The Governors and Life of Macau in the XIXth Century

Having observed José Gregório Pegado's skill and elegance in using chopsticks at a dinner held in his honour in Canton, the representative of the Imperial High Commissioner, Ki Ying, made the following remark: "Your Excellency is so polite, and I am so impressed by you that I cannot refuse you anything. I shall make a confidential recommendation to the Vice-roy of the two Kuons that he turn a blind eye to the Portuguese settling on Taipa".

After having occupied the peninsula of Macau from the walls of the city up to the Frontier Gates, the heroic governor João Maria Ferreira do Amaral took note of this verbal promise and in April, 1847, he charged the harbour captain, Pedro José da Silva Loureiro, with building the Casa Forte da Taipa. After difficult negotiations with the neighbouring mandarins and the Vice-roy of Canton, the Portuguese flag was hoisted for the first time on the island on the 9th of September, 1847. In 1879, Taipa Quebrada, also known as the Island of Maria Nunes, was occupied and a barracks constructed in the old hospital building, now used as a Social Centre.

On the 23rd of December, 1864, the inhabitants of Coloane village requested that Portuguese soldiers should be sent to protect them from the pirates. A force of ten policemen was immediately sent to the island and by 1878 all three islands (Taipa was composed of two islands) were administrated by the Portuguese.

Isidoro Francisco Guimarães (Governor from 1851-1863) was reponsible for setting up an agreement with China which would normalise the situation created by Ferreira do Amaral. The Trade and Friendship Agreement dated the 13th of August, 1862, in Tientsin, was signed in Peking but not ratified two years later as had been programmed. The problem lay in Article 9 which would allow the Chinese to set up a consulate in Macau but would not permit a mandarinate as had happened before with the ill-fated governor. Coelho do Amaral lacked the tact of his predecessor, Guimarães, and not a single one of the subsequent governors (Ponte e Horta (1866-1868), Sérgio de Sousa (1868-1872), famed for putting an end to sending policemen over to Lappa Island to round up and imprison criminals, Januário Correia de Almeida (1872-1874), and Joaquim José da Graça (1879-1883) managed to convince the Chinese of the Portuguese point of view.

A compromise was reached by Tomás de Sousa Rosa (1883-1886). He did this by taking advantage of the Chinese' need for Portuguese support in supervising the opium trade, carried out via Hong Kong and Macau.

Article 2 of the Peking Treaty, dated the 2nd of December, 1887 and ratified on the 28th of August, 1888, confirmed the protocol agreement signed in Lisbon on the 26th of March of the same year by Henrique de Barros Gomes, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Trade, and by James Duncan Campbell, the Chinese Government's representative which was as follows:

Article 2 - "China confirms that Macau shall be evermore occupied and governed by Portugal just as any other Portuguese possession."

PANORAMA OF THE CITY OF MACAU (late XIXth Century)

Article 3 - "Portugal undertakes never to leave Macau and its dependencies, without permission from China."

Unfortunately, despite the prolonged negotiations which are still going on, China has always avoided the question of defining Macau's territorial limits and specifying "its dependencies".

During the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, it had been the "Court Fathers", the Jesuits on the Mathematics Tribunal, who had solved any major problems with the Chinese authorities in Peking. Once the Jesuits had left Peking, and the Senate Magistrate had been stripped of his political powers, the governors of Macau served as Portugal's diplomats and plenipotentiaries to the Emperor of China, carrying out their duties in a punctilious and dignified manner. They were aided in this long and thorny dialogue by some members of the French and English community based in Macau.

Almost all of the governors mentioned above made major contributions to the development of Macau. Isidoro Guimarães erected a splendid palace opposite the spot where a statue of Jorge Álvares now stands. Previously, this had been the site of a residence dating from 1772 which had housed governors and captain generals. Later, governors such as Coelho do Amaral, Ponte e Horta and Sérgio de Sousa added costly furniture, crockery, fittings and a chapel to the palace.

Between 1864 and 1865, on the site of the old convent and on part of the Fortress of S. Francisco, Coelho do Amaral built a barracks named after the same saint. They were "spacious, airy, in excellent condition and used (in 1894) by a battalion of the overseas regiment serving in Macau". (1)

Tomás de Sousa Rosa bought the widow Cercal's palace from her and after 1884 it was used as the governor's residence. The palace had been built in 1849 and was designed by the renowned Macanese architect José Tomás de Aquino: "For some time, the palace housed several government departments but later they were all moved into the former governor's palace, making it much more convenient for the public. The latter was also an excellent building where the courtroom is of particular note, having served beforehand as the throne room of the palace. Many district magistrates from the Motherland would have coveted this building for their own chambers and there could have been nobody who would wish other than that the court room at Boa Hora bear even a slight resemblance to the courtroom in Macau! Nearby, there is a small post office (the former guard-house) which was set up during the mandate of Thomaz Rosa. Until then, there had been nothing like it in the province! All the mail to be sent went on the steam packet to the post office in Hong Kong". (2)

Tomás de Sousa Rosa ordered sixty thousand trees to be planted on all the hills in the city. This made places like Horta da Mitra into healthy quarters. Horta e Mitra was where "a small but rather elegant school, 'Príncipe D. Carlos', where the Chinese learned Portuguese to the advantage of Portuguese rule" was located. This was in fact the first Luso-Chinese school. The greatest contribution which Tomás de Sousa Rosa made to Macau, however, was to introduce sanitation and to renovate the S. Lázaro Quarter with its church, "the brightest and most beautiful of them all", perhaps a somewhat exaggerated compliment.

The S. Lázaro Quarter had first been settled in 1809, 1814 and then 1818 with Christians who had fled persecution in China. The first missionaries to work there were the Spanish Augustinian Father José Segui, the Portuguese Father António Vieira and the Chinese Father Marcos Liu. Although the quarter had suffered a high concentration of bubonic plague, the Portuguese started to move in from 1878 and into the other Chinese quarters from 1896. The governor Horta e Costa and the Director of Engineering in the Public Works Department, Abreu Nunes, completed the work started by their predecessors and developed the area then called Volong Quarter between 1900 and 1904.

The Count of Arnoso described the Chinese in this parish as "the best of them all. Those who emigrate, and they are the majority, hurry back as soon as they have gathered up a small fortune and they try to buy a house or a plot on which they can build one as near the church as possible. How they remind me of the emigrants from the industrious and happy villages in the Minho valley!".(3)

The Viscount of S. Januário, Januário Correia de Almeida, was also another great contributor to the progress of Macau, working ten years prior to Tomás de Sousa Rosa. The viscount had had a distinguished career as Governor General of Portuguese India: In Macau, he was responsible for opening the Barra and D. Maria II roads, looking for water to the back of Flora Park, building the battery near to the 1st of December barracks on S. Francisco Beach, setting up a firing range at the Campo da Vitória, building a new guard house on the Praia Grande, initiating land reclamation at the Inner Harbour, laying pipes round the new market and the Chinese theatre at the Manuel Pereira Dock, building barracks to be used as an artillery battery at the Monte Fortress, initiating land reclamation and building a wall to the south of the Praia Grande. Perhaps his greatest work, however, was the construction of the hospital. The idea of a hospital had been suggested by the Baron of Cercal, António Alexandrino de Mello and the facility was opened on the 1st of December, 1872.

One famed event which took place at the beginning of the Viscount of S. Januário's term of office was the visit on the 28th of September of Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Russian Tzar who was to take the Imperial throne in 1881 under the name of Alexander the IIIrd. The prince was on a world tour. When he arrived in Hong Kong, Januário Correia de Almeida sent the distinguished Captain Tomás de Vilanova Ferrari on board the gunboat Camões as his representative in presenting his respects and to invite him to Macau. The Grand Duke arrived in Macau after visiting Canton on the liner Spark. The ship anchored at Praia Grande and the heir to the Russian Imperial throne boarded the governor's galliot which took him towards the shore. At that moment, the air shook with the sound of a gun salute from the old cannons of the S. Francisco Fortress. When the galliot came up to the shore in front of the Governor's Palace, there was another salute from the Monte Fortress. After the initial greetings and review of the guard of honour composed of an infantry battalion with a band and flag, the Grand Duke entered the palace.

