the War, approximately

four thousand Southerners arrived in Brazil to begin a new

life. Four colonies were begun--one at Santar~m on the

Amazon, one on the east coast of Brazil in Bahia, and two

in the state of Sao Paulo. Farming was the chief occupa-

tion. Although slavery in Brazil continued until 1888,

77 (New Orleans: Bloomfield & Steel, 1866), p. 178.

51

very few of the colonists actually acquired slaves. The

bitter resentments, however, carried from the Civil War

days were a long time in dying. Describing the Reverend

Ballard Dunn's colony, John Cadman wrote:

It is the avowed determination of the reverend head of this colony, that his people shall keep themselves separate from Northerners. If any should show themselves . . . they may expect to be driven away, as the Quakers were once ousted from the sacred soil of New England.78

Even with such great expectations, the major por-

tion of the American immigrants stayed less than five

years. One boat-load of colonists, upon arrival in Brazil,

rented a hall and proceeded to burn the American flag, de-

claring themselves to be forever separated from the United

States. Within six months, many of the same were on board

ship, returning to the United States, unable to withstand

the rigors of the new country. Cadman recorded some of the

returnees' complaints:

The disappointed homeward-bound men told us that it was 'a country not fit for a dog; 1 that the bichos [insects] destroyed the cattle, the ants ate the seed faster than it could be planted; there was either too much rain or not enough; the Brazilians were bad neighbors; no labor was to be had; there were no churches or schools; all, all was discouraging and cheerless!79

The groups of colonists who chose to remain,

though small in number, had a significant effect on the

78codman, Ten Months, p. 183.

79 b"d 130 I ~ . ' p. .

52

decisions of the new "southern" churches in the United

States to make Brazil their field of missionary endeavor.

Several ministers accompanied the colonists to Brazil.

One who went to the Santa Barbara colony in Sao Paulo was

Rev. William C. Emerson who formerly had been the Moderator

of the East Mississippi Presbytery. Faced as they were,

however, with the necessity of making a living for them-

selves by farming, these clergy could not adequately

minister to the spiritual needs of those around them and

so heartily joined with the colonists in making appeals to

the "mother" churches to send out missionaries to preach

to them, as well as to spread the ·Protestant Gospel to the

natives.

Missionaries in Brazil, faced with the already

great task of nurturing their fledgling Brazilian churches,

could not adequately serve the new colonists. Presbyterian

missionary A. L. Blackford joined to plead the colonists'

request, "'There's not a single settlement of Americans

as far as I know where the Gospel is steadily preached.

Their future welfare and influence on the native popula­

tion depend on something being done for them. , .. so

The southern Presbyterian, Methodist Episcopal,

and Baptists churches did respond. Their newly arrived

80 Weaver, "Confederate Immigrants," p. 455, citing A. L. Blackford to H. B. Pratt in Missionary 1 (October 1868).

53

missionaries found a hearty welcome in the colonists'

homes, much encouragement for their Gospel-spreading

labors, and a "bonus," as well--the many lovely Christian

daughters of marriageable age. The family names of many

of the early colonists appear even today on the missionary

roles of the churches in the United States. One "patri­

arch" was Captain James W. Miller, formerly of South

Carolina. Five of his granddaughters were to be the

wives of missionaries--providing yet another way that

the colonists aided in establishing the Protestants in

Brazil.

CHAPTER V

THE PRESBYTERIANS

In relating the history of Protestant penetration

in Brazil during Dom Pedro's reign, the Presbyterians de-

serve more detailed attention. Their work was not only

the first truly denominational effort which had lasting

success in Brazil, it was also the first to attain national

. 81 proport1ons. .

