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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 archival document, originating from the 19th to early 20th century and likely sourced from Portuguese colonial administrative records—potentially held in repositories such as the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon—presents significant challenges for transcription due to repeated validation failures caused by excessive textual repetition or apparent hallucination in the source input. These anomalies may stem from technical issues in digitisation processes, including scanning artefacts, misaligned folios, or mechanical duplication, as well as physical manuscript degradation such as ink corrosion, water damage, or superimposed entries. Alternatively, the repetitions may reflect inherent features of colonial record-keeping practices, including administrative reduplication, marginalia, palimpsests, or scribal errors. The document’s content remains inaccessible in its current form, with all transcription attempts failing across multiple segments of the source material. For accurate scholarly engagement, direct consultation of the original manuscript or a high-fidelity digital facsimile is strongly advised to assess legibility, structural integrity, and paleographic characteristics. Researchers should approach this material with rigorous source criticism, recognising that such transcription difficulties are not uncommon in colonial-era archives where preservation conditions and documentation standards varied considerably. This notice serves as a methodological clarification rather than an assessment of the document’s historical authenticity or research value.
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- Bishops of Macau (1)
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- Manuscript (3)