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Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado (1701–1769) served in Portugal's armed services rising in rank from soldier to sea-captain, then became a colonial governor in Brazil, and finally Secretary of State of the Navy and Foreign Dominions in the Portuguese government. His major achievements included the extension of Portugal's colonial settlement in South America westward along the Amazon basin and the carrying out of economic and social reforms according to policies established in Lisbon.

Childhood

Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado was born in Mercês, Lisbon on 9 October 1701 and baptised on 12 October 1701 in the Capela de Nossa Senhora das Mercês (Chapel of our Lady of Mercy) on the Travessa das Mercês. His father was Manuel de Carvalho e Ataíde, a member of Portugal's armed forces and a genealogist, and his mother was Teresa Luisa de Mendonça e Melo.

As biographer Fabiano dos Santos says, "At the age of 11, when he was known by the name Francisco Xavier de Carvalho, he became a nobleman of the Royal Court (Portuguese: fidalgo da Casa Real), as his father was. Nothing is known about Mendonça Furtado's education and activities until he was 35 years old. It is possible that he dedicated himself to taking care of the family properties."

One of twelve children, his most significant siblings and half-siblings were Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo who became King José I's Secretary of State of Internal Affairs and was elevated by the king in 1769 to the title by which he is most often referred, Marquis of Pombal (Portuguese: Marquês de Pombal), and Paulo António de Carvalho e Mendonça, a member of Lisbon's clergy who became Inquisitor-General for the period 1760–1770. These three brothers were closely bonded within the family (as illustrated in this painting (left)), a relationship which was further revealed in their adulthood in the way they supported each other professionally.

Military service

On 14 April 1735, aged 35, Mendonça Furtado joined the Portuguese navy (Portuguese: Regimento da Armada) where he served for 16 years rising from the rank of soldier to sea captain.

His first order was to sail to Rio de Janeiro, and then, leaving on 1 December 1736, to proceed to the Río de la Plata where Spain was attempting to drive Portuguese settlers out of Colonia del Sacramento (Portuguese: Colónia do Sacramento) on the north shore of the estuary.

Although referred to as a "war", the Spanish–Portuguese War of 1735 war was never formally declared by either parties. Colonia del Sacramento was under Portuguese control when the war commenced, Spain had troops on its outskirts and had set up a naval blockade on the Río de la Plata. But with the arrival of Portugal's massive naval and military forces, they broke through with ease and by the last year Colonia del Sacramento was temporarily restored to Portugal's hands.

Mendonça Furtado was involved in that action for five months. At the end of the war, he travelled to Rio de Janeiro and on to Pernambuco to join forces defending the Fernando de Noronha archipelago from the French. Mendonça Furtado continued his involvement with that campaign until he returned to Lisbon in 1738. From the end of that decade until 1750 he led eight military expeditions including two in the Azores and one in Tenerife, was promoted as lieutenant in 1741, and shortly before the end of his military career was promoted again to the rank of sea captain.

Mendonça Furtado as governor

Carvalho e Melo's reforms and Mendonça Furtado's appointment

King João V's son and successor, José I, with no interest in the day-to-day responsibilities of government, delegated authority to Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo as Secretary of State of Internal Affairs (Portuguese: Ministério da Administração Interna). Carvalho e Melo, at the same time highly authoritarian and dictatorial but also a vigorous reformist, had among his many goals the rebuilding of the country's economy so it could recover from its own demise in the last years of João V's reign.

His approach was highly centralist; he saw himself at the helm of the entire structure and he always wanted to know what was going on. This was not only in regard to Portugal's internal operation but the colonies as well, and this quickly flowed into a reshaping of the governmental and administrative structure in Brazil from which he required regular reporting to himself and unquestioning obedience to any directives issued by him. Among Carvalho e Melo's broad range of reforms, possibly the most significant for the operation of the empire's economy was the creation of the Royal Treasury (Portuguese: Erário Régio) in 1761. In concept it involved the abolition of the old model in which the treasury's operation had been under the direct and absolute control of the monarch (as it was, for example, under King João V). This new treasury was under Carvalho e Melo's direct control, it had seniority over all other executive and administrative bodies except, theoretically, the king himself, and it processed and administered all income and expenditure related to those bodies in both Portugal and rest of the empire.

In view of the failure of the early Brazilian system of captaincies Carvalho e Melo acted quickly by reconstructing the colony into two states. This took place on 31 July 1751 when he retained in the south the State of Brazil (Portuguese: Estado do Brasil) which had already existed since 1621, and established in the north a new State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão (Portuguese: Estado do Grão-Pará e Maranhão) to which he had already appointed his brother Mendonça Furtado as its governor (Portuguese: governador) and captain-general (Portuguese: capitão-general).

With the creation of the new state, the capital was moved from São Luís, located on the Atlantic shoreline, to Belém do Pará, sometimes referred to as Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão Pará (Our Lady of Bethlehem of Grao-Para) and Santa Maria de Belém (St Mary of Bethlehem), on the Amazon River's south shore near its mouth. The new location was based on Carvalho e Melo's request that Portugal develop a stronger presence at this point and westwards along the river.

The "Royal Instructions"

At the outset, Mendonça Furtado received a set of 38 directives usually referred to as the Instruções Régias (Royal Instructions) or Instruções Secretas (Secret Instructions) dated 31 July 1751, which a commentator has described as "a Portuguese Project for the Amazon." Although issued under the king's name and penned by his Secretary of State for Overseas Affairs, Diogo de Mendonça Côrte Real, given the king's distance from the functions of government, and taking into account the close relationship these instructions have with Carvalho e Melo's own objectives, it seems more than likely that he was either the author or directly involved in drafting the document.

One summary of the instructions says they are focussed largely on three topics: (1) "the status of the Amazon's Indian population"; (2) "the Jesuits and other religious orders … especially with regard to potential reforms to their relationship with the Indians"; and (3) "further surveying the nature and extent of the region's commercial potential, including the expansion of trade and the potential for establishing plantations." "The overall impression left by the Instructions, especially in the convergence of the three categories just mentioned, is of a mandate for Mendonça Furtado to ensure that the state of Grão Pará and Maranhão and its inhabitants – both the Portuguese settlers and the Indians – effectively and efficiently provided both economic and political support to the Portuguese Crown."

However, "The creation of this new administrative unit demonstrates the centrality that the frontier region acquired with the continuity of the policy of expansion of the Portuguese Empire further west of the Amazon River, through the infiltration of the rivers Negro, Branco, Madeira, Tapajós, Xingu and Tocantins. … The occupation of the territories nearer and nearer to the Spanish borderlands acquired a fundamental importance for the Portuguese Empire in the last three decades of the seventeenth century, aimed at the strengthening of monarchical sovereignty over these vast territories, as well as the opening of new commercial channels that could generate more wealth." It could be, then, that the expansion and consolidation of Portuguese territories in the face of competition from Spain was the overarching motive behind the creation of the two states. This would have to be achieved to ensure that Portugal's income could be guaranteed, and it is clear from the instructions that Carvalho e Melo saw it this way.

It is worth noting that, apart from the three topics listed above, the instructions actually gave priority to security and fortification, and it was only well into the document where colonial development and income was finally discussed:

"I urge you to look carefully at the means of securing the State, as well as to make commerce flourish, in order to achieve the first aim … and you will be careful, as far as possible, to populate all possible lands, introducing new settlers." (Instruções Régias, Inst. 27.)

Discussion about security occurred in the other instructions: for example, regarding the requirements for armed forces the document says, "I instruct you to inform me of the number of troops that may be necessary for the service of the State" (Instruções Régias, Inst. 24), and in another Mendonça Furtado was told to review, strengthen and fortify his region, building new defences where needed (and to direct the Governor of Maranhão to do the same). (Instruções Régias, Inst. 28.)

Mendonça Furtado takes office

On 8 May 1751, only a few days before his departure from Lisbon, Mendonça Furtado was admitted as a Cavaleiro da Ordem de Cristo (Knight of the Order of Christ). Santos says, "There is no doubt that the granting of the habit of Christ was meant as a reward for his military services, as well as an incentive to fulfill the new commission in Portuguese America."

When Mendonça Furtado arrived in Belém do Pará in October 1751, it was the largest settlement in the Amazon region, and the only shipping port, although impaired by the fact that in the early 18th century the movement of shipping between it and the Iberian peninsula was rare and irregular compared with other major centres such as Recife, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro.

The problem was that, with the Portuguese settlement largely concentrated on the coast, the state's overall population was low. Along the Amazon and its tributaries few settlers had moved westward into the more remote areas, there was only a tiny number of smaller towns and villages, the Indian population was small and few African slaves had been added to the workforce.

