Page:Colonization and Christianity.djvu/163

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AND CHRISTIANITY.
147

Caramuru, or the Man of Fire, from the possession of fire-arms. Here he married the daughter of the chief, and finally became the great chief himself, with a numerous progeny around him. Another man, Joam Ramalho, who also had been shipwrecked, married a daughter of the chief of Piratininga, and these circumstances gave the Portuguese a favourable reception in different places of this immense coast. In about thirty years after its discovery the country was divided into captaincies, the sugar-cane was introduced, and the work of colonization went rapidly on. The natives were attacked on all sides; they defended themselves with great spirit, but were compelled to yield before the power of fire-arms. But while the natives suffered from the colonists, the colonists suffered too from the despotism of the governors of the captaincies; a Governor-general was therefore appointed just half a century after the discovery, in the person of Thome de Sousa, and some Jesuits were sent out with him to civilize the natives.

Amongst these was Father Manoel de Nobrega, chief of the mission, who distinguished himself so nobly in behalf of the Indians. The city of Salvador, in the bay of All- Saints, was founded as the seat of government, and the Jesuits immediately began the work of civilization. There was great need of it both amongst the Indians and their own countrymen. "Indeed, the fathers," says Southey, "had greater difficulties to encounter in the conduct of their own countrymen than in the customs and disposition of the natives. During half a century, the colonization of Brazil had been left to chance; the colonists were almost without law and religion. Many settlers had never either