Originally posted on August 15th, 2015
To illustrate how genealogical and personal information about individual Macanese or a group of families might be understood in historical context, let’s take the example of a woman interviewed in 2011. In the process of reviewing her family history, we will highlight several precedents indicated by the data, including evidence of different migrations over several generations, ethnic diversity suggested by countries of origin, religious affiliations, and other details such as family size, frequency of marriage, work histories, and social standing. Combined, all this information not only gives us a clearer picture of this particular group of families, but also indicates certain patterns and cultural archetypes that are consistent with most Macanese families and the community in general.
Case Study of a Macanese Family
Josephine Edeltrudes Castro Xavier was born in Shanghai on March 19, 1931, the oldest of five children. Her relatives were originally from Spain and Portugal, and through migration to Asia incorporated a broad mix of cultures: Spanish and Macanese on the father’s side; Portuguese, Macanese, and Chinese on her mother’s side.
In June 1939, as the Chinese economy faltered due to the Sino-Japanese war, Josephine’s father went to Hong Kong to find work, and sent for the family in December. During that time Josephine’s youngest sibling was born in August 1941.They remained in Hong Kong until shortly after the Japanese invaded in Dec. 1941, the beginning World War II. In Feb. 1942, when Josephine was almost eleven, her family was permitted by the Japanese to evacuate as “Third Nationals” to live in Macau for the duration of the war. While in Macau, Josephine’s mother, Maria Amelia de Aquino (also known as Marie), died of tuberculosis in August 1944.
After the war ended, Joy returned to Hong Kong in January 1946 to finish high school at the French Convent, later finding work in an import-export business. She met her future husband on a trolley in central Hong Kong in 1948, and married him in Sept. 1950. Two children were born in 1951 and 1952. Following many Macanese, Josephine and her new family left Hong Kong in September 1955, arriving first in San Francisco, then settling in Los Angeles by October. She eventually gave birth to two more children in 1957 and 1958.
The Castro Family
Knowing only those facts, however, tell us little about the migratory history and cultural diversity of Josephine’s family history. Her earliest recorded relative on her father’s side was Jose’ Manaliza Castro (1824-1889). According to a family diary written by his fourth son dated March 10, 1900, Jose’ Castro was born in the Marianas Islands when the territory was a Spanish possession. The Macanese historian Jose’ Maria Braga has written that Jose’ Castro’s father may have been one of three brothers originally from Barcelona Spain, but there is no record of the name or birthplace. This supposition seems plausible given that Spain retained a colonial presence in Guam, which was part of the Marianas, until it was forced to abandon the islands after its defeat in the Spanish-American war of 1898. So it is conceivable, although we have found no confirming evidence, that Jose’s ancestors were originally from Spain.
We also know little about Jose’ Castro’s wife, Filomena Augusta Manaliza Castro. According to the family diary, she was born in Macau, probably of Luso-Asian parents in the early 1830’s, was married in Hong Kong around 1853, and likely died in Shanghai after July 14, 1920. We surmise this from a letter signed on that date in which she mentioned her “advanced age”. Birth records suggest that Jose’ and Filomena lived in Hong Kong from at least September 1854, the birth of their first child, to March 1884, the birth of their eleventh. But given the letter’s origins, later in life Filomena may have gone to live with one or more of her children in Shanghai, an international trading center, near the turn of the 20th century. It seems unlikely that a woman well into her 90’s at the time of the letter would have risked the journey by boat back to Hong Kong.