In 1859, the Board of Foreign Missions of the

Presbyterian Church in the United States of America sent

out young Ashbel Green Simonton as its first missionary

to Brazil. He quickly made friends among the American and

English residents in Rio and began to apply himself to the

task of learning the Portuguese language. In a small hall

which he had rented in the central part of the city,

Simonton began teaching English free of charge to small

groups of Brazilians, speaking to them constantly of the

81unless otherwise noted, the history of the Pres­byterians was compiled using the following sources: Bear, Mission; Braga and Brugg, Republic; Julio Andrade Ferreira, Hist6ria da Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil, vol. 1 (Sao Paulo: Casa Edit6ra Presbiteriana, 1959); William E. Read, New Patterns in Church Growth in Brazil (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing-co., 1965).

54

55

Gospel. Only eight months after his arrival he was able

to open a Sabbath-day school for children. On January 12,

1862, the first Presbyterian church in Rio was instituted

and the sacraments were administered. Simonton baptized

the first two converts--one of them, a businessman, the

representative of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Two

years later, the membership in the church had risen to

over one hundred.

Of special significance was the weekly newspaper

which Simonton began to print in November of 1864. With

his Imprensa Evang~lica he hoped to reach many who would

not come to his worship services:

Through this means [the newspaper] we instruct many who cannot be reached by other methods cur­rently being used in preaching the Gospel • A number of people, perhaps greater than is thought, are aware of the Gospel only through the reading of the Imprensa Evangelica.82

He was aided in the publishing by convert Antonio dos

Santos Neves, a government employee, who contributed many

articles to the paper and later authored many Brazilian

hymns.

Simonton was pleased with the acceptance of his

paper. Subscriptions (including some from the Court's

82Ferreira, Historia, p. 36, citing Ashbel Green Simonton in Annual Reports, 24 January 1867. Translation of: "Par este meio instru:lmos muitos que nao estao ao alcance de outros meios atualmente empregados na pregaQao do Evangelho. . Urn nlimero de pessoas talvez maior que se pensa, sb tern not{cia de Evangelho par meio da leitura da Imprensa Evangelica."

56

nobility) were almost always renewed. Simonton reported

that even some well-stationed priests "'have confessed

that the Imprensa is a defender of the truth. '" 83 Like­

wise, the Rio newspaper, 0 Di~rio, gave the newspaper a

favorable review.

Although Simonton's ministry was extremely fruitful,

it was also representative of the sorrows and dangers to

which he and all other missionaries of that time were

subject. Simonton had returned from a short furlough to

the States in 1864 with a new young bride, Helen. Just

over a year later, Helen died, a week after childbirth.

Simonton himself was to live only three more years--he

fell victim to yellow fever at the age of thirty-four.

The Presbyterian work was continued by Simonton's

brother-in-law, Alexander Blackford, who had arrived in

April of 1860. He had had much greater difficulty in

learning the language, but had proved a hard, able worker.

He aided in the work in Rio, but soon moved on to Sao

Paulo where he organized three churches. Blackford served

also as the agent for the London Bible Society for a ten-

year period. Some help for his missionary work came from

Rev. Francis J. c. Schneider, a naturalized United States

citizen (born in Germany) whom the Presbyterian Church in

83rbid. Translation of: "tern confessado que a Imprensa ~ uma defensora da verdade."

57

New York had sent out in December of 1861 to minister to

the German colonists in Sgo Paulo.

One of the most significant events of Blackford's

early ministry was the conversion of a priest, Father Jos~

Manoel da Concei9ao. Concei9ao had been the priest in

Brotas, Sao Paulo. While studying about St. Anthony in

order to preach a festival day sermon, he discovered that

there was no mention of St. Anthony in his Bible. As he

began to read the Scriptures carefully for himself, he was

eager for someone with whom he could discuss the Bible and

its teachings. Blackford heard of his interest and went

to visit him. The meeting marked a great turning point in

Concei9ao's life.

