WEB'S INDEX
_
WESTAUSTRALIANA
YEARS 1868-1872_YEARS
1873-1878_
YEARS 1880-1883
_YEARS 1891-1900
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New Norcia's
Treasures:
Salvado's Correspondence
-
Years 1884-1890
SHORT VERSION OF
- VERSION MODIFICADA DE:
Teresa de Castro, "New Norcia’s Treasures: Salvado’s Correspondence
as a Source for Western Australian and European History.
Years 1884-1890", New Norcia's Studies Journal
(Perth, Western Australia), 13 (2005),
pp. 54-83. (Tesoros de Nueva Nursia: La Correspondencia de Rosendo Salvado como fuente
para la Historia de Western Australia y Europa en el siglo XIX)
Teresa de Castro © 2009-2013. This paper is protected
by Copyright Laws
In the pages that follow I intend to draw a
sketch of the historical information that the researcher can find in New Norcia
Correspondence for the period 1884-1890 and highlight some of the most
interesting topics and documents. At the end of this paper
I include a table with an alphabetical list of authors that will help, among
others, Western Australian genealogical researchers.
New Norcia correspondence
for the period 1884-1890 contains mostly letters sent to members of the New
Norcia community from
Australia and overseas, although it also includes copies and drafts of letters
sent from New Norcia and documents enclosed with letters addressed to the
Mission. Therefore, we can find telegrams, reports,
circulars, bills, accounts, receipts, newspaper cuttings, different sorts of
prints, drawings, sketches, invitation cards, a will and a sermon, as well as
an extract of the no longer existent New Norcia Mission's Visitors Book. I
would like to remark that the order of the letters in the microfilms is not
completely accurate since many of them were wrongly dated, which explains the
presence of documents written in 1865, 1872, 1875, 1880, 1883, 1891, 1892,
1897, 1924 and 1940. The letters have an extension between one to four pages,
although there are letters with only a few lines and others 13 pages long.
Year
|
1884
|
1885
|
1886
|
1887
|
1888
|
1889
|
1890
|
File
|
2234/39
|
2234/40
|
2234/41
|
2234/42
|
2234/43
|
2234/44
|
2234/45
|
Letters
|
474
|
312
|
183
|
201
|
172
|
162
|
184
|
Half of the documents were written in Spanish, and forty per cent in English,
which indicates a change from the period 1880-1883, during which most of the
letters were written in English. This can be easily explained
by the fact that
Abbot
Rosendo
Salvado was in
Spain in 1884 and part of 1885, and there was a
corresponding increase in the Spanish letters not only from Salvado but also
from other Spaniards writing to Salvado while he was at home. Salvado brought
back his correspondence to
Australia and deposited it in New Norcia Archive. The Archive
also contains letters written in French, Italian, Catalan, Portuguese, and
Latin, although the number of letters arriving from
Italy and
France declined compared to the previous period.
Language
|
Spanish
|
English
|
Italian
|
French
|
Latin
|
Catalan
|
Portuguese
|
No.
Letters
|
860
|
677
|
91
|
49
|
8
|
2
|
1
|
Percentage
|
50.95%
|
40.10%
|
5.40%
|
2.90%
|
0.47%
|
0.12%
|
0.060%
|
2. Letters from
Western
Australia
2.1.
Letters Received at New Norcia from Western Australia
2.1.1. Letters
from the Colonial officers
A small number of letters
come from colonial officers in this period, but some of them deal with private
or semi-private affairs. The bulk of the letters come from the Newcastle
Resident Magistrate’s office (dealing with the payment of the sheep contribution
tax and the Greenough Relief Committee Fund) and by Anthony O’Grady Lefroy,
Paymaster of Pensioners, who forwarded William Dennett’s pension to the
Mission.
Henry
Bruce
Lefroy’s letters focussed on the Victoria Plains Road Board,
payment for destruction of wild dogs, the Trespass Act, and the
Perth cricket team. A letter from the Governor’s secretary thanked Salvado
for sending basil seeds. An invitation came from the colonial committee of the
London Colonial and Indian Exhibition 1886, and some letters deal with land
matters. The most interesting documents are the letters sent by politicians
Samuel
Hamersley,
Timothy
Quinlan,
George
Randell and
Henry
Prinsep asking or thanking
Abbot
Salvado for his support during the elections for the first representative
Legislative Assembly held in
Western Australia in 1890.
2.1.2.
Letters from Western Australian Settlers
The most numerous sets are
from
Daniel
James
Avery (New Norcia’s agent for the export of horses to
India) and Morrison & Crossland (New Norcia’s auctioneers
in WA). However, letters from other businessmen and
neighbours deal with the pedigree, purchase, and payment of horses. Especially
interesting is the news about the confrontation between Salvado and
Walter
Padbury after the shooting of New Norcia’s horses in
Padbury’s paddock; the firm Stone & Burt mediated between the parties, and
eventually Padbury paid Salvado a reasonable compensation for each animal shot
dead. Other letters focus on the price of silkworm cocoons in European markets,
the renting of New Norcia lands and houses, the purchase of New Norcia honey
and wax, the supply of seeds and cuttings from and to New Norcia, the supply of
medicines and fabric to New Norcia, and many other things.
The letters not dealing
with business matters allow a glimpse of the relations between Western
Australians. Some people asked about their relatives, introduced friends going
to New Norcia or sent gifts. Others wrote about loans,
debts, appointments, invitations, etc.
Peter
Anthony
Gugeri –a
Perth wine merchant
and friend of
Abbot
Salvado- wrote several letters about the operation performed
on
Br.
Esteban
Tomás’ cataract by
Dr.
Jameson; he was convinced that
Dr.
Daniel
Kenny would have done better and advised Salvado to contact
Kenny to examine the brother. Gugeri also included
information about his vines and discussed the possibility of distributing New
Norcia wine in
Perth.
Dr.
Jameson and
Dr.
O’Connor’s letters deal with the illnesses of some
Mission brothers, while ex-brothers Oriol and Sans’
letters deal with the leaving of the
Mission by the latter. Also interesting are the letters
written by the prisoner
Aaron
Kershaw asking Salvado to help him to get a pardon of his
sentence and an early release from Fremantle Prison. Among the many curiosities
is a letter from
Hubert
V.
Cox to Salvado offering to open a temporary skating rink
at New Norcia.
2.1.3.
Letters from Settlers in New Norcia’s Neighbourhood
I would like to point out
that in the Colonial period neighbourhood was a concept whose meaning was intended for a larger area than now; colonisation had
not developed much some areas of the colony, and the closest neighbours
sometimes lived very far away. This especially applies to New Norcia, whose
neighbours were not only settlers in the
Victoria
Plains but also in the districts of Toodyay and Northam and
in the Greenough Flats (near Geraldton).
Most of this correspondence
deals again with horses (branding, pedigree, paddocks, sales, purchases, horses
lost) and the request for loans, advance of money or sale of New Norcia
products (wine, honey, wax, flour, vegetables, lime, tobacco, tools, blasting
powder, nails, leather, etc.) and services (use of the mill or people seeking
medical attention and medicines). Letters also come from shepherds, sawyers, and
fencers asking
Abbot
Salvado for a job and from people offering their properties
and stock for sale.
John
Brown’s letters are mostly devoted to the supply of New
Norcia wine for the Victoria Plains Hotel. A bunch of letters come from the
Clinchs (I include here the ones by
Emma
Morrissey), the Clune, and
Walter
Padbury. I will point out some of the most interesting of the
many other matters.
Charles
Mortimer was the caretaker of “Dairy Creek”,
a farm owned by the Fitzpatricks in the Gascoyne.
Mortimer wrote five letters in a-pain-to-read English, a sort of “postcard” in
which he described his own life and the lives of other pioneers in the isolated
stations of the North. He commented on the weather, the lambs, Gascoyne wool,
and gave news about his boss’ family and about some settlers (for example,
Robert
Eyre’s attempt to commit suicide).
Charles
Mortimer was a half-cast Aboriginal native of Gingin, educated and trained as a blacksmith at New Norcia. In this period
Mortimer provided
Salvado with cockatoos, emu eggs, and Aboriginal artefacts, while Salvado
satisfied
Mortimer’s request for religious and reference books.
