Biography
Antônio Baracho
About Antônio Baracho
Antônio Baracho was one of the Catholic lay people killed at Uruaçu on 3 October 1645. John Paul II’s beatification letter preserves his name among the victims of that second massacre, distinct from the earlier killings at Cunhaú.
Later accounts remembered the violence of his death more readily than the details of his life. Historian William de Souza Martins discusses Baracho while examining Domingos do Loreto Couto’s descriptions of colonial martyrdom. The study shows how the chronicler contrasted men’s professions of faith with the forms of virtue he attributed to women. Baracho appears within that literary account of bodily suffering. This is evidence for how his death was narrated and remembered; the later chronicle does not supply a complete contemporary biography.
The Church’s modern investigation considered the group’s historical evidence and the religious character of the killings. The diocesan inquiry took place in 1994, followed by historical and theological review. Those proceedings concern recognition of martyrdom, rather than the recovery of every detail of each victim’s childhood or working life.
Francis canonized Baracho and the other recognized martyrs on 15 October 2017.
The accounts reviewed here do not establish Baracho’s birth date, birthplace, occupation or family. His remembrance rests chiefly on his place among the named lay victims and their continuing collective commemoration.
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