After long discussions with Blackford, the priest

went on to Rio for study with Simonton. On October 23,

1864, Concei9ao made a profession of faith in Jesus, was

re-baptized, and became a member of the Presbyterian Church

of Rio de Janeiro. (The news traveled quickly and a bishop

soon served him with a notice of excommunication and pro­

nounced him "insane.") He was soon preaching with great

zeal to vast crowds (many, to be sure, who came only to

goggle at the spectacle of an ex-priest!). On December 17,

1865, Concei9ao was ordained in the newly formed Presbytery

of Rio de Janeiro.

Immediately Concei9ao began the extensive mission­

ary trips for which he became famous. He began his

58

wanderings without money, carrying only his Bible and a

valise, in which he had a medicine chest for the needy

and the poor. Although the American missionaries were

greatly inspired by his work, they were frequently con­

fused by his somewhat unorthodox methods:

A plan of campaign would be mapped out, involv­ing his going hither and yon, this plan being talked over with him with no assent or dissent save occasional grunts; then the next morning it would be discovered that he had taken his staff and started a hike entirely of his own devising.84

He was persecuted in every possible way. Despite

his long journeys over an immense area, he seldom (as an

ex-priest) was offered any hospitality. Often he was even

stoned and beaten. One night he fell by the roadside to

die--exhausted by nine years of hard labor, physical suf-

fering, and deprivations. He was taken into a military

garrison nearbyL where he died on December 25, 1873. The

commanding officer of the garrison, influenced apparently

by Concei9ao's life and his death, was converted.

The influence of Concei9ao was felt for many years

after his death. Missionaries traveling to remote villages

often found that the Gospel had been preached there years

before by the Brazilian. Tales were circulated about the

St. Francis-like life he lived. His place in the history

84w. Reginald Wheeler and others, Modern Missions in Chile and Brazil (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1926) 1 p.~8.

of Brazilian Protestants was secure:

Brazilian Protestantism had, in Conceiyao-­who opened its paths and crowned its begin­nings with a mystical halo--a saint.85

59

Blackford, along with Schneider, Pierce Chamberlain,

and others continued establishing small churches throughout

Sao Paulo, reaping the fruits of Concei9ao's labors. They

were soon joined by the first representatives of the Pres-

byterian Church in the United States (the post-Civil War

"southern" Presbyterian Church). Rev. George Nash Morton

of Mississippi and Rev- Edward Lane of Georgia were sent--

the first of more than twenty missionaries which the

southern church was to send during the reign of Dom Pedro.

Although their committee on missions had recom-

mended that a mission be established on the coast of Brazil,

Morton and Lane were attracted to the town of Campinas in ,....

the interior of the state of Sao Paulo. The work and sue-

cesses of Concei9ao had persuaded many missionaries that

the interior, rather than the coastal cities, might be the

more fruitful area for evangelistic endeavors. Also,

Campinas was located nor far from the American immigrant

colony in Santa Barbara. Morton hoped that "'the social

and commercial relations of these settlers with the natives

of the country'" would facilitate his work with the

85L~onard, "0 Protestantismo," p. 154. Translation of: "0 Protestanismo brasileiro teve, em Conceip~o--que abriu seus caminhos e nimbou seus prim6rdios de uma aurela ml:stica--um santo ...

60

Brazilians and would give him "'a rare opportunity of

teaching the adherents of an apostate church the evan­

gelical truth. '" 86

The first months in Campinas after the arrival of

Lane and Morton (and Morton's wife) were spent in learning

the language and making trips to neighboring towns where

they hoped to establish preaching points. Northern Pres-

byterian friends, such as Rev. Hugh W. McKee and Rev.

George Chamberlain, often accompanied them, eager to help

them begin their work.

From their first visit in October, 1869, Lane and

Morton made it a practice to preach in the colony of Santa

Barbara once a month. At first, the services were held in

private homes; ~n 1870 the Methodists, Baptists, and Pres-

byterians build a corrununity church building (called "Campo

Church") and set aside the land beside it for a cemetery.