Alfred
James
Clinch wrote two letters (dated
16 May 1884 and
5 January 1886) that show the precariousness of the wealth of some entrepreneurial
farmers. Clinch had followed Padbury, Loton & Co’s
advice regarding some improvements on his farm (“Berkshire
Valley”), but after doing so he
found that he had a debt of £1,500 with them, and they did not want to advance
him any money to pay it. Loton was personally willing to advance an unspecified
sum if Clinch handed over to him his leases, but Clinch did not want to do so
because he could easily lose his property. Clinch’s letters give details of the
state of his station, his plans for recovery, and the kind of help he needed to
keep his farm afloat. Clinch wanted Salvado to contact his banker friends in
secrecy to get a loan on certain conditions but asked Salvado to exclude the
Western Australian Bank and the National Bank because, according to him,
businessmen in Perth were freemasons, as was Loton, and they could easily
inform Loton of Clinch’s movements.
Mrs.
Anne wrote a letter from Chittering on
1 December 1884 asking Salvado to organise a collection to help her
to pay her husband’s creditors. This letter puts in the spotlight the hard life
of some working-class women in colonial
Western Australia and is a remarkable testimony of sexual abuse:
[quotation suppressed].
2.1.4. Letters
from Clergy
In these years
most of the letters came from the Bishop’s Palace in
Perth, although an important number of letters came from different Diocesan
parish priests and convents. The most interesting group of letters is the one
related to the appointment of
Fr.
John
O’Reily as Bishop of Port Augusta.
2.1.4.1.
Letters from the Bishop’s Palace in
Perth.
Those letters deal with a
wide range of ecclesiastical affairs: the work of the Diocesan priests,
collections, subscriptions, pastoral visitations; supply of wine for Mass, holy
oils and horses from New Norcia; Lenten regulations, visits to other colonies;
introduction of new religious and sacerdotal orders, etc. Much information
exists about the progressive physical and mental deterioration of Bishop Martin
Griver from the beginning of 1886, his death, and the consecration of the
Bishop Elect Matthew Gibney (23 January 1887), in which took part Cardinal
Moran from Sydney, Bishop Reynolds from Adelaide and Abbot Rosendo Salvado (as
Bishop of Port Victoria). Other frequent topics of the letters are the
reorganization of The Western Australian Record (a Catholic newspaper
founded in 1874) and the use of the newspaper as a platform for Catholic views
about colonial politics, politicians, and laws.
Extremely interesting are
the letters written by Bishop Matthew Gibney and other priests regarding the
best candidates for Catholics in the elections for the Representative
Legislative Council. Another noteworthy letter is the one sent by Gibney to
Salvado on
12 January 1889 about the
acceptance of a share
of 300 acres of land in a
coalmine in the Irwin District, because it shows the progressive involvement of
the Catholic Church in projects that could be profitable for the diocese’s
economy.
Also attractive are
Fr.
Anselm
Bourke’s letters describing the problems that
Fr.
Adolphus
Lecaille created after his arrival at the Vasse in September
1889. Lecaille excommunicated a group of people who had sent a petition to the
Governor asking him to forbid Lecaille to dig up the bodies of two Protestants
buried in the Catholic cemetery, an action motivated by the lack of space for
the deceased; the newspapers in the eastern states published several news items
about the Inquisition in Western Australia and Bishop Gibney was forced to
visit the area to calm people.
Fr.
Bourke requested Salvado’s opinion regarding what to do in
case they needed to bury somebody else, and Salvado sent some theological
extracts that could apply to the case.
Fr.
Bourke also provided the only available information about
the last days, death, and burial of demented
Br.
Gregorio
Sotillos in
York.
2.1.4.2.
Letters from New Norcia Brothers written from
Perth.
Prior Fulgencio Domínguez’s
letters to the Mission written when Salvado was in Europe are meticulous
reports of his trips and stays in Perth and the work carried out in the
government and lawyers’ offices, banks, and stores. Domínguez commented
on the lease and purchase of land and the provision of supplies for the
Mission (seeds, food staples, clothing, tools, material, and
medicines). However, the biggest source of troubles during these years was the
resumption of the work on the Midland Railway Company. The project of building
a line between
Guildford and Geraldton through
Victoria
Plains threatened to take large areas of New Norcia land and
dismember Marah station. After consulting with
Abbot
Salvado, Domínguez contacted government officers and Salvado’s agent,
George
Shenton, purchased some land, and applied for a government
grant; Domínguez informed Salvado of the frenzied activity carried out
regarding this affair and the obtaining of a temporary reserve at Marah granted
by Administrator Onslow in an uncertain date between January and March 1885.
Afterwards, Domínguez started working on obtaining a permanent reserve, a job
that Salvado continued after his return to
Western Australia.
Abbot
Salvado’s letters from
Perth deal with the same range of subjects, but they are more detailed.
Unlike Prior Domínguez, Salvado provided precise information about his trips to
the city (arrival and departure times, stops in the road, problems found,
people met, news about the neighbours, the weather, his health, and accidents).
Salvado mentioned searching for supplies, their purchase and sending, and the
search for workers, and he informed Domínguez of the people going to visit the
Mission. He also informed Domínguez about the attendance at
meetings, banquets, and inaugural functions and mentioned his visits and the
people who visited him. Salvado included news about colonial politics and
politicians, the Catholic clergy, and any information or rumour surrounding the
resumption of the works for the northern railway line. Salvado’s work and the
help of his influential friends lead to the establishment of a permanent
reserve around Marah lands on
20 April 1886. Especially interesting are Salvado’s comments on the Aboriginal
cricketers’ matches and on some brothers arriving in 1885 and their departure
soon after (Fr.
Viñeta,
Br.
Juan
Domenech,
Br.
Torruella, and Br. Sans).
Brother
Montoya wrote several letters from
Perth, all related to the operation performed on
Br.
Esteban
Tomás’ eyes in 1885. Some letters from
Br.
Ramiro
Landaluce concern the horse business.
2.1.4.3.
Letters from Parish Priests in
Western Australia.
New Norcia Archive keeps
letters written by parish priests working in
Albany, Fremantle,
York,
Newcastle, Northam,
Greenough, Geraldton, and
Derby. This correspondence mentions their pastoral work (inauguration of new
churches, baptisms, marriages, and sending of Aboriginal children to New
Norcia), mundane matters (exchange of seeds, cuttings or books; purchase of
horses; acting on behalf of settlers, introductory letters, and news about
ex-missionaries), political affairs (candidates best suitable for the
Catholics), and much more.
Fr.
Adolphus
Lecaille (from the Greenough Flats and then from Vasse) and
Fr.
John
O'Reily wrote the most; I examine the latter’s letters in section
2.1.4.5. Also noteworthy are a document containing a copy of the sermon
delivered at the inauguration of the new Catholic church of Bindoon in 1886 and
the harsh letter sent by
Fr.
Lecaille to
Bishop
Gibney about the payment of his salary.
2.1.4.4.
Letters from Nuns in
Western Australia.
The number of sisters
writing to New Norcia increased during this period. The Sisters of Mercy in
Perth and
Guildford wrote most of the letters, although other letters
came from the Sisters of Mercy in Bunbury, the Sisters of St. Joseph in
Albany and Fremantle, and the newly established community of
Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition in Northam. These letters give news
about the members of the community (illnesses, deaths, and trips), about the
schools, charity bazaars, and the exchange of information and products.
2.1.4.5.
Letters about the Creation of Port
Augusta
Diocese.
Fr.
John
O’Reily was working as a parish priest at Fremantle and as
editor of The Catholic Record when he was designated bishop of the newly
created diocese of Port Augusta in
South Australia. The letters that
O’Reily sent to
Rosendo
Salvado are an account of the troublesome birth of the new
diocese.
O’Reily heard of his appointment as Bishop of Port Augusta
through the newspapers, and from the beginning he
considered himself unfit for the job; he commented to several people that he
did not want such a burden on his shoulders.
O’Reily received the official
appointment on
3 August 1887, and on 14
August he wrote to Salvado asking whether to accept or not:
[QUOTATION REMOVED]
Eventually
O’Reily accepted the position and prepared his trip to
Adelaide, where he would be consecrated.
