THE PORTUGUESE IN HONG KONG AND CHINA
By J. P. Braga
First published in 1944 and reprinted in 1978 and 1998; published on the internet circa 2009.
Editorial Note:
This is the 1944 version. J.P. Braga did not complete this booklet before his death. J.M. “Jack” Braga edited and published this work after his father’s death. Stuart Braga, J.P. Braga‘s grandson, made some editorial changes. I converted the text to a format suitable for the website, with links to Person Pages, etc. J.P. Braga only gave the initials for many people and others had common names, so that identification has proved difficult. Readers are warned that many of the links given here could in fact be wrong; if you find any errors, please let me know.
Numbers are used for JP Braga‘s footnotes and letters for footnotes added by Stuart Braga and Henry d’Assumpção.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD | |
CHAPTER I: | Early Portuguese Voyages of Discovery of a Sea Route to China |
CHAPTER II | The Portuguese impress the Chinese who desire Peace and Friendship with Portugal |
CHAPTER III | The Portuguese Padroado and the Jesuits College at Macao |
CHAPTER IV | Services of the Jesuits to China. Subordination of Portugal’s National Interests |
CHAPTER V | Dutch and English envious of Portuguese trade – The British at Macao – The Macaense race |
CHAPTER VI | Recourse to Macao during the Anglo-Chinese War – Captain Elliot’s Memorable Proclamation |
CHAPTER VII | Early Hongkong from Portuguese and other records – Departure of Captain Elliot |
CHAPTER VIII | The Rise of Hongkong – Early Portuguese Settlers |
CHAPTER IX | Growth of the Portuguese Community in Hongkong – The Portuguese as Interpreters. |
CHAPTER X | Catholic Churches and Schools in Hongkong |
CHAPTER XI | Early relations between Macao and Hongkong – Last Days of Portuguese Shipping in the East. |
CHAPTER XII | Portuguese Interest in Land Development in Hongkong – Genesis of Kowloon – Some Interesting Personalities among the Portuguese of Old Hongkong |
FOREWORD
This is José Pedro Braga‘s book. Nay, it is his tribute to his race, the Portuguese in China. “Our people”, he called them.
None better than he knew the latent worth of these people. None better than he could tell of all that was best in them. None better than he understood their frailties. It is right, then, that he should have written their story, but he did not live to complete it. He had hoped to lead them, as he had led them before, and in the renascence of this people to write Finis to his work.
But it was not to be. God has removed him, leaving it to others to carry on the service, a service to which he devoted so much energy and so many tireless years.
He was in the direct succession of the Portuguese who went to Hongkong as its original pioneers, and he loved to talk of Mr. Delfino Noronha, his grandfather on his mother’s side, who recognised his grandson’s worth and passed on to him the mantle of the splendid example and noble traditions of the Portuguese from old Macao.
When, on the 1st June, 1942, my father came from Hongkong to Macao, I cast about for something to which he might devote his time and employ his mind, that energetic and enthusiastic mind. Nothing seemed more practical than a book in which the story of “our people” in Hongkong might be told and thus preserved. He was eminently suited to the task. He had had the advantage of hearing from his grandfather thrilling, first-hand accounts of Hongkong’s early days, and for fifty years he had, himself, taken a constant and intelligent interest in the activities of the Portuguese in Hongkong.
Thus it was that in the summer and autumn of 1942, I was busily engaged in the task, a proud and pleasant one, of helping my father with his book. His own papers had been left behind in Hongkong, and lost, but I placed before him, day after day, such material as I happened to possess. Drawing from this material and from his memory, my father prepared his notes and the book was written.
After an excellent beginning his efforts slackened, for he was distressed over nameless things, which interfered with the sequence of his thoughts. Shortly before his death, however, he resumed his interest, and just when it seemed that the book might be completed before many weeks, he suddenly passed away.
He had also interested himself during the last few weeks of his life, in the projected Technical School in Macao, and as Chairman of the Committee he was hopeful that he would, in this way, be able to help his fellow nationals yet once again. Is will not be long, however, before classes will commence, and in view of his efforts and zeal for its establishment, kind friends have graciously suggested that it should be named the J. P. Braga Memorial School.
The book as prepared by my father is not complete, but the first 15 chapters were almost ready for publication at the time of his death. He had only to revise them once before they would have been ready for the press. The notes assembled and the typescript completed, however, of a further 8 chapters. It will fall to me to revise these, and I must accept full responsibility for such defects as these chapters will contain. The final chapters must be written by me from my own notes and from the views my father expressed as the work progressed. I shall be fully responsible for their shortcomings. My father also prepared a number of biographical notes, which he intended inserting, with others he contemplated writing, in various places in the text of his book. These will be used where it seems he intended them to appear.
To the fact my father was not spared to revise the book must be attributed the lack of a great deal of valuable material. However, rather than withhold the information contained in the chapters already written, I have thought it expedient to present this book as it is, so that the information contained in it may be made available, to serve as a stimulus for the Portuguese and to be a pleader for them, as intended the book to be, before the tribunal of fair-minded public opinion, regarding the services rendered by the Portuguese in the past.
It was father’s cherished hope, which he sought by precept and example to encourage, that “his people”, especially the younger generation of the Portuguese in China should assist one another in every way and not lose any opportunity to contribute by active and intelligent service to the welfare of one another as well as of the community among whom they live. He hoped to see the rise of good leaders, dedicated to the welfare of their less fortunate brethren, and the last of the projects he had the opportunity of initiating had such an object in view.
And this book, containing some of his posthumous papers, may speak to the reader of one who devoted himself unstintingly and disinterestedly to a good cause. If this account of the achievement of “his” people during the last century serves to stimulate the energies and actuate the motives of this people in the years to come, then Mr. J. P. Braga‘s book will not have been written in vain.
JACK BRAGA
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