Published in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 1944, pp.442-48.
At the time of its conquest by Hyder Ali, Kanara possessed a well-established and flourishing community of Christians made up for, the most part of emigrants from Goa. These were reinforced by a sprinkling of Portuguese traders, and accessions made from among non-Christians by missionary labours. Under the encouraging protection of the Portuguese arms the Christians grew in numbers and port until at length they could count twenty-seven settlements, each with a church served by a vicar and the whole under a Vicar General himself subject to the Archbishop of Goa. The exact nature of their privileges may be gathered from the terms of a treaty which after a successful campaign the Portuguese imposed on the feeble Nayak of Ikeri. The contracting parties agreed on that occasion that disputes arising among Christians or between Christians and Hindus shall be settled by the Portages Factor and the Vicar, and where recourse to the Factor was not possible by the priests who may be found at the ports or in the districts of the Raja of Kanara. Any appeal from their decisions was to lie to the Government of Goa, and under no circumstances were the local governors and thanadars to take cognizance of these matters in case of alleged injustice. Further, any Christian woman known to lead an immoral life was to be surrendered to the Factor for deportation to Goa, there to undergo due punishment. No trafficking in Christians was to be permitted either on the part of the Raja or on that of his subjects. Christians were to be exempt from imprisonment for debts. The Raja of Kanara was not to suffer any Christians either from Goa or from other Portuguese dominion to cohabit with Hindu women, and should permit the parish priests, whenever such a case occurred, to seize the culprit and deport him to Goa without themselves being liable to molestation from the local authorities. In the Factory and the town of Mangalore and wherever there might be the Christians, the Portuguese were to be allowed to erect Churches. Priests were empowered to punish laxity in or hostility to religion among Christians, according to their own law, for which the Raja was expected to render every assistance; and whenever any of them happened to pass through Kanara to take their abode there or in another country, they were to be free from all molestation by the local thanadars and governors, as also exempt from tax in respect of any luggage they carried, save on goods for sale. The Christians had thus come to acquire an honoured and autonomous position very nearly forming a “state within a state”.
When Hyder Ali wrested this province from the Nayak of Ikeri, he confirmed them in the enjoyment of all the time honoured privileges. By a pravana issued in 1776, he granted 2440 fanams yearly to the Catholic Church at Calicut together with the property belonging to it and to the Church at Parappanangadi , and recognised the jurisdictions of the clergy over Christian delinquents. “Every one of the Christians”, says the parvana, “that may commit any guilt or crime, the justice thereof belongs to the Padre and the Factor.” The fact was that Hyder, being beset by formidable enemies was loth to antagonise the Portuguese.
In 1768 an incident occurred which had an adverse effect on the fortunes of the Christians in Hyder’s dominions. The latter who had declared war on the English was sweeping the board in the Carnatic, and the English General Staff decided upon a diversion on the west coast to relieve the alarming situation in Madras. Accordingly, the Government of Bombay sent an expedition under admiral Watson to seize Magalore. One Ramys Havaldar, who had formerly been in the employ of the Cananore Government and a “Moorsman” commanding Hyder’s fleet at Onor were to be approached to secure a betrayal of their powerful master. The appearance of the English squadron at Mangalore created a delicate situation for the Portuguese factor. On the one hand, the two nations were bound by age-long alliance albeit commercial rivalry, on the other, in consequence of the extraordinary rights which they exercised in Kanara the Portuguese were morally bound to defend its interests against any aggressor. In this dilemma, the Portuguese factor declared his intention to remain strictly neutral and warned the invaders to take care to respect the Portuguese jurisdiction which included the Churches, the Portuguese concession and the Christian community in general. The officers of Hyder, naturally expected the Portuguese factor to stand by them in this critical hour, for their best efforts would avail them little if the Portuguese factory and fortifications commanding as they did the entrance to the river were not to go into action against the invaders. When, however, despite their repeated entreaties the Portuguese factor persisted in his strange and unreasonable attitude they formed a plot to entice him away from the fort and themselves take possession of it. This plot was betrayed by the captain of the artillery which was manned by Christians. The factor summoned all Christians to take shelter in the factory, including those in the service of the government. And when he heard on the next day that Hyder’s troops were intending to storm the fortress he invited the English to assist him in the defense of the fort. The Christians constituted the mainstay of the defense of Mangalore, and with their defection, the resistance collapsed, and the English easily gained their objective.