From early in the colonization of Brazil, several Catholic religious orders had set up missions. The first to arrive were the Jesuits. This was an outcome of the close relationship between the Order and Portugal's monarchy, and they had quickly taken a dominant role on the colony's development through their ownership of the largest properties in the region and their involvement in areas such as ranching, agriculture, silviculture and fishing.

As their source of labour, the Jesuits removed Indians from their own living environment and forced them to live in aldeias (villages) located at Jesuit missions, thereby leaving many old Indian villages unoccupied. The Indians' work was controlled by the Jesuits in slave-based relationships.

Clearly Mendonça Furtado was facing no easy task, for four main reasons: the Jesuits were 'suspected' of exploiting the Indians and treating them harshly if they refused to work as instructed; the Jesuits' opposition to any intrusion in their affairs, including their control over large number of Indians, was predictable; the settlers had a long history of abusive, exploitative and low cost dependence on Indian slaves which had continued long after African slaves started arriving because the imported slaves were a great deal more expensive; and the concept of enforced labour was deeply embedded in Brazil's economic and social structure.

Knowing how the Jesuits would respond, the instructions directed Mendonça Furtado to seek assistance from a strong supporter of the monarchy, the Bishop of Belém do Pará, Miguel de Bulhões e Souza in setting the new laws governing Indian employment in place especially by instructing the Jesuits to concentrate their work on religious instruction. But the idea of restricting the Jesuits' activities was not stimulated by a desire to "punish" them: Carvalho e Mello's clear motivation was economical, because by placing a stranglehold on their involvement in production, more opportunities would be created for others to invest in agricultural and commercial projects, and the state of Grão-Pará and Maranhão's contribution to Portugal's economy would be able to increase.

In the same way, the settlers' response was foreseen in the instructions, and Mendonça Furtado was directed to ensure that they "observe this Resolution completely and religiously" by persuading them to see the benefits of using African slaves, a difficult task because the cost of setting up and running plantations and other large enterprises in the Amazon was higher than in other parts of Brazil; and given the Jesuits' near monopoly on Indian labour and their ability to outbid others in buying African slaves, the Amazon's business developers had struggled to survive.

As Mendonça Furtado later reported, he issued "positive orders for the civilization of the Indians, to enable them to acquire a knowledge of the value of money, something which they had never seen, in the interests of commerce and farming, and … familiarity with Europeans, not only by learning the Portuguese language, but by encouraging marriage between Indians and Portuguese, which were all the most important means to those important ends and together to make for the common interest and the well-being of the state." Furthermore, having defined the vital strands of output as sugar, tobacco and gold, measures were set in place to protect and support these producers. A price control system was placed over all staple items so colonists could survive on their existing incomes, and an inspection system was set up to monitor it.

Within a year of taking office, fully aware of the clandestine warehousing, illegal exporting and smuggling, along with systems that had enabled traders to bypass the crown's taxes on exports, he had channelled all exporting through state-managed outlets with the movement of goods carefully recorded. That all sounded good in theory; in reality, controlling the movement of goods out of Brazil was next to impossible because there were too many ways of doing so, and few people to monitor where, when and how it was being done.

As for the plan to liberate and Europeanise the Indians, especially those under the control of the Jesuits within the aldeias, married to the idea that they would then be induced to populate regions closer to the borders, this, too, led nowhere.

Defence and fortification in the Amazon Basin

As already discussed, the Instruções Régias directed Mendonća Furtado to address the colony's needs for security and fortification.

Records show that in 1751 there were only about 300 men allocated to Belém and the forts of Macapá, Guamá, Gurupá, Tapajós, Pauxis and the Rio Negro, and that the forces in Maranhão were also low. Evidence also shows that the provision of arms and ammunitions was insufficient. Mendonça Furtado's own assessment saw the situation in the same way and he quickly conveyed the message back to Lisbon.

Action followed to strengthen the defence system by increasing the volume of men and equipment and expanding the fortifications. A massive enlistment program was carried out in Portugal and in April 1753 900 men were shipped to Brazil to form two regiments, one to be based in Belém and, in principle, the other at Macapá. With them came 42 families made up of 109 women and children, indicating a significant sudden population increase in just these two centres. In the same fleet that transported these people, other ships carried arms, military equipment and uniforms in quantities suitable for the travelling regiments and for those soldiers already on the ground in the northern state. These and other ships also carried as ballast large stones for the building of fortification. Many of these were used in the coastal areas while others were transported in canoes up the rivers for use in new forts.

The use of Macapá for defence purposes was strategic because of its location on the Atlantic coast and on the Amazon's northern estuary at the junction between the river's mouth and the ocean. A military detachment had been located in a small fortified structure there since 1738. But this was clearly inadequate as far as the Portuguese government was concerned, and the message was well-conveyed to Mendonça Furtado. By December 1751, within three months of his arrival, he travelled to the site, immediately initiating plans for the building of a larger fort. He also arranged for settlers to be brought in from the Azores so there was a reasonably-sized civil population to support the expected increase in armed services. By 1752 he had heard that enlistment was being carried out in Portugal. As already mentioned, in 1753 the two regiments arrived from Lisbon, and although one was meant to go to Macapá, Mendonça Furtado had said this could only happen if the fort was completed. He continued to apply pressure on those building the fort, especially in 1754 when the French invaded north of the Oyapock River (Rio Oiapoque) into what became French Guiana.

The fact that the fort, now known as the Fortaleza de São José de Macapá was not completed until 1771, 20 years after Mendonça Furtado set the plan in motion, raises questions when considered against the conclusion of that same instruction which reads:

"I warn you that both this fortress and all the others that are made for the defence and security of this state, must be done in a manner that does not appear to be a fear of our restrictions, while at the same time caution must be maintained so we are not surprised by the renewal of false claims, making it impossible because we have to dispute them all forcefully." (Instruções Régias, Inst. 28.)

Another site of importance to Lisbon was the Rio Branco about which they learnt in 1750 reports that the Dutch had entered the area from Suriname via the Essequibo River (Portuguese: Rio Eseqüebe) so they could trade with the Indians and take them into slavery. The king and his Overseas Council responded at the end of 1752 by ordering Mendonça Furtado "that without any delay a fortress should be erected on the banks of the said Rio Branco, at the place which you consider to be most proper, first having consulted with the engineers whom you appoint for this examination, and that this fortress is always staffed with a company of the Macapá regiment, which changes annually."

Warnings continued to come for about 20 years, one reporting that the Paraviana Indians had gained possession of weapons, gunpowder and shot. But no action was taken to erect the fort until a report arrived in 1775 that Dutch settlers had been living on Portuguese territory for four years. The Lisbon government responded by ordering the erection of what became known as the Forte de São Joaquim do Rio Branco (Fort of São Joaquim do Rio Branco) and work started in that same year, more than twenty years after the king's original order was issued. The government clearly wanted Mendonça Furtado to get things done quickly, and some signs indicated that he took that seriously, and yet lethargy or inaction somewhere - and was it Lisbon's? - somehow got in the road.

Preparation for the journey on the Amazon

In 1752 Mendonça Furtado was appointed both as plenipotentiary for Portugal's crown, and under the Treaty of Madrid arrangements as its commissioner for the northern region.

In that same year Spain appointed José de Iturriaga as its First Commissioner making specific mention of the rivers of Javari, Japurá, Negro and Madeira for his attention, while at the same time he was also appointed as commander (Spanish: comandante general) of new settlers on the Orinoco River and given other tasks including leading a major scientific research program on that river.

As it turned out, and probably unbeknown to both the Portuguese government and Mendonça Furtado, Iturriaga did not leave Spain until 1754 and rather than travelling directly to meet with Mendonça Furtado, he went to Venezuela and accompanied the scientists on their program while at the same time working with the other Spanish commissioners on the so-called Expedition of Limits to the Orinoco (Spanish: Expedición de Límites al Orinoco) which involved demarcating the borders along the Orinoco.

Prior to Mendonça Furtado's time in office, large parts of the northern Amazon basin had not yet been fully explored, although Spain's mappers had been active since 1637. The first accurate and complete map of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers had been published in 1707 after being charted by Czech Jesuit Samuel Fritz who had journeyed by river from Quito in Ecuador to Pará. However, even the most detailed maps at that time were not sufficient to help him meet the obligations he had been given in the instructions.

Rather than wait for news from Spain about their commissioners' movements, he decided to make an independent journey upstream on the Amazon. To help plan the details, he consulted with people such as the Bishop of Belém do Pará, members of the Câmara de Belém, and those settlers who had shown interest in cooperating with the government.

Frustrations soon arose, though. The canoes required to transport himself and the working party he had originally intended to buy ready-made either from Indians in the aldeias and from settlers. The Jesuits were obstructive to this and he was only able to obtain a small number.

