Rulers of India: Albuquerque

by H. Morse Stephens

The greatest of all these missionaries, Saint Francis Xavier, was not a Portuguese subject. But the Company of Jesus, of which he was the pioneer missionary, contained many Portuguese, and he could not have attempted what he did but for the support of the Portuguese government at home and of the Portuguese authorities in India.

The idea of discouraging Christian missionaries, which formed a part of the policy of the Dutch and English East India Companies, never had an adherent among the Portuguese. They believed sincerely in their religion, and the principal use they made of their influence when they were firmly established in Asia was to spread it abroad. Again and again orders were sent from Portugal that the missionaries were to be assisted in every possible way.

The Franciscan friars who first came to India were engaged in looking after the souls of the Portuguese soldiers, but they were followed, and in increasing numbers after the successes of Saint Francis, by priests and friars and Jesuits, who left Europe for the express purpose of converting the heathen. The history of the Roman Catholic missions in India, for which there is plenty of material, would need a volume in itself. It must suffice to point out that those missions did not begin to attain their full development until after the Portuguese had reached their highest political power during the governorship of Dom João de Castro, and were beginning to decline.

In 1538 the Pope nominated for the first time a Bishop of Goa in the person of Frei João de Albuquerque, a Franciscan friar, and a relative of the great Governor. This holy man, who won a great reputation for sanctity, died in 1553, and in 1557 the see of Goa was raised to an archbishopric and conferred upon Dom Gaspar de Leão Pereira. The archbishops soon rivalled the viceroys in wealth and dignity, and in at least one instance, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, an archbishop also acted as governor. Other sees were speedily established at Cochin, Malacca, and Macão, and many missionary bishops were appointed for other parts of India, China, and Japan. The first labourers in the mission field were the Franciscans. They were soon followed by other religious orders, and were exceeded in success and ability by the Jesuits.

In 1560, after the death of Dom João de Castro and of St. Francis Xavier, the Holy Inquisition was established in Goa. It was granted as its headquarters the magnificent palace of Yusaf Adil Sháh, which had been the residence of the viceroys until 1554. Its first action was rather corrective than persecuting, and it was not until the seventeenth century that the periodical burnings of relapsed converts and supposed witches, which are known as Autos da Fé, commenced their sanguinary work. The most notable event in the religious history of the Portuguese in India, the condemnation of the doctrines and ritual of the Nestorian Christians of the Malabar coast, did not occur till the Synod of Diamper (Udayampura) in 1599.

The educational work of the missionaries, their custom of dwelling among the people and imitating their mode of life, as well as their building of superb churches in the Portuguese cities, well deserve an extended notice, which cannot be adequately given in this volume. It is enough to say that Albuquerque, though zealous and desirous of spreading the faith, did not initiate the policy of persecution. It was his feeble successors who threw away the opportunity afforded for the propagation of the Christian faith, by the existence of a native Christian community in the very part of India where the Portuguese first landed.

When the sealed order of succession was opened, after the lamented death of Dom João de Castro, it was found that the two first nominees, Dom João Mascarenhas and Dom Jorge Tello de Menezes, had already left India for Portugal. The third packet opened contained the name of Garcia de Sá, an aged gentleman, who had spent nearly all his life in India. He hastened to make peace with Ibráhím Adil Sháh of Bijápur, and with Muhammad III of Gujarát. To the former he promised that the Portuguese would not allow Mir Ali Khán to leave Goa, and on that condition the cession of Bardes and Salsette was confirmed. In the treaty with the King of Gujarát it was agreed that the Portuguese should continue to hold the fortress of Diu, which they had twice so gallantly defended, while the city and the rest of the island remained subject to Muhammad III. Garcia de Sá died at Goa on July 13, 1549, and was succeeded as governor by Jorge Cabral, a descendant of the second Portuguese captain who visited India.

Cabral, who was Captain of Bassein, assumed the office and engaged in a war that was raging between the Rájá of Cochin and the Zamorin. He had taken and sacked Tiracol and Ponáni, and was just about to attack Calicut, when he received information of the arrival of Dom Affonso de Noronha as Viceroy. This nobleman was the second son of the Marquis de Villa Real, and had been selected for the office of Viceroy by John III, though no Viceroy had been sent out from Portugal with full powers since Dom Garcia de Noronha in 1538. The Viceroy, on taking over office from Cabral, declined to attack Calicut and ordered the fleet back to Goa. He ruled for four years, during which time he greatly extended the Portuguese power in the island of Ceylon.

Dom Affonso de Noronha was succeeded as Viceroy in 1554 by Dom Pedro Mascarenhas, an aged nobleman who had filled the office of ambassador to the Emperor Charles V and the Pope, and had since acted as governor to the heir-apparent. He was over seventy years of age when he was sent to India, and held office but nine months. On his death the sealed orders were opened, and the first name found in them was that of Francisco Barreto, a most experienced officer. This governor is chiefly known from his persecution of the poet Camoens, whom he sent to the little island of Macão as a punishment for a satire he had written on the pride and immorality of the officials at Goa. But Barreto was a very vigorous governor. He did much to strengthen the various Portuguese fortresses throughout Asia, and showed himself a skilful and daring general.

During Barreto's government King John III of Portugal died, leaving the throne to his infant grandson, the ill-fated King Sebastian. One of the first acts of the widow of John III, Queen Catherine, who became Regent of the kingdom, was to appoint a prince of the blood royal, Dom Constantino de Braganza, to be Viceroy. This young prince was only thirty years of age, but he soon showed that he surpassed his predecessors in ability as well as in rank. He reached Goa in 1558, and one of his earliest measures was to capture Damán, where he erected a fortress. This place and Goa and Diu are at the present time the only relics of the Portuguese power in India. On his return from Damán he dispatched powerful fleets to Malacca, to Ormuz, and to Ceylon, and placed the position of affairs in all parts of Asia in a most favourable condition for the Portuguese.