Naming of Expostos

[Herb]

I'm sure this topic has been discussed here before, but I don't recall seeing it.  When an exposto was born and baptized and given to a family to be raised, did he take on the adopting family's names, or did he use his real parents names? Did the new parents always know who the real parents were? These were small villages and everybody basically knew everybody's business.  It didn't take long for news to travel from one end of Mayberry to the other, right? Herb

[John Raposo]

In my researching experience, I have noted the following:

When people from the villages went to the convents in Ponta Delgada and Ribeira Grande to have foundling babies placed with them, there was not, necessarily, a connection between the foster parent and the baby.

As for the villages, if an unmarried (or widowed) woman was pregnant, I think that in such small places where everybody knew everybody else, I doubt that the pregnancy could go unnoticed. And, the parish priest, who heard confessions at a time when people really worried about what would happen if they died in a state of mortal sin, must have known what his penitents were up to. I think that when a baby was left at somebody's door in a small village, everybody knew, or thought they knew, who the mother (and maybe the father) were. Sometimes these children might have been left at the doors of relatives, but they would have required a nursemaid, i.e.a woman with breast milk.

As for names, again, there is no one answer. Babies who were placed with and stayed with the same family to adulthood (as opposed to being shipped out as servants from family to family) sometimes took the family name. Sometimes an "exposto" took a name, e.g. Bettencourt, with no apparent rime or reason. However, a closer look shows that the Bettencourts were a prominent family in the village and perhaps it was an open secret that this baby was the offspring of the squire's son (or daughter).

Infant mortality for expostos was much higher than among non-exposto babies. The state paid a stipend for the first few months of life for babies placed with nursing foster-mothers. When the subsidy stopped, the infant mortality rate rose substantially.

Eça de Queiroz touched on this subject in his novel O Crime do Padre Amaro; one of the characters made her living by taking in unwanted/illegitimate babies of the socially promminent and arranging for their deaths. Eloise Cadinha, a member of the List, sent me her notes on this subject, and with my thanks to Eloise, I am enclose them:

Most of us as we research our ancestors will find an exposto or two.  It is indeed miraculous that they were able to survive to adulthood, to marry and to have children.

 

Expostos - a translation. A very sad situation.

The following is my poor translation of part of an article written by Henrique Bras 1884-1984) in Boletim de Instituto Histórico da ilha Terceira, 1947.

 

"In the last three centuries there is a long list of filhos da igreja (children of the church), also known at times as baptism records, of unknown fathers and mothers in the parish registers of Terceira, who were often baptized with the most noble or notable or the very rich people of Terceira who stood as godparents.  At a more recent time the number of children secretly abandoned at the rodas (wheels) had greatly increased, and  in spite of the many recently born innocents who died when abandoned, and of the few to whom the fear of discovery still did not keep them from strangling babies before they saw the light of day.  Providing the support of these children who survived became on of the most difficult problems for the various city
halls on the island, demanding a new special tax...which the people agreed was needed but not without grumbling and finding fault with the new tax. 

 

On April 29, 1800, the Conde de Almada, Captitão General of the Azores, in Angra, informed an official of the Royal Court that in the ten years the cathedral registered annually an average of 97 expostos baptized and also registered an average of 83 who had died!  And this was only those engeitados (abandoned ones) who had arrived at the cathedral to be baptized, those that had been left in the Casa da Roda, and this record was only for Angra. 

 

The city council continued without resources to provide for these children and thought about creating a lottery for that purpose. 

 

It needs to be said: with a population of about 10 to 12 thousand people, there were yearly on an average 97 recently born abandoned children of unknown parents, legally registered and of which 83 of these died -- naturally by affectionate handling, sheltered and well wrapped care.

 

[My note: the author mentions Carlota, a weaver of Angels, from the famous  novel by Eça de Queiroz, . I asked a cousin if he knew of this novel, O Crime do Padre Amaro, and he said      that he had read it long ago, and it was about a woman who got rid of unwanted infants.  She killed them by wrapping them up and drowning them in the river.  She was referred to as something like the "maker of angels."  The idea being that she was creating angels by killing them.]

 

On the October 20, 1782, the vicar of the diocese of Angra, Dr. João Vieira de Bettencourt, gave the rector of the cathedral, Pedro da Camara Merens, the commission to organize a private book to register the baptisms and deaths of these abandoned children.

