Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 2

7

PREFACE
Many libraries in Goa, public as well as private, still conserve copious material of high historical
value, with the help of which the history of the Portuguese in the East could perhaps be reconstituted.
A few scholars for the last one century or so have carried out important research in that material and
produced some works; but, with the death of P.S.S. Pissurlencar, on July 10, 1969, disappeared the last
Goan history investigator of the old generation. Today Goans are hardly aware of the rich records and
documents their homeland possesses, and are extremely rare are those who show interest in study of
the same. In future this work will be much harder since almost the whole material is in Portuguese, and
this language, which since long was widely cultivated in Goa, at present one can say it has already
vanished from this soil. Of late, that is, when with liberation of Goa, Daman and Diu in 1961, colleges of
higher education were established in Goa, teachers of History were recruited from other parts of India;
it seems that they soon realized the valuable historical material that lies unutilised in the archives of
Goa, but the great hindrance for them was the Portuguese language which is not very easy to be
mastered; although one or other has succeeded to some extent to acquire some knowledge and
consequently already produced a few publications. After some time even Goans will encounter the
same obstacle, because by then the Portuguese language will be for them as foreign as for the other
Indians; therefore at least for the sake of the above material it would be wise and worth preserving the
Portuguese culture, by teaching the Portuguese language in the schools and colleges of Goa.
It is in a spirit of indicating to my fellow countrymen the great treasure of historical importance
that awaits the history students equipped with modern scientific methods, that I just put a finger into
the tall pile of old books which are laid up often haphazardly in the different libraries and archives of
Goa. Many original facts on the different aspects of history will be brought to light when dedicated
scholars set to work, but they will have to take pains not only to retrieve the old material in the public
libraries and in the dusty archives of Government offices and of parochial churches, but also to search in
many private houses where valuable unedited material is being destroyed by moths. The present little
work was elaborated during the spare hours as permitted by my professional duties and my indifferent
health; it is neither complete nor exhaustive, and, of course by no means, perfect. Whatever could be
gathered without much pain from the main public libraries of Panjim, viz. Historical Archives of Goa,
Central Library and the Centre of Historical Research of the University of Bombay, was collected and
utilised. I am thankful to the directors of the above institutions who were kind to place at my disposal
their books not only in the respective reading rooms, but also some of them allowed me to take home
even the old and rare books.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to outline the history of the mestios or half-castes of
Goa from the earliest times, that is, since the arrival of the Portuguese to the East in the XVI century, to
the present date. It is a fact that through the four and half centuries of the Portuguese rule in India
there took place mixed unions between the white men and Indian women, both legitimate and
illegitimate, and therefore their progeny can be named rightfully as mestios; but for a period of about
two hundred years, when Portugal was overcrowded with female population, her kings dispatched to
Portuguese India regular annual batches of white damsels, under the name of Kings Orphan Girls, to
Synopsis
8

marry with the Portuguese men in the East, and the offspring of such pure blood Portuguese were
authentic European descendants. Though theoretically these two categories are clearly distinct, in
reality, after a lapse of some time, no distinction was possible, more so because the marriages of the
pure Portuguese men and women in India were in very small number, compared with overwhelmingly
numerous mixed marriages of Portuguese men and Indian women, and this fact led the two groups in
later generations to intermarry freely and thus form the same white colony, so that mestios and
decendentes are to be taken as synonymous expressions.
The white colonisation in India was a cherished dream of Affonso de Albuquerque as an
essential factor of his imperial designs; so Albuquerques contribution for it is described here from
different angles. Some institutions are also closely related to this ethnic colonisation; thus a brief
account of them is given, such as that of the Mercy House of Goa, Recluse House of Our Lady of
Serra, Recluse House of Saint Mary Magdalene, and the Monastery of Santa Monica. And also a
short narrative of the Inquisition is presented, as this institution sometimes came in the way of smooth
working of Albuquerques colonising policy.
And finally I should not forget to mention the abundant works of Dr. Germano Correia, namely
the Histria da Colonizao Portuguesa na India and Os Luso-Decendentes da India, from which are
taken specially the nominal lists of the Portuguese feminine emigration, and of prominent mestios or
descendentes.
L. A. Rodrigues
Santa Cruz, Ilhas Goa
12.6.1970








Synopsis

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi