Almeida, Manoel

, a Portuguese historian, was born at Vizeu in that kingdom, in 1580, and after an education among the Jesuits, was sent to the Indies, where, having completed his studies, he became rector of the college of Bacaim. In 1622, Vitteleschi, general of the Jesuits, sent him as ambassador to the king of Abyssinia, who received him with much respect; but his successor having banished the Jesuits from his dominions, Almeida returned to Goa in 1634, and became provincial of his order in India, and inquisitor. He died at Goa in 1646. His works are: 1 “A history of Upper Ethiopia,” to which his brother Jesuit, Bathazar Tellez, added many facts and documents, and published it at Coimbra, 1660, fol. 2. “Historical letters,” written from Abyssinia to the general of the Jesuits, and published at Rome, in Italian, 1629, 8vo. He left also some manuscripts on the errors of the Abyssinians, and the misrepresentations of the dominican Urreta in his history of Ethiopia. ²