 

In the year of 1783 there were registered 120 baptisms and 81 deaths of expostos:

In 1784, 94 baptisms, 73 deaths
In 1785, 97 baptisms, 86 deaths
In 1786, 94 baptisms, 105 deaths
In 1787, 86 baptisms, 100 deaths
In 1788, 100 baptisms
In 1789, 95 baptisms

There were no deaths recorded for the years 1788 and 1789 but were continued the following year.  One can see that in 10 years the births and deaths of the foundlings was amazing. 

 

"Painful emotions squeeze the soul when one looks through the pages, tiny tragedies sown through this private book of the cathedral.  The records indicate the names of the amas (wet-nurses) nominated by city hall for each exposto.  They were single women, 'loose' women, married women and widows. 

 

In the Casa da Roda...in the city of Angra, there was the rodeiro (the man in charge of the wheel) and he had at least one assistant, in order to rescue quickly any of the new guests secretly left at the door in the silence of the night. The newly born was left there, shivering in the cold until the door providentially was opened.  It was rare to announce a visit to the Roda, for fear of the discovery of the mother which was of great importance to the municipality, in order to avoid the expense of providing a wet-nurse for the child -- and so that justice also intervened. 

 

Sometimes a little one was carried there by a caring person saying he had found the abandoned child in some hidden place. Thus on 16 September 1782, Francisco da Silveira, gravedigger of Sao Pedro, Biscoitos, arrived at the Roda with a bundle.  It was a baby girl who had been placed at the door of the home of the sexton of the church. She was soon baptized and given the name Delfina.  This man delivered this baby to the Roda knowing that she would not cost the finder any money for finding the child.  He also presumed that she would be cared for, but this child died and her death was not recorded in the church register. 

 

The Casa da Roda was next to the residence of the pai dos engeitados (the father of the abandoned ones) who was a councilman in the senate of the city hall, and who had the municipal duty to care for the expostos, and also the place elected by the municipality for the receiving of these abandoned ones. 

 

This councilman had a most distressful mission.  The city did not have money for the number of abandoned children growing larger each year, and for the prompt payment for the wet-nurses, and for this and for other reasons, the milk from these women was not sufficient to fulfill the need for these babies. 

 

The expostos arrived at the Casa da Roda and there they waited two to fifteen days for a wet-nurse.  The priest noted the baptism of the children in the register: baptized in the Casa da Roda, with the name of Francisco, found very young and had not been given a wet-nurse and he lasted a few days; Jose, baptized in the Casa da Roda, died without a wet-nurse; Manuel after being
baptized died in the Casa da Roda.

 

One particularly unhappy exposto to whom the godfather, Cosme de Mascarenhas, the bell ringer of the cathedral (this man throughout the years became godfather to nearly all the newly baptized expostos), gave the name Abraão (Abraham), and none of the wet-nurses wished to care for him the priest wrote in the record of baptism (20 March 1783, p19, book number 1).  The bell
ringer had discovered that the newly born child was Jewish and had given him a suitable name.  These wet-nurses ... they  refused to nurse this newborn heretic.  Sixteen days passed, with Abraham suffering and in pain, until he finally died. 

 

These death records note the approximate age of the child.  These unfortunate children said farewell to their miserable existence between three days and three months.  Few of the expostos reached the age of 1 year and very few beyond one year. 

 

The author did not know if the position of the city official in charge of the wet-nurses was lucrative -- but he did know that it was truly an industry.  The wet-nurses naturally came from the poorest sections of the city and outlying areas, but it was the city that provided most of the wet-nurses.  At times it was not enough and the city had to go to the peasants in villages such as Sao Bartolomeu and Santa Barbara.  It was an industry that had wet-nurses who could kill off these charges with hideous rapidity.  The wet-nurses received three expostos each year, one following the other after the death of the one before. 

 

     [The author listed three wet-nurses and the infants received.  One of them in 1785       had 5 expostos.  Inacio, April 5; Marilia, May 17; Violante, July 22; Antonio, Aug 20; Mateus, Sept 21.]

 

This private book of the expostos from the cathedral made it easy to study them. In previous times it was extremely difficult to learn about them because there were no statistics.  But whoever turns the first pages of this register of the cathedral rarely turns two pages.