Salvado in a letter to Domínguez dated
6 October 1887 wrote that they travelled together and reached
Adelaide on 1 October.
O’Reily and
Archbishop
Reynolds exchanged information and documentation about Port Augusta Diocese, but
O’Reily found the new diocese in such a bad state regarding area and initial
capital that he postponed his consecration and went to
Sydney to inform Cardinal Moran. On 7 October
only two of the nine prelates who had arrived for the consecration remained in
Adelaide. No information exists in New Norcia
Archive about what
O’Reily discussed with Moran, but the result was
O’Reily’s decision to resign his diocese. On
16 November 1887
O’Reily told Salvado that
Reynolds had argued with Moran and told him that it was
impossible to create a new diocese in such conditions.
O’Reily thought that
Reynolds’ opinion would support his resignation in
Rome, but Propaganda Fide enlarged the area of the diocese and asked
O’Reily to proceed to consecration. On
17 April 1888
O’Reily stated that he was at peace because he had informed
Rome of the many difficulties of his task and they had chosen him anyway. In
this letter
O’Reily criticised the ideas of
Reynolds regarding the finances of the Port Augusta Diocese.
On 2 July 1889 O’Reily sent
Salvado his first pastoral letter, devoted to issues related to Catholic
schools, and commented on the precarious state of his diocese; in fact, the
money raised by a special collection had only sufficed to pay for two thirds of
one year’s interest on the Cathedral’s debt, so he had applied for financial
help to Propagation de la Foi, a French institution that provided
financial support to Catholic missions. On
18 August 1890 the news was quite different:
O’Reily had written some articles in The Southern Cross about the
financial state of the Church and the Catholics of the diocese had donated
significant sums, and
O’Reilly started a new collection. Nevertheless,
O’Reily asked Salvado to recommend him to his friends in Propagation
because they had decided not to help him.
2.1.5.
Letters from New Norcia Brothers working in other Stations
New Norcia Mission had
sheep stations spread through
Victoria
Plains, the most important ones being Marah and Wyening,
which had also some basic buildings. The other so-called “stations” were
well-watered pastoral areas where the shepherds used to stay to feed the stock.
The sources do not state if the stock keepers had any sort of rudimentary
accommodation or if they made do with tents and swags. The survival of the
stock depended on the availability of fresh water, so the wells and tanks were periodically repaired, enlarged, or deepened. In these
years letters came from Marah, Wyening, Damboring, and Monchary requesting
rations and other supplies and containing news about people working there,
movements of the shepherds, state of the stock, works going on (drilling and
digging wells, deepening of wells, repairing tanks, etc.), and much
more.
2.1.6.
Letters from New Norcia’s Workers
New Norcia Archive keeps
mail from people working for New Norcia as shepherds, sawyers, well sinkers,
shearers, and fencers. Most of the letters deal with payments, supply of
rations and tools, sheep lost or sick, and work on tanks and wells.
George
Ikin was, as in the previous period, the most prolific
writer. All the workers’ letters are remarkable because they were written by
almost illiterate men in a rudimentary English (actually a phonetic
transcription of their strong Irish or Scottish accents) and, most important,
because they describe the daily life of working men in colonial Western
Australia and discuss salary, food, work relations, daily worries, accidents,
sickness and other matters. There are so many interesting episodes that it is
impossible to mention them all here. One of the more interesting is a letter
written on 22 August 1889
by Aborigine James Nindimar Cooper, a New Norcia’s
shearer temporarily working for Alfred Clinch at Jibberding, in which he
described the situation of the Aborigines in that part of the colony and their
interaction with the “civilised” Aborigines and farmers. [suppressed quotation]
2.2.
Letters sent from New norcia to Australia and Overseas
2.2.1. Letters from
Abbot
Rosendo
Salvado
This period contained
notable dates for the history of New Norcia. Salvado returned from
Europe in September 1885 after more than three years overseas. The Pope
approved Salvado’s request to appoint Prior Domínguez as Abbot Coadjutor, and
Salvado delivered the news to the community on
15 August 1887. On
1 March 1888 Salvado celebrated his 75th birthday and
his sacerdotal Golden Jubilee. Important visits to the
Mission include Cardinal Moran and
Bishop
Reynolds in January 1887 and
Governor
Broome and his wife in September 1889.
The letters that Salvado
sent to settlers and government officials in Western Australia deal with a wide
range of subjects but especially with the horse business, the renting of New
Norcia runs (for use of the land, the water, or the sandalwood), and decisions
regarding lands offered him for sale. A group of letters concern the first
elections for the Representative Council and show the involvement of Salvado in
colonial politics. Salvado and other settlers of the Moore District requested
George
Randell to stand as a representative of the district;
however, after getting some information from
Bishop
Matthew
Gibney about Randell’s actions towards the Catholic Schools
while on the Board of Education, Salvado changed his mind and voted for
Bernard
Drummond
Clarkson. Salvado refused to vote for another candidate,
Samuel
Hamersley, giving him an elegant excuse, and authorised
James
Hubbard to act on his behalf by proxy. Finally, some letters
are devoted to helping prisoner
Aaron
Kershaw, jailed in Fremantle, to get an early release
Abbot
Salvado kept copies of letters he wrote to
Fr.
Anselm
Bourke,
Fr.
Patrick
Long, and
Fr.
Facundo
Mateu. The letters to Mateu deal mostly with the reception
of Aboriginal children sent to New Norcia. However, in one of them Salvado
commented bitterly about Mateu’s statement regarding the Midland Railway
project that the general benefit should be preferred to the private one, and
that the railway would be an improvement for the Mission. Salvado answered that
he was not happy because he knew that the future of New Norcia was very dark
since the railway was not going to be built according
to the European style or as the Fremantle-Beverly line was, and he ended by
stating that he did not care what others thought about this matter. New Norcia
Archive also keeps some copies of letters sent to the eastern states to
Cardinal Moran,
Bishop
Murray,
Bishop
O’Reily, and
Father
Coué on different matters.
In this period
Salvado made two visits to the eastern states. The first one, just after he returned from
Europe, was to attend the Plenary
Synod of Australia held in
Sydney (he left first week of November 1885 and returned to
Fremantle on Christmas Day). Later Salvado travelled to
Adelaide to attend the consecration of
Father
John
O'Reily (he left on
24 September 1887 and returned on 20 October). In those letters Salvado
gave details about his trips, the steamers in which he travelled, people he met
on board, the mail, the activities he attended at his destinations, visits to
Catholic communities and institutions, visits to agricultural exhibitions, the
sending of seeds and flower plants to New Norcia, and many other things.
Since the correspondence under consideration was inward, it contains
little news about what Salvado was writing to
Europe. However,
Salvado had the habit of writing a short summary of his response at the top of
most of the letters received. Moreover, in this period he sent a letter to
Charles
Wainwright asking about a
possible loan and another to ex-brother
Bartolomé
Ramis containing a
certificate to allow him to get married;
Salvado’s correspondence also contains a copy of his voting paper for
the election of the members of the Melbourne Board of Education held on
December 1886.
2.2.2. Letters from Prior
Fulgentius
Domínguez (Abbot
Coadjutor since 1887)
Most of Domínguez’s letters
in this period were addressed to Salvado in Spain and were devoted to two main
problems affecting New Norcia: firstly, the lack of rains, the consequent
scarcity of water for the fields and stock, and the work to deepen some wells
and enlarge some tanks; and, secondly, the Midland Railway Company, as I have
already mentioned in section 2.1.4.2. As in previous years Domínguez gave an
account of what was happening at New Norcia and dependent stations (Marah,
Wyening, Marbro, Damboring, Conduit, Wongan Hills, Dumbo, etc.) regarding
agricultural works and stock, New Norcia produce (especially cereals and wool),
and work on tanks and wells. Domínguez informed Salvado of the correspondence
and goods arriving at the
Mission, visitors received, and the need for supplies of fabric, medicines, and
spare pieces. His letters contain plenty of news about the health and behaviour
of New Norcia brothers and Aborigines and descriptions of the performance of
the Aboriginal choir and brass band during Easter functions. Domínguez also
commented on the news sent by Salvado from
Spain and on the forwarding of documents. Finally,
Domínguez acknowledged the celebration of paid Masses sent or celebrated, and
informed Salvado of the mentions of New Norcia in speeches and books.