His next proposal, contained in correspondence he sent to Lisbon, was that the canoes be made on his royal estate where timber was freely available. For that he required funds to cover the costs including additional labour. However, with correspondence flowing slowly backwards and forwards across the Atlantic, he found himself waiting for an answer.

Finally, rather than delay any longer, without Lisbon's approval he decided to employ Indians who had been given permission to work for him. Further complications were caused, though, as Indians abandoned their work without warning, even using canoes they had already made to return to their aldeias. This meant his plan to set off in May 1754 was delayed until October of that year.

Start of the journey

The departure from Belém was carried out in grand, viceregal style.

"On 2 October 1754, His Excellency left his palace accompanied by all the different people, and went to the church of Our Lady of Mercy where he heard Mass and received communion, and after having made this pious and Catholic step embarked with the Most Excellent and Reverend Lord Bishop in his large canoe, with the general feeling and greeting of all those who accompanied him to the beach, and with him all the expedition people embarked in their canoes and then set off, enlisted infantry, who had formed on the beach, providing three discharges of musketry, followed by the salvos of all the artillery of the forts."

In its entirety the flotilla was made up of 28 canoes, fitted with sails for use when wind was available, and all painted in the vice-regal colours of red and blue. Five carried storage and infantry, five were fishing canoes to help provide food during the journey, eleven transported geographers, astronomers, engineers, cartographers, artists and other officials who were to assist the governor with mapping and demarcation. Vice-regal staff in attendance included the Secretary of State, the Chamber Adjutant and the Purveyor of the Royal Estate. Also, to provide necessary food resources on the way, especially flour, he wrote in advance to clergy in the largest aldeias asking them to hold these supplies for collection on his party's arrival.

The two largest vessels had clearly been designed under Mendonça Furtado's direction so they represented his status as governor and provided him with comfort. His own canoe, the larger of the two and about the size of a yacht and probably very similar to that illustrated here (left), included:

"…a rather roomy chamber, all lined with crimson damask with golden decoration; this chamber was built in with coffer chests covered with cushions of the same crimson, and in addition to these, it had six more footstools and two upholstered chairs with a large table and a cabinet of yellow wood with the portrait of the king in the top. There were four windows on each side, and two on the top panel, all of which were trimmed with finely crafted carving, and the royal arms in the middle, all very well gilded, and the rest of the canoe painted red and blue."

Both vessels had rowing crews, 26 for the governor's and 16 for the other, dressed in a uniform of white shirts, blue pants and blue velvet caps.

At the outset the entire party numbered 1,025 people, including 511 Indians 165 of whom deserted during the journey. Bishop Bulhões travelled with the governor for the first week before returning to Belém where he acted as executive and provided a channel for correspondence between the governor and Lisbon.

Stages of the journey

The journey itself took three months and on the way, Mendonça Furtado visited a number of aldeias, enghenos (sugar mills) and plantations, observing and assessing at first hand the Indians' living and working conditions, their relationship with the Jesuits, the Jesuits' attitude towards himself, and the Amazon basin's overall potential for future use. The whole journey was noted in log book style by the Secretary of State João Antônio Pinto da Silva.

The first visit was to the royal estate on the Rio Moju where timber was produced and canoes were made. The party stayed there to allow time for new canoes to be sent to Belém and the first visit to a sugar mill took place. The journey then continued to Igarapé-Miri (or Mirim) on the river of the same name. This was the fifth day of the journey, and once there Bishop Bulhões celebrated Mass in the parish church and then departed to return to Belém.

Mendonça Furtado's first negative interaction with the Jesuits on this journey occurred on day eleven at the aldeia of Guaricurú, by report one of the largest. On arrival they found it deserted except for a priest, three old Indians, some boys and a few Indian women who were related to the Indians on the governor's crew.

The diary includes a parenthesized note saying, "the first manifestation of resistance or hostility by the priests of the Society of Jesus against the fulfilment of the Preliminary Limitations Treaty, signed in Madrid on 13 January 1750." Although this is in the writer's hand, it might well represent an opinion expressed by the governor himself.

Guaricurú was one place in which the governor had requested flour to be kept for his collection. However, those in the aldeia seemed to know nothing about this, and after a search was made the flour was located in the priests' house. With labour required to load the flour onto the canoes and with repairing faulty canoe ropes, the next day the governor sent soldiers into the surrounding area to search for the Indians. But only a few appeared and "confessed that everyone had fled because of the practice and instruction the priest had given them." Mendonça Furtado later reported this along with insolent behaviour by the priest and other observations in a letter to Bishop Bulhões.

From there the party proceeded to the next aldeia at Arucará (later renamed by Mendonça Furtado as Portel) which was abandoned except for the Indian chief and a few of his people. Because he wanted to add extra Indians to his crew in case more deserted already deserted, Mendonça Furtado noted the chief's unwillingness either to help or obey his orders.

Four days on from Arucará the party arrived at the fort of Gurupá where the governor was greeted with a military salute. They remained there for three days so they could rest and rebuild supplies, and Mendonça Furtado entertained the officers and all his entourage except the Indians at the table. Noting the poor state of the church when Mass was celebrated there, the governor gave a large sum of money for use in its renovation. He also had money distributed among the soldiers. Flour and dried fish was collected for later use. On return to the canoes to set sail it was discovered that 16 more Indians had deserted. This meant that by their next stop, the total was 36 and voyage diartist Silva noted that the majority had come onto the voyage from aldeias which he took as confirming his opinion about the role the Jesuits had played in turning their minds against the governor.

Several more days included visits to aldeias being run by the Capuchins where their welcome contrasted strongly with the response they had received in Jesuit settlements, and likewise, flour and other supplies were also readily available. As an example of Capuchin hospitality, at Arapijó the governor was welcomed to the table and his entourage was offered gifts of bananas by the Indians. In return he gave then ribbons, knives, cloth and salt. Silva noted this aldeia as being very poor and swarmed with mosquitoes (Brazilian Portuguese derived from Tupi: carapanã, denoting a mosquito which is now recognised as a transmitter of dengue fever and malaria) "so that at night we were very mortified."

The remainder of the trip to Mariuá included visits to aldeias, enghenos and plantations, with nothing new to reveal except that Indian desertion continued so that by the time of the journey's conclusion 165 Indians had deserted during the journey. This constant recurrence of Indian desertion and his difficulty finding others to replace them preoccupied Mendonça Furtado's correspondence with Bishop Bulhões and others.

Apart from the delays this was causing in his journey, he also dwelt on how, without the guaranteed involvement of Indians he was going to be able to care adequately for his household and guests, including the Spanish commissioners he was expecting to see once the journey was completed.

This ongoing experience had reshaped his attitude towards the Indians in whom he had wrongly assumed he would see a willingness to work, but had actually observed the opposite. As a reading of his correspondence suggests, although his criticism of the Indians increased, from a European perspective, he seemed unable to comprehend how they were part of a historical-ethnic-societal structure in which habits, values and beliefs were very different from those held in societies from which he and other colonists had emerged. In any case, he continued to project the blame for their behaviour onto the Jesuits who he judged as having failed to develop civilized behaviour among the Indians, and equally seriously, had turned them against loyalty to the Portuguese empire and its crown.

Stay in Mariuá

In December 1754 the journey ended at Mariuá (now known as Barcelos) on the Rio Negro a distance upstream from its mouth with the Amazon. Colonial use of the site had already begun in 1729 when the Carmelites set up the aldeia of Mariuá (also known as the Missão de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Mariuá) as a mission to the Manaus, Baré, Pariana, Uiraquena and Passé Indians.

By the time of Mendonça Furtado's journey, it had been designated as the place where he and Spain's plenipotentiary, José Iturriaga would meet so they could begin their demarcation of the northern borders. To ensure that conditions were suitable for himself and his party he had already sent ahead military officer Gabriel de Sousa Filgueiras whose praise he declared when writing to his brother because on arrival he found barracks erected and plantations of manioc (cassava) and maize well advanced.

Accommodation for himself was a problem, though, the solution being that he "had no other remedy than to enter the house of residence of the priests which they call the Hospice"; and for the Spanish team "to make decent and comfortable quarters". So, while awaiting Iturriaga's arrival, Mendonça Furtado had his team undertake extensive work including the laying out of streets and the erection of buildings and bridges. Also in 1755 he had a military battery constructed to provide defence for the settlement.

Border demarcation

By the end of 1755 Mendonça Furtado had been in Mariuá for a full year and as reports to Lisbon indicate, he and his team gathered information the surrounding territory. For example, a quite early document entitled Relação dos rios que deságuam no Rio Negro, de que até agora tenho achado na primeira parte do nascente, ou da mão direita (Relation of the rivers that flow into the Rio Negro, that I have found so far in the first part of the river, or on the right hand) which listed 59 rivers using names that were being used at that time, many of which have since been changed. Other information includes geographical features and comments about Indian tribes some of whom are listed as extinct.

