José de Anchieta

Biography

He entered the Society of Jesus in 1551. Two years later he was sent to the missions of Brazil, where he assisted in the founding of the city of Sao Paulo. In a nearby place, called Piratinga, his order founded a school for its young religious and to attend to the conversion of the indigenous people. There Anchieta learned Tupiguarani and later made a grammar with that language. In 1563 he left the school to help in the work of pacification between the Portuguese and the indigenous Tamoyos. From 1563 to 1564 he spent his time caring for plague patients in the suburbs of Sao Paulo. He was always concerned about the unhappy state to which the Portuguese colonization had reduced the indigenous people, and he alleviated as much as he could the most dramatic and painful situation of the black slaves, brought from Africa for the exploitation of sugar cane. His memory is venerated in Brazil and he is considered one of the founders of the nation, father of the Brazilian Church and national patron. He died with a reputation for holiness on June 9, 1597 in the ancient Reritiba, a city that today bears his name.