Along with the usual work of organizing Sunday

schools and churches in Campinas, Morton taught in a pri-

vate col~gio five nights a week. He was teaching Greek to

the Brazilian professors, using the New Testament as a

textbook. He also tutored three boys, two of whom were

Americans.

Morton and Lane dreamed of establishing a first-rate

86 M' . Bear, ~ss~on, p. 11, citing Edward Lane in The Missionary, vol. 2, p. 24.

61

Protestant college in Campinas. On a trip to the States

in 1871, Lane was able to convince the Executive Committee

o£ the Presbyterian General Assembly of the need to appro­

priate the money to begin the school. The Colegio Inter­

nacional opened its doors to both Brazilian and American

immigrant students in 1873. Missionary men and women were

the professors, teaching in both English and Portuguese.

The school campus increased in property size and

number of buildings. The enrollment reached 187 students

in 1878. Dam Pedro, accompanied by the governor of the

state, had visited the school 1n 1875 and "expressed him­

self as well pleased with the work done there. 1187 To all

outward appearances the school was firmly established and

was a great success.

The whole endeavor came to an unhappy end, however,

in 1879. Morton, somewhat obsessed with promoting the

growth o£ the college, continued to build, even without

the financial support needed. The college was deeply in

debt. The financial panic of 1873 in the United States

had a£fected church giving and had left the Executive Com­

mittee of the General Assembly entirely unable to meet

Morton's request for twelve thousand dollars to pay the

school's debts. Bonds were finally issued, but money

problems continued to plague the school.

87rbid. I p. 15.

62

In the end, as the situation grew worse, the Pres­

byterian mission requested that Morton turn over the fi­

nances to another missionary, John W. Dabney. Morton

refused and suddenly went to Sao Paulo with about half

of the faculty and students to open his own school in

that city. 88 The whole mission was ln an uproar.

Although the Col~gio Internacional continued in

Campinas (until 1892) , the tragic experience of the school

venture affected the thrust of the Presbyterian mission

for many years to come. Those missionaries who felt that

the church was not responsible for secular education used

the school as an example of why mi'ssionaries should con­

fine themselves to evangelism and the training of church

leadership. While some Protestant missionaries, faced with

widespread ignorance and encouraged by the government and

the nationals, devoted themselves to educational, medical,

and agricultural aid, the Presbyterian leaders, chastened

by the Carnpinas experience, were convinced for many years

to come that the establishment of self-supporting, self­

governing, and self-propagating churches was the central

function of missions.

While the southern Presbyterians tried to solve

the school problem in Campinas, the northern Presbyterian

missionaries worked with greater success. In 1870,

88This school ended in bankruptcy in 1881.

63

Chamberlain and his wife had opened the Escola Americana . ,., ~n Sao Paulo. Later to be known as Mackenzie Institute

and to be the largest university in Brazil, the school

began with only three pupils--"one white boy, one black

boy, and one white girl, thus beginning coeducation and

the democratic mixture of social classes which has con-

t . d . ,,89 ~nue ever s~nce.

The northern Presbyterian missionaries also con-

tinued to multiply churches in the states of Rio de Janeiro

and Sao Paulo. The Presbytery of Rio de Janeiro was formed

in 1865. A seminary was established in Rio in 1867 so that

Brazilians could be trained to serve the growing number of

congregations. The area around Carnpinas had proved an

especially fruitful area for growth; by 1882, the field

had six mission stations and sixteen organized churches.

The southern Presbyterians, with less "open" ter-

ritory now that the "northerners" had moved in to work,

began to search for new areas to evangelize. A German-

born colporteur, Philip Wingerter, had brought such enthu-

siastic reports of the possibilities in Minas Gerais and

~· Goias that Rev. John Boyle was determined to increase the

mission field to include those areas. In the summer of

1887, Boyle and his wife, along with Rev. George W.

