Thomas Pereira

Thomas Pereira or Tomás Pereira, also known as Tomé Pereira, born in November, 1, 1645 in Vila Nova de Famalicão, died in 1708, was a Portuguese Jesuit and musician who worked as a missionary in Qing China.

Pereira arrived in China in 1672 and first stayed in Macau, where he was enrolled in the University College of St. Paul. Pereira was later sent to Beijing to work in the court of the Kangxi emperor, where he the rest most of his career. In 1689, the Kangxi emperor sent Pereira and his colleague Jean-François Gerbillon to interpret at the negotiations between Qing China and Russia in Nerchinsk, which eventually resulted in the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

Between 1688 and 1694, Pereira and Antoine Thomas were unofficial directors of the imperial observatory in Beijing as the actual director was not in China at the time.

Further reading

*Joseph Schobert Sebes, "The Treaty of Nerchinsk (Nipchu) 1689. A Case Study of the Initial Period of Sino-Russian Diplomatic Relations Based on the Unpublished Diary of Father Thomas Pereyra of the Society of Jesus." (1957-8)