José Carlos Rodrigues
Encyclopedia
José Carlos Rodrigues was a Brazilian journalist, financial expert, and philanthropist, with connections to both the United States and Great Britain.
in the province of Rio de Janeiro, the son of a fazendeiro with extensive coffee estates manned by slaves. After inheriting from an aunt, he freed his slaves before emancipation came about in Brazil. He was educated at the Sao Paulo Law School, and on one of his rides there was converted to a non-denominational Protestantism by reading a Bible found in a house he stayed in. This gave him both work when he needed it as a young man and an absorbing subject of study in his old age.
He was a born journalist; like so many in that profession he started at university, contributing to newspapers and even founding a law review. At nineteen he published an annotated edition of the Brazilian constitution that went through ten editions! After he graduated he began to practise law in Rio, and soon one of his law professors became Minister of Finance and made José Carlos his aide. This was presumably the foundation for his later expertise in financial journalism, and could have launched him early on a brilliant legal and perhaps political career in Brazil. But after a short time he was charged, apparently correctly, with financial irregularity, and fled to the United States. He did not return to Brazil for twenty years, when a statute of limitations
meant that he was free from the threat of prosecution.
. Arriving from Rio almost penniless, he made his living to begin with by translations from English into Portuguese. Some were for a religious society which produced tracts, little works on morals or doctrine which were distributed in great numbers in most Protestant countries. In the early 1870s Rodrigues spent some time in Washington, where he spent months translating for the Attorney General many pages of American documents on the Alabama claims
dispute between the US and Britain.
He did not lose touch with Brazil, let alone contemplate becoming an American citizen. He was in correspondence with Joaquim Saldanha Marinho a little before Marinho, a keen Mason
, became the leader of the newly formed Republican Party in 1870. He began sending long monthly dispatches to an eminent Brazilian newspaper, the Jornal do Commercio – years later he was to become its editor. He also wrote articles for The Nation
about Latin America. With the aid of a New Yorker in the Amazon rubber business, he started his own monthly magazine O Novo Mundo (New World) which reached a circulation of 8000 in Brazil and informed his countrymen “of American ingenuity and progress in all fields”. It ran from 1870 to 1879 and was the only one of nearly 400 foreign language journals published in the United States which was intended not for immigrants but for readers in another country. His secretary and collaborator was the pioneering Modernist poet Joaquim de Sousa Andrade
. In 1876 he helped with the Brazilian exhibit at the great international Philadelphia Exposition. Emperor Pedro II visited the United States for it. Rodrigues had called for him to abdicate and establish a republic in articles which were reprinted in Brazil. Nevertheless in recognition for José Carlos’ help over the years for relations between Brazil and the US the emperor climbed the stairs to the humble office of O Novo Mondo to thank its editor in person.
Over the New Year of 1880 Ferdinand de Lesseps
made a triumphal tour to see how the work on the Panama Canal
was going. José Carlos, as a reporter for the New York World
, was part of an American party including the boss and members of the already built Panama Railroad and two army engineers which accompanied him. What Rodrigues wrote in the New York World interested the American President Hayes so much that he was invited to the White House later in 1880 to discuss the matter. In 1885 Rodrigues wrote articles on the canal for the London Financial News
which were reprinted as The Panama Canal: its History, its Political Aspects and Financial Difficulties. After the Americans had completed the canal, President Theodore Roosevelt
wrote to Rodrigues “You were a prophet! And I fulfilled your prophecy.”
Railways in Brazil were still largely financed and indeed owned by the British, and in 1902 José Carlos acted for the Brazilian government in unsuccessful attempts to buy two small railway companies, the Alagoas and the Rio Grande do Sul, from their largely British owners. When Brazil and the United States first exchanged ambassadors, the Brazilian who went to Washington, Joaquim Nabuco
, was a friend of Rodrigues, someone who used him as a confidant. The Jornal do Comercio became more influential than ever. It was even widely considered the voice of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry and the most reliable source in Brazil on the United States.
The Times
in London published at the end of 1909 a large “South American Number”. In their introduction they announced that “The leading journalist of Brazil, DR. J. C. RODRIGUES, Editor of the Jornal do Comercio, of Rio de Janeiro, has written an admirable letter to precede the Brazilian articles. DR. RODRIGUES is one of the most independent and fearless writers of Brazil.” Rodrigues edited the Jornal do Comercio until 1915, when he was over seventy. The Christian Science Monitor marked his retirement with a 600 word article.
Rodrigues was a noted collector of books on colonial Brazil and in 1907 published Bibliotheca Brasiliense, a two volume annotated catalogue so useful that it was reprinted sixty years later, and again a generation on. Many of his books are now in the National Library of Brazil
; some were bought from him by a benefactor so that he could endow a children's hospital in Rio.