Thompson, moved to Bagagem (Estrela do Sul), just south

89 Wheeler and others, Modern Missions, p. 194.

64

of the Goi6s border in Minas Gerais. Their work there

was to include not only preaching, but also the printing

(beginning in 1888) of a Christian newspaper, A Evangelista.

Boyle made long trips into the interior, delighted

at the receptiveness of the people to his preaching of the

Gospel. In the summer of 1889, he took his whole family

on a six-hundred-mile trip on horseback. "His two older

boys rode ponies. The youngest rode on a pillow in front

of his father, and all stood the trip well. They had

seven pack mules for their things." 90

Another field of expansion was 1n northern Brazil.

The southern Presbyterian church sent Rev. J. Rockwell

Smith to Recife in January, 1873. Smith surveyed the whole

northern area and quickly saw the need for missionaries 1n

many places--Recife, Bel~m, Sao Luiz, and Macei6. He

dreamed of opening schools, printing Gospel literature,

and hiring more Bible colporteurs. His dreams were soon

crushed when the Panic of 1873 put the mother church in

the United States deeply into debt. No more new mission-

aries could be sent out for several years.

Smith labored alone for most of the years between

1874 and 1883. The additional help sent from time to time

was removed one after another by ill health or death.

Smith persevered, however, and by 1878, he had organized

90 M" . 21 Bear, lSSlon, p. .

65

a church in Recife. Services often were attended by as

many as two hundred people. He was able to train person­

ally some ministerial students and to use them as part­

time colporteurs and evangelists. A little magazine was

published, starting in 1876.

Smith's frequent letters to the States, urgently

requesting more help, finally met with success. By 1887

there were seven missionaries in northern Brazil: Rev.

and Mrs. Smith, Rev. and Mrs. DeLacy Wardlaw, Dr. and Mrs.

George Butler (he was both a minister and a physician) ,

and Mr. William Porter (a lay missionary who had come as

a youth with his family from Alabama to the American colony

in Sao Paulo). The mission's work was scattered from Sao

Luiz in Maranhao to Maceib in Alagoas. A Presbytery of

Pernambuco was organized in 1888 and three Brazilian

ministers were ordained.

Although the work was making good progress, both

in numbers and in area, the missionaries labored under

increasingly hazardous conditions. The threat of yellow

fever was constant--claiming missionary victims with

appalling frequency. Religious persecution, while not so

intense during Dom Pedro's reign as it was to be afterwards,

was, nonetheless, a very real threat to the Protestants.

In the earliest days of Protestant work, this

opposition generally was confined to books and pamphlets

written to denounce the "heretics.'' Often these attacks

66

(and the Masonic press' denounciation of them) only served

to make the Protestants' presence better known to the

country and even to create some sympathy for the Prates-

tants.

As the missionary work claimed greater numbers of

converts and began to move into the more isolated interior

villages, the persecution often became physical. Often

inspired by the village priest, fanatical mobs attacked

missionaries and their followers and pelted their homes

and churches with stones. The missionary letters from

those days best describe the situation. A Presbyterian

worker in Rio Grande do Norte wrote in 1887:

Tomorrow I expect to go to Baturite. Since my last trip, my lay helper had been there twice, and our little congregation is consolidated and persecuted. News comes today that I am to be attacked. I hope that it may not be so. I try to be prudent, but I do not see what else I can do but go. I cannot be more prudent unless I pack up and leave the country. Everywhere oppo­sition is increasing.91

Persecution was common to all the denominations'

missionaries. Reports to the foreign missions boards were

often filled with descriptions of stonings and threats of

death. Presbyterian missionary George Butler vividly re-

counted the persecutions in a report:

91 b . d 4 4 . . Th M. . 1 2 0 I 1 ., p. , c1t1ng e 1ss1onary, vo • , p. 10.

