Encounters and Disencounters ( Brave Azorean People IV)
"Oooh!" shouted Cosme after nine days of traveling by cart, when the pair of oxen that had been chained together finally arrived at their destination, after traveling 150 km on dirt roads from Desterro. The spotted ox, of a stubborn and rebellious nature, had his skin all pierced by the spikes the slave gave him with a long stick at the end of which was a pointed metal object, in an attempt to make him walk in step with his yoke-mate. It wasn't just the nature of the ox that had made the journey difficult, but also the bad mood of Cosme, who had begrudgingly left his family behind to accompany Francisco on this endeavor. "What kind of land is this, Cosme, it's a jungle! There's no grass for the cows to graze on. This place has never been cultivated or served as pasture in the short history of Brazil. Come, let's introduce ourselves to the nearest neighbors and see what we can get from them."
Francisco came with a letter of introduction written by the governor of Desterro. In it, Francisco's neighbors were asked to help him settle in his new land donated by the Portuguese crown. So, while the twelve head of cattle were left on the neighboring land to recover from the long journey, a group of settlers helped build a hut that would serve to house Francisco and Cosme, along with the seeds and tools they had brought.
The construction of their rammed earth and wattle-and-daub house would have to wait until the harvest was over, when the neighbors would be free to help them build their new home. Cosme and Francisco soon started working shoulder-to-shoulder, burning and preparing the land with the plow so that they could start planting. However, as Francisco was not used to the hard work of the land, the work paid little and the food they had brought for their sustenance in the early days began to dwindle dangerously.
Two years after taking possession of his land, Francisco had already faced several problems: a cyclone had left his hut without a roof, and consequently several bags of seeds had been lost due to the torrential rains; much of the second harvest had been lost due to a drought, and Cosme, far from his family, had fallen into depression and now spent his days drinking cachaça instead of farming. Francisco was left to survive on subsistence farming. All this sad news was sent by letter to Alda Maria and her father, Don Antônio, warning that the wedding would have to be postponed. Depressed and completely abandoned in the far reaches of Santa Catarina, Francisco felt cheated by fate.
In the meantime, the economic situation on the island of Picos had seriously worsened, driving most of the settler families into poverty. However, the situation of Portuguese immigrants in Brazil was so precarious, and the risk of death on board the galleys so high, that most of the settlers on Picos refused to emigrate. Manuel, Francisco's childhood friend, who worked as a foreman on his father's land, had been sent to prison in 1753 because he had been caught red-handed stealing a chicken from his employer to feed his parents. He ended up being imprisoned for three years, despite having committed a petty crime, as was the case with most of his fellow inmates. And he would have been imprisoned for even longer if a new notice hadn't been published. As the number of Portuguese interested in emigrating to Brazil was small, the king ordered that many of the prisoners be sentenced to Degredo and forced to emigrate in exchange for their freedom. Manuel was part of the last wave of emigrants sent to Brazil in 1756 in exchange for his release.
While crossing the Atlantic, Manuel fell in love with Maria de Lurdes, the eldest daughter of a family from the island of Faial, who was traveling with her parents and siblings. Since they were traveling on separate parts of the ship, Manuel tried to calm his desire to meet his beloved and occupy his free time by carving a piece of whalebone. He intended to give this sculpture to Maria de Lurdes' parents on the day he asked for her hand in marriage. She, in turn, spent her days making the items for her trousseau. However, almost all of the girl's family ended up falling ill and dying during the journey. Only Maria de Lurdes and her mother remained alive at the end of the journey. Before the ship reached its destination, all the passengers already knew that she and her mother would be staying in Desterro, where living conditions were more suitable for unaccompanied women. "Don't worry, Maria, because as soon as I take possession of my land and I'm settled, I'll come and get you in Desterro so we can get married and I'll take you with me to our new home," Manuel proposed as the ship approached the port of Desterro.
When they arrived in Desterro, the heads of families and single men were organized into militias, each made up of 50 individuals and a captain. As well as being colonizers, they were to take part in protecting the land in the south of the country from invasion by the Spanish. All the convicts, including Manuel, were forced to continue their journey to the Province of Rio Grande de São Pedro. As a way of mitigating this reluctant move, the king guaranteed the subsistence of the settlers on their new land in Rio Grande during the first year of their lives, delivering flour, dried fish and firearms to them. Desperate at the last-minute change of plans, Manuel promised Maria de Lurdes that he would send her a letter as soon as he had news, telling her how they were going to stay together. "Perhaps you could travel to Rio Grande with the next wave of settlers going south, so that we can get married there. What do you think?"