After the arrival of
Salvado from
Europe on
11 September 1885, Salvado made some trips to
Perth and the Eastern colonies, and Domínguez once
more kept him properly informed about the railway project, the Aboriginal
cricketers, and the Aborigines’ fondness for horseraces. Domínguez several
times mentioned the indiscipline or bad behaviour of some brothers, and he
stated, “Twenty five or thirty years ago the
Mission had problems from outside. Nowadays they come from
inside”.
Domínguez’s correspondence
also includes some information about the hatching of the silkworms, letters
written to several settlers, accounts of some workers, lists of tools and goods
sent to different stations, a reminding note about fabric needed at New Norcia,
and a petition presented to the Victoria Plains Road Board.
2.2.3. Letters from
Father
Bernardo
Martínez.
Martínez’s letters were all addressed to Prior Domínguez while the latter was
in
Perth dealing with the
Mission’s affairs. As Domínguez before him, Martínez gave a
chronicle of the work going on at New Norcia and dependent stations, asked for
supplies, and included news about the mail received. In some of these letters Martínez commented on the pressure that New Norcia
Aborigines placed on him to get their wages to buy clothes, shoes, or hats from
an Indian pedlar who visited the
Mission. Martínez also wrote a letter of reference for
Thomas
Clune that included a handwriting test by the 15 year-old
youngster.
2.2.4. Letters Written by other
Mission Brothers
Some of them are a request
for supplies: fabric for dresses for the Aboriginal girls (Br.
Miró), supplies for the guesthouse and a tooth remedy (Br.
Beda
Rodríguez), and rosaries, candles, kerosene oil, and petticoats
(Br.
Gasulla). Other letters deal with internal matters: the
refusal of some brothers to do their job or to shift to a different work inside
the
Mission. (Br.
Giménez), a request for money to pay for the work done
at the new washing pool (Br.
Larrea and others), and a request to ask for
permission from the government to try liquor-making at the
Mission (Fr.
Bertran). The brothers also wrote letters to New Norcia’s neighbours, and most of
these letters were from
Br.
Ramiro
Landaluce on the horse business.
Fr.
Emiliano
Coll wrote an interesting letter to
Henry
Bruce
Lefroy commenting on the withdrawal of some children from
New
Norcia
School, which could lead to its closure due to the lack of the minimum number
of children needed to keep a school open according to the School Act. Some
letters were written to friends of family in
Europe (Br.
Sala,
Fr.
Bertran), and a further miscellanea of letters exists.
Many letters arrived from the eastern colonies in this
period, especially from
New South Wales and
South
Australia. Two-thirds
of them are from clergy and deal with different matters: requests for photos,
books, prospectus, and plants; requests for information or for prizes for
charity bazaars; people wanting to join New Norcia and asking Salvado to
compose a Funeral March. Four letters come from Cardinal Moran with information
about the granting of the Abbot coadjutorship to Domínguez and the sending of two
Trappist fathers to start a mission in the
Kimberley. The most noteworthy letters come from O'Reily
dealing with Port Augusta Diocese, already mentioned in section 2.1.4.5,
Archbishop Reynolds from Adelaide and William Pidcock’s from Sydney.
Archbishop
Christopher
Reynolds’ letters are very rich in information. Reynolds not
only forwarded ecclesiastical documents from Rome and Australia but also
commented on problems within his diocese (purchase or premises for the Church,
works done in some churches, Catholic schools and the foundation of Baklava
mission) and on the political, agricultural and economic situation of South
Australia.
William
Pidcock wrote fewer letters in this period than in years
1880-1883. Half of Pidcock’s letters deal with his work at the Marist Brothers’
school of
St. Joseph in
Sydney and the illness and death of his wife. His correspondence contains
honest opinions about Church politics and especially about the appointment of
the first Cardinal of Australia (Moran) and his work to promote the flourishing
of new religious orders in
New South Wales. Pidcock, an ex-Anglican pastor who converted to Catholicism as a result of his conversations with
Fr.
Bernardo
Martínez and
Fr.
Rafaelle
Martelli, decided to become a Jesuit after the death of his
wife, and despite his 48 years of age the Jesuits accepted him as a novice in
Melbourne. Pidcock informed Martínez of his decision on
18 April 1888.
The group of letters arriving from
Europe is not as numerous as in the period 1880-1883. The biggest group
arrived from
Spain for obvious reasons followed by
Italy and
France, although letters came from many other countries.
4.1.
Letters from
Spain
The locality of the letters from Spain shows that
Salvado’s relations and area of work were located in the central northern half
of the Iberian Peninsula: Madrid, Catalonia, Galicia –his home land– North
Castille, Asturias, Basque Country, Navarre, and La Rioja. The letters written
from the south are much scarcer, although some letters written came from
Andalusia,
Extremadura,
Murcia, and the
Balearic Islands. Most of the letters deal with the work to found the
College of
Benedictine Missionaries for Overseas (also called New Norcia noviciate) and
the gathering of new postulants for New Norcia;
Fr.
Isidoro
de Lope Moral’s letters are indispensable in this regard.
Ex-prior Santos Salvado was the most prolific writer in this period, with 290
letters.
4.1.1.
Abbot
Rosendo
Salvado’s
Letters from
Europe
After his long stay in
Italy and his trips to
France and
Belgium, Salvado arrived in the
Iberian Peninsula on
4 December 1883. The main
purpose of Salvado’s stay in
Spain was the foundation of a College for Benedictine
Missionaries, which could serve as a nursery for New Norcia postulants. After
many visits, offers, proposals, and study of the situation, Salvado made an
agreement with
Montserrat to establish the College there, and he started the
legal procedure to obtain the approval of the Department of Ecclesiastical
Affairs in the Ministry for Overseas (Colonial) Affairs.
After the issue of the
Royal Decree authorising the foundation of a College on
13 November 1884, Salvado moved to
Montserrat to choose where to locate
the postulants and supervised the work needed before receiving them. Salvado
had also to deal with an important problem: the complicated conditions of
application of the law of exemption from military service. When everything was solved, Salvado and the postulants who decided to join
New Norcia met in the French town of
Perpignan, headed to
London, and took the ship for
Australia on
28 July 1885.
I would like to call the
reader’s attention to the fact that most of the letters written to and from
Montserrat regarding the negotiations for the establishment of the
College of
Missionaries for Overseas are kept in
different files, a fact that explains the scarcity of news about such an
important affair in this period’s correspondence. However, some letters from
Salvado provide news of the long and stressful process that led to the opening
of the College. This information needs to be complemented
by the many details that Santos Salvado,
Fr.
Isidoro
de Lope (see sections below), government officers, and
Salvado’s friends included about the matter. In his letters Salvado commented
on how the things were going, on the issue of the Royal Decree approving the
establishment of the College, the works in Montserrat, the visit to Madrid with
the Abbot of Montserrat and to introduce him to the Queen, the Ministry for
Overseas’ authorities, and the Church’s hierarchy so that he would be
officially recognised as Abbot and as Director of the College. Salvado also
commented on the preparations for his departure and the waiting for the
testimonial letters needed from the postulants’ diocesan prelates before
leaving for
Australia.
Two letters give an insight
into Salvado’s thoughts on the College. In the first one, addressed to
Fr.
Ildefonso
Bertran (dated
8 December 1884), Salvado confessed that he had obtained what he could and not what he
wanted. In the second one, addressed to Prior Domínguez (dated
22 December 1884), he said that the new postulants would eventually
serve in a mission in the
Philippines (yet to be founded), and that they would stay in New
Norcia, in theory, for a practical learning period. According to the Spanish
Liberal laws, the only possible way to get exemption from military service for
a religious man was to pay a fee (a very high sum) or to be member of a
missionary order working in the Spanish colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the
Philippines). To obtain the approval of the
College of
Missionaries from the government Salvado agreed to open a mission
on a Philippine island in ten years; this was only a trick to allow the
postulants for New Norcia to leave
Spain without breaking the law on military service and
without having to pay a fortune for them. The letter that
Abbot
Salvado sent to
Fr.
Isidoro on
17 October 1884 is of especial importance since it serves to explain many of the
oddities surrounding the birth of the College for Missionaries in
Montserrat in 1884.
Salvado’s letters also
mention his trips to other monastic communities (Silos, Montserrat, San Payo,
Samos) and several cities (Burgos, Barcelona, Madrid, Santiago, Tuy) and
the people he met, how he was treated, where he was staying, what he was doing,
the weather, results of collections, celebration of Masses entrusted to them,
and much more. Salvado’s trips had a quadruple aim: to visit old friends, to
help the diffusion of his missionary work (and consequently increase the number
of vocations and the collections of money for New Norcia), to contact owners of
empty monasteries to evaluate the possibility of purchase or donation for the
establishment of the College, and to discuss with some monastic communities the
possibility of founding the College in their houses.
Salvado’s letters, on the
other hand, contain precise acknowledgements and comments on the news arriving
from the
Mission and about the preparations and sending of requested
supplies. The letters of this period give the impression of a Salvado who no
longer tried to control everything. Salvado was the Abbot and his opinion,
guidance, and advice were necessary when dealing with important affairs,
especially while trying to obtain a grant reserve for Marah lands to avoid any
damage by the northern railway company. However, Prior Domínguez took decisions
about the purchase of some areas of land at his own risk, and Salvado was
satisfied with his decisions. Nevertheless, Salvado’s letters contains several
complaints about the vague way in which Domínguez acknowledged Salvado’s
requests. For example, on 18 August 1884 Salvado complained because Domínguez
said that he had written down the celebration of paid Masses sent from Spain in
a very general way; Salvado told Domínguez how to acknowledge Masses properly
and added: “You probably will not tell me anything about this, because you
haven’t specified anything on previous occasions, so I am not really happy, and
I’m anxious because of the uncertainty [of knowing] if you have received or not
all the Mass or celebrations that I have sent between
29 June 1883
and 9 June 1884”.
Finally, Salvado’s letters
contain some notes about Montserrat (its restoration in 1844, its water
deposits and a list of monks), about the newly appointed secretary of the
Committee for New Norcia Affairs, and even a list of donors and a last comment
on Fr. Joseph Moreau, the Belgian postulant that I mentioned in my previous
paper, “He accompanied me for about four weeks, which were enough to lead me to
take the decision I finally took.
In my opinion, he had been too spoilt in each place
he had been, which did him harm. A good young and very
well educated man, no doubt, but not even three “peros”
[variety of apple] make a [normal] apple”.
4.1.2. Letters from Ex-Prior Santos Salvado
The most numerous and
interesting group of letters is the one written by
Rosendo
Salvado’s brother, ex-Prior
Santos Salvado. In this period,
Santos retired from his chaplaincy at the
Royal
Palace and left
Madrid for La Guardia (in
Galicia) on
6 October 1885. Despite his change of residency, Santos kept working as New Norcia’s
agent and secretary and took care of the search, purchase and sending of any
good required. He forwarded letters to and from Salvado, answered letters from
people interested in contacting Salvado or asking about New Norcia, and
exploited his circle of acquaintances among the Royal Family and
Madrid and Galician gentry to advance New Norcia’s affairs.
As in the previous period,
Santos’ letters deal with a range of mundane topics: his
ailments, especially the progressive deterioration of his sight, old age and
proximity of death, visits paid and received, guests, renting of their family
house in Tuy, trips, and postal matters (Santos’ obsession).
Santos informed
Rosendo
Salvado of many news items that appeared in the press
regarding Spanish or European politics (especially the crisis within the
Carlist Party and the conflict between
Spain and
Germany regarding the
Caroline Islands) and anything
published about New Norcia.
Santos appears as
a moderate Carlist and as an anti-Liberal opposed to the freedom of religion.
Santos also commented on the social and cultural life in
Madrid and La Guardia and obviously on religious matter such
as the appointment of new hierarchy members, several Benedictine communities,
missionary orders, and ecclesiastical ceremonies and celebrations.
Santos periodically sent Catholic newspapers to New Norcia
These letters contain first-hand and extensive
information about the intervention of
Santos to advance the foundation of the
College of
Benedictine Missionaries for Overseas.
Santos made use of all of his acquaintances in the Ministry
for Overseas (especially in the Office for Ecclesiastical Affairs) to get
unofficial information about how the case was going. New Norcia had official
agents for the case, but they were not very efficient since they could not take
steps except those permitted by the law. The highly bureaucratic Spanish
administration took a long time to produce results, so the presence of a person
asking (and annoying) about his case would encourage the officers to advance
the case. In this respect
Santos’ visits to the Ministry allowed him to push forward
New Norcia’s file, to get privileged information about the activity of other
parties involved, and to take steps in the right direction to solve any
problem.
Santos’ letters are very rich in detail about his visits to
the Ministry and the obtaining of secret information, but also about his many
contacts with other missionary orders’ superiors to get information regarding
the application of the law on exemption from military service.
Santos’ work was tireless and no study of the creation of
the
Montserrat
College for Missionaries would be complete without the details contained in his
correspondence.
Santos was always a very honest and passionate person when
advising Salvado. In this period he tried to calm Salvado regarding the effects
of the Midland Railway; he advised him to push on with viticulture and
winemaking and showed his doubts regarding the benefits of sericulture for New
Norcia’s economy.
Santos was equally
honest regarding the people and institutions he liked and disliked, especially
evident in the case of
Montserrat, a fact that made Salvado erase some of
Santos’ most controversial paragraphs before depositing his
letters in the Archive; some of them can still be deciphered
with a little patience. To finish, his correspondence contains some
curiosities: the sending of a set of mechanical toys for New Norcia’s
Aboriginal children, the sending of seeds and fruit stones for the orchard, a
recipe for making tomato preserve, and the mention of the menus he had on
ordinary and extraordinary days, among many others.
4.1.3.
Letters relative to the College for Benedictine Missionaries
In the paragraphs devoted
to Rosendo and Santos Salvado, I have mentioned some of the aspects related to
the creation of the
College of
Benedictine Missionaries in
Montserrat, established as a way to
guarantee the survival of New Norcia and to allow a group of postulants to
leave
Spain for the
Mission without problems. In this section I present
other letters dealing with the creation of the College for Missionaries and
those devoted to the search for postulants in
Spain.
4.1.3.1.
New Norcia Archive keeps a few groups of letters
written by government officers and Church hierarchies directly related to the
creation of the College. The first group is formed by letters written by the Minister
for Overseas (Earl of Tejada), the Director of Justice and Ecclesiastical
Affairs (Perier), the chief of the section for Overseas Affairs (García de
Otazo), and the Royal Chief Chaplain (Patriarch of the Indies), giving news of
the issue of the Royal Decree authorising the re-establishment of the College
as in the decree issued on 11 February 1868. This decree authorised Salvado to
open a college for missionaries at
El Escorial, but it did not work
because of the triumph of the Liberal Revolution in
Spain that year. The second group is
formed by the letters of the Governor and the Bishop of
Barcelona (Herce and Català) informing Salvado of the sending
of their reports on the College’s project to the Ministry for Overseas. A third
group is formed by the letters written by José
Nacarino Bravo to Salvado on different matters related to the creation of the
College and the exemption from military service.
4.1.3.2.
As important as the re-establishment of the College
was the search for postulants in
Spain. New Norcia correspondence for the years 1884-1890
provides historians with precious information about the reality of religious
recruitment for missions in
Spain. It also allows researchers to answer important
questions: Who were those young men willing to become
missionaries? Why did they decide to become missionaries? Why missionaries in
Australia? What kind of education did they have? Where were
they from? How did they know about Salvado and his search for missionaries? How
was Salvado able to find them? The answer to these questions will serve to
demystify the belief –another myth surrounding New Norcia- that all those men
came for the same reasons, with the same spirit and on the same conditions.
A) Father Isidoro de Lope Moral, parish priest at Barbadillo Del Mercado and later chaplain at the
monastery of Las Huelgas (Burgos province), helped create a network of people
and information that had as a result the finding of most of the postulants that
entered Montserrat and went to New Norcia in 1885. Salvado met
Fr.
Isidoro after visiting Silos on his way to
Burgos. Isidoro was parish priest at
Barbadillo
Del Mercado, a town very close to Silos. Isidoro and the other
neighbouring priests were well known by the community
of Silos, so Salvado certainly knew of him through Prior Guépin. While at
Isidoro’s house (on
21 December 1883),
Rosendo
Salvado asked him to help look for postulants for both
Montserrat
College and New Norcia. Years after Salvado left for
Australia, Isidoro was still providing
Montserrat and other missionary and non-missionary orders in
Spain and
Latin America with
postulants. We have to grant
Fr.
Isidoro a big part of the success that Salvado had getting
applications for postulancy in these years. As requested, Isidoro started his
work by launching an appeal to his neighbouring parish priests and asking them
to spread the news through their parishes. To help attract vocations
Fr.
Isidoro worked to get some notes and letters on the matter
published in Burgos Catholic newspapers, and he contacted his diocesan prelate
to get permission to include some news in the Diocesan Bulletin. Fr. Isidoro,
who initially had a general knowledge about Salvado’s project, asked for
further information to improve the news published and to answer the many questions
that the postulants were asking him.
The good results were undeniable. Once the people contacted Fr. Isidoro
telling him about their wish to join New Norcia or the College for
Missionaries, Isidoro passed Salvado a list with their personal details (name,
age, place of birth and residence, parents, education, and skills) to help
Salvado decide who to accept and who not. Salvado chose the postulants and
informed
Fr.
Isidoro, who proceeded to inform the postulants and asked
them to get testimonial (character) letters from their diocesan prelates. Once
the application form was completed and the testimonial letters received,
Fr.
Isidoro sent the folder to Salvado. Then Salvado informed the
postulants through
Fr.
Isidoro of the date of departure from
Burgos, the price of the return ticket, the clothes and
money they needed, and asked for their financial resources to pay for the trip.
At the fixed date
Fr.
Isidoro accompanied the postulants to
Montserrat.
Isidoro’s letters explain the difficulty in finding people willing to
join the
Mission older than 11 years, the lack of education and
economic difficulties of many of the applicants, who had no money or not enough
to pay for a single trip to
Australia, not to mention a safety sum in case they returned to
Spain. Isidoro organised collections to help the poorest
postulants pay for their trips to
Montserrat or
Australia and in other cases pressured the family to help their
sons pay for their trips. For example, Fr. Isidoro told Salvado on 19 December
1884: “I have written to a priest friend of mine, [who lives] close to the
village in which resides the good Julio Martínez to see his parents and talk to
them… about paying the College at least the travel expenses, as the father [of
the postulant] organized [promised to do]. I have heard that the father has not
many resources because he told me on 4 February that he was going to sell a
vineyard to make the payment. I do not know what he will do”.
Julio
Martínez went to
Montserrat, but he changed his mind
and went back. As an extraordinary measure,
Abbot
Salvado decided to pay for the trips of those youngsters who did not have
enough money and even to pay for all Isidoro’s expenses for accompanying them
from
Burgos to
Montserrat. As important as
Fr.
Isidoro’s letters to Salvado are the letters that
Rosendo
Salvado wrote to
Fr.
Isidoro and to the Archbishop of Burgos on the matter. These
thirty three letters (dated between
26 December 1883 and
14 June 1885) are kept at the Archive of the Monastery of
Santo Domingo de Silos in
Spain, although there are photocopies of them available at
New Norcia Archive.
B) New Norcia Archive keeps
a small number of letters written by people directly applying to become a
postulant for New Norcia. All of them were literate
people, mostly priests, asking for information about the
Mission or expressing their wish to join New Norcia. They
told Salvado about their age, profession, and studies, and provided him with
details about their lives and the reasons for becoming a missionary. For
example, Lorenzo Gilabert (who had been a police officer and, when writing, a
sewing-machine agent) wanted to go to Australia to convert the Aborigines; Fr.
Diaz Muñoz, a renowned preacher, had wanted to join New Norcia since he read
the Memoirs, while Fr. Juan Espinosa did so after reading about New
Norcia in the magazine Misiones Católicas of Barcelona.
These letters are not
representative of the kind of people who eventually became New Norcia brothers,
since most of them did not pursue further their Australian vocation, and the
only one who did,
Father
Viñeta, did not remain at New Norcia for long. The reasons for not pursuing
the missionary vocation were several, the most important being family burdens
(taking care of old or sick parents), pressures on the priests not to leave
their ecclesiastical duties, and what I call a romantic dysfunctional
conception of what a mission, and New Norcia Mission, was. For example,
Father
Díaz, beyond the
pressures on him not to leave his position, wanted extra time to solve this
problem, to
gather some money, to edit
his sermons for publication, and to translate a French book into Spanish.
Father
Juan
Espinosa said that he would like to leave everything for
Jesus Christ, but he had nothing but duties, while his mother's properties had been
distrained by the creditors, and she was living with him.
Juan
Rivas, on the other hand, expressed his wish to get a
parish in
Australia!
The clearest example of a
person captured by the romantic idea of what New Norcia Mission was is
Father
Ramón
Viñeta. He was a 43 years-old priest, ex-Redemptorist novice
at
Toledo, ex-chaplain of the Benedictine sisters at
Talavera de la Reina, and Hieronymite postulant at the monastery of
Guadalupe. He moved there in August 1884 with a small group of brothers to open a
novitiate and to restore the monastery, but before even starting his noviciate
he was in charge of the functioning of the monastery due to the age of the rest
of the monks. He was unhappy at
Guadalupe, and on
9 February 1885, he told Salvado that he wanted to join New Norcia;
on
19 August 1885 he informed him that he had started to make his
application. Salvado invited him to go to
Madrid for an interview; once accepted, Viñeta went to
Montserrat and then to
Perpignan, where he was in charge of the group of postulants while Salvado was in
London preparing the trip for
Western Australia.
Santos’ letters
mention several times that Viñeta was seasick during his trip to
England and to
Australia, but he did not change his mind about joining the
Mission as other postulants had done.
Santos knew through
Rosendo
Salvado that
Father
Viñeta was happy at New Norcia, but on
9 March 1886 (five months after his arrival)
Viñeta gave Prior Domínguez a letter for Salvado informing him that he intended
to return to
Spain. Domínguez had a long discussion with Viñeta and told him that his
reasons (unknown to us) were childish, but Viñeta did not change his mind.
Moreover, Domínguez told Salvado that Viñeta was creating problems at the
novitiate because he did not follow the rules. It seems that Viñeta wanted
Salvado to pay for his trip back to
Spain, but New Norcia had a heavy debt with
George
Shenton at the time, and Salvado refused to do so. However,
he advised Viñeta to wait for the money that the House for Overseas Mission in
Spain owed him to pay for his trip back to
Spain. Viñeta left
Western Australia on
27 July 1886. When Santos knew of Viñeta’s desertion and that he was speaking badly
about Salvado and New Norcia, he remained astonished, because Viñeta knew perfectly
about the Mission before his departure and because when at Santos’ place Santos
had told him everything without adornments. What really puzzles anybody is the
fact that Salvado had received a testimonial letter on Viñeta that could have
made him suspect that something like this could happen.
The Vicar of
Talavera de la Reina, Viñeta’s home town, said that he was humble and docile,
but sometimes was overtaken by pride and had some faults regarding respect and
subordination regarding his superiors; the vicar also mentioned that he had
tried to enter different religious communities (S. Vincent de Paul, Trappists,
and Jesuits) before becoming a Redemptorist novice.
Who were the people who
applied to become New Norcia’s postulants and eventually joined the
Mission? The correspondence gives news about priests, novices
from other monasteries, shepherds, farmers, teachers, bakers, mason
apprentices, clockmakers, and confectioners. Most of the people joining Western
Australia in 1885 were mostly young people from rural northern Spain,
especially Burgos, and Catalonia; in fact, the Archbishop of Burgos said on 2
December 1884 that if each Spanish diocese provided as many missionaries as
Burgos did, Spain could provide missionaries for the whole of Australia. The
letters sent from Rosendo Salvado to Fr. Isidoro de Lope provide a clearer
insight into Salvado’s policy in this regard .Salvado preferred 1/ youngsters
(not younger than 12 years of age, although he later decided not to accept
those younger than 15), literate and with a basic knowledge of Arithmetic, good
conduct and with a monastic and missionary vocation. 2/ Young men not younger
than 22 and not older than 36-37 (except in exceptional cases) both a) students
and b) people with basic skills such as carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors,
cobblers, masons, carters, brick makers, farmers and shepherds. Salvado did not
want nuns, parish priests, couples without family, people wanting to join the
Mission with an old family member, ex-convicts, illiterate
people, novices from other orders, and people without basic skills and basic
knowledge of Latin. We do not know if
Rosendo
Salvado preferred postulants from certain regions, but except
for
Fr.
Juan
Espinosa no Andalusians applied to join the expedition to New
Norcia. However, Santos Salvado showed his preferences openly; he confessed
that he did not like the Andalusians and preferred people from
Burgos,
Calahorra, Vitoria, León, Palencia, Valladolid, Zamora, and also Catalans
because the last ones, living so close to Montserrat, would not have to pay
much for their trip.
Santos thought that
they needed good farmers, artisans, and students from the seminaries.
C) Another group of letters contains correspondence from different people
involved in the process of getting testimonial letters for the accepted
postulants. Several letters are from or about
Jesús
Deu, a novice
himself, who helped Salvado look for more postulants in different Catalonian
dioceses and organise the stay of the postulants in
Perpignan.
4.1.4.
Letters from Spanish Monastic Communities
The bulk of letters arrived
from the monasteries of
Montserrat, Silos, and
Samos and the convent of
San Plácido (Madrid). However, additional letters came
the monastery of
San Payo (Santiago de Compostela) and the convents of
Santa Clara (Gerona),
San Daniel (Gerona) and the school of the Sacred Heart at Chamartín (Madrid). Most of the letters contain a description of the
internal life of the communities, personal confessions of the authors about
their spiritual worries, comments on the news about New Norcia, commissions
entrusted to them, details about the schools, and much more. Silos,
Montserrat, and
Samos’ correspondence deserves further attention.
4.1.4.1.
Letters from
Montserrat (Catalonia).
First
Abbot
Miguel
Muntadas and then
Abbot
José
Deás (from
15 April 1885) wrote most of these letters. Both Abbots had a different writing
style, Muntadas always shorter and less adorned. As I have already mentioned,
there is not a significant number of letters regarding the establishment of the
College of
Missionaries for Overseas in the files under examination. However,
Abbot
Muntadas’ letters mention facts related to the early stages of the project: the
sending of a brother to the monastery of Subiaco (Italy) to see if the Cassinese Congregation would approve
the association of
Montserrat and Salvado, the news about their approval, Muntadas’
request for Salvado’s proposal, and the approval of Salvado’s proposal by the
Montserrat chapter.
Abbot Deás’ letters, sent
to Rosendo and Santos Salvado, deal with four main topics: First, the recovery
of the community’s population after the foundation of the College of
Missionaries and the later incorporations of lay and clerical postulants; Deás
mentioned the arrival or departure of postulants, the number of professed and
unprofessed monks, and the number of students for the Montserrat, Valvanera and
Treviño
communities. Second, the recovery of
Montserrat’s splendour through the work of refurbishment, restoration and
adornment of some of the old buildings and the construction of new ones; to get
the huge amounts of money needed for these works Deás turned Montserrat into a
workshop that made and sold biscuits, dry anisette, chocolate, liquors,
rosaries, and gilded and silvered ornaments. Third, the famous “Escolanía”, the children’s choir; Deás delighted in commenting
about the improvements of the choir regarding the number of children, their
selection, pieces they were preparing, performances during festivities, and the
many changes made by the new choirmaster. Fourth, the Silos’ affair (see
section below); Deás devoted three of his letters to this matter and offered a
different version of the visit of Prior Guépin to
Montserrat. Deás also provided news about visits of illustrious people to the
monastery, his trips to other monasteries, personal worries, and other matters
affecting the life of his community.
4.1.4.2.
Letters from
Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos province).
French Benedictine brothers
from the Abbey of Ligugé (Solesmes Congregation) moved to
Spain after the expulsion of the religious orders from
France, and they restored Silos on
18 December 1880. Most of the letters of this period were written by
Prior Ildephonse Guépin and deal exclusively with the need of getting exemption
from military service for the young members of the community. Guépin’s letters
give details about these problems and offer an example of the difficulties that
the monastic communities faced in
Spain to increase their numbers, especially if they wanted,
as in the case of Silos, to provide the postulants with an extensive erudite
education. The matter was of relevance to Silos since the growth and progress
of the monastery were based on the postulancy of the
oblate children of whom the monks took care. However, as I have already
mentioned, the military service laws only accepted exceptions for the
missionary orders working in colonial territories and for those members whose
community paid large sums of money. Guépin realised that the only way to get
exemption from military service was turning Silos into a missionary college for
overseas –like
Montserrat- but Guépin believed that he would not get an ex-novo
concession from the Spanish Government; therefore, he thought of turning Silos
into a branch of
Montserrat
College. Guépin visited
Montserrat to discuss this affair
with the Abbot and to check the official documentation issued by the Government
since the 1860s. However,
Abbot
Deás and Guépin had a personality clash that resulted in a
lack of agreement and in an acrid irritation and hostility between Silos and
Montserrat communities. Then Guépin requested Salvado to help Silos establish a
second college for missionaries at Silos, and requested letters of recommendation
and contacts in the government offices. Eventually Guépin’s project was
successful thanks to the support of Salvado, who advised Silos to request the
government for permission to become a college of missionaries for the
Caroline Islands. However, the
Montserrat community was very upset with Silos’ success since
Montserrat thought that Silos had been established as a
college for the
Philippines too.
4.1.4.3.
Letters from San
Julián
de Samos (Lugo province).
Most of the letters were
written by
Abbot
Gaspar
Villarroel and deal with the supply of a new harmonium for the
monastic chapel.
Santos and Rosendo Salvado helped find, purchase, and send a
good and cheap new one. One of the most interesting letters in this lot is the
one dated 6 December 1884, in which Villarroel explained why this small
community formed by old men did not want to join the Cassinese congregation and
preferred to remain an independent Benedictine institution.
4.1.5.
Letters written by New Norcia Brothers’ Relatives
Most of the letters under
this heading were written by Rosendo Salvado’s relatives (Arias Rotea, Comesaña
Salvado, Troncoso Salvado, Rotea, Salgado, Santos Salvado), but other letters
come from the relatives of Brother Romualdo Sala, Brother Anselmo Palou, and
Brother Plácido Barbará. The correspondence informs of the state of the family
members, relatives and friends, and of their personal and spiritual worries.
Joaquín
Troncoso’s letters are interesting because he took care of the
purchase of the instruments for the Aboriginal Brass Band. I have mentioned
Santos Salvado’s letters in section 4.1.2.
4.1.6. Letters by New Norcia’s Friends or
Acquaintances in
Spain
I include in this section a
group of letters written by gentry or noble lay people with the only purpose of
saying hello, giving personal news, showing deep affection, and offering their
services to
Abbot
Salvado.
José
Buigas’ letters mentioning the Universal Exhibition held in
Barcelona in 1889 are especially interesting. I also include
here the letters written by
Fr.
Nofre to
Fr.
Ildefonso
Bertran, the letter from
Fr.
Lladó to
Br.
Sala, and the letter written by
Fr.
Múgica to Salvado asking for news about
Fr.
Goicoechea.
The biggest lot was written by
Fr.
Juan
Espinosa
Junquito, an Andalusian priest, already mentioned, who became
one of the biggest supporters of Salvado. Although most of his letters only
contain greetings and congratulations, Espinosa was responsible for the sending
of some paid Masses to New Norcia, the celebration –on New Norcia’s behalf and
profit- of other Masses, and the diffusion of the Memoirs (Salvado’s
history of the first years of the Mission and the Aborigines in Western
Australia) among seminarists, religious and lay people in the places where he
lived. One of the most interesting letters by Espinosa is the one about a
controversial French religious,
Fr.
Aurelien
de Saint
Alode, who toured
Spain trying to found agricultural monasteries and restore
the Celestine order. Also interesting are the letters written
by
Fr.
Isidoro
de Lope after the departure of Salvado to
Australia, especially those regarding the problems he suffered
from some political bullies “caciques” in the
village of
Barbadillo, because they show the face of a growing
anti-clericalism among certain social groups and parties.
4.1.7
Miscellaneous Correspondence
In this section are
invitations to Salvado to take part in or to attend ceremonies or audiences at
the
Royal
Palace, and invitations to preside at private ceremonies while in
Spain. Several letters ask Salvado for recommendations to
pass exams or to get chaplaincies or parishes, and others seek or offer
donations. Some people sent information from different associations and the
Sociedad
Económica de Amigos
del
País in
Santiago granted Salvado an honorary membership. Two letters from ex-brother
Ramis ask for a certificate to allow him to get married.
4.2.
Letters from Italy
Although most of the people writing from
Italy were ecclesiastical people, sixty-eight per cent of
the Italian letters were written by
Emilia, Pietro, and
Malvina
Regnoli, and by Scipione and
Rina
Lupacchioli, all members of the same family.
4.2.1. Letters from the Regnolis
A common element of the
Regnoli’s letters is the longing for Salvado, the joy at the reception of his
letters, and the worry about Salvado’s long periods of silence. As in previous
years, Malvina’s restlessness of soul and small talk are a constant in her
letters; she commented on Salvado’s news, on her health, her trips
and holidays, on
Rome, on the nuns of
Santa Caterina, and on her family
(Pietro, her brother,
Emilia, her niece, and Scipione, her son). The most
important news of these years is the wedding of Scipione and the birth of her
first granddaughter
Carolina; few of her letters dealt with this matter at length. Malvina also
collected information about sericulture for Salvado in
Italy.
Emilia
Regnoli’s short but intimate letters give a picture of her
melancholic character and her deep religious feelings.
Emilia’s letters deal mostly with Pietro and Malvina’s health. She lived as a
recluse at home taking care of the household, her father and aunt, a situation
that made Emilia an old-looking and pessimistic woman despite her age and fed
her low self-esteem both regarding her spiritual and intellectual qualities. She
talked about her family and about her best friend,
Countess
Renée
D’Auvers, a French woman who also
made a donation to New Norcia and became a Carmelite sister.
Pietro
Regnoli’s letters decrease in comparison to the period
1880-1883 and they are mostly short greeting notes, but those from
Scipione
Lupacchioli increase, and he informed Salvado of his engagement,
his wife’s pregnancy, and the birth of his first child.
4.2.2.
Letters from Ecclesiastical People
The authors of these
letters were mostly religious belonging to Benedictine monasteries with which
Salvado had a special relationship: La Cava, S. Callisto, and
S.
Paolo. The most prolific writer was
Abbé
Zelli. Most of the letters are an account of what has
happened in those communities regarding novices, professions, sick and dead
people, new appointments, news about the congregation, and remarks about the
writers’ corporal and spiritual health. These letters also contain information
about the Pontiff and the
Vatican, the state of politics in
Italy and their effect on religious matters, and even
information about sericulture. Some of the letters forwarded donations, books,
or gifts to New Norcia.
Vincenzo
Monzillo asked for information about becoming a postulant for
New Norcia.
There are also two letters
from the Benedictine Abbess of
San Giacomo in
Assisi and one from the Abbes of Fano, both asking for
charity due to the extreme poverty of their communities. A bunch of letters was written by the Dominican sisters of the convent of
Sta.
Caterina in
Rome, who had
met him through
Malvina
Regnoli and loved Salvado and the
Mission.
4.3.
Letters from
France
Most of the letters from
France arrived from
Théophile
Bérengier, Salvado’s unofficial agent in
France. As in previous years, Bérengier’s letters provided
information about his community and the French government’s policy about
religious matters, the sending of celebration of Masses to New Norcia, and the
management of the Mission’s account (from donations, Masses, and the sale of
the Memoirs). Bérengier helped Salvado by searching for donations, by
informing Catholic journals (especially Mission Catholiques)
of the achievements and difficulties of the
Mission, and by mentoring New Norcia regarding Propagation
de la Foi.
Bérengier also supported
Salvado’s re-born interest in sericulture and put him in contact with his
friend
Hippolith
Giry, an important
Marseilles businessman, who helped
Salvado start his business. One letter from Giry evaluated the first cocoons
sent by Salvado (using colonial “grain”), provided information about market
prices and qualities preferred, and sent some papers and a book on how to rear
silkworms and pack cocoons properly. Giry, in exchange, asked Salvado for
prayers for his family.
One of the
most interesting documents arrived from France was written by a group of
Frenchmen led by E. Liautard trying to push forward the Marquis of Rays’
project to found a French colony in Port Breton (New Guinea). The letter, dated
26 October 1884, asked
Salvado to support the project, which had initially failed due to the
persecution and imprisonment of the Marquis and the obstacles put by the
government for the departure of the first group of settlers. The Marquis’
supporters wanted Salvado to send some New Norcia fathers to start the colonisation
and evangelisation of the new colony, which could also serve –according to
them- to secure the future of New Norcia Mission just in a moment of financial
difficulties. The letter is remarkable because it offers an insight into the
so-called processes of evangelisation and Christianisation in Asia and Oceania
in the nineteenth century, in which religious aims were tightly attached to
processes of political domination and, most importantly, to processes of
economical exploitation:
[QUOTATION REMOVED]
Abbot
Salvado rejected the proposal on
13 November 1884, as he had done on
7 August 1880 in a letter directly to the Marquis, but Liautard
sent further documentation on the same matter to try to change Salvado’s mind.
Other letters from
France contained information about donations or subsidies
from “Propagation” to New Norcia, requested charity from Salvado and
information about the Aborigines. New Norcia Archive also keeps a letter from
the Archbishop of Marseilles asking for Salvado’s support for the introduction
of the cause of
Anne-Madeleine
Remuzat (the
Marseilles virgin from the Order of the Visitation).
4.4.
Letters from Other Countries
The biggest group of
letters come from the
United Kingdom, all from
London, mostly from business firms (Wainwright’s, Salvado’s
agents in
London, Hughes & Sons, Ransome & Co, and
Mr.
Bethell); other letters asked for charity or snuff and
forwarded a copy of a magazine. Two letters come from
Belgium, one dealing with the process for the Servant of God
Julia Billiart, founder of the Sisters of Our Lady of Namur, and another asking
for information about Blessed Fr. Columba Marmion. The two letters from
Portugal are both from an old friend of Salvado. The most
interesting document is the letter that
Fr.
Vacondio sent asking for charity, in which he described the
situation of the small Catholic community on Syra, a small Greek island in the
Aegean Sea. There is a miscellanea of letters from
India,
Philippines,
New Zealand, and the
United States, which deal with different matters.
The review of the
correspondence kept in New Norcia Archive for the period 1884-1890 provides the
historical and anthropological researcher with an astonishing amount of
documentation, not only related to the history of the monastery and its
missionary work with the Aborigines but also to the history of the Catholic
Church in Western Australia and many different aspects of the history of
Western Australia, Spain, France, and Italy. Despite the modern perceptions of
the monastery and the belief of some researchers that all the documents were written in Spanish, the fact remains that the
documentation generated by New Norcia in these years contains a significant
number of letters from Western Australian settlers, especially from
Perth,
Victoria Plains, Northam-Toodyay area, and the Greenough
Flats. Especially relevant are the letters written by
shepherds, sawyers, shearers, and other working people (even Aborigines)
employed by New Norcia, generally people of lowly birth and limited
education, whose lives have left no trace in other Western Australian archives.
The stories of those workers, with those of some pioneers in the northern
regions, and the stories of those people who emigrated into the colony and left
shortly after their arrival are as important for the history of Western
Australia as the lives of those bourgeois pioneers whose letters fill our
State Library. No history of
Western Australia is complete if it neglects using New Norcia records… and who wants to
write a lame history of
Western Australia?