All through his life, he kept the scholarly interest in religion and the practical faith which he had acquired as a young man, and his old age was dedicated especially to his religious writings. His first was a study of non-Catholic religions in Brazil between 1500 and 1900, which soon went into a second edition. In 1912 he published a monograph on the Resurrection of Jesus; in 1918 “Considerações Geraes sobre a Biblia” –“general considerations about the Bible”; and in 1921 a magisterial two volume study of the Old Testament. Not all his writings in old age were religious. He also used the resources of the Jornal do Comercio to produce in 1918 a collection of President Wilson’s speeches on the Great War, and in 1921 143 pages of “notes” on the subject of contraband goods in wartime.
He died in Paris in 1923, where his English wife, Jane Sampson, had lived much of her life, and where his nephew João Baptista Lopes was the Brazilian Consul-General. He was buried in Highgate
cemetery in London. Both his daughters married Englishmen, the elder, Josette, Sir William Garthwaite
, the younger, Evelina, David Hawes, managing director of Frederick Sage & Company
, shopfitters.
Early life
He was born in CantagalloCantagallo
Cantagallo is an inland town in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, about 100 miles by rail northeast of the port of Rio de Janeiro, with which it is connected by the Cantagallo railway. Cantagallo is situated in the fertile Parahyba Valley and is the commercial centre of a rich coffee-producing...
in the province of Rio de Janeiro, the son of a fazendeiro with extensive coffee estates manned by slaves. After inheriting from an aunt, he freed his slaves before emancipation came about in Brazil. He was educated at the Sao Paulo Law School, and on one of his rides there was converted to a non-denominational Protestantism by reading a Bible found in a house he stayed in. This gave him both work when he needed it as a young man and an absorbing subject of study in his old age.
He was a born journalist; like so many in that profession he started at university, contributing to newspapers and even founding a law review. At nineteen he published an annotated edition of the Brazilian constitution that went through ten editions! After he graduated he began to practise law in Rio, and soon one of his law professors became Minister of Finance and made José Carlos his aide. This was presumably the foundation for his later expertise in financial journalism, and could have launched him early on a brilliant legal and perhaps political career in Brazil. But after a short time he was charged, apparently correctly, with financial irregularity, and fled to the United States. He did not return to Brazil for twenty years, when a statute of limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
meant that he was free from the threat of prosecution.
In the United States
He went first to Lowell, Massachusetts, and then to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Arriving from Rio almost penniless, he made his living to begin with by translations from English into Portuguese. Some were for a religious society which produced tracts, little works on morals or doctrine which were distributed in great numbers in most Protestant countries. In the early 1870s Rodrigues spent some time in Washington, where he spent months translating for the Attorney General many pages of American documents on the Alabama claims
Alabama Claims
The Alabama Claims were a series of claims for damages by the United States government against the government of Great Britain for the assistance given to the Confederate cause during the American Civil War. After international arbitration endorsed the American position in 1872, Britain settled...
dispute between the US and Britain.
He did not lose touch with Brazil, let alone contemplate becoming an American citizen. He was in correspondence with Joaquim Saldanha Marinho a little before Marinho, a keen Mason
Mason
Mason may refer to:* Masonry worker, who builds with concrete, brick or stone* Bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork* Mason , a common English surname* Mason , Dutch electronic music duo* Mason , on the Moon...
, became the leader of the newly formed Republican Party in 1870. He began sending long monthly dispatches to an eminent Brazilian newspaper, the Jornal do Commercio – years later he was to become its editor. He also wrote articles for The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
about Latin America. With the aid of a New Yorker in the Amazon rubber business, he started his own monthly magazine O Novo Mundo (New World) which reached a circulation of 8000 in Brazil and informed his countrymen “of American ingenuity and progress in all fields”. It ran from 1870 to 1879 and was the only one of nearly 400 foreign language journals published in the United States which was intended not for immigrants but for readers in another country. His secretary and collaborator was the pioneering Modernist poet Joaquim de Sousa Andrade
Joaquim de Sousa Andrade
Joaquim de Sousa Andrade, better known by his pseudonym Sousândrade , was a Brazilian poet, adept of the "Condorist" movement...
. In 1876 he helped with the Brazilian exhibit at the great international Philadelphia Exposition. Emperor Pedro II visited the United States for it. Rodrigues had called for him to abdicate and establish a republic in articles which were reprinted in Brazil. Nevertheless in recognition for José Carlos’ help over the years for relations between Brazil and the US the emperor climbed the stairs to the humble office of O Novo Mondo to thank its editor in person.
