History Christian missionaries were known as bateren (from the Portuguese word padre, “father”) or iruman (from the Portuguese irmão, “brother”). Both the transcriptions 切支丹 and 鬼利死丹 came into use during the Edo Period when Christianity was a forbidden religion. The Kanji used for the transcriptions have negative connotations. The first one could be read as “cut […]
The year 1992 marked the 500th anniversary of the landing of Columbus in the New World. It also marked a less publicized anniversary, that of the beginning of what is known as the Second Diaspora, when the Jews were expelled from Spain and re-settled throughout the world. These two events are related by more than […]
Jesuit in China The first attempt by Jesuits to reach China was made in 1552 by St. Francis Xavier, Navarrese priest and missionary and founding member of the Society. Xavier, however, died the same year on the Chinese island of Shangchuan, without having reached the mainland. Three decades later, in 1582, led by several figures including […]
The Catholic Church during the Age of Discovery inaugurated a major effort to spread Christianity in the New World and to convert the Native Americans and other indigenous people. The evangelical effort was a major part of, and a justification for the military conquests of European powers such as Spain, France and Portugal. Christian Missions […]
Initially, the line of demarcation did not encircle the Earth. Instead, Spain and Portugal could conquer any new lands they were the first to discover, Spain to the west and Portugal to the east, even if they passed each other on the other side of the globe. But Portugal’s discovery of the highly valued Moluccas in […]
The Treaty of Tordesillas signed at Tordesillas (now in Valladolid province, Spain) on 7 June 1494 and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe betweenPortugal and Castile along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa). This line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape […]
Fortaleza do Monte, Portuguese for Mount Fortress, also Monte Forte; officially Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora do Monte de São Paulo, in English: Fortress of Our Lady of the Mount of St. Paul; is the historical military centre of the former Portuguese colony of Macau, now a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. It […]
The Battle of Macau in 1622 was a conflict of the Dutch-Portuguese War fought in the Portuguese settlement of Macau, in southeastern China. The Portuguese, outnumbered and without adequate fortification, managed to repel the Dutch in a much-celebrated victory on 24 June after a three-day battle. To date, the battle remains the only major engagement […]
Prester John (is a legendary Christian patriarch and king popular in European chronicles and tradition from the 12th through the 17th century. He was said to rule over a “Nestorian” (Church of the East) Christian nation lost amid the Muslims and pagans of the Orient, in which the Patriarch of the Saint Thomas Christians resided. […]
The Portuguese established the following settlements on the Gold Coast from January 21, 1482: Fort São Jorge da Mina de Ouro, modern Elmina: January 21, 1482 – August 28–9, 1637; this became the capital Fort Santo António de Axim, modern Axim: 1486 – 1642 Fort São Francisco Xavier, modern Osu, district of Accra: 1640–1642 Fort […]