Roland, First of all the piece that you commented upon is just an extract from the Article: ASSOLNA – ‘Oslem na’, which appears in the 3rd edition of my book. (I am sending it as attachment for your perusal by separate mail). It’s true that the “Pinto Conspiracy” (as it is referred to by most historians), happened earlier, but it was short of a ‘Revolt’ by the populace of a whole village (like that of Cuncolim), and to a lesser degree by that of Assolna and Velim, too. Add to that, it was horribly violent, in which several lives were lost and, uniquely enough, the very leaders of the revolt who were branded as criminals in one village, became martyrs in another. Therefore, in my opinion, as well as in that of many history buffs, “The Cuncolim Revolt of 1583” stands first as a full-scale, action packed revolt – not just religion based, but also against payment of taxes to the Portuguese. Incidentally, the ‘Pinto Conspiracy’ too had religious overtones to it. In fact, it began with the Pinto family having been denied a place in the religious hierarchy in Goa. If you find what I have said in my piece below or in my book for that matter, is not correct, there will be others whose line of thinking will defer from yours. History books, after all, are replete with such polemics. Nonetheless, I have acknowledged in the book itself, that my extemporaneous transport of thought to pen does not entail clinical accuracy or the polish of an elaborate, research backed exercise. Bennet
From: Roland.francis <roland.fran...@gmail.com> To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <goanet@lists.goanet.org> Sent: Saturday, 17 November 2012 10:27 PM Subject: Re: [Goanet] The Church of Assolna Dear Bennet and Manuel (Tavares), The first revolt in Goa against the Portuguese was not the Cuncolim Revolt of 1583 but the conspiracy and major revolt led by Fr and later Bishop Mateus de Castro as I mentioned in my Goan Voice UK Sunday column, in 1563. He "ruled" from Bicholim at that time under the Marathas and got the sympathy of a few army officers and civilians from Goa and the surrounding areas who were humiliated by Portuguese rule. However there was no mass support to this revolt and it failed miserably. Additionally while this was a true liberation revolt, the Cuncolim uprising while indeed brave, was more in the nature of a religious rebellion. You might well say that the Indian Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 in British India was also a religious rebellion. Howevet though this too started as a religious protest (against pork and beef fat used in the musket cartridges given to Indian sepoys in the army, the protest spread throughout India and turned into a widespread patriotic revolt. The Cuncolim Revolt was confined to the surrounding villages. Roland. Toronto.PAES <bennetp...@yahoo.com> wrote: THE CHURCH OF ASSOLNA Hardly a century into the Portuguese occupation of Goa in 1510, the very first civilian revolt against the regime erupted in the neighbouring village of Cuncolim. History records it as the Cuncolim Revolt of 1583, in which the village gaunkars and their Chieftains beat to death a Portuguese emissary, together with five Jesuit priests and fourteen native converts. Their mission was apparently to disband the Hindu tradition of Cuncolim, which motive the residents fiercely resented, and showed it too. The Portuguese felt terribly embittered, and reacted with a spate of atrocities against the Cuncolim populace. Later, as if in a show of reconciliation, the Cuncolim Chieftains were tricked into peaceful talks with the head of the Portuguese army garrison. The venue for talks was at a Portuguese fort built on the bank of river Sal at Assolna. The talks, however, ended before they began, and what followed was no different from the earlier massacre of the Portuguese emissaries at Cuncolim. All but one of the gullible Chieftains gave their life in a fiery Portuguese outburst which avenged the merciless massacre of their own men earlier. Only this ‘payback’ spilled over from Cuncolim to my village of Assolna. This whole episode was unique in all of the Portuguese stay in Goa. Both the encounters took their toll on human lives, in which it was hard to distinguish who were the criminals and who the martyrs. The Cuncolim chieftains, however, earned for their co-villagers the inauspicious label of ‘crimidor’ (criminals) while the same gang went down as innocent martyrs in Assolna. The Portuguese in their strange wisdom forced-fit the slain Chieftains into the latter category, making believe that the Chieftains did not come to kill, but to get killed. They even went a step further to dismantle the Assolna fort and build a church in its place in commemoration of that incident. The “Regina Martyrum Church” of Assolna that stands till this day, is the only Catholic church in Goa, and perhaps in the whole world, that was built on the wreckage of a military garrison. The outward appearance of this church itself, lends credence to that hectic transformation, with its facade hardly matching in architecture, even that of the roadside cemetery of the village. On the other hand, its interiors are in conformity with those of the better known churches in Goa. (An excerpt from the 3rd Edition of “SIMPLY MY WAY”, now accessible at the Central Library in Panjim & District Libraries of Goa; also available at major bookstores in Margao, Panjim & Mapusa. Bennet Paes
