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Official copy (*treslado*) of financial receipts from 1613, transcribed in February 1616, documenting loans advanced in Macao for the provisioning of the Portuguese China fleet under Captain-General Miguel de Sousa Pimentel. The documents record multiple transactions administered by André Dias, factor (feitor) and governor of the armada, with Francisco Duarte and later Francisco de Sá acting as scriveners. Between October and November 1613, sums totalling over 9,000 pardaus in reais were received from merchants, officials, and private lenders, including funds from the municipal council of Macao and individuals such as Estevão Borges and João Francisco Sem Biques. Loans were issued at an interest rate of twenty-five per cent, repayable in Malacca, with Miguel de Sousa Pimentel personally assuming financial risk aboard the galleon *São Bento*. Entries detail disbursements for fleet maintenance, duties, and operational expenses, with formal acknowledgements of receipt and liability declarations preserved. The original receipts were certified as accurate by Manuel Nogueira Dandrade, scrivener of the Treasury, on 13 February 1616, based on records sent from China by André Dias under warrant from the Chief Purveyor. Held in the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU), this document provides critical insight into early 17th-century Luso-Asian maritime finance, colonial administrative practices, and credit mechanisms within the Estado da Índia’s naval operations.
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Royal decree issued by the King of Portugal on 3 September 1615, originating from Lisbon and addressed to the Viceroy of India, concerning the financial provision for Jesuit missionaries in China. The document records the monarch’s decision to augment the annual stipend granted to the Company of Jesus in the Chinese mission by one thousand xerafins, increasing the total allocation from two thousand to three thousand xerafins per annum. This increase is conditional upon confirmation that the number of Jesuit religious in China has risen to twenty-one, exceeding the original fourteen who had been supported under the prior arrangement. The augmentation is explicitly tied to the presence of at least seven additional missionaries beyond the original complement. The Viceroy of India is instructed to verify this numerical increase through official certification listing all religious stationed in the missions under Jesuit authority, including those in China, before disbursement may proceed. Failure to provide documented evidence will result in the suspension of both the additional payment and any future increments. Endorsed by Rui Dias de Meneses and bearing archival stamps from the Biblioteca Nacional Secção Ultramarina and Arquivo Histórico Colonial, Lisboa, the document forms part of the Portuguese colonial administrative records relating to Asia (AHU_CU_Índia). It reflects the Crown’s fiscal oversight of missionary activities in its overseas territories during the early seventeenth century.
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This is a diplomatic and ecclesiastical letter, dated 8 March 16[unclear: bis/6is], authored by the Bishop of Japan and addressed to a high-ranking Portuguese official—referred to as “Your Excellency”—presumably a member of the Royal Council or colonial administration in Goa or Lisbon. The document originates from Nagasaki and is preserved in the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (Lisbon) and Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro. It concerns Portugal’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Japanese mission amid escalating Spanish and papal intervention. The Bishop reports on a 1611 papal brief issued by Pope Paul V at the instigation of the Spanish Crown and Philippine religious orders, and with support from the Castilian Consejo de Indias, authorising clergy—including secular priests—to enter Japan and China via the Philippines, bypassing traditional Portuguese routes through Goa and Macau. He stresses the Crown of Portugal’s sovereign claim over the Japanese church, warns of potential jurisdictional conflict and pastoral discord, and encloses a memorial petitioning the Portuguese monarch to seek corrective papal briefs. Supplementary archival notes indicate related discussions on Philippines–Japan–China trade and Jesuit mobility under the same papal authorisation. The manuscript bears multiple institutional stamps and marginalia confirming its provenance and archival history.
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- Bishops of Macau (1)
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- Manuscript (5)