‘Relics’ and ‘historical memories’ in Macao’s Portuguese press: O Macaista Imparcial (1836–38) and José Baptista de Miranda e Lima (1782–1848)1

Abstract

This article deals with the contribution of Macao Portuguese newspapers to the dissemination of sources, themes and works of a historical nature, often called antiguidades (‘relics’) and memorias historicas (‘historical memories’) and the politicization of historiographical text – a vast but practically unexplored topic that deserves an independent study. The approach is exploratory and descriptive, being first a non-detailed inventory of the theme, proposing a transversal reading of the press, the study of which is often focused on a chronological/thematic description of the various newspapers and magazines. A cross analysis was also carried out of the serials’ historical contents highlighting the writer/editor’s influence in selection, appropriation and dissemination of this same memories, compared with their individual historiographical writings and political and cultural intervention. Space constraints limit the present article – the first of a series under the general heading ‘relics’ and ‘historical memories’ – to the first half of the nineteenth century and to the newspaper O Macaista Imparcial (‘The impartial Macanese’) published between 1836 and 1838. Diversified historic news were found in the serial compiled by José Baptista de Miranda e Lima (1782–1848), a Portuguese and Latin grammar teacher as well as prominent and controversial figure of early liberalism in Macao. Being one of the first known authors to write in the Macanese creole, or patoá (‘patois’), he also used ethnic arguments in political reasoning, which deserves to be better explored. The present article concludes that the historical recurrence brought into the pages of O Macaista Imparcial is a traditional and foundational narrative of Macao’s exceptional and atypical characteristics, built and maintained under the Portuguese banner and, thanks to the perseverance, ability and skills of those in the terrain, deserving of recognition and of reward.