Oliveira (Dr João Francisco de)

He was born in Funchal on 9 March 1761, the son of Domingos de Oliveira Álvares and Dona Lourença Rosa Justiniana de Oliveira, wealthy property owners in this city.

He enrolled in the faculty of medicine of the University of Coimbra, where he must have been a distinguished student: not only did he receive the degree of bachelor (bacharel, university graduate), but he also took the doctoral hood (capelo) and was later appointed substitute professor (lente substituto) in the same faculty. He received his doctorate on 3 July 1785, and in 1787 he was entrusted with deputising in one of the University’s chairs. It seems, however, that he never actually took up teaching, according to Dr Serra Mirabeau in the Memoria Histórica e Comemorativa da Faculdade de Medicina. The reasons that led Dr Oliveira to abandon his university career are not known.

He returned to Madeira and, after some time in this city, settled in the capital of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), where he began to practise medicine. He immediately proved himself an eminent physician and soon built up a large and select clientele. The reputation he gained as a clinician marked him out as physician to the Royal Palace, at a time when posts of this kind were held only by members of the nobility or by men who had achieved great renown in the practice of medicine. He was later appointed físico-mor, or chief surgeon of the army, and while holding this important post he wrote a set of regulations for the military hospitals, which was regarded at the time as a work of great value.

João Francisco de Oliveira enjoyed the highest regard at court and the particular esteem of John VI, then Prince Regent, who granted him several favours. He and his wife, Princess Carlota Joaquina, stood as godparents to some of Dr Oliveira’s children, which was then a mark of favour that the monarchs granted to few.

It was these ties of friendship, and no doubt the favours he had received, that led Dr Oliveira to stage the abduction of Dona Eugénia de Meneses, lady-in-waiting to Princess Carlota Joaquina, so as to shield the sovereign from his wife’s suspicions and from a scandal at court. He embarked secretly at Caxias bound for Cádiz and, after leaving Dona Eugénia de Meneses there in a safe refuge, went on to the United States of America, where he remained for some years. The scandalous affair, whose truth only the Prince Regent knew, took on the proportions of a great crime, and the higher courts promptly took it up. João Francisco de Oliveira was sentenced to death, and Dona Eugénia de Meneses, who belonged to the highest nobility of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), was stripped of all the honours and favours attached to her rank, expelled from court and barred from any share in the property or privileges of her family. Anyone wishing to learn more about this episode, in which João Francisco de Oliveira took part to save the sovereign’s honour and which can be explained only by the customs of the time, should consult the lengthy account of it, with the relevant documents, given by the writer Alberto Pimentel in his most interesting work A ultima Côrte do Absolutismo em Portugal.

During the years he spent in North America, Dr Oliveira practised medicine there with extraordinary success, according to the Italian geographer Adriano Balbi in his Ensaio Estatístico do Reino de Portugal, who adds that he was as distinguished a physician as he was a skilful surgeon. In this connection we may mention that a letter written by a contemporary of Oliveira calls him the greatest Portuguese physician of the last fifty years. Setting aside whatever exaggeration that claim may contain, it is proof of the rare merits of the most distinguished clinician that he was.

When the Portuguese court had already moved to Rio de Janeiro, João Francisco de Oliveira presented himself there to John VI, who not only received him kindly but also ordered the case to be reviewed. In April 1820 the Mesa do Desembargo do Paço (the supreme royal tribunal of petitions and pardons) acquitted Oliveira of the crimes of which he had been accused.

João Francisco de Oliveira was then appointed minister plenipotentiary in England. He discharged this office with notable distinction, winning the favour of the English court and rendering important services to his country.

Things seem to have gone less well in Paris, where Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) Oliveira also represented Portugal. There he found himself caught up in legal proceedings, on the allegation that he had taken part in a conspiracy to dethrone Louis XVIII. The accusation was never proved and appears to be entirely without foundation. It is well worth reading the long statement that Dr Oliveira wrote on the matter, clearing himself of the charge made against him; it is published in the 2nd volume of the Arquivo da Marinha e Ultramar.

Dr João Francisco de Oliveira was called to the councils of the Crown in 1823, as a member of the short-lived ministry formed after the Vila-Francada, which lasted only from 31 May to 3 July 1823.

He was elected deputy for Madeira for the legislature of 1822 to 1823, and in the national assembly he championed the needs of this archipelago with the greatest zeal. Particularly notable was the speech he delivered at the session of 5 February 1823, in which he proposed important measures to combat the crisis then afflicting Madeiran trade and agriculture. Among his proposals, all of them far-reaching, were the creation of a bank in Funchal to assist merchants and farmers, the organisation of a company for the export of wines and the import of goods, and the construction of a quay in front of the customs house, extending out to where the water reached a depth of 25 feet, etc.

On leaving the embassy in Paris, Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) João Francisco de Oliveira withdrew to Funchal with his wife and children. There he devoted himself entirely to study, to the management of his household and to directing the affairs of the Holy House of Mercy (Santa Casa da Misericórdia) of this city. He was its president (provedor) for some years and rendered it very notable services, and his portrait still hangs today in the meeting room of the Managing Board (Mesa Gerente) of that charitable institution. It was at this time that Councillor Oliveira founded a public class (aula) in surgery attached to the Hospital of St Elizabeth of Portugal (Santa Isabel), which he himself undertook to teach without payment. He then proposed to the central Government a plan for establishing a medical school, which received official approval but was never fully carried out. Shortly before his death he again took up residence in Lisbon, and he died there on 26 December 1829.

In April 1803 the Prince Regent granted Dr Oliveira extensive lands in São Jorge (‘St George’) and the Quinta de Sant’Ana in the parish (freguesia) of Monte (‘hill’), which had belonged to Pantalião Fernandes and had been incorporated into the Royal Property (Reais Próprios) or the National Treasury (Fazenda Nacional), as it is called today. These and other properties were inherited by his son, Dr Alexandre de Oliveira, who in the middle of the 19th century built the house on the quinta (country estate) at São Jorge. He bequeathed the properties in that parish and the family residence in Funchal to his sister, Dona Maria Leopoldina de Oliveira, who had been born in the United States of America while Councillor Oliveira was living there. The universal heir of Dona Maria de Oliveira was the lamented and eminent Bishop of Funchal, Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto, who applied the entire proceeds from the sale of this inheritance exclusively to building the great edifice of the Seminary of the Incarnation (Seminário da Encarnação). It was never entirely completed, and the offices of the District General Council (Junta Geral do Distrito) are housed (1921) there. Dona Maria Leopoldina de Oliveira died in Funchal on 3 February 1902.

We understand that the distinguished writer and man of science Dr Eduardo Burnay is working on a historical study of João Francisco de Oliveira, for which he has gathered many valuable documents, some of them found on this island and supplied by one of the authors of this Elucidário (1921).

Various articles have been published in newspapers and journals about the real or feigned abduction mentioned above. Worth reading is what appears in volume IV of the Arquivo Histórico da Madeira (‘Historical Archive of Madeira’) and in the pamphlet A Rua da Junqueira by Artur Lamas, published in 1922.