Southern Baptists abroad: sharing the faith in nineteenth-century Brazil.

North-American Protestants came to Brazil in the nineteenth century, during one of the country's most stable times.

Methodist work started in 1836, only fourteen years after Brazil had become independent from Portugal and five years from the abdication of its first emperor, D. Pedro I. Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists arrived around 1860, at the height of the reign of D. Pedro's son (Leonard, 1963; Wedeman, 1977). Southern Baptists arrived in 1881, a few years before the country became a Republic (Crabtree and Mesquita 1937-40). Brazil is one of the Southern Baptists' oldest mission fields and to this day the largest by any measure.

At the time when the first Southern Baptist missionary arrived in the country, Brazil was experiencing a surge in modernization. With the expansion of the world market, the sugar-based economy of colonial days gave way to the modern coffee-export system. Power shifted from the Northeast of the country to the South, and slavery gave way to European and North American immigration and free labor (Burns, 1980). The rise of the coffee industry, along with the Paraguayan War (1865-70), boosted Brazil's push for modernization (Bello, 1966; Poppino, 1968).

Demand for faster transportation, reliable communication, and industrial production transformed the country during the second half of the nineteenth century. The foundations for change were laid in the 1840s and '50s, with probusiness legislation, new financial institutions (the commercial code in 1850, and the creation of the Bank of Brazil in 1851), and higher import taxes (Burns, 1980; Poppino, 1968; Viotti da Costa, 1989). Reorganization of credit, faster capital accumulation, and higher import taxes were the right incentive. The results were quite remarkable.

   By 1874, there were approximately 800 miles of tracks.... After 1875,
   construction increased rapidly: in 1875-1879, 1,023 miles of track
   were laid; in 1880-1884, 2,200; in 1885-1889, 2,500. In 1889, then,
   trackage totaled approximately 6,000 miles. Fourteen of the twenty
   provinces had at least some rail service, although most of the
   trackage was concentrated in the Southeast (Burns, 1980:201).

The boost in communications was equally impressive. In 1880, the post office handled 50 million letters; by 1890, it was handling more than 200 million (Bello, 1966). Six months after the arrival of the telegraph, all southern provinces were linked by telegraph lines. In 1874, Brazil was connected to Europe by transoceanic cable. By 1896, telegraph lines had reached as far in the interior as the Amazon in the North and Mato Grosso in the West. From 10 stations with 40 miles of lines transmitting 233 messages in 1861, Brazil jumped to 171 stations with 6,560 miles of lines processing over 600,000 messages in 1896 (Burns, 1980:199). In the 1880s, phone services were available in at least four major cities-Sao Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and Campinas. Finally, industrial production grew exponentially. Between 1875 and 1890, factories grew from 175 to more than 600. By 1890, there were more than 50,000 registered industrial workers in the country (Viotti da Costa, 1989:166-67).

The timing of the Southern Baptist arrival in the country could not have been more propitious. Even the growing urban centers were an important factor in allowing the missionaries to spread their message quickly and to reach a relative large segment of the population. Along with that, the United States provided Brazil with a new model for nation-making.

   The Brazilian elites attributed the success of the United States to
   two factors: the preponderance of Europeans in the racial composition
   and the adoption of European ideology, political as well as economic.
   In short, the United States represented in their eyes the triumph of
   progress in the New World and further demonstrated the means of
   achieving it (Burns, 1980:209).

Church and State Relations

Why would a Protestant faith be successful in a deeply Catholic country? Catholicism had been part of Brazil for 380 years by the time Southern Baptists arrived. As colony and empire, the country was officially and de facto Catholic. As a colony, the nation looked to the king of Portugal to support and promote Catholicism. After its independence, Brazil adopted the Portuguese system of political patronage of the church (Carneiro, 1950; de Azevedo, 1963). The emperor was deemed the defender of the Catholic faith by the Vatican. In exchange, he was allowed to manage the affairs of the church as if it were a branch of the secular government (Barbosa, 1945; Dornas Filho, 1938). (2)

As a consequence of Brazil's political patronage, the Catholic Church was deeply weakened in its ability to provide religious education and spiritual support to the growing Brazilian population. Dependent on government for all its appointments and constantly lacking in funds, the church found itself internally depleted by the end of the century, with an inadequately trained clergy and a weak catechetical work (Bello, 1966; de Holanda, 1969; Wedeman, 1977). By the time Baptists arrived, the Catholic Church was only a shadow of its former self.

