ABSTRACT
The initial task of implementing Lisbon's post-Treaty of Nanjing vision for Macau was assigned Joao Maria Ferreira do Amaral: a military strongman with instructions that Macau “must be refounded and created entirely anew.” Amaral's legacy is controverted along nationalist lines: Fei describes Amaral as “a fanatical colonialist,” while Silveira records his administration as "firm and effective". Per tradition, it was the Macau Senate that offered the greatest resistance. The Senate sent two secret dispatches to Lisbon complaining of Amaral's actions in 1847. Viceroy Xu claimed to catch the lead assassin on 12 September 1849 and had him executed 3 days later. Xu sent a copy of his confession to Macau's Governing Council, which rejected its veracity based on the eyewitness account of Amaral's aide-de-camp. A new Reformist Party was swept into power in Portugal in 1868 terminating the Regeneration and, as new Portuguese governments often did, issued their own administrative code.
