A resident of Macau in the second half of the 17th century, he was a member of the city’s Elected in the 1630s. A Councillor in 1640, he was part of the city’s wealthy, ruling and educated elite. His participation in the 1641 municipal meeting in which the “twenty eldest citizens, authorities in prudence and governance” were present and in the 1643 meeting in which the people’s Associate Procurators were elected, in a move which strengthen Macau’s partial autonomy in relation to the Portuguese India, are signs of his prestige and influence. Having lived in the city for some ten years by 1642, he was one of Macau’s most important social actors in that turbulent year.

Bibliography:
BOXER, Charles, Macau na Época da Restauração, Lisboa, Fundação Oriente, Vol. II, 1993. PENALVA, Elsa, Lutas pelo Poder em Macau (c.1590-c.1660), Universidade de Lisboa (tese de doutoramento policopiada), 2005. IDEM, «Mulheres em Macau», Actas do Colóquio Internacional Macau no Período Ming, Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau, I.P., 2007 (forthcoming). IDEM, «Elites Mercantis de Macau em 1642», Edição conjunta do Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau e Centro de História de Além-Mar da Universidade Nova do bulletin of Portuguese/Japanese Studies, Centro de História de Além-Mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2008.

Author: Elsa Penalva
Translated by: John Silva