Southern Baptist missionaries were appalled with the religious life in Brazil. They constantly deplored the moral and intellectual mediocrity of the Catholic clergy and the superstitious and quasi-pagan quality of the church's practices, assuming that this was typical of Catholicism everywhere. To them, Brazilians were not Catholic by conviction but simply by tradition. One could find ample reasons for such assessment:

   The Catholicism of the greater part of the ruling classes was like
   that of the Emperor: a sincere deism, a listless and formal
   observance, a permanent dread of being taken to be papal
   supremacists or upholders of the Syllabus of Pius IX. In private
   family life, religious worship had a poetic and traditional form that
   was in many ways like the Roman worship of household gods. Among the
   masses, largely slaves and descendants of slaves, religious worship
   was naturally tinged with vivid reminiscences of African fetishism.

   In such social surroundings, discipline and customs readily became
   lax. Cohabitation by priests, especially in country districts, was
   readily condoned. Some members of the clergy, among them those who
   led great political battles or were feared as political bosses,
   unconcernedly flaunted their illegitimate offspring. Not only
   Statesmen but Catholic priests as well were Freemasons in a state
   with an official religion that proscribed Freemasonry (Bello,
   1966:5).

The Catholic Church alliance with the monarchy also left it open to attacks by the liberal, prorepublican forces at the end of the century. The Catholic Church's opposition to liberal trade policies and devoted loyalty to the monarchical system signaled its commitment to an older era. To the prorepublican groups, only modern institutions could push the country forward, and the church was not one of them (Thornton, 1948; Torres, 1968). To no one's surprise, one of the first decrees of the new republic was the separation of church and state. Ironically, by then even the Vatican approved the action, since it gave the Brazilian church greater autonomy (Ajero, 1962; Dornas Filho, 1938).

Immigration

Another factor contributing to Brazil's greater receptivity of the Southern Baptist message was the massive immigration that took place during the last quarter of the nineteenth century (Burns, 1980; Dawsey and Dawsey, 1998). The new export economy demanded more skilled labor. For the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, about 4.5 to 5 million Europeans and North Americans migrated to Brazil (3) (most of the North-American migrants were Southerners and many of them were Baptists). After 1870, the Brazilian government started actively recruiting workers abroad and paying for their traveling expenses. Most settled in the southern provinces (Carneiro, 1950; Willems, 1972).

Immigration contributed to the Baptist missionary efforts in two ways. First, the North American immigrants brought new technologies and new ways of life, giving the impression that all things European and American were more developed, including the faith (Goldman, 1972; Weaver, 1952). North American settlers from former Confederate states are credited with introducing the first trollies, plows, and wagons. They also introduced modern-life amenities such as brick houses, modern stoves, kitchen utensils, the coffee pounder, the kerosene lamp, the sewing machine, the buckboard, new land-surveying techniques, and four new crops-upland cotton, rattlesnake watermelons, grapes, and pecans (Dawsey and Dawsey, 1998; Dunn, 1866; Weaver, 1952).

Second, Protestant settlers pushed for religious freedom in Brazil and for missionary help from home. As early as 1879, E. H. Quillin, was challenging "... some entire Baptist church, including pastor, deacons and clerk," to "emigrate and settle on these favored lands, and establish a large Baptist community." In his view, "they would do a work that could never be forgotten, and by industry and economy under providence, would firmly lay the foundation of an earthly fortune that would shade their declining years and go down to posterity." (4) Soon enough, as more Protestants migrated to the country, the government loosened its restrictions on non-Catholic religions, creating further opportunities for missionary work throughout the empire. (5)

Southern Baptists in Brazil

To early Southern Baptist settlers and missionaries, Brazil offered advantages similar to the U.S. frontier--it was a vast unspoiled land, filled with opportunity. Initial correspondence and official reports were highly optimistic. The denomination had considered Brazil as a mission field as early as the 1850s. The changes that took place during Pedro II's reign created the sense that Brazil was bound to become a modern, powerful nation, not unlike the United States. The first mission report to mention the country in 1859 portrayed the nation as "emerging from insignificance and darkness, and assuming a character and a place among the nations of the earth" (AR, 1859:51). (6) As a liberal nation with a stable government, Brazil showed more promise than "any in the South American continent" (AR, 1859:51). Its territorial size and fertile lands impressed denominational leaders, and the government seemed favorable to immigrants at a time when the country's economy was expanding.

No obstacle seemed insurmountable to Baptist work in Brazil--the country's distance, the Portuguese language, or the tropical climate were not deterrents. It was cheaper to transport missionaries to Brazil than, say, to China or Africa. The language shouldn't be a problem to those schooled in Latin. And the climate was "decidedly advantageous to those who are afflicted with a tendency to consumption, and not injurious to others, who observe any tolerable precaution" (AR, 1859:51). Further more, Brazilian laws seemed tolerant of other forms of religion, and trade with the United States was expected to increase over time (AR, 1859:51).

Confederate settlements in Brazil only intensified the country's appeal to Southern Baptists. Enough southern settlers settled in the country to warrant sending ministers to their local church. Even the fact that Brazil was a slaveholding country at the time was seen as advantageous to Southern Baptist work, for

   a missionary from the southern states of America would be free, at
   least, from this liability [of having to engage in partisan struggle
   over abolitionism] to embarrassment. He would have nothing to preach
   to them but the gospel of Jesus Christ-and need not commence by
   laying a foundation either of practical or theoretical abolitionism
   (AR, 1859:51).

Brazil's image was still the same twenty years later, after the U.S. Civil War no longer checked Southern Baptist expansion. (7) Southern settlers were "advancing in property and worth," being held in high esteem by the local aristocracy, and receiving ample protection from the imperial government. Brazilian lands were said to be superior and inexpensive (Quillin, 1879). The southern colony was at least 1,000 strong and still actively recruiting in the United States:

   If any brother wishes to place his family in a career of life where
   prosperity will play upon their pathway, and where affluence will
   accumulate with the advance of years, here is one of those peculiarly
   favored spots on earth. (8)

The first missionaries arrived in Brazil with a clear agenda. Evangelical in doctrine and conservative in morals, they were driven by conversion-based expansion and autonomous church growth. From the beginning, success was defined in the numbers of individual conversions and organized churches (Harrison, 1954; Taylor, n.d.). The missionaries' first year was spent learning the language and surveying the land for a mission base. Unlike other Protestant missions that chose the most cosmopolitan centers in the southern provinces (Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo), Southern Baptists settled in a northeastern town, Salvador, in the province of Bahia. Salvador had been Brazil's first capital and was still the seat of Roman Catholicism in Brazil, perhaps the most Catholic city in the country.

The first Baptist church was founded on October 15, 1882. The first converts were common folk--a former priest and his wife, the missionaries' house servants, and a tinner. A year later there were twenty converts and six "preaching points" in the city (Harrison, 1954). The work was hard and unrewarding (Taylor, n.d.). They faced a lot of resistance from the Catholic Church. Barely arrived, they were looking already for areas devoid of Catholic Church control or the influence of city life.

   Missionaries in Brazil have found the simple folk of the interior
   towns and villages much more eager for the gospel than those of the
   large coast cities. There the power of the priests is not so great,
   and the people have fewer follies to divert their minds and hearts
   from their souls' interests. There, also, foreign influences, foreign
   godlessness, and foreign infidelity have not exerted their power. (9)

To the missionaries, Brazilian Catholicism was nothing more than a folk religion, built on superstition, syncretism, and medieval practices (Bagby, 1889; Graham, 1968; Taylor, n.d.). More importantly, it was a false religion lacking the "spiritual power" to lead Brazilians toward progress (Bell, 1965; Crabtree, 1953; Willems, 1967). Those sentiments only heightened as the missionaries arrived in the field. Observing ceremonies and rituals that seemed quite alien to their own culture, the missionaries found in Catholic practices ample evidence to support their prejudices.

In reports back home, missionaries complained about the Catholic Church's disregard for the Sabbath, tolerance for immorality among the clergy and laity, and idolatry. (10) A chief concern was the effect of church practice on the lives of Brazilian women. The high wedding fees made lawful marriage almost unattainable for the poorer class, "promoting concubinage and illegitimate birth." Women's home life was oppressive and harsh even among the better classes. Most could not read or write. Many husbands kept several households. "What hope is there for womanhood in those lands?" asked one report. "What hope for the nation that has no higher ideal of womanhood?" (11)

Missionaries also blamed religion for the level of social development of the country. They argued that the Catholic faith deprived individuals of all responsibility save that of submitting to a superior authority in matters of religion. Therefore, Catholics could not feel any need for individual improvement through education or for the wise exercise of free choice. Without a freethinking and educated citizenry, political democracy could not flourish (Crabtree and Mesquita, 1937-40, vol 1:127-29). This would explain E. Y. Mullins's somber comments at the dawn of the Republic, when more hope would be expected of a North American who preached democratic practice:

   It would be unwarranted to assert, however, that the Brazilian people
   as a whole were anxious for a change of government. The few and not
   the many accomplished this result, as is usually the case in all
   great movements of advance. The mass of Brazilians then, as now, were
   indifferent upon the subject of the form of government. In fact, this
   indifference is a key to Brazilian character in many of its aspects.
   They are not a patriotic people. They are lovers of pleasure and
   ease. They are fond of social enjoyment, easy in morals and life.
   They seem, at least up to the present, incapable of the intense
   patriotic devotion of may other peoples, as for example, the
   French. (12)

The missionaries were quite aware that they were trying to change not just the beliefs of Brazilians but their entire worldview. "The message of redemption carried supernatural and socioeconomic implications. Education, thrift and hard work were integral parts of the attitudinal and institutional complex that the missionaries sought to implant among Latin Americans" (Willems, 1967:11). To push for individualism and free association in a land where kinship (13) was the norm for social, religious, and political affiliation (Pinto, 1949; Wagley, 1963) was to go completely against the grain.

Nevertheless, the missionaries did have a clear vision of what kind of civil society they wished to see in their new homeland. The dawn of the Brazilian Republic gave them room to extol the importance of civil liberty, (14) of the separation of church and state, (15) of religious freedom, (16) of political privileges and civil rights (including secular marriages and burials), of immunity from arbitrary police and clerical exactions, of the opportunity to acquire private property, of access to quality education, of liberty of conscience, and of "the many other privileges which . . . are at the bottom of the extraordinary progress of the United States." (17)

In 1884, the Baptist mission expanded its operations by opening a second base in Rio de Janeiro. The transfer to Rio de Janeiro signaled the beginning of Southern Baptist expansion in Brazil. The nation's capital provided Southern Baptist missionaries with access to an educated, cosmopolitan, middle-class population from which they could recruit qualified converts for the propagation of the faith. Eight years after the founding of their first congregation, the missionaries had founded three newspapers, eight churches (in six different areas of the country), and ordained two local ministers. There were now 312 active Baptist converts in Brazil (Bell, 1965; Wedeman, 1977). In 1900 alone, the mission printed 300,000 tracts and leaflets to propagate the Baptist faith.

Mission work, however, had its costs: of the fifteen missionaries sent by the Mission Board to Brazil between 1881 and 1890, three men and four women had to return home because of illness, and a woman died of yellow fever in Rio de Janeiro. (18) The first generation of native workers provided a welcomed relief. Four local leaders--Costa, Mesquita, Soren, and Teixeira--in Rio de Janeiro would help lead Baptist work in publications, foreign missions, proselytizing, and supply preaching for local congregations. All four had been recruited among the rising middle class in the capital city. One of them, Soren, would eventually serve as the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Rio for thirty-three years. By the time the Republic was proclaimed on November 15, 1889, First Baptist Church alone had eighty-nine members (Bell, 1965; Crabtree, 1953; Reis Pereira, 1982).

As the century came to a close, Baptist work continued to grow. The Republican decree separating church and state aided the propagation of the Baptist faith by cutting down on Catholic resistance and allowing Protestants to build large sanctuaries, celebrate valid rituals (baptisms, weddings, funerals) and set up their own network of schools and seminaries (Crabtree and Mesquita, 1937-40, Wedeman, 1977). Theological education allowed more locals to be trained for ministry, contributing to further expansion. By the time the national convention was organized in 1907, twenty-six Brazilian Baptists had been ordained (Bell, 1965).

The first step toward the creation of a Baptist denomination in Brazil was the formation of regional associations. In 1894, six Baptist churches in Rio de Janeiro organized the first regional association. In 1900, a second association was formed by nine churches in the Northeast. In 1904, seven churches organized the third association in Sao Paulo. Seven churches also organized the fourth association in the Amazon in 1906 (Bell, 1965; Crabtree, 1953). In 1900, Southern Baptists counted 21 missionaries in Brazil running a denomination that had 35 churches and 1,932 members. By the time the Baptist national convention was created in 1907, twenty-five years after the arrival of first Southern Baptist missionary, the denomination had 83 churches in twenty' states with 4,276 members (Bell, 1965; Crabtree and Mesquita, 1937-40). By comparison twenty-one years after the arrival of their first missionary, Presbyterians had 32 churches and 1,729 members. (19)

A Growing Faith

Several reasons can be given for Southern Baptists' success in Brazil. One missionary credited proximity to the United States, weariness of the Catholic Church, and "insufferable obstacles to progress which this denomination continually interposed." (20) Another argued that "science came ahead of us and prepared the way for us. The railroad, telegraph, the steamer, machinery, all Protestant inventions, gave respect to the foreigner, from motives educational, commercial or economic." (21) Clearly, missionary work started at a time of deep religious dissatisfaction in Brazil (Wedeman, 1977), but that alone would not explain why Southern Baptists grew at a faster pace than other Protestant denominations.

One Brazilian scholar argued that four factors distinguished Southern Baptist work from the other American missions:

* The aggressive evangelism and anti-Catholic attitude of Southern Baptists.--While other denominations behaved more diplomatically toward the country's established church, Southern Baptists pushed forward with the agenda of winning the country's heart and soul.

* The direct recruiting of Southern Baptists.--Instead of relying on the influence of educational work, medical work, or other forms of beneficence to attract converts, Southern Baptists used evangelism as their main tool of expansion.

* The congregational free-church structure of Southern Baptists facilitated church planting.

* The rigorous ethical stance promoted by Southern Baptist practice.-Baptist churches could expel members who did not live up to their ethical standards. Clear lines of demarcation were drawn in relation to the larger society, increasing the cost of deviance and the amount of internal integration (Mendonca, 1990:43-44).

Mendonca also added two external factors to his explanation: one, the fact that Southern Baptist missions were essentially urban, growing fastest in the largest population centers of the country; and two, that the denomination attracted the Brazilian lower-middle and lower classes by promoting a North American middle-class value system along with a vision of social mobility through education and hard work (Mendonca, 1990:44).

Southern Baptist work in Brazil wasn't always the most effective or efficient of the various denominations. Missionaries had to struggle with their new converts' lack of education and lack of experience in democracy (Crabtree, 1953:103). Brazil's vast geographical distances kept the missionaries from developing a unified approach to the denomination's national needs. No unified program existed for the opening of new stations or for the preparation of religious literature for existing congregations (Crabtree, 1953:61). The push for expansion kept the mission from doing more to preserve its early gains. Many of the early converts and congregations were lost for lack of constant care and attention (Bell, 1965:49). How, then, do we explain the later success of Southern Baptist work?

Willems (1967) argued that Protestantism in Latin America was a protest movement against the religious monopoly of the Catholic Church and of the inherited Iberian power structure. If that is so, then the Protestant denomination with the most congregational form of faith would be likely to fare best. Willems's research in Brazil supports his hypotheses.

Of the three denominations--Baptist, Presbyterian, or Methodist-Baptist churches seemed to be most consistent with the aspirations of the common people. Freedom of conscience and freedom from ecclesiastical authority, complete autonomy of the local congregation, and the right of all communicants to decide on church matters in a totally egalitarian way represent ideological and organizational principles that the major institutions of the larger society deny to the lower strata. No matter how humble and unsophisticated, the voice of a Baptist carries as much weight in his congregation as that of anybody else. The pastor is elected by the congregation, and no high-church dignitaries exist to impose decisions and to command obedience. It seems more than mere coincidence that of the three denominations, the Baptists hold the strongest appeal to the lower classes, and they are more militantly anti-Catholic than are either of the other two denominations (Willems, 1967:155).

Even as late as 1965, Baptists had a membership of 235,000 in the country compared to 53,000 for Methodists and 167,000 for Presbyterians (Willems, 1967:154). So, in Latin America, in a country undergoing modernization, the Southern Baptist faith--emphasizing religious freedom and individual accountability, grassroots church democracy, and strong ethical living-found one of its most fertile mission soils. By the turn of the century, Southern Baptists were already the most successful mission among the North American Protestant denominations. More importantly, the Baptist vision had influenced the aspirations of their converts and continued to attract those who were most likely to share a similar desire for a transformation in their homeland.

Editorial Note: The text notes and endnote system used in this article differ from our usual style; we trust that they will not create any inconvenience for you.

Notes

(1.) I am grateful to Edie Jeter, director of the Records Center of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in Richmond, Virginia, and to John Trotti, head librarian at the William Smith Morton Library at the Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, for their support during archival work. The University of Richmond provided partial financial support for the research through a sabbatical leave during the 1999-2000 academic calendar.

(2.) "Among the positions to be filled through political patronage were those of the Church. Following colonial precedent, the government proposed to the Vatican the names of those to fill the archbishopric of Bahia and eight other bishoprics. Parish priests were similarly nominated to the bishops and promotions or transfers depended on political commitment. Although the Church could summon loyalties in its own right, it meshed with other institutions through the structure of patronage. The State collected and kept the tithe and paid only modest salaries to churchmen. Other ordained clergy sought employment as chaplains on fazendas or for wealthy lay brotherhoods in the cities. Patrons, whether private or public, expected deference from the clergy as from their other clients. Whereas in earlier times churchmen actively engaged in rebellions, by the middle of the century they preached order and obedience to constituted authority" (Graham, 1989:143).

(3.) Precise numbers vary, but Burns provides us with a good idea of how large the flow was: "The last quarter of the nineteenth century was a period of intensive European immigration, when approximately 40 percent of all immigrants arrived. Between 1891 and 1900 the yearly average reached 112,500. ... the figures for the total number of immigrants arriving in Brazil between 1820 and 1930 vary, but a conservative estimate would place the number between 4.5 and 5 million of whom roughly 3.5 million remained" (Burns, 1980:362). Also, the numbers of immigrants rise as the century comes to its close. While in 1850 the country received only 2,072 immigrants, by 1888 that number had jumped to 133,253" (Burns, 1980:264).

(4.) Letter from Santa Barbara, October 18, 1879 (Records Center of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention).

(5.) "Thousands of European immigrants to Brazil and Chile were Protestants--something that would have been inconceivable in colonial Brazil or Chile. Nor would Protestant clergymen and missionaries have been admitted by the colonial authorities whose zeal in excluding heretics seems comparable only to the watchfulness that port authorities exhibit toward carriers of contagious diseases. Thus the arrival of the first Anglican, Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist missionaries, the profuse distribution of Bibles and religious tracts by colporters, the preaching of the Gospel in public, and the founding of the first Protestant congregations composed of converts from Catholicism--these and similar events were possible only in a climate of changing social attitudes characterized by uncertainties and restlessness, by the weakening of social controls that for three centuries had effectively prevented the forces of the Protestant Reformation from penetrating the monolithic societies of Latin America." (Willems, 1967: 57-58).

(6.) 14th Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions to the Southern Baptist Convention, May 6, 1859, Richmond, Va.

(7.) The denominational journal cites at least three clear reasons for Baptist work in Brazil:

"1. An emperor is on the throne in that country who, though at the head ora State Papal Church, is so broad-minded and sagacious that he invites Protestant missionaries to his country, and puts the high premium on their coming of proffering, we understand, to pay their passage from the United States to his capital city.

2. Citizens of our Southern states, many of whom took refuge in Brazil after our civil war, are said to be specially desired by the people there ....

3. Our Southern business men are exercised by the fact that, while our country only furnishes seven millions of the imports of Brazil, the Valley of the Mississippi, and the mills of Alabama and Georgia, and of the Carolinas and virginia, can produce the whole one hundred millions of commodities annually imported. Thus might our country also, instead of receiving only thirty-nine millions of the exports of that country, be enriched by a large part of the two hundred and twelve millions. The increasing commerce between the countries is destined to bind together the twin Americas more strongly than the ligaments of an isthmus, which, by the way, is being clipped by the Panama canal." Editorial "Our Missionaries to Brazil" Foreign Mis, sion Journal 12, no.ll (February 1881): 1.

(8.) E. H. Quillin, letter from Santa Barbara, October 18, 1879 (Records Center of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention).

(9.) W. B. Bagby, letter from Salvador, January 16, 1884 (Records Center of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention).

(10.) Several missionary reports to the Board describe "the flaws of Catholicism." Among them, E. H. Quillin's "Romanism in Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 11, no.12 (March 1880); J. B. Howell's "Romanism in Brazil--Virtual Heathenism," Foreign Mission Journal 18, no. 12 (July 1887); John A. Barker's "From brother J. A. Barker," Foreign Mission Journal 20, no. 11 (June 1889); and W. B. Bagby's "Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 15, no. 9 (April 1884). Seldom does a report from Brazil not condemn the Catholic Church during that period. W. B. Bagby (Brazil's first Southern Baptist missionary), for instance, is quite indicting: "As is well known, the millions of Brazil are under the blighting, fatal shadows of Romanism. No Saviour, no 'repentance from dead works; no regeneration no enforcement of Godly lives--only images by the thousand, shrines, crosses, genuflections, penances, chantings, masses, amulets, charms, processions, fire-works, immoral and ignorant priests, superstitious and deluded multitudes, sunk in sin and error, and moral night!" ("Religion and Morals," Foreign Mission Journal 13, no. 12 [March 1882]: 3).

(11.) The Southern Baptist Mission Board's reports to women's organizations in the United States emphasized the plight of Brazilian women as an encouragement to support Brazilian missions. See: Mrs. J. L. Johnson, "WMU Prayer-Card Topic for September, 1890: Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 22, no. 2 (September 1890); "WMU Mission-Card Topic for September 1894: Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 26, no. 2 (September 1894); and Mrs. Taylor, "Our Cause in Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 15, no. 2 (September 1883).

(12.) E. Y. Mullins, "Views of Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 47, no. 2 (June 1896): 61.

(13.) Peter Flynn provided one of the best analyses of the importance of kinship in nineteenthcentury Brazilian society: "There is widespread agreement as to the importance of the family in Brazilian social development and, in particular, of the parentela, the extended family or 'clan,' so prominent in rural areas. This group was made up not only of all recognized relatives on one's father's and mother's side and all those of one's husband or wife--a bilateral extension of relatives--but also of the members of what has been called the 'ancestor-oriented family,' a wider group related to some prominent person in the past and usually bearing his name. The parentela has been described as 'traditionally the most important single institution in Brazil, with due emphasis on the role of the parentela in the political system ....

While, however, the parentela linked the elite groups horizontally, with each other, rather than with those below them, the mechanism of political control was reinforced vertically by yet another element, compadrio. This in Brazil, as in varying degrees in other Catholic cultures, was the social aspect of the duties accepted by the godfather and godmother in a child's baptism. The godparents were now bound not only to the child, but equally to the child's parents, as compadre and comadre, relationships which could be further extended through confirmation and other religious ceremonies or quasi-religious rituals. Since these new duties were often taken very seriously, it was clearly the parents' concern to acquire for their child the best-place godfather and godmother they could find, a guardian who would provide some protection and security in what was for most poorer Brazilians a very insecure world. In a society where education did not provide a vehicle for social mobility and the influence of the state was still small, such structures had real, direct significance." (1979: 36-37).

(14.) "The value of free government, so akin to our church policy, cannot be overestimated in forecasting the progress of Baptist missions. Our principles are equal to overcoming the disadvantages of the most tyrannical and oppressive systems of government and religion; but it is in the atmosphere of civil liberty that they promise the liveliest and most vigorous advancement" (45th Annual Report, Foreign Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention, May 9, 1890, Fort Worth, xl).

(15.) Z. C. Taylor, letter from Bahia, June 12, 1883 (Records Center of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention).

(16.) E. H. Soper, letter from Sao Christovao, Rio de Janeiro, August 20, 1888 (Records Center of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention).

(17.) Report, "Progress in Brazil," Foreign Mission Journal 21, no. 2 (September 1889): 4.

(18.) Editorial, "Our Brazilian Mission," Foreign Mission Journal 22, no. 2 (September 1890): 35.

(19.) Foreign Mission Journal 14, no. 11 (May 1883): 4.

(20.) E. Y. Mullins, "Views of Brazil,' Foreign Mission Journal 47, no. 2 (June 1896): 60.

(21.) Z. C. Taylor, "Signs of the Times in Brazil" Foreign Mission Journal 47, no. 2 (June 1896): 63.

Bibliography

Ajero, Inacio. "O Catolicismo Brasileiro a Luz da Historia" Vozes 56 (1962): 721-35.

Bagby, William B. Brazil and the Brazilians. Baltimore: Maryland Baptist Mission Rooms, 1889.

Barbosa, Manoel. A Igreja no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Editora d'A Nolte, 1945.

Bell, Lester. Which Way in Brazil? Nashville: Convention Press, 1965.

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