In the year 1514, the Portuguese king Manuel sent an impressive retinue to the Pope, consisting of men, exotic animals (panthers, leopards, parrots, elephants, and even rhinoceroses) and gifts from the Indian expeditions.
In 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque passed away, who was succeeded by Lopo Soares de Albergaria, a Portuguese nobleman. And in 1521, King Manuel died, who was succeeded by João III, who was the last heir of the Portuguese Empire.
The successful imperial experience of Portugal on the coasts of the Indian Ocean took a radical turn starting from 1517, when the Protestant heresy exploded in the center of Europe, which in a few decades broke the greater Christendom, in the words of Francisco Elías de Tejada, the Christian continent. The low population of the Portuguese metropolis made the maintenance of the Empire ruinous. Curiously, in parallel to the Portuguese imperial decline, an intense work of evangelization developed in Goa. P. Shirodkar (1997), who studied the cultural ties between Portugal and Goa in the 16th century, stated that when Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa on November 25, 1510, freeing it from the Muslim siege, he did not alter the basic existing administrative organization. Little by little, the Portuguese introduced their own administrative system and established the Senate of Goa, the Fazenda, the Casa da Moeda, etc.; but at the same time, they were extremely cautious not to disturb the ancient existing traditional indigenous institutions, as the local population was very attached to them in the performance of their socio-religious activities.
Much reliable information about life in Goa in the early period of the conquest of Goa is available in A Suma Oriental, written by the apothecary of Prince D. Afonso who arrived in Goa in 1511. Tomé Pires vividly describes the life and people of Goa at that time. He reveals that caravans of ox carts loaded to the brim coming from distant lands outside Goa brought goods and the merchants enjoyed much more compared to the situation they had to face with the Muslims in charge of affairs before the arrival of the Portuguese. Goa, according to him, was a refuge for merchants from all nations and men with enormous capital had several ships with the good port to prosper. Those who sailed their ships were the local residents, who were good sailors. As their businesses were on a large scale, the revenues obtained by Goa in the anchorage, as well as the duties on goods, in addition to the toll collected through Tanadarias, local police chief offices with military authority to collect imports and customs duties, were enormous. He revealed that these rich people of Goa had numerous temples with Brahman priests. It was customary for the woman to immolate herself on her husband’s pyre. If she refused to sacrifice her life on the fire, her relatives were dishonored and the people would admonish others who were not in favor of the sacrifice and force them to immolate themselves. Albuquerque has the merit of having put an end to this pernicious and inhuman practice for humanitarian reasons. What is more important is that the Hindu society of Goa at the time in question was no different from its counterparts in the rest of the country: it was a society dominated by castes, socially well-knit, very conscious of customs, rituals, and deities.
Just like in continental India, in Goa the rulers used to collect all the taxes they wanted, thus subjecting the population to great hardships. Such was the situation when Adilshah had to cede Goa to the Portuguese, who upon conquering it assured the population that they would allow them to pay as much as to their predecessors. But meanwhile, another scenario was gradually emerging that was changing the demographic profile of Goa. In a decade and a half, in 1524, the Portuguese who married and settled in Goa numbered 450, in addition to many others, including fidalgos, knights and shield-bearers and other meritorious individuals who had dispersed outside the city with sons and daughters of marriageable age and who, by their nature, were populating the land, thus creating ethnic changes.
Dom João, King of Portugal, approved in 1526 the Foral dos uzos e costumbres os gancares e lavradores desta illa, a charter that was one of the most significant events after the occupation; it not only imprinted the mark of Portuguese domination and the affirmation of dominion, but also gave a sudden turn to the socio-religious life of the Goans, in addition to introducing revolutionary changes in the administration of the villages. It endowed the viceroys, tanadar chiefs, revenue supervisors, and justices of the peace with such power that their orders, decisions, and sentences gave rise to a plethora of social laws in the coming years, thereby increasing the influence of jurisprudence in the daily life of Goa’s inhabitants. The Charter addressed civil law, penal and fiscal legislation, and even the rural economy of communities and civic issues.
