Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [239]
During the late 16th century the Portuguese in Macau were at the forefront of all international commerce between China and Japan. Macau’s growing status was evidenced when the Holy See established the bishopric of Macau in 1576, which included both China and Japan under its jurisdiction. By 1586 Macau was important enough for the Portuguese Crown to confer upon it the status of a city: Cidade de Nome de Deus (City of the Name of God).
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The Golden Years
By the beginning of the 17th century, Macau supported several thousand permanent residents, including about 900 Portuguese. The rest were Christian converts from Malacca and Japan and a large number of slaves from colonial outposts in Africa, India and the Malay Peninsula. Many Chinese had moved to Macau from across the border, and they worked there as traders, craftspeople, hawkers, labourers and coolies; by the close of the century, their numbers had reached about 40,000.
Besides trading, Macau had also become a centre of Christianity in Asia. Priests and missionaries accompanied Portuguese ships, although the interests of traders and missionaries were frequently in conflict.
Among the earliest missionaries was Francis Xavier (later canonised) of the Jesuit order, who spent two years (1549 to 1551) in Japan attempting to convert the local population before turning his attention to China. He was stalled by the Portuguese, who feared the consequences of his meddling in Chinese affairs, but made it as far as Tamaõ, where he developed a fever and died in December 1552 at the age of 46.
The Portuguese who stayed in Macau, along with their Macanese descendants, created a home away from home. Their luxurious villas overlooking the Praia Grande, now the enclosed Baia da Praia, and splendid baroque churches were paid for with the wealth generated by their monopoly on trade with China and Japan. These buildings included the Jesuit Church of Madre de Deus (later the Church of St Paul, Click here), hailed as the greatest monument to Christianity in the Far East when it was dedicated in 1602.
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Portuguese Decline
Portugal’s decline as an imperial power came as quickly as its rise. In 1580 Spanish armies occupied Portugal and for more than 60 years three Spanish kings ruled over the country and its empire. In the early years of the 17th century, the Dutch, embroiled in the Thirty Years’ War with Spain, moved to seize the rich Portuguese enclaves of Macau, Nagasaki and Malacca. In June 1622 some 13 Dutch warships carrying 1300 men attacked Macau, but retreated when a shell fired by a Jesuit priest from one of the cannons on Monte Fort hit a stock of gunpowder and blew the Hollanders out of the water.
The Japanese soon became suspicious of Portuguese and Spanish intentions and closed its doors to foreign trade in 1639. Two years later, Dutch harassment of Portuguese commerce and trading interests ended with the capture of Malacca. The Portuguese would no longer be able to provide the Chinese with the Japanese silver needed for their silk and porcelain or with spices from the Malay Peninsula.
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A Change of Status
A flood of refugees unleashed on Macau when the Ming dynasty was overthrown in 1644. In 1684 the most corrupt of the new Manchu rulers, the so-called hoppo(hói poiin Cantonese) – the customs superintendent who held the monopoly on trade with foreigners – set up an office in the Inner Harbour.
At the same time religious infighting weakened the status of Macau as a Christian centre. In what became known as the Rites Controversy, the Jesuits maintained that central aspects of Chinese belief – such as ancestor worship and Confucianism – were not incompatible with the Christian faith. The Dominicans and Franciscans, equally well represented in Macau, disagreed. It took an edict by Pope Clement XI in 1715 condemning the rites as idolatrous to settle the matter and this stopped further missionary expansion into China.
In the mid-18th century Chinese authorities created the cohong,