1759. Carta de Pedro Barboza Pereira, mestre entalhador, para António Correia de Araújo Portugal, entalhador.

Private letter from Pedro Barboza Pereira, master carver, to António Correia de Araújo Portugal, wood carver.

The author gives his friend some advice, in order to avoid a more severe punishment: he must send a signed piece of paper to the Holy Office, telling why he thought that his first wife was dead.

The defendant in this process is António de Araújo Correia Portugal, a wood carver, 52 years old. He was accused of bigamy, since his first wife, Felipa Maria, was still alive in Portugal when he got married in Brasil, where he lived for almost twenty years. In 1759, he confessed his crimes to the Inquisition, although claiming in his defense that someone had told him that his first wife was dead. That was why he thought he could marry Joana Rodrigues do Ó, from whom he separated as soon as he received some letters saying his first wife was alive. These letters also explain where the mistake came from: in fact, it was his brother's wife who had passed away, and someone had spread the wrong information. He was then sentenced to five years of exile in Castro Marim, spiritual penances and the payment of the process costs.