José Basílio da Gama

José Basílio da Gama was a Brazilian-born Portuguese poet and member of the Society of Jesus, famous for the epic poem O Uraguai.

The death of his father, when he was a young child, caused a hard situation in his life. During this period, a brigadier named Alpoim who served as his protector sent him to Rio de Janeiro, where he studied at Jesuit College, starting his novitiate for the Society of Jesus. With the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759, Basílio went to Europe, where he travelled through many countries, such as Italy and Portugal, between 1760 and 1767. In Italy, he ingressed at the Roman Arcadia, where he adopted the pen name Termindo Sipílio.

During the first months of 1767, he went to Rio de Janeiro, to the inauguration of the ship "Serpente" (mentioned in the third canto of his epic poem O Uraguai). In 1768, he returned to Portugal, in hopes of entering at the University of Coimbra, but was arrested and exiled in Angola, due to suspects of Jansenism. However, he received the forgiving of the Marquess of Pombal because of an epithalamium he wrote for his daughter.
During his last years, Basílio lived happily, becoming a member of the Sciences Academy of Lisbon. He died July 31, 1795, in Portugal.