Originally posted on Nov. 13, 2012
The history of Macau has always been linked to the history of Portugal. Written accounts by C.R. Boxer, Austin Coates, Frank Welsh, and others provide a wealth of information that helps us to understand the traditional ties between the former colony and its European center. Much less is known about the Macanese, however, a relatively new people and culture that grew as a result of this colonial relationship.
The study of Macanese culture has not been a priority of historical research, probably because there is little information about its origins beyond the observations of early European travelers. Yet this side of Asia’s history might have been given more attention had historians discovered the biographies of people who lived, worked, and grew as participants in Portugal’s colonial empire. The blending of history and biography is especially fruitful when we consider genealogical records that indicate the history of some Macanese families trace almost a millennia of European and Asian history.
Based on new evidence, the origins of Macanese culture were first traced in forbearers who fought and repelled Moorish invaders, and later helped separate the Portuguese nation from Spain in the 17th century. The new culture began to take root after descendants set sail during Portugal’s period of exploration. It was nurtured by others who participated in the expansion of European trade in Southeast Asia, and continues to flourish through descendants who currently live in expatriate communities around the world.
There is, of course, much more to the story than genealogies and the broad sweep of Asia’s history. The human drama of sacrifice and the expectation of reward, of discovery and cultural blending, of expedience and moral vicissitude, have played out over fifty generations as former Europeans literally and figuratively evolved into the people we see today. A good illustration of this development can be found in the histories of two families: the Alvares and the Barrettos of northern Portugal.
An Early History of Two Families
The histories of these families in Portugal, India, Macau, and Hong Kong trace their origins in Europe through the rise and fall of colonial empires over a 960 year period. At first glance, it is evident each produced members with the skills necessary to flourish in colonial Asia. The Barrettos, for example, were traders, merchants, and bankers in Portugal’s overseas empire, and later partners with the British in Hong Kong. The Alvares family provided Portugal’s military men, judges, and colonial administrators, then their offspring became healers, as physicians, priests, and nuns first in Macau and later in Hong Kong.
The collective biographies of both families mirror the prospects and the pressures that their occupations represented for Macanese throughout the period. By using their stories to illustrate this history, we obtain rare insights into the origins of Macanese culture in Asia.
Both the Alvares and Barrettos had similar origins in northern Portugal, where national allegiances and land were controlled by the Spanish kingdom of Leon, and threatened by Moors invading from North Africa. Five hundred years after the fall of Rome, the Leon monarchy relied on Portuguese noblemen and their free holders to expel the Arab occupiers, promising land and independence for those who fought. Portugal survived and continued to resist the Moorish armies, which ravaged Europe from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pyrenees until the late 15th century.
The earliest Alvares was Rui Lopes, a Portuguese soldier who in 1139 distinguished himself under Alfonso I in battles around the northern province of Chaves, and was later named “Conquistou Chaves” in the chronicles of the time. In about 1310 a male descendent was named lord of the castle of St. Catarina, a Portuguese fortification just north of Lisbon. By 1330, his son was appointed Captain-General of the land surrounding the castle of Rio Livre, near Chaves on Portugal’s northern boundary with Spain.
The earliest recorded Barretto was Gomez Mendes Barreto, who lived in 11th century Viana do Castelo, a town on the southern coast of Spain but also occupied by the Moors. He is reputed to have lived in the same region ruled by Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, also known as “El Cid”, who is credited with leading Spanish armies against the Moors. Ten generations later, in the late 16th century, Isabel Barretto, who lived 25 kilometers from Viana do Castelo, was a female explorer of the Solomon Islands under Spaniard Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira’s expedition to the south seas.
The Colonial Period in India
At this point, the histories of each family took divergent paths, following their fortunes in India as the Portuguese empire expanded. By the 1550’s Portuguese expeditions under Afonso de Albuquerque established the capital of overseas operations in Goa, while creating a strategic trading center on the peninsula of Malacca in Malaysia. In the 17th century two progenitors of the Alvares and Barretto clans provided the foundation for future generations.
Antonio Rafael Alvares, the first of his family in Goa, was appointed the senior legal official of the colony, then in 1698 was named Captain-General of Diu, the port island off the Goan coast. According to C.R. Boxer and others, a colonial captain’s rank had both military and commercial significance, granting control of the local garrisons and providing wealth from a healthy percentage of goods traded under his protection. Antonio’s sons and grandchildren maintained the family’s ties to the military, and presumably the benefits, for several generations.
His counterpart was Antonio Lorenzo Barretto, a merchant and money lender who lived in Bombay during the same period. Records indicate that his parents were both from Goa: his father was Maratha Indian, while his mother may have been mixed-race Portuguese. In the late 17th century, Antonio established a pattern that would be emulated in succeeding generations. He married a Portuguese woman, Pascoa de Sousa, converted to Catholicism, and adopted the name of his baptismal godfather. The effect of this union was momentous. Antonio’s sons and grandsons would eventually control much of the Indian trade before the British arrived.
The Fabulous Barrettos
Antonio’s second son, Luis Barretto de Sousa, was born in Bombay in 1745. He began his career as a money lender like his father, and later established the merchant firm: L. Barretto & Company. In 1797, Luis partnered with his younger brother, Joseph Barretto Senior de Sousa (1750-1824), to found the first insurance company in the port of Macau, Casa de Sequros de Macao, insuring the cargos of other merchants and taking advantage of the developing China Trade. As Luis prospered and his wealth accumulated, he became known in India as “The Prince of Business”.
Luis’s brother Joseph later left the firm, although continued as its agent in Calcutta, to establish Joseph Barretto & Co. in 1806, adding his son, Joseph Barretto Junior. The new firm took full advantage of the notoriously unequal exchange in trade by importing Indian opium to China for silver, indigo to Japan and Shanghai for gold, and ivory to England for pounds sterling. Barretto & Co. also served as a merchant banker and agent for Jardine and Matheson in Macau, and provided letters of credit to banks in Australia, India, and China.
The wealth these professional and personal connections brought, which included various uncles and a brother-in-law who also owned merchant firms, allowed the Barrettos to purchase two merchant ships of their own. One vessel operated between the Cape of Good Hope and London. The other ship handled trade between Macau and the rest of China, both creating one of the earliest examples of “vertical integration”, linking manufactured goods and distribution, known to exist in the Far East.
The next generation of Barrettos continued to strengthen their ties to the economic and political life of Macau and Hong Kong. Joseph Barretto Junior’s son, Antonio Lorenzo Barretto Rodriquez, was made a director of the Casa de Seguros de Macao around 1810. A few years later he was elected to Macau’s ruling body, the Leal Senado (Loyal Senate). Antonio Lorenzo’s son, Bartolomeu Barretto Rodriquez (1748-1845), was a tea merchant, and later also a director of the Casa de Seguros in 1822. In 1825, the son was elected chairman of Macau’s “Almatace da Camara”, the colony’s chamber of commerce.
His son, Bartolomeu Antonio Barretto (1811 – 1881) at age 20 become the principal agent for Jardine and Matheson in Bangkok and Manila, and remained a key member of the firm in Macau as a Chinese interpreter and negotiator for several years. In the 1850’s, he founded a rice mill in the Philippines, where he died in 1881.
Bartolomeu’s brother, Antonio Vicente Barretto Gonzalves, worked with him in Manila, and after Bartolomeu’s death went to Hong Kong to become a partner in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, a major investment house that virtually funded the China Trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. By the 1990’s, its successor HSBC was one of the world’s largest financial institutions through its business dealings in Asia.
In contrast, the history of Antonio Rafael Alvares’ descendants took a more introspective path.