Each of the ganvkars was asked to cede free land from their village that was unoccupied for use by the village officials, namely the temple priest, the secretary, the gatekeeper, the tenant, the washerman, the shoemaker, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the temple housekeeper, and a jester. Every ganvkar was prohibited from ceding land or orchards free of charge merely by paying a certain rent, except with authorization from the ordinance to that effect. If the ganvkar or a person from the village wished to sell any inheritance in any of those villages, they were prohibited from doing so without the permission of all the ganvkars of the village. Likewise, no one could buy without such permission. During planting time and harvest time, the principal ganvkar would have preference in plowing and harvesting. Likewise, the principal ganvkar would first cover his house with palm leaves, pots.
It is worth taking a look at the religious life of the Goans of the time, which was completely disrupted: Portugal assaulted Hinduism and the Hindus. Most of the temples in Goa in Ilhas, Bardez, and Salcete belonged to the major Shaiva sect and the Nath cult, with the rest being Vaishnavite. While the Hindus lived their lives according to ancestral practices, the Franciscans, who had settled on the island of Anjediv, opposite Goa, in 1505, carried out constant evangelization work from 1518. Friar Antonio had begged the King of Portugal not to allow yogis to enter Goa from the continent because they carried with them flowers offered to their deities in the temples and other samples with the help of which they tried to renew the pagan traditions of the indigenous people. An ecclesiastical structure was established in Goa from the beginning of the Portuguese settlement, and the Bishop of Dumenas, mentioning the existence of «images of the enemies of the Cross» on the island, recommended to the king that it would be a great service to God if the temples on the island of Goa were demolished and churches built in their place. In addition, he suggested that the king order that anyone who wished to live on the island and have a residence and lands convert to Christianity, and if they did not, leave the island. He had the firm conviction that no one on the island could remain without converting, since if they were expelled from the island they could not support themselves.
The historian Rowena Robinson states that «the conversion of Goa to Catholicism was largely the work of various religious orders that arrived in Goa in the 16th century. The Franciscans arrived in 1517 and their work was mainly limited to Bardez, while the Jesuits were the most influential order that arrived in Goa, being «responsible» for the conversion of Tiswadi and Salcette. With their arrival in 1542, missionary activity in Goa received a great boost. The other two important orders were the Dominicans, who arrived in 1548, and the Augustinians, who did so a few years later.»
In 1532, a new general vicar, Miguel Vaz, arrived in Goa, and in 1534 Goa was elevated to the rank of bishopric (diocese), although the small Christian population did not justify it. In 1541, the Church introduced in Goa the Rigor de Misericordia, destroying all Hindu temples on the island. In addition, important Hindu ganvkars were forced to voluntarily divert the revenues from the lands of the razed temples to the maintenance of churches and chapels, thus depriving the guravs, dancers, Brahmins, blacksmiths, and other servants of their livelihood. Not only that, but it was ordered to appoint native priests as chaplains because the local population could accept them with satisfaction, as they would more easily learn from them without the language barrier. In April 1541, Father Miguel Vaz and Diogo de Borba established the Confraternity of the Holy Faith to provide aid to poor Christians and for the maintenance of churches. It also contributed to erecting the Seminary of the Holy Faith and the College of St. Paul to impart priestly education to young people from the East. The Confraternity also sought preference for Christians in government positions. The following year, the landing of the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier on May 6, 1542, boosted the evangelization process in Goa and in other parts of the South, as well as in the Far East. Shirodkar narrates how Miguel Vaz sent a note to the king, which was received by him in November 1545, in which he requested a special order so that on the island of Goa there would be no public or secret Hindu temple and that violators of the same be severely punished. He recommended that the manufacture of wooden, stone, copper, or any other metal idols not be allowed. He further suggested that no public festivals of the gentiles be permitted and that Brahmins from the continent be prevented from taking refuge in their homes. He wanted the Crown to allow the authorities of St. Paul to raid the homes of Brahmins and gentiles if they suspected the existence of idols. He also wanted no infidel native (Hindu) to earn a living by painting sacred Christian images. All this generated resentment among a sector of Goa’s natives, as can be seen from the letter from Master Diego de Borba to the Jesuit priest Simao Rodrigues, in which he states that the Indian gentiles did not wish to know or hold in high esteem the Holy Name. Faced with this attitude, the Crown seems to have acted vehemently following the recommendations of Miguel Vaz: it ordered Governor Martim Afonso de Souza to severely punish those who continued to perpetuate idolatry of any kind and to allow converts to enjoy exemptions and freedoms in the payment of duties that would enable them. The Governor was also instructed to exempt Indian Christians from being forcibly recruited into the Portuguese armed forces, thus avoiding violence.
