Adrian Simoes wrote: Managing Director; The Judeo-Christian Heritage of the West Coast of India. Panjim - Goa
it was just a "holy purging", 3000 Jews including Garcia de Orta's sister being killed in Ela, Old Goa was an exaggeration! Was it? GL Responds: Yes! What you have quoted above is a gross exaggeration if not fiction. I would have expected better with your title. Please read some factual accounts and the following are a few of them. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to present them. The Inquisition period extended from 1560 to 1812 with a short period when it was abolished. During the approximate 250 years, authoritative historians report fifty seven (57) perpetrators (Europeans and Indians) were sentenced to death and executed. An equal number died in effigy; suggesting the desire of the authorities to use the Auto de Fe event as a deterrence to crime for the local population. My reading of Goan history: During the interim period when the inquisition was abolished, a few hundred Goans died in forced labor camps in the efforts of the Portuguese colonial authorities to build its capital in Vasco and later at Panjim. Likely the lack of an "Inquisition authority" over the governor permitted the colonial government to brutalize the native population as a whole with more vicious measures with compulsory forced displacement of the native male population from their villages to labor camps. Absolute power and atrocities of the monarchs during this period of "Absolute Monarch" (16th -19th centuries) was not confined only to Europe. Similar state-ruler atrocities / cruelties were committed by Hindu Rajas and Muslim Sultans in the Indian subcontinent. A visit to Hampi and Bijapur displays the prisons and torture techniques. While Europe saw the kings rule by "divine right" after the 16th century, that cloak of divine authority was assumed in India much earlier as seen by the royal titles of the Indian kings. Some of the old uncivilized torture techniques even exist today as water-boarding, electric shocks etc in several civilized countries of Europe, Americas and Middle East. Regards, GL