That Saturday night there was a banquet and on the following Sunday there was a lunch attended by some officials as well as battalion officers and respected members of the community. Finally, the Grand Duke visited the Leal Senado and the gardens (the Grotto of Camões) belonging to Mr. Lourenço Marques, president of the town council. The dinner that night was also attended by the consular corps and was followed by a performance of Chinese drama.

On the Monday, the Grand Duke first had breakfast with the Governor and at ten o'clock, he went aboard the gunboat Peng-Chao hoi with his distinguished retinue (Vice-Admiral Possiette, councillor Machin, Lieutenant Tundeer of the Imperial Fleet, Captain O'Callaghan and Mr. Woodhouse, officials from the Hong Kong Government). The gunboat had been provided by the Viceroy of Canton. The Portuguese boat Camões followed in the Chinese ship's wake and the two crossed through sixteen Portuguese and foreign battleships and trading ships which were anchored in the harbour. As they left Macau, there was a gun salute from the Fort of S. Pedro and the Fortress of S. Francisco.

Some days later, Grand Duke Alexis sent Mr. A-Lok, the owner of the Chinese theatre group, a brooch with a precious black pearl surrounded by several glittering stones as a mark of his appreciation. (4)

Even as late as the third quarter of the last century, there were still no public shows or performances apart from concerts which the police band gave in S. Francisco Park on holidays. Family and society life, however, was lively and varied. During their free time, people visited each other's homes to play card games or dominoes while others learned to sing or play the piano under the instruction of Maestro Luigi Antinori. There were weekly Sunday meetings at the Baron of Cercal's palace. On Mondays there were meetings at the home of Henrique de Castro, secretary general to the government; on Tuesdays, at the home of Count Bernardino de Senna Fernandes, Consul of Siam; on Wednesdays, in the Military Club; on Thursdays, at the Government Palace with one week for the women and the next for the men; on Fridays, at the home of Tanco Armero, an emigration agent; and on Saturdays, at the chambers of the lawyer Albino António Pacheco.

These scheduled meetings were frequently replaced with other special events such as birthdays, weddings or christenings where guests could eat and drink until the small hours of the morning:

Avenida Vasco da Gama, (Tap Seac), in the late XIXth century (from Jornal Único, Macau, 1898)

"So, on the 17th day of October (1872 or 1873), José Homem de Carvalho invited the Governor, Viscount of S. Januário, his aide-de-camp Pedro Gastão Mesnier, the General Secretary and his wife and many other friends and their wives, to be his guests at the dinner in honour of his wife's birthday. After dinner, there was a soirée. Gastão Mesnier played the overture to Rossini's "William Tell" as a piano duet with Maestro Antinori. Next, Don José Novarro, the Spanish ViceConsul in Hong Kong, rose from his seat to seek out the daughter of the house and they sang a duet from the opera "I Mesnadieri" by Verdi. The guests then danced quadrilles and waltzes which was followed by tea. The soiree ended with a quintet from Verdi's "Hernani" sung by Belarmina de Carvalho, her sister Hermínia, Don Jose Navarro, Gastão Mesnier and the Maestro Antinori. A chronicler from the time wrote: "It seemed impossible that without having rehearsed they could sing so harmoniously". Hermínia de Jesus brought the performances to a close with the cavatina from "The Barber of Seville" and once the applause had died down the guests continued to dance until dawn.

Nor were the children forgotten that year. On the 27th of October, they gave a recital in the home of the wealthy merchant Bartolomeu A. Pereira.

The Governor himself, the Viscount of S Januário, gave a lively party to celebrate the birthday of the king, D. Luís I. From Chunambeiro Square, as far as the S. Francisco Barracks the Praia Grande was lined with balloons of all shapes and colours. The fronts of the houses along this avenue were extravagantly lit and decorated. The palace of the Baron of Cercal (now the Government Palace) boasted an electric light in the middle of the verandah, a novelty of the time, while the sentry guards took balloons up to the top of the consulate flagpole. Bernardino de Senna Fernandes' verandah (in the Hip Vo School building, now demolished) was adorned with the letters V. L. I. (Long Live Luís I), topped off with a star. Out on the water, the steam boat belonging to the emigration agents had been decorated Venetian style, while two great streams of light flooded down from the columns in front of the Governor's Palace.

