José Ernesto de Sousa Caldas

José Ernesto de Sousa Caldas (28 November 1842 – 2 August 1932) was a Portuguese civil servant and diplomat. Self-taught journalist and writer, Sousa Caldas was interested in classical themes and local history. A polyglot, he learnt several languages such as Spanish, French, Italian, English, German, Greek and Latin. His knowledge of the classical languages allowed him to delve deeper into archival research, cross-referencing data with the most recent works of Portuguese and foreign historiography. However, his work is very much characterised by the partiality of his positions, particularly his anti-clericalism.

Biography

He was born in Viana do Castelo, the son of Jacinto José de Sousa Caldas and Isabel Matilde Pereira Marinho. He did most of his schooling privately and, in 1861, was appointed amanuensis officer at the Viana do Castelo Treasury office and promoted to first class aspirant in 1876.

In 1877, he was invited by the Archbishop of Braga to write a critical and biographical study about the venerable Bartholomew of Braga, a situation that would allow him to free himself and his family from the misery in which he lived. The following year the archbishop, João Crisóstomo de Amorim Pessoa, ordered him to immediately publish the part of his work that was ready, to which José Caldas refused and sent letters to the prelate and Camilo Castelo Branco in which he recounted the treatment he was being subjected to.

In 1879, he returned to his bureaucratic duties, but managed to get Manuel Pinheiro Chagas, at a session of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, to present a petition asking for his work to be recognised and for him to be assisted monetarily in order to complete it.

Politically, he was a republican from an early age. With the establishment of the Republic, he was appointed director general of ecclesiastical affairs at the Ministry of Justice (1910–1916). In 1911, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary in Rome, a post he never took up. He was a member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences and the Coimbra Institute.

José Ernesto de Sousa Caldas died in Viana do Castelo on 2 August 1932.

Works

• Elegia (A uma desgraçada) (1884; poetry)
• Novo livro de leitura para as escolas primarias de Portugal e Brazil (1884; illustrated)
• Os Humildes (1900)
• Os Jesuítas e a sua influência na Atual Sociedade Portuguesa: Meio de a Conjurar (1901)
• História de um Fogo-Morto (subsídios para uma história nacional) 1258-1848: Viana do Castelo (Fastos, Políticos e Militares) (1903)
• Cesare Cantù, Margarida Pusterla (1904; translation and notes)
• Benigna Verba (1907)
• Cartas de Um Vencido (1911)
• Fora da Terra (1911)
• A Corja Negra (Tosquia de um charlatão) (1914)
• D. Frei Bartolomeu dos Mártires: profana verba (1922)
• História da Origem e Estabelecimento da Bula Cruzada em Portugal (1923)
• Vinte Cartas de Camilo Castelo Branco (1876-1885) (1923; editor)

See also

• Anti-Jesuitism

References

• Araújo, António de (2004). Jesuítas e Antijesuítas no Portugal Republicano. Lisboa: Roma Editora.
• Ferreira, David (1992). "Caldas, José." In: Joel Serrão, ed., Dicionário de História de Portugal, Vol. 1. Porto: Figueirinhas, p. 433.

External links

• Works by José Ernesto de Sousa Caldas at Hemeroteca Digital de Lisboa