Following the trend, the Crown ordered the new viceroy, Dom João de Castro, to treat the new converts among the natives well and favor them, so that they would be allowed to occupy all positions in the city of Goa and in the towns of the island. In the instructions given to Father Miguel Vaz, the king asked him to put all his effort into the continent with care and without scandals, removing all the idols and planting crosses in their places, where the new Christians could be taught as much as possible about the religion to help a greater conversion.
The rule had also been imposed that at the moment slaves of Muslims and Hindus who converted to Christianity, their owners had to sell them immediately only to Christians. No Brahmin or gentile was to hold any administrative position. The Crown, in a maneuver aimed at giving greater impetus to evangelization, ordered that residents and natives, if they converted to Christianity, enjoy the same status in the city and on the island of Goa as the Portuguese. Sadly, the general trend in historiography considers these to be tactical cunning maneuvers to «win over» the natives, and not that they were truly considered Portuguese, as happened in the Americas. From the secular mentality of contemporary academia, it is difficult to understand that there were no political interests behind these ordinances, but rather a genuine understanding of human dignity and a true interest in the salvation of souls.
King D. Sebastião promulgated another law, ordering that there be no more temples or idols in anyone’s homes, nor outside them, on the island of Goa and other adjacent areas. He also imposed restrictions on all kinds of festivities by the gentiles, both in their residences and outside them, in addition to prohibiting all kinds of image-making. Anyone who contravened this law would lose their goods, half of which would go to the accuser and the rest would be used for church works under whose jurisdiction the culprit resided, who would be sent to the galleys without pardon.
In academic historiography, the issue that the Crown and the Church acted in unison and sought to eliminate Hinduism is perceived negatively. This is due to the secularism of history as a scientific discipline, which is incapable of understanding and recounting objectively the coherence of this practice during the period of greater medieval Christendom and the Christian consciousness of being the only true religion, with the obligation, commanded by Christ himself, to convert all peoples to Christianity. Joseph Pearce summarizes the issue well when he states that «if we try to study History through the prejudices and preconceived ideas of our own time, we will only succeed in misinterpreting the motives and intentions of historical actions. If we do not know what those people believed, we will not understand why they acted and behaved as they did. We will not really understand what happened. Our prejudice or our ignorance will have blinded us. To understand History, we must understand its protagonists enough to empathize, even if we do not sympathize, with them.»
The Crown allowed sons, grandsons, and relatives to inherit the goods of their converted parents, whether gentiles or Muslims or other infidels according to Portuguese law. In case they converted, each of them would inherit a third of the property. The introduction of these laws created dissensions in Hindu families and represented a strong shock to the joint family system, which had been crumbling for a long time, but which survived and grew again under two different beliefs: Hinduism and Christianity. The Hindus had only two options: emigrate or remain in an extremely servile condition by accepting the new faith against their wishes.