67

Twice the worship was closed and once the workers were compelled to flee for life. Then commenced a persecution which lasted nearly a year and took the form of stoning houses, and all conceivable little annoyances, even to stealing and breaking up of the material for a church building ..• Following these petty annoyances came an epidemic of yellow fever, lasting five months, and although the Lord saved all the believers, still the hearing of woes of others, and seeing their dead, made us all feel that we were in the very midst of the plagues of Egypt. Just as we began to think we had gotten to a resting place, an attempt at taking my life resulted in the stabbing and immediate kill­ing of my companion at my side. He was wounded through the right lung, and before I [Butler was a physician] could open his clothes to find the wound, all his blood was spilled for Christ's sake and for me.92

Despite all the persecutions, the attacks of yellow

fever, and the shortage of trained workers, the Presbyterian

church was firmly established by the end of Dom Pedro's

reign in 1889. "Northern" and "southern" Presbyterians

had agreed to join together in 1888 to form the Synod of

Brazil. In the Synod's four Presbyteries (Rio de Janeiro,

Campinas, West Minas, and Pernambuco) there were twelve

Brazilian ministers and twenty missionaries. Over three

thousand communicant members and almost fifteen hundred

non-communicant members were counted on the roles of the

church--making secure the Presbyterians' first foothold

in Brazil.

92Ibid., p. 52, citing 37th Annual Report, p. 27.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSIONS

The success of the Protestants during Dom Pedro's

reign was, indeed, "astonishing.'' The missionaries had

preached the Gospel throughout the country--from Amazonas

to Rio Grande do Sul. Dozens of small congregations,

thousands of converts, several schools and seminaries

attested to the dedicated efforts of the first Methodist,

Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, and German Lutheran

workers. Although Brazil was clearly still a Roman Cath­

olic country, the Protestants' presence and influence was

growing.

The Protestants had made good progress for several

reasons. Dom Pedro's liberal, inquiring character and his

strong desire to promote immigration assured the Protestants

of the Emperor's welcome. The problems within the Roman

Catholic Church hampered any strong, completely effective

opposition to the Crown's permission for the missionaries'

entry. Not only was their political and spiritual status

at a low ebb, the Catholics simply needed more priests.

"Catholicism gave souls the need for faith, a fervant

religious life, and morality, but

68

• lacking priests,

69

the Church could not always satisfy this need to nourish

and educate Christian feeling." 93 The Protestants were

ready to fill this need.

While the missionaries eagerly raced throughout

the country to spread the Gospel, new Brazilian converts

were forced to shoulder a large part of the responsibility

for and the work of the new Protestant churches. Native

ministers, evangelists, and colporteurs necessarily pro-

vided the sole leadership in many areas. This situation

was helpful in assuring an enduring Brazilian foundation

for a church which had had its beginnings as a "foreign

import."

With conditions so favorable, however, the question

might be asked, Why was not still greater progress made?

Some of the limitations on the success of the missionaries

have been discussed previously. The persecution by non-

Protestants and the decimating battles with yellow fever

obviously hurt missionary efforts. Money and workers were

never abundant and often were stretched too thinly over

94 the vast country. Mission groups were sometimes in

93Bastide, "Religion and the Church," p. 349.

94The depressed financial situation in the United States in the 1870s was not the only reason that Brazilian missionaries did not have all the money they desired. The eagerness of the home churches to open new work in other fields around the world (China and Japan, in the case of the Presbyterian churches) , meant that less funds for Brazilian efforts were available.

70

disagreement as to where available funds should be spent--

in evangelistic or educational endeavors? in the interior

or in the coastal cities?