The fact that Jose’ Castro migrated from his birthplace in the Marianas Islands to Macau (perhaps in the 1840’s), met Filomena, then settled in Hong Kong in the early 1850’s suggests the likelihood that both he and his new wife decided that there were more opportunities in the British colony. This decision aligns with Macau’s economic decline after the Opium War and Hong Kong’s subsequent rise. The movement of Jose’ and Filomena Castro during this period also fits with the well-documented migration of many Macanese who made the same journey to Hong Kong after 1842 to work for the British, continuing in some cases through second world war. Their expectations were borne out by the experience of the Castro’s oldest son, Carlos Maria Castro (1865-1928)
C.M. Castro, as he was known in Hong Kong, was educated at the government’s “Central School” and began work at the age of fifteen with the British firm Lane Crawford Ltd, a general goods store servicing the British Navy, the colonial staff, and their families. According to an obituary published after his death in Hong Kong, the younger Castro’s forty-eight year career with the company, which began in 1880 just as Hong Kong began to grow as a trading center, displayed both his commercial and linguistic skills. Known as “a faithful and conscientious employee”, Castro reportedly spoke twelve Chinese dialects, as well as Filipino, English, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Hindu, Malay, and German. During World War I, Castro served as a Sargent in the charge of the Police Reserve’s armory. As a family man, he was married for almost twenty-one years to Filomena Lucrecia Hendrickson (1866-1906), a woman of German and Macanese parents from Macau, and had seventeen children and over sixty grandchildren. Interestingly, a few weeks before his death in 1928 Carlos Castro married a Chinese woman named Lau Sui Kam, we speculate, as a reward for caring for him in his final days.
Again, Carlos Maria Castro’s life aligns with patterns suggested by our research. Like the majority of Macanese from Macau, Castro found a place in the middle ranks of a British business serving the growing merchant economy. He employed his considerable language skills to good use, likely by serving as an early liaison supervising a Chinese comprador overseeing Chinese clerks, money changers, and laborers. Because of his longevity with the firm, he may also have been the “Chief Clerk” of the firm at one time in charge of the firm’s Macanese employees. Carlos’ long standing employment also led him to memberships in local Macanese institutions. The records of the Lusitano Club, the oldest in Hong Kong (1886), list him as a member in 1902. He was probably also active in the Club Recreio (1906) due to the size of his family, and was a member of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong. While there is no firm evidence of Castro’s Recreio membership, his cultural heritage and burial in the Roman Catholic Cemetery at Happy Valley indicates his religious affiliation, again, like most Macanese of the period in Macau and Hong Kong.
The Lopes Family
The other side of Josephine Castro’s paternal family followed similar patterns. Her earliest recorded relative through her grandmother was Manuel Lopes, who was born in Guarda Portugal, probably in the late 17th century, and married a woman named Maria Sequeira from the same town. Both Manuel, Maria, and their only son, Joao Lopes da Fonseca (1730* to 1780*) remained in Guarda all their lives. However, Joao’s first son, Constantino José Lopes (1751-1800*) lived in Braga Portugal, then married and settled in Macau shortly before May 12, 1782 for the birth of his first child by the same name. The next four generations of the Lopes family were born in Macau from May 1782 to December 1857. This data illustrates the migrations of Portuguese who traveled by ship from Portugal in the late 18th century, stopped in Goa for provisions, then continued on to settle in Macau.
Historians tell us, however, that during this period Macau experienced a series of political setbacks due to Portugal’s declining influence in Asia and Britain’s successful attempts to develop the China trade. This may account for the decision by Constantino Jose’ Lopes’ grandson, Tobias Maria Lopes (1857-1890*), to leave Macau for Hong Kong around 1875, following the same route of Carlos Maria Castro outlined above. Tobias Lopes then married a Macanese woman in Hong Kong, Virginia Maria Rodrigues (1860-1885*) in 1879, and after her death married a second Macanese woman, Capitolina Maria Favacho (1855-1900*), in 1888. Rather than remain in Hong Kong, however, Tobias’ oldest child, Josephine Castro’s grandmother, Edeltrudes Maria Inocencia Lopes Castro married Frederico Henrique Castro and moved to Shanghai before their wedding in 1905. Three of her four siblings followed into the 1920’s. At the time Shanghai was the largest “treaty port” conceded by the Chinese at the end of the Opium Wars. This secondary migration followed the pattern established by other Macanese in the late 19th and early 20th century who left Hong Kong, which was rigidly administered by the British, for the economically and socially liberal “International” city of Shanghai, administered jointly by several European countries.
