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7 - Towards reintegration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

M. N. Pearson
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales, Sydney
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Summary

Many of the themes of previous chapters will be found writ large in a sketch of the history of Portuguese India from the mid seventeenth century. After the loss of the large and prosperous area of Bassein in 1739, the Portuguese ruled only Goa, Daman and Diu. The latter increased in size in the 1760s and 1770s when the relatively infertile and sparsely populated seven New Conquest talukas were added.

If the Portuguese at their height in the sixteenth century had a rather patchy impact on Indian life, how much more did this apply to such a minuscule ‘empire’. The official Portuguese presence was, frankly, opéra bouffe, strong still on titles and pomp and circumstance, but of no significance in wider Indian affairs. At a lower, or unofficial level, one finds the continuance of powerful religious influence, already touched on in chapter 6, and a continuing role for some Indo-Portuguese traders, usually ethnically Indian. If one can see in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the church and private traders playing important roles under the imperial umbrella, then what happened later was that as the umbrella folded the role of these two groups became more discernible. Their actual functions probably remained rather constant throughout, but this has often been obscured for historians by the dazzle of the imperial canopy, especially in the sixteenth century.

Much of what follows will be tentative indeed. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been neglected by historians. It has been felt that with the decline of empire nothing of interest can be written about the Portuguese in India.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1988

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References

Button, Richard, Goa and the Blue Mountains (London, 1851).
Galbraith, J. K., Ambassador's Journal (New York, 1970).
Gallagher, Tom, Portugal: A Tweintieth Century Interpretation (Manchester, 1983).
Kosambi, D. D., ‘The village communities in the Old Conquests of Goa’, Journal of the University of Bombay, XV (1947).Google Scholar
Marjay, Frederic P., Portuguese India: a Historic Study (Lisbon, 1959).
Rao, R. P., Portuguese Rule in Goa, 1510–1961 (Bombay, 1963).
Waugh, Evelyn, ‘Goa: The home of the saint’, Month, n.s. X (1953).Google Scholar

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  • Towards reintegration
  • M. N. Pearson, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Book: The Portuguese in India
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521257138.009
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  • Towards reintegration
  • M. N. Pearson, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Book: The Portuguese in India
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521257138.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Towards reintegration
  • M. N. Pearson, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Book: The Portuguese in India
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521257138.009
Available formats
×