 

There were many reasons why children were abandoned by their mothers and fathers. Some of the reasons being: an illegitimate child,  extreme poverty and too many mouths to feed, perhaps the death of the father, or just simply an unwanted child. 

 

One can research the smaller villages and not find a single exposto in the baptism records..  At least this has been my experience.  In the larger towns and villages many expostos are found, certainly many abandoned from the smaller villages. In years of famine more children were left as foundlings.  These abandoned children were left at churches, convents, and at the doors of many homes. 

 

Many children were left at convents.  In many of the convents through Europe there was what was called the Roda, or the Wheel.  It was a wheel that could spin from the outside of the building to the inside.  Goods or other articles for the convent were left on the wheel, and usually there was some kind of a bell to let the nuns know that something had been left on the wheel.  In time, desperate mothers and fathers left their children on the wheel. 

 

In reading some of the exposto baptism records in certain villages, the priest notes to which mother in the village the child was given.  The child had to have a nursing mother, and usually one can check back and find that nursing mother in the record.  And sometimes the priest noted where the child had been found. 

 

When an exposto (male) married he had already a surname or perhaps was given one at the time of the marriage. I wish I knew more about this.  As for surnames of the exposto,  they run the gamut from Azevedo to Xavier.  As for the exposta (female) I don’t think she was ever given a surname, or at least I can’t remember seeing one on her marriage record or on the baptism records of her children. 

 

Many parents when abandoning their children believed it would only be for a certain period of time.  When the child was left at the convent or at church or at the doorstep some clues were left so that the parents could later claim their child.  Notes sometimes were left with the name of the child, or perhaps a certain type of clothing, or an embroidered blanket, some colored ribbons.  These were the clues and apparently the church did keep a record of these possible identifiers. 

 

 

John Miranda Raposo

On Friday, August 8, 2014 10:18 AM, Herb <herba...@verizon.net> wrote:

I'm sure this topic has been discussed here before, but I don't recall seeing it.  When an exposto was born and baptized and given to a family to be raised, did he take on the adopting family's names, or did he use his real parents names? Did the new parents always know who the real parents were? These were small villages and everybody basically knew everybody's business.  It didn't take long for news to travel from one end of Mayberry to the other, right? Herb

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[MaryAnn Santos]

Thank you, John. I had forgotten about Father Amara and as an aside, The Sins of Father Amaro is an excellent read - as are all of the Queiroz books I've read.

MaryAnn

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[nancy jean baptiste]

MaryAnn,
 
Are these books available in English? Do you know how many he has written?
 
Thank you,
Nancy
 

---

From: ma...@nyu.edu
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2014 14:07:21 -0400
Subject: Re: [AZORES-Genealogy] Naming of Expostos
To: azo...@googlegroups.com

[herb]

John thank you very much for sharing this very important information 

Herb

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[MaryAnn Santos]

Yes, there are in English translations.  Amazon has copies of The Sin of Father Amaro ranging in price from $6.50 to $2,423.64!! I think that  must be a typo.

An english translation of The Maias by Queiroz came out a few years ago and is another excellent read. I thoroughly enjoyed The Relic, too. I read it first in English and then in Portuguese. Although I think it's out of print now. Since I live in  NYC I buy a lot of used books at Strand. They have great deals on hardcover new and used books (and paperbacks) and you can buy them online. Here's the link.

http://www.strandbooks.com/

MaryAnn

[Diane George]

You might also try searching at http://books.google.com. They have links to sellers and a link to Worldcat to search for the books in libraries that might be near you. Google also tells you if eBooks are available. Some books have previews available.

 

I suggest searching by the author’s name in this format "José Maria Eça de Queirós" (with the quotes). I seemed to get more results that way even for individual books. The results will include both English and Portuguese versions.

 

Diane George

[nancy jean baptiste]

Thanks MaryAnn and Diane! I'm looking forward to reading his works.
 
Nancy Jean
 

---

From: digeo...@hotmail.com
To: azo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [AZORES-Genealogy] Naming of Expostos
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 09:11:17 -0700

[MaryAnn Santos]

The Relic is pretty funny!

MaryAnn

[Nancy Couto]

Eça de Queirós is a very funny writer, although he tackles serious subjects.  I think he was way ahead of his time.

