Dias, Manoel

Dias, Manoel a Portuguese missionary, was born at Alpalham in 1559. He entered the order of the Jesuits in 1576, and was, in 1585, sent as missionary to India. The vessel in which he sailed was wrecked in the Mozambique Channel, and only two, Dias and Pierre Martins, bishop of Japan, escaped. They reached, after many dangers, the coast of Sofala, where they were enslaved for the term of one year. After their liberation they reached Goa. Dias labored as a missionary first in that city, subsequently at Tana, Chaul, and in China. In the latter country he traversed for three years, as "visitor" of his order, most of the provinces. He was then for some time at the head of the seminary of Macao, which he left in order to take charge of the mission of Nankin. In the latter years of his life he was visitor-general of China and Japan. He died at Macao July 10, 1639. He published a Carta escrita de Pekim em 1602, and Litterae Annuae for each of the years from 1618 to 1625 (Rome, 1629). — Hoefer, Biog. Generale, 14:45.