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Stage Play: ON THE HOLY TRAIL
Staged By: The Mustard Seed Art Company
Where: Kala Academy - Mini Open-air Auditorium
When: Dec 20 & 21, 2007 @ 7pm
Read a Review at:
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2007-December/066558.html
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Hi Miguel,
Thank you for your post with some specific and excellent historical facts. It
is gratifying to see some factoids of Goa's initial Portuguese history and the
real facts about the Inquisition being of interest to more goanetters. Yet
recently, I received an e-mail informing me that the targets of the Goan
inquisition were Muslims and Jews. So I would like to build on what you wrote.
I would sincerely request readers to understand the following, without their
emotional biases, with a CURIOSITY OF WHY things happened in Goa the way they
did.
As you point out, the Muslim population of colonial Goa was decimated within a
month of Portugal's second victory to capture Tiswadi on November 25, 1510.
This time, Albuquerque took no chances and killed all Muslim males in Tiswadi,
so as not to repeat the mistake of the first short-lived success in March 1510.
Albuquerque's decision to forcibly marry his soldiers (in about 25 caravellas
and galleons) to the local Muslim women, addressed a potential social problem,
both among the native Muslim population (now living without a bread-winner) and
the Portuguese soldiers who were without female companionship for more than a
year on ship. More importantly, Albuquerque and the Portuguese (VERY SHREWDLY)
tied the Portuguese soldier (now locally married) to Goa; instead of them
returning to Portugal.
Within a decade, this created a large Mestico class who were Goans
psychologically and physically, loyal to Portugal and prepared to defend to
death, the new colony against Adil Khan and later Adil Shah. The Nizams
continued to threaten and made repeated attempts to retake Goa. The largest
effort being in 1570 ... sixty years after the original landing.
In my reading of Goa's early Portuguese history, to defend Tiswadi / Ilhas
against the much larger Muslim armies, Portugal sent many more troops to Goa in
subsequent years after 1510. And Portuguese soldiers who arrived prior to 1510
and stationed in other parts of western India, moved to Goa. Every flotilla of
caravellas now brought more troops to Goa and shipped spices and other exports
on the return voyage. By 1540, the new troops, along with the now aging
original soldiers (reserves) and their progeny needed more land than just
marshy Tiswadi on the bank of the river. In 1543, Portuguese annexed Bardez and
Salcette. Yet to settle its soldiers and civilian support personnel, what the
Portuguese needed was land - without the native population.
Even prior to Alexander the Great (323 BCE) to the American Civil war, (1865
CE) soldiers were paid primarily by land-grants from the conquered territory.
Land-grants also created a local population that would defend the land, lest
any new army conquered their homes and land. Land-grab in Goa was no different
than what European settlers did in the USA and Canada (with the native
Americans) in the 16th to the 18th century. Goa's Land-grab was also no
different from what armies did in Europe and Asia after military victories.
Grabbing economic assets is similar to what victorious armies did, as recently
as, after World War I and II and now in Iraq.
To displace the native Hindu population from Salcette and Bardez, and have land
available for the arriving soldiers and civilians, the Portuguese terrorized
the local population through restrictive and draconian laws and other physical
methods. The army had nothing against the Hindu religion per se, of which they
knew very little. The missionaries likely wanted the Hindus to continue to stay
in Goa and be converted. On the other hand, the Portuguese army were not
interested in conversion. They wanted the natives out by whatever means, and as
soon as possible .... before their conversions. The army aimed to grab the
land and it was easier if the owners / population fled. This comes through
clearly in recorded history, as well as Francis Xavier's letters to the King in
the mid-1950's. In the many letters, much to the discomfort of the colonial
hierarchy (military, civilian and religious), Francis Xavier castigates
Portugal's King for the un-Christian behavior of his army and the failure of
the Portuguese colonial administration to take any action against the abuses of
the military and the civilian colonial population. Francis Xavier suggests the
Inquisition to discipline the army .... repeat ... Inquisition to discipline
the Portuguese population in Goa - "subjects who lived WITHIN the forts".
I have not seen the exact number of Portuguese in Goa in 1570. Yet tiny Goa of
that period, consisting of 3 talukas, (compared to 11 today), must have been
teeming with Portuguese soldiers, naval and support staff. According to
recorded history, they repulsed the combined land and sea attack of the Nizam
of Ahmednagar, Adil Shah of Bijapur and Zamorim of Calicut [now known as
Kozhikode].
Clearly this was the worst fear of the Portugal's new colony. It was not an
unfounded fear, for which it looks they were well prepared.
Goa of the 16th, 17th, 18th century was not the 'amchem bangarachem Goem' of
today. Sending Portuguese men to Goa was no easy task even though the
Portuguese were sea-faring people. Those in Portugal's prisons, like Luis de
Camoes, had the option to continue to stay in jail or go to Goa. Yet, most
Portuguese coming to Goa were likely decent soldiers or civilians. But on
arrival, these men were separated from their family ties. Goa was very hot
three months of the year, (no fans or air-condition), very wet for the next
three months. The rest of the year, Goa had malaria, typhoid, cholera,
dysentery, amoebiasis and many other tropical and parasitic endemic diseases,
including smallpox, plague, poliomyelitis, yaws, syphilis and other STDs,
rabies, tuberculosis. The only companions for the soldier was 'the bottle' and
his rifle. There are reports that often the soldiers and civilian bureaucrats
were not paid ... during wars with Muslims and Marathas, blockade by Dutch and
British, when Goa's golden era ended, and during the rule of corrupt viceroys
who used their three-year term just to amass personal wealth prior to their
return back. Some, like Luis de Camoes (Portugal's most famous poet whose
story is well recorded and whose statue is now in the ASI Museum at Old Goa)
landed in prison again in Goa because of disorderly drunken behavior. Camoes
(1524-1580) was not an exception.