Hyder Ali was incensed at the treacherous behaviour of the Christians. He summoned the Portuguese priests and questioned them as to what punishment such treachery merited. And when answered that death was the penalty for betraying one’s sovereign, he preferred to be lenient and had them clapped behind prison bars. The Portuguese records however also speak of priests who suffered incarcerations on this occasion. Father Sebastian de Faria, Vicar Vara of Honavar, was taken with two more priests, to Hydernagar, and there were at least five others who were then arrested.
Hyder had hardly settled his score with the English, when he was threatened by the Marathas. Naturally enough, while he dealt with this new peril, he wanted his dominions in Kanara to be secure from the depredations of his immediate neighbours the Portuguese. Accordingly he forced the English to accept a humiliating treaty and opened negotiations with the Portuguese for an alliance. With famine staring them in the face in consequence of the stoppage of supplies of rice from Kanara the Portuguese jumped at this opportunity of reconciling themselves with the master of the granary of the west coast, as Kanara was then known. A treaty was forthwith concluded. The Factory was restored with all its rights, the vicars and the Christians who had been taken prisonerswerereleasedandthechurchwasalloweditsolduntrammeled jurisdiction over Christians in matters of justice.
The amicable relations between the two powers thus resumed continued undisturbed till 1776 when Hyder imprisoned the Portuguese factor of Mangalore, and almost dismantled the Portuguese fortifications. The reason seems to have been that Hyder had now waxed sufficiently powerful and was unwilling to allow the Portuguese to levy their accustomed tribute and custom. He could moreover no longer be content with mere negative help on their part, but wished that they should help him with six hundred European troopers yearly to serve in his campaigns. The Portuguese government showed itself reluctant to comply with these demands and after protracted negotiations lasting four years, a second treaty was signed. It was agreed that the Portuguese should be permitted to levy tribute and collect custom as heretofore, and continue in possession of their factory in Mangalore, in condition that they should defend the town against any enemy, and the further concession that concerns our subject, viz, that the clergy should be allowed the exercise of their religion unembarrassed. But Hyder’s peace with the English could not endure long. Either party distrusted the other, and if the English made no attempt to retrieve their honour earlier, it was not from want of a desire to try conclusions with the Muslim adventurer. Though all along “casus belli” multiplied fast, it was not till 1782 that the parties decided on an appeal to arms. But Hyder, whose health had been declining for some time, died on the 7th of December, and the English taking advantage of the situation made a landing in Kanara a week later. Under General Mathews the entire littoral from Karwar to Kundappor was secured, and thanks to the good offices of Shaikh Hayat, who was acting as governor in the the absence of Tippu, they obtained possession of Nagar, the capital of the kingdom, and of Mangalore the royal port. This success of the English was short lived, for, as Father Joaquim Miranda an eye-witness observes, while they were engaged in rapine and plunder, Tippu hurried from Arcot with a third of his powerful army and recovered the entire country including Nagar (Bednur) and Mangalore.
Wiser from experience, the Portuguese on this occasion chose for themselves the role of passive though not uninterested spectators. The Viceroy reports that Tippu was pleased with the action of the Portuguese in refusing asylum to Shaikh Hayat at Goa at the suggestion of the English after their discomfiture in Kanara. Some of the Christians however, in their enthusiasm for the English cause, imperiled the fortunes of the entire community. Writing in May, 1783 from Mangalore, Major John Campbell informs the President in Bombay, “There are a number of native Christians here who had been formerly attached to the Artillery; 34 of them are taken in the same service here, and Francis Pinto, late an ensign in the “Bombay Natives”, whom General Mathews had promised to employ and give Ensign’s pay and batta, I have appointed to take charge of them with the same rank, pay and allowance as he had formerly”. This is supported by a statement of Scurry, who was a prisoner for a long time at Seringapatam, to the effect that General Mathews had borrowed Rs. 33,000 from the Kanara Christians.
