After more than half a century dedicated to scholarship in Brazilian and Portuguese history and letters, Professor Manoel da Silveira Cardozo died in Washington, D.C. on December 15, 1985. No American’s place in the company of eminent historians of Europe in America is more deserved.
Fernando Pessoa, the greatest Lusitanian poet since Luís de Camões, asked six decades ago in his poem, “Portuguese Sea,” of the Portuguese discoveries
Was it worth it? All is worth it,
If the soul is not small.
He who would go beyond Bojador
Must know, be prepared to suffer more.
The American historian who labored in the fields of Brazilian and Portuguese history long before the academic “boom” of the 1960s was engaged in a “lonely occupation,” in the words of Alan K. Manchester, a contemporary of Cardozo’s, and, like him, a pioneer in the study of Luso-Brazilian history in this country. To both, as well as other pioneers such as Bailey W. Diffie, subsequent generations of American historians will be deeply indebted.
Manoel Cardozo was always true to his Roman Catholic and Portuguese origins. He was brought to the San Bernardino area of California in 1915 when he was only three years old, and thus became a part of the large Azorean/Portuguese community in that state. He attended Stanford University, where his mentor, the distinguished Latin American scholar Percy Alvin Martin, stimulated and nurtured his young protégé’s interest in the study of Brazilian history.
Except for a brief period between 1936 and 1940, Cardozo spent his academic career at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., rising from lecturer in 1940 to full professor in 1954 until his retirement in 1975. He served as head of the history department from 1961 to 1971, and was active in other academic and administrative posts.
Cardozo was president of the Catholic Historical Association in 1962. He was active in professional societies, including the Conference on Latin American History of the American Historical Association and the American Association of University Professors. He also served at various times on the hoard of directors of two professional journals, The Americas and the Catholic Historical Review.
Cardozo was a prominent participant in international and special meetings dealing with Brazilian and Portuguese history, stretching from the Congress on the Expansion of Portugal in the World (1937) to the Colloquia on Luso-Brazilian Affairs (1950-68), to mention only two examples. He delivered public lectures at major universities and learned societies in this country, as well as in Brazil, Portugal, Peru, and Argentina. He served as curator of the Manoel de Oliveira Lima Library, housed at the Catholic University, from 1940 until his death.
He studied and traveled abroad extensively, and received fellowships from the Instituto para a Alta Cultura (Portugal, 1936-38), Social Science Research Council (1941), American Philosophical Society (1953), Organization of American States (1963), and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal, 1972). His historical research centered on Brazilian, Portuguese, and Portuguese-in-America interests, based on extensive consultation of official archives and libraries in Europe, Latin America, and the United States.
Manoel Cardozo’s bibliography is too lengthy to be reviewed in this space, but it reflects the wide range of his scholarly interests: in more than 65 articles and books, he probed Brazilian and Portuguese history and letters for truth and meaning, always writing in artful prose— whether in English or Portuguese—that educated the reader with ease. It could be said that Cardozo’s method was scientific but his style elegant, embodying George Macaulay Trevelyan’s dictum that “Life is short, art is long, but history is longest, for it is art added to scholarship.” Most of Cardozo’s writing focused on political, diplomatic, religious, and intellectual history.
For his many contributions to Brazilian history and letters, Cardozo was awarded the Rio Branco Medal in 1945 and was made Chevalier, National Order of the Southern Cross in 1958 by the Brazilian government. For his service to Catholic history, the Holy See conferred its Benemerenti Medal on him in 1974.
Manoel Cardozo was a cross between a baroque and an enlightenment man: informed by staunch Roman Catholicism and strong conservative politics, he was also passionate in his convictions and loyalties. While those qualities could on occasion vex friends and detractors alike, they were rarely personally vindictive, and most often in the service of historical scholarship and his ideals. He was fiercely loyal to his closest friends, as well as to the institutions and the profession to which he belonged. If he often seemed larger-than-life, it was because he lived, thought, and worked at a white-hot pitch that would wither fainter hearts. In life he would not be ignored, and in death he will be remembered by his friends, associates, and professional colleagues.
