Diogo das Chagas


Diogo das Chagas, O.F.M. ; was a Portuguese Franciscan friar and historian. He is best known as the author of Espelho Cristalino em Jardim de Várias Flores, an important resource on the colonization of the islands of the central and western groups of the Portuguese archipelago of his native region of the Azores after 1640.

Biography

Diogo was the son of Mateus Coelho da Costa, Captain-major of the island of Flores, and his wife, Catarina de Fraga Rodovalho.
Little is known of his infancy and childhood; Diogo wrote that his first studies occurred in the city of Angra, where he most likely entered the Friars Minor and received his initial ecclesiastical training. Due to the absence of a resident bishop in the Diocese de Angra, he travelled to Lisbon in 1612 in order to be ordained a priest. He returned to the Azores in 1614, and began studying the Arts at the Jesuit college in Angra. In 1616 he returned to the mainland where he registered at the University of Coimbra to continue his theological studies. He completed these studies in 1620 and again returned to the Azores, where he taught theology at the Friary of São Francisco in Angra.
Diogo became the Guardian of the Friary of São Francisco in Praia da Vitoria on the island of Terceira in 1627, where he received a license to preach in 1629. Along with his brother, Friar Mateus da Conceição, he was responsible for convincing the Franciscan superiors to remove the Azores from the Province of the Algarve, headquartered on the mainland, and be established as their own independent province in 1638. It was only after the acclamation by King John IV of Portugal in 1641 that the Province of St. John the Baptist of the Azores was established.
A friend of Captain-major Francisco de Ornelas da Câmara, Diogo was a vocal supporter of the Siege of São Filipe during the Portuguese Restoration War, which was responsible for the surrender of the Spanish garrison at the Fort of São João Baptista in Terceira.
In 1646, Diogo was appointed Vicar Provincial for the Azores, a position he would hold until 1649. During his time in the role, he traveled successively throughout the archipelago, in order to meet with the friars scattered across the different islands. He was considered the most dignified Father in 1655, at the time that new provincial elections were held.
Diogo died in 1661 at the Franciscan friary in Angra do Heroísmo.

Published works