There is also an appendix document entitled Notícia do Rio Branco: Que me deu Francisco Ferreira, homem de mais de oitenta anos, que tem mais de cinqüenta de navegação do dito rio e mas participou em Mariuá, em 29 de março de 1755 (Information on the Rio Branca: Which Francisco Ferreira, a man of more than eighty years, who has more than fifty of navigation of the said river gave to me by imparting it in Mariuá, 29 of March 1755). Here ten tributaries of the Rio Branca are listed, the name of the last being unknown.

By 8 July of that same year, Mendonça Furtado's reports were dealing more specifically with the question of demarcations. He begins the covering letter with the following:

"I am sending you the plan that I have made for the demarcations of the royal domains of His Majesty, which I formed after making all the inquiries I could contact and, understanding that if we do so in this way, we will derive from them the advantages that may be possible, according to the terms of the Treaty of January 13, 1750, and new information promised to me by the governor of Mato Grosso in the letter of which I send you a copy, see if it is necessary to change anything. The said plan is for you to present to His Majesty so that, when it is served, see if he has given you royal approval or if I should change anything in it."

The attached document, Sistema das demarcações da parte do norte (Demarmarcation system of the northern region) has three sections each dealing with a different portion of the region, providing geographical analyses, especially in reference to the demarcation criteria spelt out in the Treaty of Madrid document, implications of the required border markings with reference to military security and mobility, and the possible loss of resources to Spain.

For example, the first section, Quanto ao Rio Negro (Regarding the Rio Negro) warns in Par. 1 that if Art. 9 of the Treaty of Madrid were applied the area between the Rios Japurá and Negro would pass into Spain's control thereby blocking paths of communication between Portuguese settlers on the banks of both rivers. Mendonça Furtado also demonstrated how he had Portugal's economic benefits in mind by noting that around the Rio Negro upstream there was an extensive area "in which there are infinite and important rivers full of people, which can be very useful to us, there being in some of them, besides the people, the news that there is gold, the most important being the Cojari, which they commonly call Guaupis, from which, in fact, some evidence of gold has appeared in the hands of the Gentiles who inhabit it."

The detail with which Mendonça Furtado analyses the demarcation issues in the third section, Quanto ao Jauru até o Guaporé (Regarding the Jauru up to the Guaporé), suggests that this area is of particular importance to him. The fact that the outcomes of any negotiation about the placements of the borders here will affect Portugal's benefits from the rich and fertile Mato Grosso, already being gained through extensive land ownership by Portuguese settlers, leads him to say that the demarcations proposed under the Treaty of Madrid are impractical and should be changed under Arts. 3 and 7 of the Treaty. By doing so, he says three things will be saved: "All the navigation of the Jauru River, which is exclusive to us; the path that the Portuguese have made and use from Mato Grosso to Cuiabá; and that part which the Portuguese themselves have occupied in the district of the above-mentioned Mato Grosso, and for the most part we are deprived, if the line is drawn in the form stated in said art. 7 and the map approved by the Courts."

The records show at the end of this document a note, "Lisbon, 13 November 1755", implying that it had arrived there at approximately the same time as the Lisbon earthquake occurred. Therefore, it would receive little if any attention. In any case, the Treaty of Madrid's disintegration, in which Carvalho e Melo played a significant role, meant that resolutions had been achieved until the First Treaty of San Ildefonso was signed in 1777, and it was not until 1798 that orders were given in Portugal by the Secretary of State for the Navy and Overseas Territories for a comprehensive chart of Brazil to be drawn up based on existing and new research. The result was 86 charts employing conventional cartographic markings and detailed indications of all landmarks, forts, captaincies, paths, gold and iron mines, waterfalls and abandoned sites.

Expansion, administration and commercial development

But the question was how to provide adequate population in the colony? His solution was well described in Carvalho e Melo's secret correspondence with the Governor of the State of Brazil, Gomes Freire de Andrade: "As the wealth of all countries consist principally in the number and multiplication of the people that inhabit it, this number and multiplication is most indispensable now on the frontiers of Brazil for their defense." But because he could not see it as possible to move people from the major urban centres or to migrate them from elsewhere in the Atlantic colonies, his solution was to abolish "all differences between Indians and Portuguese", to induce Indians to relocate from the mission in the Banda Oriental and to promote intermarriage between the races.

Even before Mendonça Furtado's appointment as governor, his brother had already written to the Governor of Brazil expressing the need for the population in Brazil's interior to expand both for the security of the colony and for its economic development. This correspondence was sent soon after the death of King João V by the end of whose reign, population growth in the Amazon basin had been minimal and, as one analyst reports, there were "only eleven municipalities: the cities of Belém and São Luís and the towns of Cayeté (Bragança), Cametá (Vila Viçosa), Gurupá, Gurupy (Vila Nova d'El-Rei), Vigia, Icatu, Vila da Mocha, Parnaguá and Parnaíba."

With Carvalho e Melo's commitment to population expansion in place and with his brother having received on appointment the Instruções Régias which sought the same, it is not surprising that this happened at increasing pace from early in Mendonça Furtado's governance to the end of the century.

Observations of the Indians

As already noted above (See Indigenous peoples, slavery and Jesuit involvement), the Catholic Church's focus on the conversion of American Indians began in the mid-16th century and various religious orders sent members to the Americas to undertake this work. In South America's Spanish colonies, and later in those of Portugal, the Jesuits became the most active and influential order, partly because of their favoured relationship with the papacy, and more because of their close relationships with the Spanish and Portuguese royal families.

But despite the church's noble aspirations as set forth in Pope Paul III's encyclical, and the endorsement given to it by the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, by the time Mendonça Furtado took up office as governor the Amazonian region had already been through more than a century of conflict between three distinct parties, the donatorios and settlers, the church, and the Indians.

"While stationed at a village deep in the heart of the Amazon for nearly two years waiting for the arrival of the Spanish delegation, Furtado had ample opportunity to visit various aldeias and observe the relationship 12 among the missionaries, Indians, and settlers. His reliance on Indians as guides and laborers on his trip dampened his optimistic opinion of their potential, and led him to suggest a more reserved version as well as the delayed implementation of a set of reforms established by Pombal in Lisbon based on Furtado's recommendations."

Expulsion of the Jesuits

As dealt with above, Carvalho e Melo's dissatisfaction with the Jesuits, as much related to their influence within the Portuguese court as their controlling influence in Brazil, is stated clearly in the Instruções Régias, At the early stage of Mendonça Furtado's governorship, the idea of expelling the Jesuits was not yet on the agenda. However, they were not off the hook because in the instructions he had been directed to investigate the Jesuits' wealth and landholding "with great caution, circumspection, and prudence".

As early as one month after his arrival, in a private letter to his brother, Mendonça Furtado expressed invective against the Jesuits. Their exploitative relationship with the Indians had become clear to him, and commenting about what he had seen in the aldeias he used phrases such as "neither justice nor King are there known", "the natives have not been converted…they are taught a vernacular that they call the lingua geral ("Common language", a reference to Tupi, the 'hybrid' language which the Jesuits had created as a standard language for use with all Indians)...they spend most of their time practicing their own rituals and are lightly instructed in the mysteries of the saintly faith", and that they had "usurped" power over the Indians which had never been formally granted to them.

In other words, apart from their subjection of Indians either to slavery or some other form of compulsive labour by which they had ignored repeated instructions from the monarch; they had exercised their own power independently and even in defiance of the throne, and in contradiction to the concept of royal patronage under which they had been asked originally by King João III to begin their work in Brazil in 1549 for the mutual benefit of state and church. But in view of Carvalho e Melo's desire to rebuild Portugal's economy, the fact that the Jesuits had taken hold of agriculture and commerce with no benefits flowing back to the empire might well have been his greatest motivator.

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Death

Mendonça Furtado died suddenly on 15 November 1769 when the court was at the Braganza family's Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa.

Reasons for his death are unclear. In the editor's footnote to the Anecdotes du ministère de Sébastien-Joseph Carvalho the following is given:

"He (ie Mendonça Furtado) was suddenly carried away in 1769 by an abscess which was ready to burst. He had to be buried on the spot, because of the horrible odour that the corpse emitted immediately."

By contrast, the Mémoires du Sébastien-Joseph Carvalho e Melo vary on this point, saying that Carvalho e Melo had allowed himself to take the young Prince of Beira to spend a few days at Oeiras while the court was at Vila Viçosa; that Queen Mariana Victoria, so distressed by this audacity, that having met his brother Mendonça Furtado, "crushed him with the harshest reproaches, and made him bear all the weight of her resentment. Mendonça in despair, retired to his apartment, where he was seized with a fever so violent, that it took him away after three days."

