“I work more so that white people are not perverted than for the conv:ersion of black people” Pedro Fernandes, bishop of Salvador da Bahia (1551–1556), between Paris, Lisbon, Goa, Cape Verde and Brazil

Abstract

During the first half of the 20th century, several authors became interested in the bishop that, in 1551, was appointed to the diocese of Salvador da Bahia by the king of Portugal. This study presents a rereading and reinterpretation of already known documentation which, together with a reduced set of new factual data, makes it possible to rethink and outline the profile of the thought and agency of Pedro Fernandes, the first bishop of Portuguese America. Supported by analyses linked to the purposes and methods of the connected history and the global turn, it will be argued that his passage through Paris, Lisbon, Goa, Cape Verde and Bahia, among other places, made him known to the world, without altering his bias of understanding and action. Having been an agent of the spreading of Catholicism in Asia, Africa and America, interwining and establishing connections between various places on the planet, he focused more on the Portuguese than on the Indians and Amerindians, contributing to building, especially in Brazil, a diocesan church based on the organic and dynamics of the dioceses of Portugal.