Guide to the Papers of J.M. Braga, 1862-2000 (bulk 1920-1971)

 

Collection context

Summary

Collection number:
MS 4300
Creator:
Braga, J.M. (José Maria)
Extent:
37.68 metres and (103 ms boxes, 16 card boxes, 48 folio boxes, 3 map folios)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of J.M. Braga, National Library of Australia, MS 4300, [series/subseries/file number]'.
Availability:
Available
Access conditions:
Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The Braga Papers form a rich resource on the history of European colonisation of East Asia from the 16th century to the mid 20th century. The papers include diaries; correspondence; draft material relating to articles, addresses, books, transcriptions, bibliographies and other writings; personal documents, including licences and certificates; financial and legal papers; business and committee papers; notebooks, notes and catalogue cards; newspapers, newspaper cuttings albums and other printed material; photographs, negatives and microfilm; badges, letter openers and other realia; postcards, stamps and other ephemera.

The bulk of this material documents J.M. Braga's life in Macau, 1924-1946, and Hong Kong, 1946-1966, and his abiding interest in the history of the region. Braga was a passionate collector of manuscripts, books, pictures, maps, newspapers and other works that supported his prolific research and writing activities. Although his primary focus was the history of Portuguese colonisation in East Asia, particularly Macau, Hong Kong and China, his papers also cover such topics as religion, medicine, literature, engineering, economics, geography and language. Braga considered one of the most significant components to be a series of papers relating to World War II, particularly life in Macau and Hong Kong during this period, when Macau was the only neutral port in the region.

In his roles as historian, journalist and author, Braga produced journal articles, newspaper articles, lectures, addresses, books and other publications. Draft material relating to many of these works is included in the collection. Together with Braga's own writings, the papers also feature many transcriptions and translations of historical documents held in various archives and libraries, particularly in Portugal and Macau. A highlight includes material relating to the 'Jesuítas na Ásia' codices from the Biblioteca da Ajuda in Lisbon, particularly Braga's translation of 'Ásia Extrema' by Antόnio de Gouveia.

Braga was an avid bibliographer, compiling or collecting lists of works that supported his historical research and other areas of interest. His exhaustive research notes, the 'A to Z' or 'Biobibliographical index', number thousands of entries and contain biographical and bibliographical information particularly concerning the activities of the Portuguese and other Europeans in East Asia, together with other topics. Another major work in the collection is Braga's 'Luso-Oriental Manual', a study of Portuguese officials and their contemporaries in China from the mid 16th to early 20th centuries.

Braga's activities as a prominent member of the Portuguese communities of Hong Kong and Macau from the 1920s to the 1960s are well-documented. He was involved with numerous clubs and associations such as the Sino-British Club of Hong Kong, the Macao Jockey Club, the Race and Recreation Club of Macao, St Joseph's College Old Boys Association and Hong Kong's Society of St Vincent de Paul. The collection also includes papers relating to various aspects of Braga's business interests, particularly a series of records dating from his time as General Manager of the Companhia das Aguas de Macau (Macau Waterworks Company) from 1934 to 1946.

Braga's close family life is revealed through the collection's correspondence, and his parents, siblings and children are amongst the most prolific correspondents. As well as assorted family papers, the collection features a series of personal papers of Braga's father, J.P. Braga, including material relating to J.P. Braga's book The Portuguese in Hongkong and China (1944), which Braga edited and published following his father's death.

There are also extensive sequences of correspondence relating to Braga's historical work, community activities and business interests. Much of the correspondence includes manuscript or carbon copies of Braga's own letters. Among the principal correspondents are Laurenço O. Aguilar, Luis Menezes Alves, Joaquim Morais Alves, Charles Appel, T.S. Bao, Celestino dos Anjos Barreiros, Pedro Correia de Barros, Edmund Blunden, Geoffrey W. Bonsall, L. Bourdon, Charles Boxer, P. Ramiro Branco, L. Carrington Goodrich, Leo d'Almada e Castro, S.N. Chau, Austin Coates, Peregrino da Costa, Augusto Sá da Costa, Joseph Dehergne, G.B. Endacott, Carlos Estorninho, G.A. Figueiredo, F.J. Gellion, W.L. Gerrard, Carlos Gomes, Luis Gomes, José Eduardo de Mello Gouveia, Eric Halpern, Herbert Hilscher, Sir Robert Ho Tung, Michael Hugo-Brunt, Horace Kadoorie, K.T. Kelly, T.C. Lau, Johannes Laures, Pedro José Lobo, George Mensaert, Francisco Monteiro, João Moraes, Adriano Moreira, Benjamin Videira Pires, John Pownall Reeves, António da Silva Rego, Eduardo Reis, Faustino Reis, John B. Romano, Gustavo U. da Roza, G. Schurhammer, J.C. Silva, Manuel Teixeira, G.M. Toscano, Carlos Wemans and H.A. Wittenbach.

Biographical Note:

José Maria (Jack) Braga was born in Hong Kong on 22 May 1897, and died at San Francisco, 27 April 1988. Jack was the second of thirteen children, and the eldest of nine sons of José Pedro Braga and his wife, the Australian-born Olive Pauline (née Pollard). He was educated at St Joseph's College, Hong Kong. He lived in Macau from 1924 until 1946, where he taught English at St Joseph's Seminary from 1924 to 1934, and was General Manager of the Macau Water Company from 1934 until 1946. After World War II he returned to Hong Kong, where he established Braga Co, a small import-export business. In 1949 Jack was awarded the Cavaleiro da Ordem de S. Tiago da Espada (Knight of the Order of St James of the Sword) by the President of Portugal. He married Augusta Isabel da Luz (born 19 November 1898) in Macau on 30 December 1924, and they had seven children. Augusta Braga died in San Francisco on 14 December 1991.

