The Empire of Apostles: Religion, Accommodario and the Imagination of Empire
in Early Modern Brazil and India
Ananya Chakravati
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Post colonial litereary theory informed approaches to History make interesting reading and the imaginative leap from one corner of the world to another is breathtaking in its audacity as it is misinformed by its methodological and theoretical principles. The Empire of Apostles falls squarely in this category. It is essentailly an intellectual history of two Jesuit missions to India and Brazil: St. Francis Xavier in the case of India and Manuel de No'brega in the case of Brazil. What the author fails to understand that the expansion of the Roman Catholic Chrurch and other manifestations of Chruch based religiosities was accompanied by a horrendous display, theratrical at times, viciously exemplary on most ocassions, of violence against the indigenous people who had no real means of defending theselves against white imperialism. In his recent book, Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition, Fitzhugh Brundage has taken up precisely this issue and has provided an excellent method to pry open the suppressed histories of Rape, Genocide, Violence and Oppression that white impreialism brought in its wake. Perhaps there is no academic market for honest History anynore and we are left with the work I am reviewing because I paid my hard earned money to buy this book.
The Pope facilitated the division of the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese thrones and the Crown of Portugal was given the right of paodradoa to appont priests in both the Portuguese territories of Brazil and India. The Jesuits right from the time of St. Ignitius Loyola advocated a strong and mutually benefitting alliance with the Throne and this enables St Francis Xavier to come to India from where he went to the Spice Islands and Japan. Manuel de No'brega was sent to Brazil. In South America the Catholic Church along with the Spanish and Portuguese settlers unleashed a genocidal war against the First Citizens and the ideological justification for such horrendous dipplays of brutality was provided by the Churuch which said that it aims at Converting the people of the land so that their souls are saved. Church and State marched hand in had destroying the indigenous culture of South America. The Jesuits on a few ocassions tried to blunt the violent sword but their very presence in the theatres of war legitimised the venture. The process by which the Jesuits negotiated with the local indigenpous culture is termed as Accommodatio, cultural undersytanding tolerance or even compromise. In India Jesuits pioneered this art and Robert de Nobili and Beschi even appeared in Native garb to make people beleive that they have assimilated local culture. It goes without saying that such shenanigans did hoodwink the people.
In India, St Francis Xavier was the one responsible for bringing the dreeaded papal Instrument of Inquisition to Goa and until 1807 when the auto da faye was ended under English East India Company pressure, the Inqusition had claimed around 35,000 lives: People burnt at the stake for possessing Hindu icons or practicing the forbidden faith or keeping prayer books. The Goa Archives contain a small fraction of the Inquisition records. Even Vijayanagara Empire did not interfere with the Portuguese cultural practices in their relic state.
The book is certainly not a contribution either to the history of India, Brazil or of the Poertuguese empire.
in Early Modern Brazil and India
Ananya Chakravati
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Post colonial litereary theory informed approaches to History make interesting reading and the imaginative leap from one corner of the world to another is breathtaking in its audacity as it is misinformed by its methodological and theoretical principles. The Empire of Apostles falls squarely in this category. It is essentailly an intellectual history of two Jesuit missions to India and Brazil: St. Francis Xavier in the case of India and Manuel de No'brega in the case of Brazil. What the author fails to understand that the expansion of the Roman Catholic Chrurch and other manifestations of Chruch based religiosities was accompanied by a horrendous display, theratrical at times, viciously exemplary on most ocassions, of violence against the indigenous people who had no real means of defending theselves against white imperialism. In his recent book, Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition, Fitzhugh Brundage has taken up precisely this issue and has provided an excellent method to pry open the suppressed histories of Rape, Genocide, Violence and Oppression that white impreialism brought in its wake. Perhaps there is no academic market for honest History anynore and we are left with the work I am reviewing because I paid my hard earned money to buy this book.The Pope facilitated the division of the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese thrones and the Crown of Portugal was given the right of paodradoa to appont priests in both the Portuguese territories of Brazil and India. The Jesuits right from the time of St. Ignitius Loyola advocated a strong and mutually benefitting alliance with the Throne and this enables St Francis Xavier to come to India from where he went to the Spice Islands and Japan. Manuel de No'brega was sent to Brazil. In South America the Catholic Church along with the Spanish and Portuguese settlers unleashed a genocidal war against the First Citizens and the ideological justification for such horrendous dipplays of brutality was provided by the Churuch which said that it aims at Converting the people of the land so that their souls are saved. Church and State marched hand in had destroying the indigenous culture of South America. The Jesuits on a few ocassions tried to blunt the violent sword but their very presence in the theatres of war legitimised the venture. The process by which the Jesuits negotiated with the local indigenpous culture is termed as Accommodatio, cultural undersytanding tolerance or even compromise. In India Jesuits pioneered this art and Robert de Nobili and Beschi even appeared in Native garb to make people beleive that they have assimilated local culture. It goes without saying that such shenanigans did hoodwink the people.
In India, St Francis Xavier was the one responsible for bringing the dreeaded papal Instrument of Inquisition to Goa and until 1807 when the auto da faye was ended under English East India Company pressure, the Inqusition had claimed around 35,000 lives: People burnt at the stake for possessing Hindu icons or practicing the forbidden faith or keeping prayer books. The Goa Archives contain a small fraction of the Inquisition records. Even Vijayanagara Empire did not interfere with the Portuguese cultural practices in their relic state.
The book is certainly not a contribution either to the history of India, Brazil or of the Poertuguese empire.
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