Undoubtedly, the apathy of many Brazilians toward

any spiritual message (whether Protestant or Roman Catholic)

prevented greater Protestant success. The methods used by

the missionaries, however, may have discouraged even many

would-be converts. Too often British and American workers

tried to transplant their native ways of worship, without

modifying them for a completely different people and

nation. Direct translations of the worship liturgies into

Portuguese were not always entirely successful. The imag-

ery (e.g ... whiter than snow 11) and the style and rhythm of

the hymns often sounded stiff and foreign to Brazilian

ears. Some of the Brazilians must have asked (as one has

today) ,

In what way could one incorporate, into the religious service, into the liturgy, into the hymns, our language, and our rhythm? To what degree are the cultural aspects of European and North American protestantism incompatible with our style and the nature of the Latin American man?95

95waldo A. c6sar, Protestantismo e Imperialismo na Am~rica Latina (Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro: Edit5ra Vozes Limitada, 1968), p. 82. Translation of: 11 De que forma se poderia incorporar, no culto, na sua liturgia, e nos seus hinos, a nossa linguagem, eo nosso ritmo? At~ que ponto os tra9os culturais do protestantismo europeo e norte­americana sao incompatfveis com o nosso estilo e com a natureza do homen latino-americano? ..

71

Probably the worst error of the missionaries and

a great hindrance to progress was the obsession which many

Protestants had against Roman Catholicism. One Protestant

missionary delivered this vehement judgment against his

"rivals":

[The moral results of Romanism] have been graphi­cally described by the Apostle Paul in the last twelve verses of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Not one word of that tremendous indictment need be changed in reference to Brazil; and doubtless the same is true in relation to all the countries where Romanism prevails. It is amaz­ing to hear men who have access to the Word of God and the facts of history, and of the actual state of the world, attempt to apologize for, or even defend, Romanism. Romanism is not Christian-ity. . . There is not an essential truth of the Christian religion which is not distorted, covered up, neutralized, poisoned and completely nullified by the doctrines and practices of the Romish system.96

Some interested listeners were no doubt shocked

and alienated by the missionaries who routinely preached

the errors of Catholicism, rather than the love of Jesus.

Many Brazilians who perhaps were only "lukewarm" in their

Catholic faith were no doubt roused to a strong allegiance

when the Church was attacked so strongly. An astute

observer from England commented on the problem:

Unfortunately, many of our own Church [Anglican] and Protestants who labour among Roman Catholics are often eager to instruct, beginning with vio­lent abuse of the Roman Church rather than edu­cating their hearers by enlarging on the truths they have been taught and instilling the doctrines

96 . . 117 Brown, Lat~n Amer~ca, p. .

of the Guspel, leaving the truth to work, as Elisha did with Naaman. Therefore, such teachers are spoken against by the ecclesias­tical authorities, and the people refuse to listen.97

72

Despite the problems they encountered and the mis-

takes they made, the Protestants survived and prospered.

But what was the result of their success on Dam Pedro?

What did he gain from his support?· Did he act in a wise

manner politically? To answer, Dam Pedro did gain sub-

stantially from his encouragement for the Protestants and

his promotion of religious toleration. Immigrants, una-

fraid of religious persecution, came to Brazil and brought

with them new sources of labor, skills, and technology.

The missionaries themselves aided particularly in the field

of education. Not only did they start and fund schools,

they also were often the ones to awaken a desire in the

uneducated to learn to read. Their new Protestant converts

wanted to read the Bible for themselves; schools had to be

organized to teach the illiterate.

Historian Richard Graham also gives the Protestants

credit for aiding the initial moves toward modernization

which Dam Pedro sought for Brazil. The Protestant contri-

bution was made in two ways: emphasis upon individualism

and support for the progressive secularization of society.

97Dent, A Y 279 ear, p. .

73

Brazil was being transformed and the Protestants were part of that transformation. Through their belief in the individual, through their isolation from the otherwise traditional culture, through their break with old relationships--especially compadresco--and through their new regard for the place of women they were unmistakably linked to the process of modernization.98

Politically, Dom Pedro's actions were probably not

helpful to his own cause. The hierarchy of the Roman Cath-

olic Church, traditionally his ally, could not have been

very pleased with the Emperor's tolerance and open support

for religious freedom and Protestant work. The Church

leaders certainly had not been pleased with his stand on

the "Religious Question."