On September 5, 1551, the expedition in which the provincial father of the Jesuits of India, Melchor Núñez Barreto, was traveling arrived in Goa. He was accompanied by ten orphans trained doctrinally and musically at the college dos Meninos Órphãos de Lisboa. One of the main activities of these children was to preach and teach doctrine on the streets. With this mission, many of the children educated in that college were embarked for different enclaves in America, Africa, and Asia. The children had to stay at the College of São Paulo, established in 1548, which became the main Jesuit institution in India. It had its precedent in the Seminário de Santa Fé, established a year before the arrival of the Jesuits in Goa. Shortly after the arrival of Francis Xavier in 1542, they first took charge of its spiritual administration, and a few years later, in 1549, also of the financial one, already with its new name. It is very likely that during their stay in Goa, which lasted more than two years, the children who arrived in the expedition carried out their doctrinal activity on the streets by singing their prayers and sacred songs, as this was one of their main tasks in India, as Pedro Doménech, first rector of the colégio dos Meninos Órphãos de Lisboa, pointed out to Ignatius of Loyola in a letter dated April 1, 1551, a few days after the expedition departed: «Escreví a V.P como o rei me mandou que escogesse nove destes ninyos para embiarlos a la India a ensinar los ninyos indios e particularmente em tres colegios que allá se fazem dellos, porque quer que se críen com este spírito, digo em o spírito e costumbres destes… Todos os dias deíam cantando Veni Creator Spiritus y O glosiosa Domina para que o Senhor me iluminasse em escoger aqueles que sua magestad foyse mais seruido…»
During this time, they would also participate in all the celebrations organized by the Society of Jesus, singing at masses and vespers on Sundays and the most important feast days, as they did in their Lisbon residence, in union with other children trained at the college in Goa. Núñez Barreto, in a letter of December 9, 1551, a few months after arriving, gives us an account of one of the devotional activities that the Jesuit community organized on Fridays, in which these orphan children participated by singing the psalm Miserere, in the style they were supposed to do at the college where they had been educated in Lisbon: «Às sextas feiras temos procição, que ordenou o padre mestre Gaspar [Barzeo], e despois pregação que se acaba jáa à noite. E acabando-sse começa a disciplina, com os meninos cantarem hum Miserere mei Deus polo modo de Lixboa». This passionate practice, celebrated on Fridays, with procession, prayer, and public «discipline,» accompanied by the singing of the psalm Miserere, we find in different missionary establishments in Asia.
During the time the expedition was in Goa, an event of special significance for the Jesuit community occurred: the arrival from Malacca of the body of Francis Xavier to be buried at the College of São Paulo. The children participated in the various ceremonies that took place those days, as we will see in another event dedicated exclusively to this event. Francisco de Sousa, in the Oriente conquistado a Jesu Cristo pelos Padres da Companhia de Jesus da Provincia de Goa (Lisboa 1710), explains: «No oriente foram estes meninos mui provectos na virtude e primeiras letras: destros nas solfas e variedade de instrumentos musicais; vinham eles criados com a doutrina da Companhia para se fazerem ministros idóneos do Evangelho e até, dizemos nós, para grandes divulgadores da lingua portuguesa… Estes foram os primeiros mestres de capela do seminario de Goa e os primeiros que no India, imitando os nove coros dos Anjos, serviram ao culto divino oficiando às missas a canto de órgão.»
After the death of Saint Francis Xavier on December 3, 1552 on the island of Shangchuan, off the coast of China, his body was initially buried there in a simple grave. Recognizing the importance of the saint, the body was exhumed in February 1553 and transported to Malacca, where it remained in the Church of St. Paul for several months. In December 1553, the decision was made to transfer it to Goa, India, which was an important center of Jesuit missions. Upon its arrival in Goa in early 1554, the body was preserved in the Basilica of Bom Jesus and, surprisingly, remained incorrupt, showing no signs of decomposition even after years. It was then that it was first exposed to public veneration in Goa, from March 16 to 18, 1554.
The Holy Inquisition was introduced in Goa in 1560. The Jesuit Francis Xavier, later canonized as the patron of the East, had been the first to request the establishment of the Inquisition in Goa in 1546, although it took 14 years to materialize. During its 248 years of existence, the Inquisition caused massive migrations to the south of the country. Many families separated permanently. Some left behind their relatives to convert or had already converted before their flight. Many villages left with their deities and reestablished them in the neighboring regions of Antruz and Sattari. Let us remember, to correct erroneous interpretations, that the Inquisition tribunal did not deal with non-Christians, but investigated the heterodoxy of Christians, especially converts, in order to find out if they continued practicing their former beliefs secretly.