The Inquisition was requested and imposed in Colonial Goa to have a moralizing
influence on "Whites". They were drunks, murderers, rapists, had illegitimate
kids with multiple mistresses, practiced prostitution and according to some
reports pedophilia; army deserters and spies. The colonial army physically and
mentally victimized and terrorized the native population, including robbing and
destroying their property and places of worship. THE PURPOSE OF DESTROYING THE
HINDU TEMPLES WAS NOT TO BUILD CHURCHES NEAR OR ON TOP OF THEM.
Temple-destruction and other village raids was aimed at terrorizing the Hindus
and make them flee from their ancestral homes and land. As colonialists, the
Portuguese lived above the law.... Repeat ... The Portuguese military and
civilians made the laws and lived above the law. This was even seen in the
time of Francis Xavier.
In 1560, when the Goan Inquisition was introduced, (about 50 years after taking
Tiswadi and 25 years after annexing Bardez and Salcette), Goa's population
consisted primarily of Portuguese and Mestico (military and civilian) with a
small native population, which was even smaller as decades went by. In 1560
(fifty years after Albuquerque ), Goa's population included new Portuguese
immigrants, (soldiers and civilians), second and third generation Portuguese
and Mestizo Goans, while the native population was steadily being displaced.
The native life expectancy in the 16th century was about 35 years. The
Portuguese capital in Old Goa, at its peak in 1657, had a population of only
20,000. The mangrove-swampy capital was always infested with malaria and other
epidemics causing the Portuguese to finally build a new capital in mid-18th
century in Nova Goa (Panjim) now Panaji. Contrary to current fictional novels,
there is no historical documentation of an identifiable Jewish or Crypto-Jewish
population or any other native ethnic groups in Goa. Some novels and other
'academic papers' claim the Portuguese Jews and Crypto-Jews in Goa were special
victims, or the Syria-Christians were specifically targeted. The presence of a
solitary Syrian-Christian cross in Goa does not signify the presence of a major
community or that they were specific targets of the inquisition.
A glimpse of the appalling social conditions in colonial Goa is seen from some
other related statistics. In the early 17th century, William Dalrymple quotes
the 'Royal Hospital' as officially reporting more than 500 cases of
syphilitic-hospital-deaths and from "the effects of profligacy" in Goa every
year (pre-penicillin era). And this does not include non-hospital
syphilitic-deaths and other STDs among the Portuguese or those that left Goa to
die with their family in Portugal. Imagine if Goa had 500 cases of AIDS deaths
every year today - a much larger region with 20-50 times the population. See
below the story of another well documented Portuguese poet Manuel Maria Barbosa
du Bocage (1765–1805), who was in Goa and died of syphilitic aneurysm after his
return to Portugal.
Many Catholics, Hindus, and foreigners who write about Goa, think the Catholic
Church and the Colonial government were the same. Yet often the two had
different agendas, if not conflicting interests. Invariably the government
especially the military echelon in Goa over-ruled the civilian echelon and the
Church. IMHO, the inquisition was an attempt by the church to instill fear
into individuals and try to hold the Portuguese government (military and
civilian), other officionales accountable, threatening them that justice can
come to them in this world, even after death. Of course once declared, the
Inquisition justice applied to all other petty and not-so-petty crime, that one
sees in any society.
Kind Regards, GL
------------------ Miguel Braganza
For your information
1. the first forced converts were the 500-odd fair skinned widows of the Muslim
soldiers betrayed by the Quislings between 26 November and 12 December, 1510.
They were not only forcibly converted but also forcibly married to the
Portuguese sailors to produce the first generation of Mesticos.
2. the Inquisition was not against the Hindus but against the Christians. Those
who actually suffered were likely to be Syrian Christians,
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From Wikipedia:
Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage (1765–1805), Portuguese poet, was a native of
Setubal. His father had held important judicial and administrative
appointments, and his mother, from whom he took his last surname, was the
daughter of a Portuguese vice-admiral.
In 1786 he was appointed guarda-marinha in the Indian navy, and he reached Goa
by way of Brazil in October. There he came into an ignorant society full of
petty intrigue, where his particular talents found no scope to display
themselves; the glamour of the East left him unmoved and the climate brought on
a serious illness. In these circumstances he compared the heroic traditions of
Portugal in Asia, which had induced him to leave home, with the reality, and
wrote his satirical sonnets on The Decadence of the Portuguese Empire in Asia,
and those addressed to Affonso de Albuquerque and D. João de Castro. The
irritation caused by these satires, together with rivalries in love affairs,
made it advisable for him to leave Goa, and early in 1789 he obtained the post
of lieutenant of the infantry company at Damão, India; but he promptly deserted
and made his way to Macao.
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