The evidence that the Church abandoned the Crown,

however, is disputed. Many historians believe that Pedro's

less than total support for the Church was one of the main

reasons for his downfall in November of 1889. Clarence

Haring (following in Percy Martin's line of reasoning)

cites the "disregard by the throne of the privileges and

immunities claimed by the state religion" as one of four

key reasons for the collapse of the Empire. 99 He has sup-

port for this view from both American and Brazilian

98Graham, Britain, pp. 296-97.

99Haring, Empire, p. 144. Haring's other three reasons were: (1) the abandonment of agricultural inter­ests through the emancipation of slaves, without compensa­tion to slave owners, (2) the scarcely restrained insub­ordination and class pride of the armed forces, and (3) the subversive propaganda of the republicans.

74

historians. Dom Pedro's biographer Mary W. Williams

agreed: "Another important conservative element in the

population, which might have given strong support to the

100 throne, had been estranged... Brazilian historian

Heitor Lyra says that the Church, considering itself

persecuted, became disinterested in the monarchy:

The church became disinterested in the Monarchy, . not concerned at all for its [the monarchy's]

fortune or its destiny, and abstained, for this reason, from defending it when [the church] saw [the monarchy] threatened by the republicans.

And not only did [the church] not defend [the monarchy], [the church] did not even lament the monarchy's fate when it saw it prostrate on November 15 [1889].101

On the other side, George C. A. Boehrer argues

that despite Dom Pedro's support of the Protestants and

the Crown's quarrel with the Church over the bishops, the

Church "did not grow cool to the monarchy, but that it

. 1 d . ..102 act~ve y supporte ~t. Boehrer points out that the

Church had no assurance that it would be better treated

by the Republicans: "Sometimes, indeed, reading the

Republican press it becomes difficult to know whether

100~-Jilliams, Dom Pedro, p. 288.

101Lyra, Hist6ria da Queda, p. 236. Translation of: "A igreja passou a desinteressar-se da Monarquia,

• nao lhe importando em nada a sus sorte ou 0 seu destine, e abstendo-se, por isso, de defende-la quando a viu ameayada pelos republicanos. E n~o somente nao a defendeu nero sequer lamentou a sua sorte, quando a viu por terra em 15 de Novernbro."

102Boehrer, "The Brazilian Republican Revolution," p. 51.

75

the Monarchy or the Church was the principal enerny ... 103

Had the monarchy continued the Church could have looked

forward to the succession to the throne of Darn Pedro's

daughter Isabel, a firm and devout Catholic believer.

Boehrer says that for this reason it was in the Church's

best interest to support the monarchy. 11 The fact that,

largely due to an expected combination of Catholics and

Positivists 1n the Constitution Convention, the Church's

position was substantially improved under the Republic

has misled historians ... 104

If the Church supported Pedro (as Boehrer main-

tains), it lost no time after his downfall in disowning

him. In a letter signed by the entire Brazilian episco-

pate, the Archbishop of Bahia declared:

We have just witnessed a spectacle which filled the universe with astonishment; one of those events by which the Almighty when it is pleasing unto Him, teaches tremendous lessons to peoples and kings; a throne suddenly precipitated into the abyss which dissolvent principles, flourishing in its vefY shadow, had during a few years dug for it.lOS

Were the Protestants, therefore, in some measure

responsible for Pedro's downfall? While not in active

103Ibid., p. 50.

104Ibid.

105Percy Alvin Martin, 11 Causes of the Collapse of the Brazilian Empire, .. The Hispanic American Historical Review 4 (February, 1921); p. 14.

76

opposition to their royal friend, they surely provided

another reason for the Roman Catholics' displeasure with

the Emperor. When the Republic was proclaimed, Dam Pedro

was in exile, traveling to Portugal. The Protestants, on

the other hand, were in Brazil--to stay.

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