Jack Braga was keenly interested in the history of the European encounter with East Asia from the 16th century until the mid 20th century, and he set about recording and collecting the history of Macau from the arrival of the first Portuguese voyagers. As well as amassing a large library of books, maps, pictures, newspapers and manuscripts, he set down the minutiae of the historical record, creating a series of files and chronological lists covering events, people and the written record from the 16th to the 20th centuries. In 1937 he began a collaboration with Charles Boxer, a British army officer with similar historical interests. They became life-long friends.

The outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 led Jack to collect intensively as much of the printed record of wartime Macau as he could, and the result is a unique and detailed collection which he prized greatly. After the war, he moved to Hong Kong, extending his collecting interests to the history of British activity in the Far East. In 1952 he visited Portugal, and embarked on a project of securing transcriptions of the important 'Jesuítas na Ásia' manuscripts in the Ajuda Library, Lisbon. He regarded these manuscripts as the most important part of his collection.

His passion for book collecting and historical research dominated his time and interest. During the 1930s he wrote dozens of brief articles in English and Portuguese, chiefly for local newspapers, and continued this extensive output during the war. By the early 1950s, his output had become more selective, and the collaboration with Boxer brought about an improvement in his scholarship. He produced several scholarly papers, notably 'The beginnings of printing at Macao', Lisbon, 1963.

During the early 1950s Jack came to realise that there was no long-term future for himself and his family in the Far East. In 1952, his three sons were sent to Sydney to complete their schooling. Jack planned to follow them to Australia as soon as arrangements could be made. Political troubles in Hong Kong and Macau hastened his decision, and in 1966, Jack sold his library to the National Library of Australia. For the next two years, he lived in New York, pursuing business interests.

In 1968 Jack moved to Australia, working at the National Library of Australia as a consultant from October 1968 until February 1972. He had set himself the task of translating into English the most important of the 'Jesuítas na Ásia' manuscripts, Bishop Antόnio de Gouveia's 'Ásia Extrema', hoping to prepare it for publication, but was able to finish only three of the six books.

Early in 1972, Jack and Augusta went to San Francisco, where they lived until their deaths. Jack was posthumously awarded the high rank of Grande Oficial, Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique (Grand Officer, the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator).

References

'Remembering Jack Braga', Review of Culture, no. 5, April/May/June 1988, Instituto Cultural de Macao, pp. 98-103.

José Maria Braga, O Homem e sua Obra, Instituto Cultural de Macau, 1988.

Entry on J.M. Braga in his 'A-Z' research notes (MS 4300, Series 7.2, File 17).

Source

This biographical note is an edited version of a biography prepared by Stuart Braga, 3 June 2008. The full biography is available upon request, together with biographies that Stuart Braga prepared for each of J.M. Braga's siblings (held in the papers of Stuart Braga, MS Acc09.058 and MS Acc10.087).

Provenance:

The bulk of the Braga Collection (including manuscripts, pictures, maps, newspapers, serials, periodicals, monographs and ephemera) was purchased from J.M. Braga in 1966. The component held in the Manuscript Collection at MS 4300 appears to have been formally accessioned as the J.M. Braga Papers in 1975.

Several small additions have been made since the original instalment of papers was received. Most of these additions were transfers to the Manuscripts Collection from other collection areas, including a file of newspaper cuttings in May 1975, a set of microfilm reels in 1984, a file of manuscript material in 1985, lists of the Braga Collection in 1994, and two files of assorted printed material and other papers in 2009. As well, several small additions have been made by members of the Braga family. In 1992, various Braga family members donated a copy of the eulogy and order of service for Augusta Braga's memorial service, and in 2002 Angela Braga donated photographs of medals and decorations awarded to J.P. Braga, together with photocopies of early writings of J.M. Braga and eulogies for J.M. Braga and his grandson Michael Braga.

Arrangement:

The Braga Collection was sent to the National Library in several instalments from 1966 to 1967. Upon receipt, the material was distributed to various areas of the National Library, largely according to format. It is unclear what order the Braga Papers were in when they were transferred to the Manuscripts Collection. J.M. Braga worked on the Braga Collection in the Library as a consultant from 1969 to 1972; during this period he provided assistance to staff involved in the initial fileing and boxing of the Braga Papers. A basic list was also prepared.

In 2006, Stuart Braga, academic and nephew of J.M. Braga, requested permission to rearrange the Braga Papers and improve description of the collection. Stuart Braga worked on the collection in 2007, arranging the material into 20 notional series, largely according to subject and format. During this process, some individual items were moved between files, and some items were segregated. Stuart Braga's arrangement of the collection into and within the series groupings has been retained, although the segregated items have been reintegrated with the collection. A concordance has been prepared which correlates the original arrangement with the final arrangement of material in the collection (Appendix A).

From this work on the collection, a revised finding aid has been completed by staff, using information that Stuart Braga provided as the basis for the content descriptions. Content descriptions have been provided for all series, and most series also have a list of the files contained within the series. Some small series have been described at the series level only.

Indexed terms

Subjects:
History
Names:
Braga, J.M. (José Maria)

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:
Available for research.
Conditions Governing Use:
Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of J.M. Braga, National Library of Australia, MS 4300, [series/subseries/file number]'.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact: