Note 194 — THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF ANDREW BATTELL OF LEIGH IN ESSEX, SENT BY THE PORTUGALS PRISONER TO ANGOLA, WHO LIVED THERE, AND IN THE ADJOINING REGIONS, NEAR EIGHTEEN YEARS.

All this is borne out by Portuguese documents. From the very beginning, Dias de Novaes handed over the Sovas to the mercy of his fellow-adventurers and the Jesuits. The system was still in force in 1620 when Garcia Mendez de Castellobranco proposed to King Philip a “regimen de aforamento” of the native chiefs, which would have yielded a revenue of fifteen million Reis, and would, at the same time, afforded some slight protection to the natives. Those who would have profited most largely by these “reforms” would have been the Jesuits.