A large number of baptisms took place in Tiswadi: according to Father Lucena, in one year it reached the order of 20,000 and in 1560, according to Father F. de Souza, the number was 3,092. Miguel Vaz destroyed a multitude of Hindu temples starting in 1546 and in 1567 the Franciscans demolished about 300 temples only in Bardez. The Inquisition in Goa was abolished in 1812. The Portuguese Crown emphasized from the beginning to its authorities in Goa that the main responsibility of the Crown in the conquests was the conversion of the infidels. And it exhorted vigorous efforts with zeal to ensure that no infidel remained there without converting. In this way, just as many conversions took place, there was also an abandonment of the place by many families who wished to preserve the Hindu religion and moved to reside outside the Portuguese domain. Even despite the population decline that this implied, the growth of Christianity was such that in 1567 the first Provincial Council was held in Goa (provincial ecclesiastical assembly). In the Council, it was determined that, along with the Hindu temples, the mosques also had to be destroyed. Deliberations were held against all kinds of ceremonies and festivities and modes of worship, the worship of demons as deities, the cremation of the dead, and various other rites, invocations, fasts, processions, thread ceremony, application of sandalwood paste -on the forehead, animal sacrifice, tree worship, etc. (decree no. 9-10). Hindus who left Portuguese territories to participate in temple festivals or religious processions were also harshly punished. The Council also wished that, in the villages, when leasing flat lands, they be leased only to Christians and not to gentiles, according to the Charter, and that tax collection be entrusted only to Christians (decree no. 15). It prohibited the Hindu painter from painting images of divine worship, the goldsmith from making chalices, crosses, and the tinsmiths from making metal objects or tin articles (decree no. 28).
More personal aspects were also addressed (decree no. 42): the neophyte was prohibited from attaching his son’s caste. He could not allow his son to marry a Hindu girl. He was prohibited from weeping in mourning for his dead as he used to do before converting. He could not go to any temple or offer money. Worse still, if he fell ill, no Hindu, not even his own father, could pay him a courtesy visit. He could not attend any Hindu festival or go to the adjacent continental territories to share the joy of celebrating the festivals with the gentiles (decree no. 42). It advised the parish priest and the chaplain to help the neophytes bury their dead (decree no. 45). Most of these decrees were legalized by Viceroy D. Antão de Noronha. The measures had no immediate effect, and the Hindus continued with their old traditions of worshiping idols as before; which forced the Crown to issue a new order in 1580 to put an end to the «abominable errors» that hindered conversions.
The 4th ecclesiastical assembly held in Goa in 1592 took serious note of the entry of Hindu priests, astrologers, yogis, preachers, and kurumbins into the city of Goa through the island’s passes, taking refuge in the homes of Hindus and native Christians reminding the old and new Christians of their former rites and customs, festivals, thus acting against the Christian faith. Hence, it recommended that such individuals not be allowed entry into the city and that, if found, they be imprisoned and punished, and that anyone who gave them shelter be fined 50 cruzados, in addition to punishment for the offense.
It is necessary to read between the lines the statements of P. Shirodkar that we have been following mainly so far in order to separate the wheat (data and historical facts) from the chaff (the author’s ideology). By carrying out this operation, the data he provides are useful for reconstructing the history of the evangelization of Goa in the 16th century, a history that we can expand by following the historian Rowena Robinson in her already cited book “Conversion, continuity and change: lived Christianity in Southern Goa”, which details the history of the conversion to Catholicism in the 16th century of much of the local population of the coastal district of Goa from a historical perspective. Robinson collects the documentary testimony of a 1596 view of Goa that shows, among houses and viceregal buildings, a series of religious places: the cathedral, parish churches, religious houses, and chapels. It was an urban landscape enormously transformed by the Portuguese. Already in 1542, the Jesuit Francis Xavier had reported upon his arrival to the newly established Society of Jesus in Rome that “Goa is a pleasant city to see, entirely inhabited by Christians. It has a monastery with many friars of St. Francis, a very beautiful cathedral with many canons, and many other churches. There is reason to give many thanks to God our Lord seeing how well the name of Christ flourishes in lands so far away and among so many infidels.”
By the end of the 17th century, much of Goa’s population had converted to Christianity. Again, we can read in the vast majority of scientific works on this period that many of the conversions were against the will of the people. It is part of the narrative that we can call the Portuguese Black Legend, which we will analyze later. Rowena Robinson – like practically all the historians who have worked on this issue – must also be read between the lines, since she has no qualms about considering that “the most regrettable thing is that what is written has an apologetic stance (sic) and a critical approach to the subject has not yet been firmly established.” Writing in 1998, I cannot agree with that statement, for it is a time of effervescence of supposedly scientific studies in Goa about its past, with figures like the Jesuit Teotónio R. de Souza (1947 – 2019) and the Xavier’s Center of Historical Research, founded in 1977. The leading contribution of the Jesuits to the construction of the narrative of the Portuguese Black Legend in Goa, with their accusations of religious and cultural imperialism, remains to be studied. A contribution that continues to the present, as we can read in the articles of Gaspar Rul-lán, presented as “theologian, specialist in Hinduism, collaborator of Fronteras CTR”, in this blog of the Jesuit Pontifical University of Comillas: https://blogs.comillas.edu/FronterasCTR/?p=3839. We leave his contribution for the next installment of this series, as it forms part of the Black Legend about the Portuguese Empire and the evangelization of Goa.
