Albuquerque, Luís Prates de Almeida e, -1822

Luanda, ? - Goa, 15 July 1822. Luís Prates was an Angolan military, journalist and translator with family roots in Pernambuco. He was a free mason and a liberal activist. Prates was born in Luanda in an uncertain date and lived in Angola part of his life, having started his military career in Luanda in early 19th century.  Around 1807 he travelled to Lisbon and Brazil, apparently for health problems, and returned to Luanda after 1808. He established in an uncertain date in Rio de Janeiro, having becomed secretary of the Real Academia Millitar do Rio de Janeiro (Royal Military Academy of Rio de Janeiro), at least since 1812. It is known that he collaborated at least with the newspaper O Patriota (Rio de Janeiro, 1813-1814). In 1818, he was exiled to India, without a trial, for suspicion of connections to the 1817 Pernambuco Revolution, in which at least some members of his family (Cavalcanti de Albuquerque) played important roles. He first headed to Macau and only in 1819 travelled to Goa. Meantime he visited several Indian cities, namely Kolkata and Bombay, having published in 1820 in the last city a translation into Portuguese of the Treatise of Political Economy of Jean Baptiste Say. In 1821, he got involved in the events that led to the local adherence to the liberal order, following the Portuguese 1820 revolution. In 1822, he became the head of the new governmental press and the second editor of the Gazeta de Goa. It is believed that it was due to his shaping of the political profile of that periodical that he was murdered just few months after.

We thank Professor Roquinaldo Ferreira for sharing some data concerning Prates stay in Brazil.

References (selected): Gazeta de Goa; Oliveira, Luís Cabral de, “Sementes da revolta liberal: Luís Prates no Brasil, em Angola em Angola, e em Goa”, Seminar in the ambit of the Chair Eduardo Lourenço da Universidade de Aix-Marseille, 2022. https://youtu.be/BAwNQNCc6aQ?si=OO5VAYXDgSQ7bxqX; Oliveira, Luís Cabral de. A consagração dos naturais: Constituição, direito(s) e perismo na Goa oitocentista. Tese de Doutoramento em História do Direito. Lisboa; NOVA-FD, 2015. 
http://hdl.handle.net/10362/16336; Vianna, Maíra Moraes S. V., "Tradução e literatura na censura joanina" In: Encontro Estadual de História ANPUH/BAHIA, 2020, Anais do Encontro Estadual de História ANPUH/BAHIA, 2020; Barata, Alexandre Mansur, "E é certo que os homens se convencem mais pela experiência do que pela teoria cultura política e sociabilidade maçônica na mundo lusobrasileiro (1790-1822)" REHMLAC: Revista de Estudios Históricos de la Masonería Latinoamericana y Caribeña, IVol. 3, Nº. 2 (2011), 19 p.; Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Documents related to Luís Prates. Call numbers: PT/AHU/CU/015/0273/18253, PT/AHU/CU/001/0118/8422, PT/AHU/CU/062/0044/00031, PT/AHU/CU/062/0044/00047, PT/AHU/CU/062/0044/00017, PT/AHU/CU/001/0117/8359

Form and biographic note: Sandra Ataíde Lobo