This was sufficient to provide the wrath of Tippy who had long been burning with fanatical hatred against the Christians. As a Prince, he has advocated a thorough-going persecution when the Christians of Kanara had gone over to the English leaving the defense to collapse. Now he openly accused them of being principally responsible for the ease with which the English conquered his kingdom, “acting as guides and facilitating their communications”. He charged the priest with having brought all this trouble on himself and his people, fined them 3 lakhs of rupees and had them expelled from his dominions. He then conceived the project of stamping out Christianity from the land altogether and unleashed a sanguinary persecution. A laconic description of what followed is given in a letter to the Secretary of State by the Portuguese Viceroy, who observes, “No sooner did he find (Tippu) himself free from the English with whom he had concluded peace, than he gave open demonstration of his tyranny and hatred towards the Christians,…. He exterminated the Christians of all those places, who should total forty thousand souls. Compelling them to cross the Ghats, he took them to Seringapatam, where he circumcised many and obliged them to follow the sects of the Moors. He sent me thirteen vicars, expelled from his dominions, writing to me to say that out of consideration for me he had refrained from inflicting on them greater punishments and greater monetary fines… These priests reached Goa in great misery and I replied to his letter protesting the justice of their cause and that of the Christians’.
The Viceroy had reason to protest. He was convinced that the whole body of Christians could not be charged with connivance at the success of the English invading force, for in those days the Christians followed the lead of the Portuguese in such matters, and the latter as we have seen had remained strictly neutral. Consequently while condemning outright the action of such of the Christians as made common cause with the English against their own sovereign, we must admit that Tippu in making ‘the entire community pay for the crimes of a few of their number was guilty of a high handedness for which no justification can be pleaded.
Notes:
[1] Buchanan, A Journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore Canara and Malabar, III, P. 24.[2] Braganca Pereira, Arquiro Portugese Oriental, III, Pt. II, pp. 98-99.
[3] Pissurlenoar, loc. cit. A decree of Father Joaquim Maohado, Vicar General of Kanara, issued some time before 1766 regulate sthe procedure for appeals against the decisions of parish priests: “From today onwards in order to maintain the peace and tranquility of this Christian realm and avoid hatreds and litigation in cases already decided before the said Parish priests and Vicar Varas, whenever they may have to appeal on the same matter in case the decision has been unjust they shall do it within the time limit of 30 days before the Superior of the Mission and in his absence before the said Vicar Varas, and after the lapse of this period no case shall be admitted a second time to judgement, so that in this way justice may be observed and perpetual litigation prevented, and the said Parish priests who may accept for decision suits already settled before their predecessors in office and their referees I hereby declare suspended and the respective parties condemned, whether the suit be one for money or for anything valuable to pay one third of the value of the subject matter which willbedevotedtotheuseofthefabrica(revenuedestined for the repairs and maintenance of a church), being at the same time deprived of any further right of appeal”, Mitras Lusitanas, p.29.
[4] Public Department Diary, 1768, No. 52, p. 32.
[5] Pissurlenoar, op. cit., Fasoioulo I, No. 12 p. 167.
[6] Ibid, Nos. 12 and 13, pp. 167-170.
[7] Op. cit., pp. 384-385.
[8] Pissurlenoar, op. cit., Fasoioulo, No. 30, p. 196 (A letter of the Archbishop of Goa to the Governor of Goa dated 17th November 1771 commending the efforts of “Lingoa do Estado” Sadasiva Camaotim on behalf of the priests).
[9] Ibid., Fasoioulo I, No. 23, pp. 185-186; No. 36, p. 200. The treaty was actually signed on the 25th of January, 1771.
[10] Ibid., Fasciculo II, No. 50, pp. 220-223.
[11] Ibid., No. 63, pp. 258-259.
[12] Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India, II, p. 413.
[13] Pissurlencar, op. cit., No. 74, p.301, No. 79 p. 305-306; also authorities mentioned in Moraes, op. cit., p. 48, note 1.
[14] Ibid., No. 77, p. 304.
[15] Ibid., No. 77, p. 303.
[16] Saldanha, op. cit., p. 18 note b. [17] Scurry, Captivity, p. 103.
[18] Pissulenoar, No. 79, p. 306.
[19] Ibid., No. 77, p. 304.
[20] Ibid., No. 75, p. 302 and No. 81, p. 314.
[21] Ibid., No. 81, p. 144. See also No. 80- Muhammad Shafi’s letter in which captivity is referred to. For other accounts of the captivity and sufferings of the Christians see Moraes, op. cit, pp. 67-68; Moore, The History of the Diocese of Mangalore, pp. 36-63, and Saldanha, The Captivity of the Canara Christians under Tippu Sultan.
Published in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 1944, pp.442-48.