Antônio Manuel de Sousa

Antônio Manuel de Sousa (1776 – 5 September 1857) was a Brazilian Roman Catholic priest and politician.

Biography

He was born in the province of Rio Grande do Norte, the son of José Soares de Lemos and Maria Geralda de Sousa. He took holy orders at the Seminary of Olinda in 1800 and, the following year, went to exercise the vicariate of the parish of Apodi, which he held until 1808.

He became the first priest colado of the parish of Jardim, in Ceará, where he remained from 1816 until his death. After the proclamation of independence in 1822, he was elected deputy-general to the Constituent Assembly, but was unable to take his seat because it was dissolved by decree on November 13, 1823. He took part in the provisional government of the province. He was a knight of the Imperial Order of Christ and an honorary canon of the Imperial Chapel.

In 1831, he was one of the protagonists of the episode known as the Pinto Madeira Sedition. It was a violent conflict between the village of Crato, led by republican liberals (especially the Alencar family) and the town of Jardim, dominated by Joaquim Pinto Madeira, who, along with the priest, were members of the Column of the Throne and Altar, a secret society based in ]]Recife, founded in 1828, which, in conjunction with the Restoration Party, aimed to spread the regressive and traditionalist cause in the north of the country. Relations between the two towns had long been strained due to the ideological-political antagonism of their elites.

During the First Reign, Pinto Madeira, loyal to central power, worked to suppress liberal and republican uprisings led by the Alencar family in Crato, such as the Revolution of 1817 and the Confederation of the Equator. Such loyalty to the emperor earned Pinto Madeira recognition from the government and, by act of November 1824, he was appointed commander general of the Arms of Crato and Jardim. However, with the fall of Pedro I, as a result of Crato's dealings with the interim government of the province, the jardinenses were persecuted. Not only did they strip Pinto Madeira of his honors, but they also ordered his arrest and announced a devassa on the jardinenses, arguing that it was necessary to combat the "restorative conspiracy in motion". Aware of the preparations being made in Crato for an expedition to Jardim, with the aim of putting the famous militia colonel in jail, the jardinense council organized a force, with the help of the vicar, which was entrusted to the command of the caudillo himself. The "pintista" army left Jardim on December 17, 1831; it beat the legalists at Sítio Buriti and the following day occupied the enemy town, whose population fled in terror.

The priest armed his supporters with wooden cudgels, which were brought to him to be blessed. Given the large number of cudgels waiting to be blessed, he used the agile practice of choosing an entire forest from which the wood would be taken to make the cudgels and pronounced his blessing over the forest. As a result, he came to be called Benze-Cacetes. The rebellion was put down in October of the following year. Pinto Madeira was arrested and sentenced to death in a trial whose scandalous bias was condemned by the imperial parliament. Father Antônio Manuel, however, was acquitted.

From 1839 to 1846, he was acting vicar of Aquiraz, during which time he lost his sight and returned to Jardim, where he served as parish priest until his death. The house where he lived is preserved by the municipality as a historical monument.

See also

• History of Roman Catholicism in Brazil