Thomas Gage (clergyman)

Thomas Gage (* around 1597; † 1656 in Jamaica ) was an English clergyman. He was the son of the noble John Gage (who from 1622 baronet ) and his wife Margaret. The family was of the Catholic faith and there were close family ties to other Catholics. After training in Jesuit and Dominican schools, Thomas Gage embarked as a missionary to the Philippines. Halfway there, he got stuck in Central America, where he spent 12 years before returning to England. He changed from Catholic to Puritan , became a follower of Oliver Cromwell and traveled with his Caribbean expedition to Jamaica, where he died.

Catholic education

The family's Catholic faith could not be practiced publicly in England at the time. Thomas Gage's three older brothers stood in the Catholic tradition: One of them was the soldier Sir Henry Gage (1597–1645), who fought in the Netherlands for Spain and later in England for Charles I ; George Gage was a priest and diplomat; William Gage was a Jesuit. Two half-brothers from Thomas's father's second marriage, John and Francis Gage, were also priests.

The father planned for Thomas an education in the order of the Jesuits. For this he sent him to the Jesuit College of St. Omer , at that time in the Spanish Netherlands , and later to Valladolid in Spain. Both schools were set up to teach young Englishmen and train them to be priests. In Valladolid, Thomas Gage switched to the Dominican Order . There he was ordained a priest and was then employed as a rhetoric teacher in the monastery of Jerez .

In America

In 1625 Thomas volunteered for a missionary trip to the Philippines . Although only Spaniards were allowed to enter the Spanish colonies, Gage was able to set sail from Cádiz on July 2, 1627 with about 30 other Dominicans . The trip led through Mexico, where Gage decided to stay longer and taught Latin at a convent school for some time. According to his report, he met a monk in Mexico City who had already been to the Philippines and said that the Dominicans there were harsh, cruel and corrupt. To avoid the onward journey to the Philippines, Gage and three other monks fled to Guatemala . He spent two or three years in the Guatemala City monastery . He seemed to have enjoyed the study opportunities there, but he also had religious doubts and applied to travel home to England. His superiors refused to do so on the grounds that missionaries would have to stay in America for at least ten years.

Thomas Gage then decided to move to rural Guatemala with Francisco Moran and look after two communities there. The parishioners were mainly Indians, whose language and customs Gage got to know in the next few years. In his capacity as clergyman, Gage managed to raise some funds that he wanted to use for the return trip. In 1635 he asked again for permission to return to Europe, but was again refused. Instead, he was transferred to Petapa , where he stayed for a year.

On January 7, 1637, he set off on his own and traveled via Nicaragua to Costa Rica, where he embarked on February 4. He lost most of his money to pirates on the way, finally arriving in Spain on November 28, 1637 and arriving in England the following year.

The new religion

After his return, Thomas Gage had to find out that his father had long since passed away and disinherited him - possibly because of his move from the Jesuits to the Dominicans. Apart from that, his family welcomed him with joy. But he soon set off again and traveled to Rome. On the way, near Ghent , he visited his brother Henry in winter quarters. The further journey was made difficult by Gage's poor health and the prevailing conditions of war, but it also brought Gage into contact with Protestant communities in Germany and France.

Back in England in September 1640, he became politically involved in the parliamentary turmoil . Two years later, in 1642, he publicly converted from the Catholic Church to a Puritan form of Anglicanism . In order to convince the Protestant side and the parliamentary party of his seriousness, he married shortly afterwards. As a result, he was given a pastor in Acrise in Kent .

The public perception of Gage was rather unfavorable, with a sermon in St Paul's Cathedral in London he seems to have made a fool of himself. He had the text printed in October under the title "The Tyranny of Satan, discovered by the teares of a converted sinner". That he could be a dangerous opponent became evident in December 1642 when he testified against the Catholic priest Thomas Holland , whom he had already met in St. Omer and Valladolid. Holland received the death penalty. The following year, 1643, the same thing happened to the Franciscan Arthur Bell . The Jesuit Ralph Corbie was executed on September 7, 1644, here too Gage had testified against him. A similar incident occurred again in 1650 when the Jesuit Peter Wright and the Dominican Thomas Middleton or Dade were arrested, with Thomas Gage as the main witness for the prosecution. Wright had been chaplain to Thomas's late brother Henry in Ghent and England, and he was present at Henry's deathbed. Dade was a head of the English Dominicans. George Gage, Thomas' brother, tried to change his mind, but could only have the charges against Dade withdrawn. The execution of Wright was unpopular and the royal court reprimanded Thomas Gage's behavior.

The writer

Gage published a book about his stay in America in 1648 under the title The English-American, or a New Survey of the West Indies . In addition to autobiographical passages, it contains detailed descriptions of the New World, as well as exaggerations, tales of fabulous riches and adventure stories. Parts of the book were copied from Samuel Purchas and taken from Francisco López de Gómara's Hispania Victrix , especially in later, expanded editions. The book was a hit with the public as it was one of the first publications on the Spanish colonies in America. It appeared in several editions, including excerpts and translations. Gage also pursued political goals with its publication: the book was dedicated to Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron , a commander of the parliamentary troops. In his book, Gage speaks out in favor of an attack on the Spanish colonies. This is easy because the long coastline is only occupied by a few soldiers. In contrast to a costly war in Europe, in America one can plunder Spanish possessions. In addition, Gage portrays it as a religious duty of Puritan England to carry this religion into the areas ruled by Catholic Spain.

Later, in 1651 and 1653, Thomas Gage published two more religious writings.

Military expedition to the Caribbean

Because of Gage's experience in the Caribbean and Central America, his proposals gained weight and were eventually implemented. After the end of the Anglo-Dutch War in 1654, Cromwell was able to pursue new foreign policy goals. In a secretly planned military action, 18 warships and 20 transport ships with a total of 3,000 men set sail from Portsmouth at Christmas in 1654 . Thomas Gage was on board as a chaplain and local guide. After a month they reached Barbados , there and on Montserrat , Nevis and St. Kitts a further 6,000 men were recruited. The aim was to secure a larger base in the Caribbean in order to be able to threaten the Spanish trade routes from there, the beginning of the Anglo-Spanish War .

The poorly trained and poorly supplied crew landed on April 13, 1655 on Hispaniola . On land, there was still a difficult walk to cope with in the heat and dryness. The Spanish troops were warned, however, and the Indians fought against Gage's optimistic forecast on the side of the Spaniards. The English had to break off the action and withdraw. On May 11th they reached Jamaica, where General Robert Venables' troops landed and were able to occupy the island despite bitter resistance from the Spanish. Thomas Gage died, presumably of diarrhea, in Jamaica in 1656.

Works

• New remarkable travel description To New Spain, What strange things he encounters there, and how he returned to Havana through the Provintz Nicaragua: In which you can find a detailed report from the city of Mexico. Same A perfect description of all the countries and provinces that the Spaniards own in all of America; of their church and policey regiment, their trade: as well as of theirs and the Criolls, Mestifes [!], Mulats, Indians and Blacks, customs and way of life. A brief lesson in the Poconchisen or Pocomanic language is added to the conclusion. Translated from Frantzöschen into German. Leipzig, Johann Herbodt Kloß, 1693 digitized

literature

• AP Newton (Ed.): Thomas Gage, The English-American: A New Survey of the West Indies, 1648 . Routledge, London, 1946.
• JES Thompson (Ed.): Thomas Gage's Travels in the New World . University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1958.
• N. Newton: Thomas Gage in Spanish America . Faber & Faber, London, 1969.

Web links

• Hether Sebens: Gage, Thomas . Historical Text Archive.