Neither story can be verified from independent first-hand reports, and both have elements that sound fanciful. Considering that the first is attributed to a "champion of the Jesuit society" (Portuguese: paladino da sociedade jesuitica), which could have been the queen or a number of other members of the nobility and aristocracy who were strongly critical of what Carvalho e Melo and his brother had carried against the Jesuits, references to phenomena such as foul body odours or the queen's rage being enough to kill a man could be read as attempts to pour scorn on the two brothers.

As indicated above, Mendonça Furtado had to be buried quickly. This took place on the same day of his death and his tomb is located in the Capela do Sanctíssimo Sacramento (Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament) to the left of High Altar of the Igreja Matriz de Vila Viçosa (Mother Church of Vila Viçosa, i.e. the Santuário de Nossa Sra. da Conceição). Due to restoration work carried out in 1940, his tombstone and those of others buried there were removed and their bones were placed together in a wooden box and deposited in an unmarked site.

Assessment of Mendonça Furtado

Comments about Mendonça Furtado by his contemporaries and later commentators provide deeply contrasting, even conflicting, descriptions of his personality, behaviour and suitability for high office. Some sing his praise; others decry him as being bullish, short-tongued and even unstable. Overall, the reader is left with questions about his personal suitability for high office or whether his elevation came about only because of the power and influence of his brother, Carvalho e Melo.

Santos, for example, quotes praise offered by Mendonça Furtado's colonial colleagues on his departure from Brazil.

The first came from Miguel de Bulhões e Sousa, Bishop of Belém do Pará who wrote to Carvalho e Melo in February 1759 saying that he "had never known he would experience the cruelty of this blow (ie Mendonça Furtado's departure from Brazil)", continuing "this whole state cries and will weep forever the absence of this illustrious Conqueror and Restorer."

In similar fashion, Pará's royal magistrate Feliciano Ramos Nobre Mourão told Carvalho e Melo that his brother was "gloriously leaving his name memorable for all ages, for his heroic deeds and enlightened virtues" offering as evidence the way he had promoted the liberty of the Indians, protected the inhabitants, encouraged commerce, increased incomes from livestock and the production of various kinds, all thanks to his "exemplary procedure, honesty, ardent zeal."

Cruz took a more balanced approach:

"The sources describe him as a fair man, but choleric and untimely, attributes that were far from being recommended in a colonial administrator but did not prevent his appointment to the government of the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão in April 1751. The intervention of his brother, who was beginning to gain ascendancy with Don Jose, would have been decisive."

João Lúcio de Azevedo, who assessed Mendonça Furtado's career in Brazil more than a century after his death, also painted a complex picture: "energetic by nature, like the prime minister his brother; rude by habit acquired in the training of the maritime profession; haughty for his position as governor, not speaking in kinship with the arbitrator of the empire's destiny; arrogant through necessity in the captaincy." By contrast, though, he was keen to show that this man should be assessed quite separately of his brother, as shown when he wrote:

"It is known that the great Marquis had several spokesmen, and one of these … was his brother Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, first governor of Gram-Pará, and later Minister of the Navy. It was this last misjudged by history, which has said little of his merits. The admirers of Carvalho, hypnotized in the contemplation of their idol, do not distinguish the secondary figures, that surround him; the adversaries include in the same systematic condemnation the minister and the collaborators who were retained by him."

As Azevedo illustrated, there were various opinions about Mendonça Furtado. "Of the modern writers, Francisco Luíz Gomes, perhaps the most appreciative of the events of the time, claims Francisco Xavier to have been a man of little understanding; an unfair view … ."

Another example, given by Azevedo, was of Simão José da Luz Soriano, the Portuguese government's official historian, who, dealing with the Jesuits' appeal to the court against the way Mendonça Furtado was dealing with them, recorded how they had:

"… represented his bad qualities to the court, and above all, painted him, as he really was, a man who was essentially coarse and despotic, qualities, with others, which rendered him altogether incapable of governing men, whom he vexed and oppressed in unbearable ways. Both complaints were true, both those of the Jesuits against Mendonça, and those of this governor against the Jesuits."

In the end, it emerges clearly that Azevedo was prepared to argue in Mendonça Furtado's favour because, as he wrote:

"Appointed captain-general of the Gram-Pará soon after his brother had entered the ministry, Mendonça had been in charge of the government for more than seven years leaving in the archives of the captaincy enough evidence to illustrate that we may be misinformed by those who have haggled against him with limited intellectual endowment.

Even in modern historical research, a bleak image of Mendonça Furtado has continued to come forward. For example, Bourbon e Menezes and Gustavo de Matos Sequeira's Figuras históricas de Portugal (Historic Figures of Portugal) published in 1933 included their portrayal:

"… He was a duplication in inferior material of the illustrious brother , a tentacle by which extended to where he could not come, an alter-ego, like so many that Pombal had, with the disadvantage of the same blood having to boil in a head of less weight."

Similarly, another modern scholar, Alden has described him as:

"A one-time naval officer, Mendonça Furtado was imperious, hard-driving, crude, violent tempered, ambitious though completely loyal to his elder brother, pious in an Old Testament sense, gullible but suspicious of the motives of anyone, particularly one whom he regarded as inferior, who held views contrary to his own; he was therefore entirely uncompromising."

References

1. Santos, Fabiano Vilaça dos. "A Casa e o Real Serviço: Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado e o Governo do Estado do Grão-Pará e Maranhão (1751-1759)" (The House and the Royal Service: Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado and the Government of the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão (1751–1759)). Revista, Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute) (IHGB). Rio de Janeiro, January–March 2010. Vol. 446, pp. 75-125 (in Portuguese) Accessed 8 January 2019.
2. Ermida das Mercês (Chapel of Mercy), Lisbon. (in Portuguese).
3. Toponímia de Lisboa (Placenames of Lisbon). "A Travessa da primeira Igreja das Mercês, a do Marquês de Pombal" (The Crossroad of the first Church of Mercy, the Marquis of Pombal). . Accessed 23 December 2019.)
4. The Capela das Mercês should not be confused with the Igreja de Nossa Senhora das Mercês (Parish Church of Our Lady of Mercy) located in the Largo de Jesus. (pt:Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Jesus).
5. Santos, Fabiano Vilaça dos. "A Casa e o Real Serviço: Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado e o Governo do Estado do Grão-Pará e Maranhão (1751-1759)" (The House and the Royal Service: Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado and the Government of the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão (1751–1759)). Revista, Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute) (IHGB). Rio de Janeiro, January–March 2010. Vol. 446, p. 80. (in Portuguese). Accessed 8 January 2019.
6. For information about Teresa Luisa de Mendonça e Melo see Queralt del Hierro, María Pilar. As Mulheres do Marquês de Pombal (The Women of the Marquis of Pombal). (In Portuguese) A Esfera dos Livros, 2014. ISBN 978-9896265243.
7. Santos, p. 81.
8. ^ Santos, p. 82.
9. One historian refers to Carvalho e Melo and Mendonça Furtado as stepbrothers. (See Hemming, John. Red Gold: The conquest of the Brazilian Indians. Harvard University Press, 1978. p. 476. (in English). Available online at . Accessed 22 December 2019. ISBN 0-674-75107-8.) but there is no evidence to support this.
10. Although the context is Pombal's expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal and elsewhere in the empire, historian Francisco Malta Romeiras summarises the family's activities as follows:

    "From the 1750s, this powerful secretary of state to King José (1714–77, r.1750–77) promoted his relatives — including his younger brothers Paulo de Carvalho e Mendonça (1702–70) and Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado (1701–69) — to the most prominent ecclesiastical, diplomatic, and political positions in the Portuguese Empire. They played a direct role in Pombal’s battles with the Jesuits, and their activities greatly increased the wealth of the Carvalho family."

    (See Romeiras, Francisco Malta. Jesuits and the Book of Nature: Science and Education in Modern Portugal. Brill, 2019. p. 24. doi:https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004382367_00 ISBN 9789004382367 Accessed 20 January 2024.
11. Cruz, Miguel Dantas da. Furtado, Francisco Xavier de Mendonça (1701-1769). E-Dicionário da Terra e do Território no Império Português, 2015. Doi:10.15847/cehc.edittip.2015v003.
12. It was only one part of an ongoing struggle between Spain and Portugal regarding each empire's rightful ownership of South American territory. Christopher Columbus's first voyage had prompted the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas to avoid colonial conflict, but its demarcation line between the empires — notionally 370 "leagues" west of "the Cape Verde Islands" — had never been formally computed or recognised.(See Harrisse, Henry (1897), The Diplomatic History of America: Its First Chapter 1452—1493—1494, London: Stevens. pp. 83-87.) Even once the Spanish discovered that the agreement entitled the Portuguese to only a sliver of South America, they ignored Portugal's moves to extend far beyond the line, claiming lands as far as the Amazon. (see "Historical Setting: The Colonial Era, 1500-1815: Frontier Expansion That Shaped Brazil." Brazil: A Country Study. Edited by Rex A. Hudson. Government Printing Office, Library of Congress, 1997. (in English). Accessed 2 February 2019.)
13. From the early days of settlement, Colonia del Sacramento passed backwards and forwards several times between the two empires. Portugal's establishment of the settlement began in late February 1680 when 5 ships containing about 400 soldiers, craftsmen, carpenters and stonecutters, and 18 guns arrived. Almost immediately, Spain demanded the Portuguese leave. This was ignored, and the colony was attacked by Spanish troops in August 1680 and was held by them until Spain and Portugal signed a treaty the following year and Colonia del Sacramento was returned to Portugal's control.
14. Ironically, although originally discovered by the Portuguese at the beginning of the 16th century and soon after occupied by them, the archipelago was progressively invaded or occupied by the English (1534), the French (1556-1612) and the Dutch (1628-1630 and again 1635–1655). The second French "occupation" began in 1736 when the islands were unoccupied and the French East India Company set up a trading post there. Portugal's military operation took place in 1737 and immediately after the French had departed, they set up permanent occupation and built several forts to strengthen their use of the islands as a way of safeguarding their shipping routes against foreign powers.
15. Babo, Carlos. O Marquês de Pombal: Catalógo bibliográfico e iconográfico. (The Marquis of Pombal: Bibliographic and iconographic catalogue). Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, 2012. p. 447.
16. An insightful analysis of Carvalho's many successes and failures can be found in Maxwell, Kenneth. Pombal, Paradox of the Enlightenment. Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN 978-0521450447.
17. Amaral, Luciano. "Prosperity In The Early 1700s Gives Way To Decline." Economic History of Portugal. EH.Net Encyclopedia, 2008. Available online at
18. Cruz, Miguel Dantas da. "Pombal and the Atlantic Empire: political impacts of the foundation of the Royal Treasury." Tempo, 2014, Vol. 20, pp. 1–24. Cruz, Miguel Dantas da (2014). "Pombal and the Atlantic Empire: Political impacts of the foundation of the Royal Treasury". Tempo. 20: 1–24. doi:10.1590/TEM-1980-542X-2014203621eng..
19. Osório, Helen. "Colonização." E-Dicionário da Terra e do Território no Império Português, 2014. Osório, Helen (2014). "Colonização". E-Dicionário da Terra e do Território no Império Português. doi:10.15847/cehc.edittip.2014v028..
20. Cruz, "Pombal and the Atlantic Empire". See chapters "Before the Royal Treasury: some aspects of political-administrative dispersion" and "The Royal Treasury and the political control of the overseas territories".
21. For a detailed examination of the historical background, social and economic outcomes in colonial Brazil, and the ongoing impact this is having in modern times, see Carvalho, Benjamin de. “The modern roots of feudal empires: The donatary captaincies and the legacies of the Portuguese Empire in modern Brazil.” Legacies of Empire: Imperial Roots of the Contemporary Global Order. Edited by Sandra Halperin and Ronen Palan. Cambridge University Press: 2015. Ch. 6, pp. 128-148. Available online at . Accessed 6 January 2024.
22. Silva, Andrée Mansuy-Diniz. "Portugal and Brazil: imperial re-organization 1870–1808." The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 1: Colonial Latin America. Edited by Leslie Bethell. Cambridge University Press, 1984. p. 469. (in English). ISBN 978-0-521-23223-4.
23. Torre do Tombo, Chancelaria de D. José I. Carta de patente de Governador e Capitão-General do Estado do Maranhão a Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado (Appointment Letter of Governor and Captain-General to Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado). 7 June 1751. Torre do Tombo, Chancelaria de D. José I, I–L. 82, fol. 377. Cited in Mendonça, Marcos Carneiro de. A Amazônia na era Pombalina, 2nd ed. Vol. 1, Correspondência do Governador e Capitão-General do Estado do Grão-Pará e Maranhão, Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado 1751-1759. Senado Federal, Congresso Nacional, Brasília, 2005. pp. 81–83. (in Portuguese). Accessed 14 January 2019.
24. In addition to these principal roles, Mendonça Furtado was also appointed as Plenipotentiary and Principal Commissioner for the demarcation of the borders. (See Southey, Robert. History of Brazil, Volume 3. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1819. p. 507.)
25. Schwebel, a German military engineer, was hired by the Portuguese Crown to be part of the Commission of border demarcations in the northern region, according to the Treaty of Madrid (1750). The Portuguese commission stayed for five years conducting surveying and hydrographic services in this region. This view, together with the others in this group, constitute an iconographic collection of the region between Belém and Barcelos during the colonial period.
26. Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Coleção Pombalina. Instruções Régias, Públicas e Secretas para Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, Capitão-General do Estado do Grāo-Pará e Maranhão (Public and Secret Royal Instructions for Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, Captain-General of the State of Grâo-Pará and Maranhão). Inventário dos Manuscritos (seção XIII) da Coleção Pombalina da Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, publicado em Lisboa, 1891, encontra-se a seguinte indicação no Codice 626: "Instruções régias, públicas e secretas para F. X. M. F., Governador do Maranhão e Grão-Pará, sobre administração, missões e índios, repressão do poder eclesiástico, doutrinas pregadas pelos jesuítas, representação do P. Malagrida, privilégios do Maranhão – 1751. Cited in Mendonça, A Amazônia na era Pombalina. pp. 67–80.
27. For a detailed analysis of the "Royal Instructions" see Raymundo, Letícia de Oliveira. "O Estado do Grão-Pará e Maranhão na nova ordem política pombalina: A Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão e o Diretório dos Índios (1755-1757)" (The State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão in Pombal's new political order: The Grão-Pará and Maranhão General Company and the Indians Directory (1755-1757)). Published in Research Reports, Almanack braziliense, Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB), Universidade de São Paulo, No. 3, May 2006. pp. 124–134. Online version is accessible at (in Portuguese). Accessed 7 February 2019. ISSN 2236-4633.
28. Apart from the implications to be drawn from the word "secretas" used in the title, the requirement for secrecy is spelt out at the document's conclusion: "You will keep this instruction secret and you will only communicate the paragraphs and that you see fit for your government to the governor of Maranhão in observance of my royal orders." (Instruções Régias, Art. 38.)
29. Glielmo, Gustavo Ferreira. "O projeto português para a Amazônia e a Companhia de Jesus (1751–1759): Reflexos do confronto entre absolutismo ilustradoe poder religiosa na América equinocial" (The Portuguese project for the Amazon and the Society of Jesus (1751–1759): Reflections of the confrontation between Enlightened Absolutism and religious power in equinoctial America). Dissertation presented to the Postgraduate Program in History of the University of Brazil, as a partial requirement to obtain a master's degree in Social History, 16 July 2010. p. 93. Archived 2018-11-05 at the Wayback Machine (in Portuguese). Accessed 18 February 2019.
30. Richardson, Lucas. "For the Good of the King's Vassals" Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado and the Portuguese Amazon, 1751-1759. Part of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky, 2015. Published online by UKnowledge. pp. 16–17. Accessed 20 December 2018.
31. Richardson points out that "references to Indians appear in some form or another in 18 of the 34 articles" directly dealing with policy. (See Richardson, p. 17.)
32. Hinting at the two-edged sword of this policy, Richardson says, "Furtado was also tasked with addressing the relationship between the Indians and the region’s missionaries, initiating a process that would culminate in the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Amazon. Initially, however, the Royal Instructions merely acknowledged royal suspicions that some of the religious missionaries, operating within their aldeias, were likely abusing their position as protectors and civilizers of the Indians and were instead using Indian labor to their benefit and enrichment. (See Richardson, pp. 20-21.)
33. ^ Richardson, p. 17.
34. Brito, Adilson J. I. ""Correrias" luso-americanas no País das Amazonas: projetos reformistas e conexões transfronteiriças (1772-1777)" (Luso-American relations in the Amazon Region: Reform projects and cross-border connections (1772-1777)). p. 5. Uploaded to Academia.edu. (in Portuguese). Accessed 2 February 2019.
35. Historian Cláudio Dumont supports this idea: "It is on the basis of Portugal's concern to surround borders and prevent the occupation and undue appropriation of this immense territory that the colony happens to have two viceroyalties." (See Dumont, Cláudio André Pires. Instruções régias sobre a proteçāo indígena do 2º vice-reinado do Brasil 1751 (Royal Instructions on the Indigenous Protection of the Second Viceroyalty of Brazil 1751). p. 1. Online from the Universidade Estácio de Sá. (in Portuguese). Accessed 2 February 2019.
36. Santos, p. 84.
37. Although, use of the word "largest" seems misleading for, as Alden points out, in 1700 Belém's population was only 500 and had grown only to 2,500 by mid-century. (See Alden, Dauril. “The Significance of Cacao Production in the Amazon Region during the Late Colonial Period: An Essay in Comparative Economic History.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 120, no. 2, 1976. p. 113. Available online at JSTOR . Accessed 21 Jan. 2024.
38. As Alden says, "Whereas twenty to forty large ships a year called at Brazil's major sugar ports, Recife, Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro, often a year or more elapsed before one or two ships put in at Belem."(Alden, p. 117.)
39. As a forecast of what Mendonća Furtado was to face, Alden notes, "By the early eighteenth century the European presence was represented by a handful of primitive settlements, impoverished plantations, and livestock ranches concentrated toward the mouths of the great river, by several strategically located river forts which served chiefly as traffic checkpoints, and by upwards of fifty missions, the responsibilities of the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Mercedarians, and the Carmelites. Apart from priests and indigenous inhabitants, the Amazon's population consisted of small contingents of European soldiers, convicts (degredados), subsistance farmers, and a few government officials.
40. McGinness, Anne B. "The Historiography of the Jesuits in Brazil Prior to the Suppression." Jesuit Historiography Online. Edited by Robert A. Maryks. BrillOnline Reference Works, July 2018. (in English). Accessed 21 January 2019. ISSN 2468-7723
41. Instruções Régias, Inst. 7.
42. Mendonça Furtado cited by Maxwell, Conflicts and Conspiracies, p. 13.
43. Azevedo e Silva, José Manuel . "O modelo pombalino de colonização da Amazónia" (The Pombaline Model of Colonization of the Amazonia). Revista de História da Sociedade e da Cultura, Universidade de Coimbra, Vol 3. 2003. p. 24. (in Portuguese). Accessed 28 February 2019. ISSN 1645-2259.
44. Silva, José Manuel Azevedo e. p. 24.
45. Azevedo e Silva, pp. 26-29.
46. "Carta Régia a Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado sobre as penetrações dos holandeses pelo rio Eseqüebe. Lisboa, 14 de novembro de 1752" (Carta Régia to Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado on the penetrations of the Dutch by the Essequibo River. Lisbon, November 14, 1752). Cited in Mendonça, A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. I. p. 384.
47. This Carta Régia continued:

    "And with the said engineers you will also visit other places and posts of this Captaincy, because the defense is important, particularly for those that are closest to the colonies and foreign establishments, to form a distinct map of the fortifications that they deem necessary, which you shall refer with your opinion, declaring at the same time the fortifications which the city of Pará, and Maranhão with its borders, may require." ("Carta Régia 1752". Cited in Mendonça, A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. I. p. 385.)

48. Silva, Jaime José S. "Forte de São Joaquim do Rio Branco" (Fort of São Joaquim do Rio Branco). Projeto Fortalezas Multimídia. (in Portuguese). Accessed 8 March 2019.
49. Cruz makes the observation that, while the provision of funds was handled by the Royal Treasury, the initiation of this action depended on communications between it and other departments. There are examples illustrating how this did not always happen: in the case of building fortifications in Brazil, it was the responsibility of the Overseas Council (Portuguese: Conselho Ultramarino) to advise the Treasury Council (Portuguese: Conselho da Fazenda) of its specific needs, but the evidence shows that as not happening with great efficiency and could well explain the delays noted above. (Cruz, "Pombal and the Atlantic Empire". See chapter "Before the Royal Treasury: some aspects of political-administrative dispersion".)
50. Implied or stated criticism of the Lisbon government should be contextualised with the occurrence of the massive earthquake, tsunami and fires in 1755 which left the city in ruin and killed thousands of its inhabitants. Afterwards Carvalho e Melo's time was consumed by rebuilding Lisbon and leading a program to resurrect and reform Portugal's economy. Nevertheless, both before the disaster and after Lisbon's recovery Mendonça Furtado's correspondence with the court, the government and his brother was a great deal more frequent and regular than the replies he ever received.
51. Abreu, Capistrano (2009). Capítulos da história colonial. p. 162. doi:10.7476/9788579820717. ISBN 978-85-7982-071-7.
52. Mendonça, "Prefaçio: D. José I – Pombal – Rolim de Moura" (Preface: King José I – Pombal – Rolim de Moura. A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. 1, p. 47.
53. The Spanish team also included Second Commissioner Eugenio de Alvarado, Third Commissioner Antonio de Urrutia, Fourth Commissioner José Solana y Bote, Adjutant to First Commissioner Juan Ignacio de Madariaga, cosmographers Ignacio Milhau, Vicente Doz and Nicolás Guerrero, José Mariano Monroy, Juan Sánchez Galán, José Santos Cabrera and the Jesuit Francisco Javier Haller. The surgeons were Matías Vercial, Antonio Álvarez, Antonio Ramírez and Francisco Rodríguez; the pilots Santiago Zuluaga Francisco Guillín, José Blanco and Valentín Cierto. There were botanist including Pehr Löfling, Benito Paltor and Antonio Condal , and the illustrators Bruno Salvador Carmona and Juan de Dios Castel. This continued until 1761. (Giraldo, Manuel Lucena. Laboratorio tropical: la expedición de límites al Orinoco, 1750-1767 (Tropical laboratory: the expedition of limits to the Orinoco, 1750-1767). Monte Avila Latinoamericana, 1991. pp. 105–129. ISBN 978-980-01-0709-6.)
54. Silva comments, "As is often the case in matters of this nature, the 'soon' of the Treaty would require many years to be executed." (See Silva. "O modelo pombalino". p. 30.)
55. Silva, João Antônio Pinto da "Diário da viagem que o Il e Ex S Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, Governador e Capitão-General do estado do Maranhão, fez para o Rio Negro. A expedição das demarcações dos reais domínios de Sua Majestade." (Diary of the voyage of Honourable Excellency Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, Governor and Captain-General of the state of Maranhão, made to the Rio Negro. The expedition for the demarcations of His Majesty's royal dominions.) Quoted in full in Mendonça, Marcos Carneiro de. A Amazônia na era Pombalina, 2nd ed. Vol. II. p. 256 Senado Federal, Congresso Nacional, Brasília, 2005. (in Portuguese). Accessed 12 February 2019.
56. One of whom was Italian astronomer Giovanni Angelo Brunelli whose written records of the Amazon and the journey are of significance. (see Papavero, Nelson, Abner Chiquieri, William L. Overal, Nelson Sanjadand Riccardo Mugnai. Os escritos de Giovanni Angelo Brunelli, 1722-1804, sobre a Amazônia Brasileira (The writings of Giovanni Angelo Brunelli, 1722-1804, on the Brazilian Amazon). Fórum Landi, Universidade Federal do Pará, 2011. (in Portuguese and Italian). Accessed 5 March 2019. ISBN 85-63728-04-0.)
57. Those involved included: "The commanding adjutants João Pereira Caldas and João Batista de Oliveira; The Secretary of State João Antônio Pinto da Silva; The confessor, Father José da Gama; The leading physician, Pascoal Pires; The surgeons Antônio de Matos, André Panelli, Domingos de Souza and Daniel Grunfeld; The engineers Felipe Sturm and Adam Leopoldo de Breuning; The astronomers João Brunelli and Miguel Antônio Ciera; The adjutant Henrique Antônio Galluzzi; The draughtsman Antônio José Landi; Lieutenants João Wilkens and Manuel Gotz; The Jesuit Ignác Szentmártoni; Treasurer Lourenço de Anvers Pacheco." (Loureiro, p. 274.)
58. As the records indicate, the picture is of the governor having with him "a hundred soldiers, four chaplains, four surgeons and a number of Indians to paddle canoes and perform other tasks such as carrying weapons, ammunition, campaign tents and various tools to repair the canoes, and to open paths in the forest, objects to give the Indians such as cotton cloths for shrouds (panos de algodão para mortalhas), fishing hooks and harpoons, lanterns and sufficient food reserves, medical and surgical equipment and a 'drugstore with all kinds of medicines and purges'." (Silva, "O modelo pombalino", p. 30.)
59. A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 257.
60. The text is available in full as "Diário da viagem que o Ilm e Exm S Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, Governador e Capitão-General do estado do Maranhão, fez para o Rio Negro. A expedição das demarcações dos reais domínios de Sua Majestade" (Diary of the trip that His Honour and Excellency Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, Governor and Captain-General of the state of Maranhão, made for the Rio Negro. The expedition of the royal demarcations of His Majesty). Mendonça, A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 256–288.
61. Silva. "Diário da viagem." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 262.
62. Silva. "Diário da viagem." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 263.
63. Mendonça Furtado. "Ao mesmo S Bispo" (To the same Lord Bishop). A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 290–293.
64. Silva noted that there was a nearby hospice being run by the Franciscan Capuchins but that he had his own chaplains celebrate the Mass "because he wanted in no way to disturb the Regulares (friars) or the inhabitants." (Silva. "Diário da viagem." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 266.)
65. Silva. "Diário da viagem." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 268.
66. For further information on this subject, see Roller, Heather F. Amazonian Routes: Indigenous Mobility and Colonial Communities in Northern Brazil. Stanford University Press, 2014. ISBN 0-8047-8708-5 or McKeown, Marie. "Indigenous People of Latin America: An Introduction." Published online by Owlcation (in English). Accessed 16 March 2019.)
67. He later served as Governor of the Captaincy of São José do Rio Negro from 12 April 1760 until dying in office on 7 September 1761. He constructed a number of buildings there including a town hall, a jail and a church where he was later buried.
68. Mendonça Furtado. 112 Carta, 10 July 1755. A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 414.
69. Mendonça Furtado, 112 Carta, 10 July 1755. A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 414–415.
70. Mendonça Furtado. "Relação dos rios." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 347–354.
71. Mendonça Furtado. "Notícia do Rio Branco." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 354–357.
72. Mendonça Furtado. "106 Carta", A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 393.
73. Mendonça Furtado, "Sistema das demarcações." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 394–401.
74. Mendonça Furtado, "Sistema das demarcações." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 394–396.
75. Mendonça Furtado, "Sistema das demarcações." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. pp. 398–400.
76. Mendonça Furtado, "Sistema das demarcações." A Amazônia na era Pombalina, Vol. II. p. 399.
77. Cortesão, Jaime. História do Brasil nos Velhos Mapas (History of Brazil in Old Maps). Vol . 2. Instituto Rio Branco, 1971. pp. 371–371.
78. Alden. "Andrade, Gomes Freire de (1688–1763)." Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Online at Encyclopedia.com. (in English). Accessed 7 February 2019.
79. Carvalho e Melo's Primeira carta secretíssima de Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, para Gomes Freire de Andrada, para servir de suplemento às instruções que lhe foram enviadas sobre a forma da execução do Tratado Preliminar de Limites, assinado em Madri a 13 de janeiro de 1750. Lisboa, 21 de setembro de 1751. (First secret letter of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, to Gomes Freire de Andrada, to serve as supplement to the instructions sent to it on the execution of the Preliminary Limitation Treaty, signed in Madrid on January 13, 1750. Lisbon, September 21, 1751.) Cited and quoted by Maxwell, Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal 1750–1808. Routledge, 2004. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-0-415-94989-7.
80. Silva, "O modelo pombalino", p. 33.
81. Richardson, p. 15.
82. Instruções Régias, Inst. 14.
83. This correspondence has been summarised by Richardson, pp. 26–27.
84. Gusta, Francesco. Anecdotes du ministère de Sébastien-Joseph Carvalho, Comte d'Oyeras, Marquis de Pombal, sous le règne de Joseph I, roi de Portugal, nouvelle édition. Varsovie: Janosrowicki, 1784. pp. 325–326 . (in French). Accessed 13 January 2019.
85. The identification of publisher as "Varsovie: Janosrowicki" vary from the first edition where the publisher was shown as being in Warsaw with the identifier as "chez Janos Rovicki". Venturi says this is misleading because the printer was Dutch. (See Venturi, Franco. The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1776-1789, Part I: The Great States of the West. Princeton University Press, 2014. pp. 211–212 . ISBN 0-691-60571-8.) Other authors have fallen into the trap of believing this entry, for example see Telfer, William. The treasure of São Roque: A Sidelight on the Counter-reformation. Church Historical Society, 1932. p. 15. .
86. The full text reads:

    "The whole Court was in Vila Viçosa in the month of November, with the exception of the young Prince of Beira, who had been left in Lisbon under the guard of his governors, the Marquis d'Alvitto and the Countess de Pombeiro. Count d'Oeiras had remained in the capital, to watch closely the general progress of affairs. However, feeling the need to take a little rest he went to spend a few days at his property of Oeiras, and absolutely wanted to take the young Prince, whatever needed to be said to him to convince the Marquis and Countess in charge of the guard of this august Child. They did not ignore what they feared, that is exposing themselves to the vengeance of this implacable Minister; however, they thought that they should not set aside informing their Majesties immediately of this event. The King paid little attention to it; but the Queen was so angry with Carvalho that, having met his brother Mendonça, she crushed him with the harshest reproaches, and made him bear all the weight of her resentment. Mendonça in despair, retired to his apartment, where he was seized with a fever so violent, that it took him away after three days." (See Gusta. Mémoires du Sébastien-Joseph Carvalho e Melo, Comte d'Oyeras, Marquis de Pombal, Secrétaire d'Etat et Premier Ministre du Roi de Portugal Joseph I. (Memoirs of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Count of Oeiras, Marquis of Pombal, Secretary of State and Prime Minister of the King of Portugal José I.) Vol. 3. 1784. pp. 144–145. (in French). Accessed 13 January 2019.)

87. For a comment on Gusta and the accuracy of these and other editions of the Anecdotes and Mémoires, see Venturi, pp. 211–212 .
88. Matriz de Villa Viçosa: Obitos 1767–1791 (Mother Church of Vila Viçosa: Deaths 1767–1791). (see PT-ADEVR-PRQ-VVC03-003-0003_m0020.tif) (in Portuguese). Accessed 25 March 2019)
89. Espanca, Túlio. Inventário artístico de Portugal: Distrito de Évora: Concelhos de Alandroal, Borba, Mourão, Portel, Redondo, Reguengos de Monsaraz, Viana do Alentejo e Vila Viçosa. (Artistic Inventory of Portugal. District of Évora: Municipalities of Alandroal, Borba, Mourão, Portel, Redondo, Reguengos de Monsaraz, Viana do Alentejo and Vila Viçosa.). Vol. 9. Academia Nacional de Belas-Artes, 1978. p. 531.
90. Espanca, p. 531 .
91. ^ Santos, p. 76.
92. Cruz, Miguel Dantas da (2015). "Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado (1701-1769)". E-Dicionário da Terra e do Território no Império Português. doi:10.15847/cehc.edittip.2015v003. hdl:10451/22469.
93. João Lúcio de Azevedo
94. Azevedo, João Lúcio de. Estudos de história paraense (Study of Pará's history). Tavares Cardoso & Co, 1893. (in Portuguese) Accessed 10 January 2019.
95. ^ Azevedo, p. 17.
96. Azevedo, p. 13.
97. The book referred to is Gomes, Francisco Luis. Le marquis de Pombal, esquisse de sa vie publique (The Marquis of Pombal, sketch of his public life). Imprimerie Franco-Portugaise, 1869. (in French) Accessed 18 January 2019.
98. Azevedo, p. 14.
99. Simão José da Luz Soriano (in Portuguese)
100. Soriano, Simão José da Luz. Historia de reinado de el-rei D. José e da administração do marquez de Pombal : precedida de uma breve notícia dos antecedentes reinados, a começar no de el-rei D. João IV, em 1640. Vol. 1. Thomaz Quintino Antunes, 1867. p. 381. (in Portuguese). Accessed 18 January 2019.
101. Curiously, Azevedo only includes a portion of this quote, ie "essentially coarse and despotic, qualities … which rendered him altogether incapable of governing men" (Portuguese: "essencialmente grosseiro e despotico, qualidades que o tornavam inteiramente inhabil para governar homens.") which he attributes to Soriano rather than the Jesuits. (See Azevedo, p. 14.)
102. Alfonso Augusto Falcão Cotta de Bourbon e Menezes (in Portuguese).
103. Gustavo Adriano de Matos Sequeira (in Portuguese).
104. Bourbon e Menezes, Alfonso Augusto Falcão Cotta de and Gustavo Adriano de Matos Sequeira Figuras históricas de Portugal (Historic Figures of Portugal). Livraria Lello & Irmão, 1933. pp. 116–117.
105. Alden. "Economic Aspects of the Expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil: A Preliminary Report." Conflict and Continuity in Brazilian Society. Edited by Henry E. Keith and S. F. Edwards. University of South Carolina Press, 1969. pp. 41–42. (in English). ISBN 0-87249-170-6

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• 18th-century Portuguese people
• History of Lisbon
• Colonial Brazil
• Slavery in Brazil
• History of Amazonia
• Exploration of South America
• 1701 births
• 1769 deaths