However, when Manuel arrived in Rio Grande, he saw that the families settled in the south lived in extreme poverty. The Villa de Rio Grande, where he was sent, was surrounded by a horrible, tangled jungle in which parrots and ferocious jaguars took refuge. In the miserable shacks, the seats of the chairs were covered in jaguar skins, displayed there like a trophy, a symbol of the bravery of their owners. Even the governor lived in a house with a thatched roof. Sand dunes brought from the beaches of Chuí by the strong winds that blow at this end of the world rested against the walls of the houses facing south. Everything had an air of desolation. The poverty was so great that the bride and groom who lived there had no way of paying the church fees and, instead of getting married, they preferred to live together. When Maria de Lurdes' mother found out what life was like in the South, she strongly opposed her daughter's marriage to Manuel, who was more than anything a convict! Shortly afterwards, he learned that she had married a widower, father of three, who owned a warehouse in Desterro.
Francisco, after spending a few years struggling with the difficulties of his new life in the interior of Santa Catarina, ended up falling ill with lung disease. This was the coup de grace that made him leave everything behind and return to Desterro in search of medical treatment. Once he was cured, he married Alda Maria, his host's daughter, and accepted the position of army captain that his father-in-law had arranged for him. Although he was satisfied with his new life as a soldier and as a married man, he asked for his land in the interior of Santa Catarina to be exchanged for farmland in Rio Grande. This exchange was possible because the king was promising settlers larger tracts of land in Rio Grande as a way of attracting people to this more dangerous province, which was at the heart of the disputes over territory with the Spanish.
Manuel, despite the immense difficulties he faced in the early years, ended up succeeding in planting cereals and raising cattle, because he was a man used to hard and persistent work. Seven years after his arrival, he already had a self-sufficient farm. He got around the shortage of labor at harvest time by relying on the help of settlers from neighboring lands. "Manuel, it's time for you to find a wife and have some offspring, so that in the future you can have help dealing with the land. Loneliness isn't good for anyone, man. Everyone here respects you and values you. It will be easy to find someone who wants to marry you". But Manuel was a man who had been through some very tough experiences in his life and was afraid of tying his fate to that of a woman, and thereby condemning her to an uncertain future.
Despite Manuel's relative success, the situation of most of the Azorean settlers was still critical in the 1760s, as the king continued to ignore the complaints coming from the colonies, as well as the reports from his ministers. At the height of the crisis, angry Azorean couples began to commit acts of depredation. In 1763, when the Spanish invaded the town of Rio Grande, the Azoreans took advantage of the confusion and looted the Flour Warehouse, as well as stealing harnesses, weapons and tarpaulins. On the occasion of the Spanish invasion, Francisco was summoned to take part in the war that was taking place in Rio Grande and to appease the colonists' revolt. Encouraged by the call-up, Francisco left Alda Maria in Desterro and traveled south with his troops.
Married life was beginning to bore Francisco. Alda Maria, who at the beginning of their marriage had been a sweet and passionate woman, was now whining in the corners of the house, complaining loudly about his infidelity. In the ten years since they had met, she had lost all her youthful glow, and God had not given her the blessing of motherhood in return. "What sins has this woman committed that God should punish us with childlessness?" was the thought that obsessed Francisco. But these thoughts were forgotten as soon as he met his army buddies to drink and party with the girls in the taverns of Desterro. He, who had once been such a handsome young man, was now paunchy and with the emaciated features of someone who drinks too much and leads a profligate life.
On this occasion, Manuel and the rest of his compatriots who had arrived on the same ship were summoned to rejoin the militias created at the time of their landing. These militias joined the army in the fight against the Spanish. And it was in the heat of battle to defend Villa de Rio Grande from enemy hands that Manuel and Francisco met again for the first time in 15 years. "What kind of miracle is this, my God? Did I die in this skirmish and now I'm seeing visions? Manuel, my great friend, you've come to welcome me at the gates of Paradise? What happiness, my brother! But you should know that instead of you, I would prefer to be received by the 72 pure maidens of Allah's Paradise". Laughing, Manuel replied, "For that to be possible, you'd have to switch religions and die unmarried. But from the ring that shines on your hand, I can see that you are now a respectable married man, perhaps a family man". The two friends then embraced and left the stage of the fights together in the direction of the soldiers' camp. As evening fell, the fighting had stopped and now it was time to catch up. The next day, the two of them would once again fight side by side for their king's domain, even though his actions did not make him worthy of such dedication from his subjects.
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