[Tomas Leal]

Another aspect of the expostos--and I don't know whether this has come up earlier or not, so please forgive my possible duplication--is something I learned on a short visit to Santa Maria last week (with Nancy Jean Baptiste, in fact!). Various pirate raids preceded some increases in the number of children left on the wheel. No doubt some rapes occurred during these raids, and the women probably abandoned the children rather than kept them as perhaps painful reminders or even because of the stigma the children might incur as the invaders' offspring.

Though I haven't seen evidence, I have heard stories, both in the Azores and from other countries such as Croatia, that the children resulting from rapes were officially abandoned and sometimes given to their birth mothers after they officially abandoned them. Thus, the mothers could in fact raise their own children (and, presumably, be able to nurse at the time) without the shame of having been raped or their children experiencing the stigma of bastards of pirate invaders. Life could go on almost as though nothing had happened.

However, I do suspect that everyone knew the real story, and the leaving of the child on the wheel and placement of the abandoned child with a wet nurse (the birth mother at times) was simply a device for maintaining social acceptance for the mother and gaining that acceptance for the child. Yes, many knew, but in time some would "forget" and others would be born never knowing the story. 

Today, there is much less public shame in having a baby without marriage or being a single mother, so it's easy to overlook the social repercussions that could occur in the past. However, things were not so different "in the old days." Girls did get pregnant without being married. Extra-marital affairs happened. Priests did not always mind their vows. Things happened, and villages needed a mechanism for keeping things going, which meant reinforcing the prevailing social standards no matter what actually happened. The wheel was both a salvation for an abandoned child but also a way for adults to maintain their positions in the village. Can you imagine how standards would have collapsed if the truth were ever publicly acknowledged and accepted?

Tomás

[Susan Vargas Murphy]

I took a picture of one of these wheels when I was in Angra recently and it was very interesting to see.....quite different from how I had imagined it. I always thought the wheel was flat like a wagon wheel....horizontal but it was like a box more flush with the outside wall. I have no clue how to get that picture from my iPhone to here as I tried to copy and paste it and that did not work....maybe I need to transfer it to my computer? Anyway, I am obviously technically challenged:) and will post if you can tell me how to do it;)
Susan Vargas Murphy

[Herb and Judi Silva]

 Hi Susan

 

One option is that you can email the pic  directly from your I phone.  Go to the camera button on your I phone, find the pic and tap it, then tap the up arrow just  below the pic, and wait a sec, then type in the  email address azores@googlegrous.com .  We would love to see it 

Herb

 

 

On 08/10/14, 'Susan Vargas Murphy' via Azores Genealogy<azores@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

I took a picture of one of these wheels when I was in Angra recently and it was very interesting to see.....quite different from how I had imagined it. I always thought the wheel was flat like a wagon wheel....horizontal but it was like a box more flush with the outside wall. I have no clue how to get that picture from my iPhone to here as I tried to copy and paste it and that did not work....maybe I need to transfer it to my computer? Anyway, I am obviously technically challenged:) and will post if you can tell me how to do it;)
Susan Vargas Murphy

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[Susan Vargas Murphy]

[Susan Vargas Murphy]

[Susan Vargas Murphy]

[pi...@dholmes.com]

Don't give up, Susan!

We know you're trying to upload it. :-)

Doug da Rocha Holmes
Pico & Terceira Genealogist

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Get ready for NFL Fantasy Football and join me in the newly created Azores Genealogist League. Still looking for more participants.
Write me here for more info: N...@rochaholmes.com
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[pi...@dholmes.com]

Here's the picture by Susan of the roda.

I am not certain I rotated it correctly. I think it's a vertical picture, but if I have it wrong, just rotate it correctly or turn your head. :-)

[herb]

Amazing. Thank you Doug

Sent from my iPhone

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<roda-by-Susan-Vargas-Murphy.JPG>

[pi...@dholmes.com]

Susan says I rotated and I shouldn't have. It should be rotated 90 degrees counter-clock wise.

To me, that makes it like a water wheel. I guess you pull down to reveal the opening inside, or something.

Doug da Rocha Holmes
Pico & Terceira Genealogist

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Get ready for NFL Fantasy Football and join me in the newly created Azores Genealogist League. Still looking for more participants.
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [AZORES-Genealogy] Re: Naming of Expostos
From: herb <herba...@verizon.net>
Date: Sun, August 10, 2014 10:24 am
To: "azo...@googlegroups.com" <azo...@googlegroups.com>

Amazing. Thank you Doug