An island off the China coast
Sancian, the Portuguese name for the island of Shangchuan, lies off the coast of Guangdong, separated from the mainland by a strait about a mile wide.It is about thirteen miles round, and it looks like one island though it is said to be three lying close together.The island was empty until 1523, when some Chinese families settled there.China was closed to foreigners, and death had been decreed for any Portuguese who entered it, so Portuguese and Canton merchants bartered from Sancian and the nearby islands.The Portuguese had traded there since 1513, living in huts of branches and straw mats on the beach, which they burned when they sailed away.From 1557 their colony settled at Macao instead.
Xavier's earlier visits
Francis Xavier (ザビエル) passed the island in 1549 on his way to Japan, and again in December 1551 on his way back.On that second visit he found the Santa Cruz, the ship of his friend Diogo Pereira, at anchor, and sailed with it for Malacca on December 31, 1551.There his friend had received letters from Portuguese prisoners in China, which the missionary used in planning an embassy to that country.
Waiting for China
In late August 1552 the Santa Cruz brought Xavier back to Sancian, with the Chinese Antonio and a servant, to wait for a way into China.The merchants built him a little church of mats and branches on a knoll in two days, and he said the first Mass there on Sunday, September 4.On board ship he baptised sixty slaves, children and Moorish sailors.He heard confessions, taught children and settled quarrels among the Portuguese, and after a fortnight's fever he recovered.When he asked the merchant Pedro Velho for a dowry for a poor orphan, Velho handed him the key of a chest holding 30,000 taels, and the priest took only 200.According to tradition, he drove away with holy water the tigers that roamed the island.The Portuguese tried to dissuade him, fearing that if he slipped into China the mandarins would end their trade on the island, and he promised not to move until their ships were safely gone.At last a Cantonese merchant agreed, for a large fee advanced by Diogo Pereira, to take him in a small boat crewed by his sons and to lodge him for a few days before leaving him at the gate of Canton.On November 12 he wrote that "it is infinitely preferable to be captive and chained for the love of God alone" (translated) than to buy freedom by deserting the cross.Chinese merchants sent to frighten him advised him instead to bring his books on the faith, since the Emperor had lately been gathering information on all religions.He used to walk on the beach facing China.On November 13 the Portuguese burned their huts and sailed, leaving only the Santa Cruz.The merchant never came, and the priest began to plan a way into China through Siam instead.
Death in a hut
After saying Mass on Sunday, November 20, 1552, Xavier fell ill with fever and was taken to the ship serving as a hospital, but asked to be landed because of its motion.Ashore he was taken into the hut of a Portuguese, where an unskilled hand bled him twice.Left almost without necessities, he depended on young Antonio, who had to beg bread for him.From November 28 he was delirious, speaking of heaven and the conversion of China, and praying to the Holy Trinity and to Jesus, son of David.Among his last words, spoken looking toward China, was the prayer "In Thee I have hoped".He died in the hut late in 1552, holding the crucifix that his Chinese companion placed in his hands, with only that companion and the servant Christopher beside him.
The first grave
The body lay unburied until midday on the Sunday, when it was dressed in priestly vestments and laid in a Chinese-style coffin packed with lime, so that the bones could later be taken to India.A handful of mourners, among them Antonio and the pilot Aguiar, buried it on a hillside near a cross, facing the shipping lane, and marked the grave with stones.On February 17, 1553, at the young Chinese man's request, the grave was opened and the body was found whole and fresh.The Santa Cruz carried it to Malacca, arriving on March 22, 1553.A Portuguese who died on the island just then was buried in the empty grave, his friends trusting that God would not leave in purgatory a man laid where Father Francis had rested.Late in 1553 a visitor named Alcáçova saw the grave on a high wooded hill above the Portuguese huts by the sea.On July 20, 1555 Fr Melchior Nunes Barreto said a sung Mass on the grave, which his party found overgrown with weeds, and each man took a handful of earth for friends in India.The earth of Sancian came to be counted among the relics credited with cures.Portuguese devotion made the Chinese authorities suspect that treasure lay buried there, and they set a guard on the spot.A rich merchant who often sailed to Cochin-China always saluted the grave with lowered sails and a full discharge of artillery.
Monuments and pilgrims
In 1639 the Jesuit college of Macao set up a stone on the grave, inscribed in Portuguese and Chinese: "Here was buried St Francis Xavier of the Society of Jesus, Apostle of the East" (translated).Islanders soon threw the stone down, thinking treasure lay beneath it.In 1688 André Coelho, governor of Macao, driven ashore by bad weather with the Jesuit Fr Carossio, had it set up again and Mass said at an altar on the spot.In 1693 Fr Carlo Turcotti opened a mission with a church of St Francis Xavier at Xinhui, two days from the island, and in 1698 the crew of the French ship Amphitrite, in danger nearby, vowed to raise a monument.In 1700 Frs Gaspar Kastner and Giovanni Laureati, with a patent from the viceroy of Canton obtained by Fr Jean-Claude Visdelou, built a monument over the grave, with chapels, a pointed roof crowned by a globe and cross, steps down to the burial place beside the old stone, and a great cross facing the shipping lane.They found about 3,000 people living in six villages on the island, and finished the work on June 2, 1700.In 1813 the bishop of Macao visited, found the monument destroyed, and had the main stone repaired and set up again.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- The date of death. 2 a.m. on December 3, 1552 (Schurhammer); December 2 (the canonization bull, Kenners, Bouix); November 27 (Cary, and Reville's damaged text).
- Whose hut he died in. Jorge Álvares's (Coleridge, Bartoli-Maffei) or Diogo Vaz de Aragão's (Schurhammer).
- The price agreed with the Cantonese merchant. 20 piculs of pepper (letter to Pereira) or 200 pieces of gold (letter to Pérez).
- His arrival. late August 1552 (Schurhammer, Bartoli-Maffei) or October (Pagès).
- The mourners at the burial are listed differently in each account.
- The body was exhumed on February 17, 1553, but Pagès's appendix says the grave held it until February 27.
- The pilot is called Francisco de Aguiar in one place and João de Aguiar in the canonization process.
- The meaning of the name. "three islands", "upper island" or "three mountains".
- The tigers and the end of the island's whirlwinds belong to tradition.
- Pagès doubts the name given for the bishop of Macao who visited in 1813.