Ecclesiastical Affairs.
The Jesuits were the earliest missionaries in Angola; but it would be in vain to look to them for any precise geographical or historical information, such as is furnished by members of the Society established in other parts of the world. They confined their activity to the seat of Government and its immediate vicinity, and Portuguese authors are severe upon their love of power and covetousness. Their relations with the Governors were on many occasions strained, but it cannot be asserted that the Jesuit Fathers were in every instance in the wrong.505 As an illustration of their masterfulness, the following incident may serve. In 1661, the Governor, João Fernandez Vieira, very properly ordered that pigs, should no longer be allowed to run about the streets of the capital. The Jesuits did not deign to take the slightest notice of this order; and when several of their slaves were arrested for disregarding it, they protested against this exercise of authority, and actually excommunicated the Governor. But the Governor was not to be frightened. He reported the case to his King, D. Affonso VI, and the King in a Royal rescript of December 9th, 1666, severely reproved the Jesuits for their insolence; and threatened, in case of similar conduct, to deprive them of the crown lands, and to take other legal measures against them.
Franciscans (Tertiaries of the Order of St. Joseph) followed the Jesuits in 1604. Then came the Capuchins, for the most part Italians and Castilians, in 1651; and lastly barefooted Carmelites (Religiozos de S. Thereza). Of all these friars the Italian Capuchins alone appear to have done good work; and to members of their Order, and especially to Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, of Montecuccoli, Antonio Laudati, of Gaeta, and Antonio Zucchelli, of Gradisco, we are indebted for much useful information regarding the people among whom they laboured. Many of the other friars seem to have been men whom their superiors in Europe were glad to part with; and the same may be said with reference to the secular clergy.
A report of the ecclesiastical affairs of Angola and Kongo, drawn up in 1694 by Gonçalo de Alcaçova Carneiro Carvalho da Costa de Menezes, by order of the Governor, presents us with a deplorable picture of the state of affairs in that year. Throughout the country there were only thirty-six friars506 and twenty-nine secular clergy; and of these as many as twenty-nine had taken up their quarters in the capital. Of fifty churches and chapels, many were without priests, and had fallen into ruins. The village missions (missões das Sanzalas) had long been given up, and many baptised negroes had returned to the ancient superstitions. The author proposes the institution of a court of clerics, in order that all lapses of this kind might be punished in accordance with the “sacred canons.” A board of missions (Junta das missões), which had been created in 1693, and richly endowed,507 allowed things to drift. Lopes de Lima508 ascribes the failure of the Christian missions, first, to the small number of missionaries and priests; secondly, to the corruption of the clergy; and thirdly, to the slave-trade.