Gonçalo da Silveira, Society of Jesus (Jesuit) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary in southern Africa.
Background
Silveira was born at Almeirim, Portugal, about 40 miles (64 km) from Lisbon. He was the tenth child of Dom Luís da Silveira, first count of Sortelha, and Dona Beatriz Coutinho, daughter of Dom Fernando Coutinho, Marshal of the Kingdom of Portugal.
Career
Silveira was appointed provincial superior of India in 1555. The appointment was approved by Saint Ignatius Loyola a few months before his death. Gonçalo"s term of government in India lasted three years.
He used to say that God had given him the great grace of unsuitability for government - apparently basing this on a certain want of tact in dealing with human weakness.
The next provincial, António Quadros, sent him to the unexplored mission field of south-east Africa. Landing at Sofala on 11 March 1560, da Silveira proceeded to Otongwe near Cape Correntes.
There, during his stay of seven weeks, he instructed and baptized the Makaranga chief, Gamba, and about 450 natives of his kraal. Towards the end of the year he started up the Zambezi River on his expedition to the capital of the Monomotapa, which appears to have been the North"Pande kraal in Zimbabwe, close by the M"Zingesi River, a southern tributary of the Zambezi.
He arrived there on 26 December 1560, and remained until his death.
During this period he baptized the king and a large number of his subjects. Some Arabs from Mozambique agitated against the missionary, and Silveira was strangled in his hut by order of the king. The expedition sent to avenge his death never reached its destination, while his apostolate came to an abrupt end from a want of missionaries to carry on his work.