Over the New Year of 1880 Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps, GCSI was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869, and substantially reduced sailing distances and times between the West and the East.He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a sea-level...
made a triumphal tour to see how the work on the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
was going. José Carlos, as a reporter for the New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
, was part of an American party including the boss and members of the already built Panama Railroad and two army engineers which accompanied him. What Rodrigues wrote in the New York World interested the American President Hayes so much that he was invited to the White House later in 1880 to discuss the matter. In 1885 Rodrigues wrote articles on the canal for the London Financial News
Financial News
The Financial News, is a financial newspaper and news website published in London. It is a weekly investment banking, fund management and securities industries newspaper, published by eFinancial News Limited. Financial News was founded in 1996....
which were reprinted as The Panama Canal: its History, its Political Aspects and Financial Difficulties. After the Americans had completed the canal, President Theodore Roosevelt
wrote to Rodrigues “You were a prophet! And I fulfilled your prophecy.”
Based in Brazil again
In 1882 José Carlos accepted an invitation to raise capital for Brazilian enterprises, especially railway construction. This meant moving to the great world financial centre of London. He there, at the age of 38, met the 15 year old girl who became his wife. On his return to Rio in 1890 he bought with the aid of loyal friends the Jornal do Comercio, for which he had continued writing. Brazil had become a republic in 1889 and José Carlos had to hide for months in a house his butler had in the hills. He wrote a life of Christ and finally escaped in disguise on a British liner bound for London and his worried wife. But democratic government returned, and José Carlos again became a trusted adviser to the authorities, handling important financial business on his annual trips to London. The Brazilian Finance Minister wrote in an official report in 1901 “None more competent than he is by reason of his patriotism, his personal honesty, his close community with the financial policy of the Government, his intimate knowledge of the subject, and his acquaintance with the people and ways of his field of action.”Railways in Brazil were still largely financed and indeed owned by the British, and in 1902 José Carlos acted for the Brazilian government in unsuccessful attempts to buy two small railway companies, the Alagoas and the Rio Grande do Sul, from their largely British owners. When Brazil and the United States first exchanged ambassadors, the Brazilian who went to Washington, Joaquim Nabuco
Joaquim Nabuco
Joaquim Aurélio Barreto Nabuco de Araújo was a Brazilian writer, statesman, and a leading voice in the abolitionist movement of his country.-Biography:...
, was a friend of Rodrigues, someone who used him as a confidant. The Jornal do Comercio became more influential than ever. It was even widely considered the voice of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry and the most reliable source in Brazil on the United States.
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in London published at the end of 1909 a large “South American Number”. In their introduction they announced that “The leading journalist of Brazil, DR. J. C. RODRIGUES, Editor of the Jornal do Comercio, of Rio de Janeiro, has written an admirable letter to precede the Brazilian articles. DR. RODRIGUES is one of the most independent and fearless writers of Brazil.” Rodrigues edited the Jornal do Comercio until 1915, when he was over seventy. The Christian Science Monitor marked his retirement with a 600 word article.
Rodrigues was a noted collector of books on colonial Brazil and in 1907 published Bibliotheca Brasiliense, a two volume annotated catalogue so useful that it was reprinted sixty years later, and again a generation on. Many of his books are now in the National Library of Brazil
National Library of Brazil
The Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil is the depository of the bibliographic and documentary heritage of Brazil. It is located in Rio de Janeiro, at Cinelândia square....
; some were bought from him by a benefactor so that he could endow a children's hospital in Rio.
All through his life, he kept the scholarly interest in religion and the practical faith which he had acquired as a young man, and his old age was dedicated especially to his religious writings. His first was a study of non-Catholic religions in Brazil between 1500 and 1900, which soon went into a second edition. In 1912 he published a monograph on the Resurrection of Jesus; in 1918 “Considerações Geraes sobre a Biblia” –“general considerations about the Bible”; and in 1921 a magisterial two volume study of the Old Testament. Not all his writings in old age were religious. He also used the resources of the Jornal do Comercio to produce in 1918 a collection of President Wilson’s speeches on the Great War, and in 1921 143 pages of “notes” on the subject of contraband goods in wartime.
He died in Paris in 1923, where his English wife, Jane Sampson, had lived much of her life, and where his nephew João Baptista Lopes was the Brazilian Consul-General. He was buried in Highgate
Highgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....
cemetery in London. Both his daughters married Englishmen, the elder, Josette, Sir William Garthwaite
Garthwaite Baronets
The Garthwaite Baronetcy, of Durham, is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 19 May 1919 for William Garthwaite. He was a shipowner and sugar planter and provided valuable service to the Admiralty during the First World War...
, the younger, Evelina, David Hawes, managing director of Frederick Sage & Company
Frederick Sage & Company
Frederick Sage & Company was a British shop fitting company based in London with an extensive practice in Europe, South Africa, and South America...
, shopfitters.