Meanwhile, in the distant metropolis, the city of Lisbon, in the last third of the 16th century, the Portuguese and Spanish elites began to think about a union of the two Iberian crowns. In 1578, King Sebastian I of Portugal died young and without heirs. The throne passed to his great-uncle, Cardinal Henry, the closest in the dynastic line. Upon his death, without an heir, a provisional Government Board was formed. The grandchildren of King Manuel rose as claimants. King Philip II of Spain himself was a strong contender: he sent his armies to Portugal to seize the throne by force, which led to the Battle of Alcántara in 1580. In 1581, Philip II officially assumed the Portuguese kingship, which initially meant a relief for the Portuguese economy. Spain also sent military forces to the overseas possessions. Philip II placed his nephew, Albert of Austria, as viceroy in Lisbon, and he began to deal with Elizabeth I of England, enemy of Spain, regarding the independence of the Netherlands fallen to Protestantism, which Philip II hoped to reconquer for Catholic Spain. The Dutch put Great Britain on their side. Protestant England and Catholic Spain came to arms in 1588. Philip II attempted to invade England but failed. The English landed in Portugal in 1589 to restore local Portuguese power. They failed, but they did succeed in keeping the Netherlands free from Spain. And, ironically, it would be the Dutch who would come to torment both the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese one.
The union of the Iberian monarchies weakened both. The Dutch, increasingly aggressive, attacked the Portuguese, thinking that it was the weak one in the Iberian union and that they could gain overseas territory at its expense. The Portuguese were very dispersed and maintained their territories with a reduced number of troops. Moreover, the struggle between the Dutch and the Portuguese was both material and religious: Portugal found itself in the Indian Ocean with this Protestant threat; as one historian puts it, “the fact that the Dutch were as Protestant as the Portuguese were Catholic contributed to fueling the aggressiveness and animosity between both.” These were times of Christianitas minor or lesser Christendom, following the concepts of Elías de Tejada: the Catholic tradition had been reduced mainly to the Iberian Peninsula (Italians and French were not embarked on crusade projects in this century).
In 1598/99, the first Dutch aggressions against the Portuguese occurred in São Tomé & Príncipe, islands located off the western African coast. The Dutch thus began to attack the isolated Portuguese islands and enclaves, as easy targets, both in the Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean.
In the first third of the 17th century, the English entered the scene in the Indian Ocean, beginning a game of changing alliances and strategies among them, the Portuguese, and the Dutch. And in 1663 the Iberian union dissolved, the Empire on which the sun never set. After Portugal’s new independence, its empire – especially in Asia – was considerably reduced. Portuguese India was reduced by the end of the century to its minimum expression. The chronicles of the Portuguese Jesuit Manuel Godinho in that same year of 1663 state that “the Lusitanian Indian Empire or State, which formerly dominated the entire East (…), is now reduced to so few lands and cities.”
*Bibliographic References
Crowley, R., 2005. “El mar sin fin”, ed. Ático Libros.
Elías de Tejada, F., 2021. “Le radici della modernità”, Collana di Studi Carlisti, Solfanelli.
Olivera Ravasi, J.,2018. “Que no te la cuenten. La falsificación de la Historia”. Vol III. Ed. Katejon
Pearce, J., 2013. Por los ojos de Shakespeare. Madrid: Rialp.
Robinson, R., 1998, Conversion, continuity and change: lived Christianity in Southern Goa. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Shirodkar, P. P., 1997. “Socio-cultural Life in Goa during 16th Century”. En: Borges, Charles J. (ed.), Goa and Portugal. Their cultural Links. Pp. 23-40. Concept Publishing House. A/115-116, Commercial Block, Mohan Garden, New Delhi 110059.