Costa Santan, the life and times of an able-bodied Goan tarvotti
By Selma Carvalho
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I have a theory that if you separate the Goan from the sea,
he'll wither away. All of our history ebbs and flows with
that vast, undulating expanse of blue water. One does not
look at the sea with tired eyes but always with hope and
anticipation.
Sometime in the late 1800s, able-bodied Costa Santan,
embarked on a career at sea, which at one point had him
working on a ship listed as the 'Wartern'. Possibly in his
twenties, and through the help of a 'Ghat Sarhang' as they
were called in Bombay, he landed a job in the merchant navy.
To his family in Goa, Santan was a 'tarvotti', a term
believed to come from the Konkani-Sanskrit word, taranti
meaning boat, but to the British that employed him, he would
have been a 'lascar'.
I found Santan, at the National Archives in the UK.
What makes his journey fascinating is that seamen
like him who sailed on ships of the English East
India Company, some as early as the sixteen
hundreds, were amongst the first Goans in the
diaspora overseas. What was life like, for these
early tarvottis?
Santan's ship docked at London port. It was winter and he was
not keeping well. Weary, perhaps suffering from malaria,
cholera, yellow fever, or any number of accidents that likely
befell seamen, possibly he made his way to a sailor-town
around the docks. Hilton Docker (1809) a medical doctor to
the lascars wrote, "The natives of India who come to this
country are mostly of bad constitutions. Numbers are landed
sick from the ships, where they have been ill."
Some of the original houses still line-up shoulder to
shoulder, on either side of narrow alleys criss-crossing
through Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse. Walking through
these alleys, Santan, would have watched as Chinese men
smoked opium in the dark lodgings known as 'joints',
foreign-smelling food hung from the rafters, soliciting
prostitutes scoured the streets and lascars, mostly from
Bengal, milled about peddling knickknacks to keep body and
soul together.
Mortality rates from disease, venereal amongst them, were
high. Conditions were so wretched that it caused an outcry
in Victorian England. In 1857, the Strangers Home for Asiatic
Seamen was built on West India Dock Road, to assist with
boarding. Even then, as late as 1920, Health Inspectors
condemned the "godown", used by P&O liners to house their
sailors while docked.
In a world of perfect racial inequality, Santan was
engaged because he cost much less than an English
seamen. A 1901 census puts the wages for British
seaman between UKP3 to UKP4 pounds per journey,
while an Indian might be paid between 15 to 20
rupees, which was just about 14 shillings. (In
those times, 20 shillings made a pound).
Onboard, Santan Costa had been a steward attached to the
ship's saloon, Topaz. Clifford Pereira, noted British-Goan,
Historical Geographer, tells me that "Goans were rarely
employed below deck. They were almost always engaged either
as cooks or stewards."
English Captains developed a liking for Goan cooks,
who had no restrictions for handling pork, beef or
fish. Pereira has also uncovered evidence of Goans
cooks being paid higher wages than their Indian and
African counterparts on East India vessels in the
eighteenth century.
In 1957, Captain Baillie of a P&O liner wrote, "I have never
failed to appreciate the cleanliness, discipline and comfort
of our ships in which the deck hands are Lascars and the
stewards mostly Goanese."
But life at sea was hard, and the ship was often a jutting
splinter of racial discord amongst crew members. English
seamen called Indians, "coolies" and saw them as servile,
obsequious and "damned useless in cold weather". To the
English sailor, the poorly paid Indian seafarer was a threat
to his own livelihood.
Beatings were common on-board ships. A Sebastian
Dias who was hired in June 1915 died of a
heart-attack just eight months later, while at sea.
And a Joaquim Souza, who was engaged on-board the
Baron Balfour, in 1914, committed suicide nine
months into the voyage.
Despite the inequities, Pereira says, Goans might have
enjoyed a fair amount of privilege, perhaps on account of
being Christian. An article which appeared on the Port of
London Authority (PLA) Monthly of December 1957, had this to
say about Goan seamen:
"The Roman Catholic Goanese have an 'altar peak,' with its
own small altar, aboard every ship in which they serve.
During the voyage. if there is no priest on board, they
choose one of their own number to conduct the prayers."
And another paragraph reads:
"The Goans are more clannish and less inclined to
shore excursions. When two or three ships that
carry these nationals are in the Port together, a
play or a concert may sometimes be produced by the
Goans on board one of the vessels."
Michael Fisher writes in Counterflows to Colonialism, of
bonds that developed with fellow Indian seafarers, mostly
Muslims, "the binding force of the harsh voyage produced
strong solidarities with evidence of cooperation in religious
ceremonies."
Although religious restrictions largely prevented Hindu
Brahmin Goans from embarking on a career at sea, I find a
record of a Dinkar Nadkarni, born in 1900, who was employed
on-board the SS Rizwani, as medical officer. There were also
Konkani-speaking Moslems from Ratnagiri on board British
ships. A Jainoo Ebraim, from Ratnagiri set sail on the
Worsley Hall, in 1914.
Did Santan return to Goa or did he think of staying on in
England and making a new life for himself? We certainly know
that many Bengalis and Sikhs stayed on in England, later
applying for Peddlers' Certificates which would allow them to
peddle whatever they carried from the ships, which at times
included their bedding.
My mother recalls, that wives would sometimes lose their
husbands to the sea. A Coutinho C, from the 'Nova Conquesta'
who sailed on-board the Okara, drowned in 1914 at the tender
age of 20.
Many women were left widowed during World War II;
Pereira contends as many as 700 Goa sailors died,
but being abandoned by a tarvotti husband was not
common. Clifford Pereira, nonetheless, has found
records of small bands of Goan tarvottis who
settled in the port-towns of England. These became
the first Goan immigrants to the UK.
I like to think Santan wanted to return home to Goa, to the
loving arms of a wife and family. He might have colluded with
a Goan cook on-board and put aside salted and cured meats
which he would take as presents for his family. A small token
for the lonely lives the sea and separation wrought upon
them.
Sadly, we know, Santan Costa died on 5 January, 1915, at the
Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich, London.
Acknowledgements:
* National Archives, Kew, Richmond, UK.
* Clifford Pereira, British Goan, Historical Geographer
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