Silveira, Gonçales Da, Venerable

SILVEIRA, GONÇALES da, venerable. — Jesuit, missionary, and martyr, born of a noble family at Almeirim (diocese of Lisbon) on 23 February 1526, died at Monomotapa (Zambezi) on 15 March 1561.

Having entered the Order in 1543, he was sent to Goa as provincial of the Indian mission in 1556, and gave such impetus to missionary activity that during the three years he remained there, 7,000 pagans were baptized in the city alone. This success led to his being chosen for a still unexplored field in southeastern Africa, the region of Mozambique, in present-day Rhodesia, where missionaries had been requested by the son of a Cafre king, baptized at Mozambique. S., having landed at Sofala on 11 March 1560, pushed inland as far as Otongwe, where Gamba, king of the Maharanga, resided. Within seven weeks, he succeeded in baptizing the King, his entire court, and many other pagans, as many as 400. He then left Otongwe in the care of his companion, Fr. Fernandez, and moved toward the Kingdom of the “king of gold,” Monomotapa, on the banks of the Zambezi, in order to win it to the faith. Indeed, he succeeded, also with the cooperation of the Portuguese, and at the end of 1561 he baptized the King and his court; by the following March the Christians had risen to 300. This aroused the envy of the Muslims, who feared that their trade would be taken from them by the Portuguese; it was easy for them to ensnare the King, still weak in the faith, and make him believe the most foolish calumnies against S., portraying him as a sorcerer who intended to suppress everyone and as an advance spy of the Portuguese army. The King, terrified, had the missionary strangled without further ado. The expedition sent to avenge his death,

never reached its destination, and the mission had to be interrupted for lack of missionaries who could, at that time, continue the work begun by S.