The crowds in the streets were of such density that the sedan chairs (the means of transport in that era) encountered great difficulty in making their way through.

A dance was held at the Governor's Palace, opposite the Fort of S. Pedro, in a recently extended and brilliantly lit room. First on the programme was a quadrille led by the Viscount of S. Januário with the wife of Sir Arthur Kennedy, Governor of Hong Kong as his partner, and the Governor himself dancing with the wife of Baron Carlos Corrêa Paes d'Assumpção.

The Praia Grande, c 1870. Artist unknown. Oil on canvas, 56cm x 88cm (Luís de Camões Museum).

The garden, where a Chinese pavilion had been erected for serving refreshments, was spectacular. An elegant buffet had been delighfully laid out for the guests and the finest wines (Sherry, Port, Reno, Carcavelos, Madeira, Chablis, Bordeaux, Champagne) and typical dishes were served. At about two o'clock in the morning, the guests took their fill of a lavish supper as can be seen from the menu:

Consommé de volaille

Petit vol-au-vent aux crevettes

Galantine de gibier

Mayonnaise de langoustes

Criquettes ed veau truffées

Timbales de macaroni

Bècassine à la broche

Langues glacées

Dinde truffée garnie de cailles

Jambon braisé

Saucisson de Lyon et de Boulogne

Gelées, crêmes, gateaux divers

The presence of two axe-bearers in elaborate uniforms, standing at each side of a portrait of King Luís I greatly pleased the public who watched on as they left the following morning at the head of the guard of honour.

The two hundred and twenty gentlemen spotlessly attired in uniforms, and seventy nine ladies in elegant gowns and adorned with valuable jewels, lent an unaccustomed refinement to the animated gathering.

From that time on, everybody recalled with pleasure and a little sadness, that gala evening for Macau's high society. The rapidly approaching economic crisis caused by the break in the coolie trade from South East Asia, the supression of contraband opium and competition from Hong Kong's port, was to affect their way of life profoundly."(5)

Translated by. Marie Imelda MacLeod

Ma Kok Temple, late XIXth century(photo by H. C. White, taken from The Face of China, Aperture Book Inc., p.27).

NOTES

(1) Father Manuel Teixeira: Os Militares em Macau, Imprensa Nacional, Macau, 1976, pp.336, 401-459; Idem, Taipa e Coloane, Economics Department, Macau, 1981, pp.3-9,60. On the topic of Portuguese "rights" and the occupation of D. João or Macareira island and Montanha island, see several pamphlets printed around fifty years ago, and Father Manuel Teixeira: Taipa e Coloane, 1981, pp.23-26.

(2) Father Manuel Teixeira: Residência dos Governadores de Macau, Tourism Department, pp.9-22; Conde de Arnoso: Jornadas pelo Mundo, Oporto, Magalhães e Moniz, 1985, p.117.

(3) Conde de Arnoso: ob. cit, pp.116-118. Although he spent only five days in Macau, he was accompanied by the best sources of information both Chinese and Portuguese. He criticized only the defence system, saying it "leaves much to be desired".

(4) Luís Gonzaga Gomes: Páginas da História de Macau, "Notícias de Macau", 1966, pp.381-389.

(5) Idem, ib.

Note: Both this article ("The Governors and Life of Macau in the XIXth Century") and "Chinatown One Hundred Years Ago" have been reprinted in this issue after publication in the author's book Os Extremos Conciliam-se (ed. ICM). The reproductions at the beginning of the article are part of a complete set of portraits which are to be published by ICM in Álbum dos Governadores de Macau.

* Graduate in Philosophy and Portuguese Literature (Lisbon Uni). Researcher on the history of the Portuguese in the Orient and the Jesuit Missions to Asia. Author of several publications. Governor of the International Association of Asian Historians and Member of the Portuguese Academy of History.