Goa’s Christian population remained static (around 180,000) for a full century between the late 17th and 18th centuries. At the same time, Kanara’s Christian population of Goan origin saw a dramatic increase confirming significant emigration from Goa to Kanara during this period.
Around 1600, probably about 1,000 Christians, mainly soldiers, and Portuguese casados, lived in and around the forts of Mangalore, Honavar, and Kundapur. Each fort was garrisoned by around 200 men. Mangalore had a settlement of 35 casados (married settlers).
The first major influx of Goa’s ‘canarins’ was caused by the decade-long (1570-79) Goa-Bijapur wars. In 1574, settlements sprung up at Barkur, Basrur, Kundapur and Kallianpur. In 1577, two Goan Jesuits confessed 300 persons in Mangalore. Two contemporary Portuguese observers, Antonio Bocarro and Paulo da Trinidade, confirm that there was a very small Christian community in Kanara around 1635.
Between 1652 and 1654, Shivappa Nayaka, the Ikerri ruler, captured Goa’s Kanara forts. Goa had sent over 70 ships with reinforcements. When the forts fell, these men, soldiers, and artisans, with little chance of returning to Goa, joined Shivappa’s army. In 1658, the propaganda de fide’s emissary, Pre Sebastiani, reported that a Jesuit priest based at Honavar, Pre Spinola, ministered to 6,000 Kanara Christians.
Periodic Maratha invasions commencing with Shivaji’s invasion of Bardes in 1667, precipitated large-scale migrations of Goa’s Christians to Kanara over the following century. Somshekara Nayaka’s assassination in 1671, triggered a civil war until his widow, Rani Chennamma, regained control. Meanwhile, food shortages in war-ravaged Bardes powered Christian emigration to Kanara where their labour and agricultural skills contributed to grain output and land revenues.
Both states needed each other; Goa for Ikerri’s rice, and Ikerri for Goa’s gunpowder and military and naval support. A series of Goa-Ikerri treaties reveals the ups and downs of this relationship. The 1631 and 1633 treaties speak only of commercial matters while that of 1671, when Somshekara asked for Goa’s military help to counter Bijapur, allowed the establishment of a Goan factory (warehouse) in Mangalore. The 1678, 1707, and 1714 treaties have a number of clauses for the promotion of Christianity and the protection of Christians in Kanara, confirming a growing population of Goan Christians in Kanara.
Sambaji’s invasion of Goa in 1684 accelerated Goan Christian emigration, ironically the very section of the population the Portuguese had forced into their cultural, religious, and political orbit in the process of state formation. Goa’s laws favouring Christians had resulted in most ganvkari lands falling into the hands of Christian converts, now the only major financial resource available to the government. Taxes, loans, and conscription of men-to-man defense fortifications devastated agricultural output. The coils of despair tightened.
Pre Jose Vaz, in 1681, found Kanara’s Christians settled in four areas: Mangalore (Bantwal, Arkula/Ferangipet, Mulki), Kundapur/Barcelore/Basrur (Bhatkal, Shirva, Kallianpur, Gangoli), and Honavar (Kumta, Chandavar). By 1697 when Rani Chennamma died, 21 churches had been built: Honavar (three), Kundapur (five), Mulki (four), and Mangalore (nine). In 1722, Goa’s Christian population was estimated at 181,565, and Kanara’s at 24,600. Between 1763 and 1768, Haidar Ali recruited around 9,000 Christians from Kanara to serve in his armouries, stables, and garrisons in Srirangapatna. By 1784, the number of churches had risen to 27. Most were pulled down by Tipu that year. Twenty years after their return from the Captivity, an 1818 census records 21,827 Christians in Kanara with the parishes of Rosario (2,242) and Milagres (1,468) having the highest number. Fifty-nine percent belonged to Mangalore jurisdiction (Rosario, Milagres, Omzur, Bantwal, Ullal, Bidrem/Hospet, Pezar, Mogarnad, Agrar), 18% to Mulki (Mulki, Kirem, Shirva, Karkal), 10% to Kundapur (Barcelore/ Basrur, Gangoli, Nagar, Kallianpur, Nilavar), 9% to Honavar (Honavar, Chandor, Gulmona), 3% to Ankola, and 1% to Sunkeri.
Putting all this data together, Kanara probably had a Christian population of Goan extract of around 40,000 in 1784 with a further 10,000 serving in other parts of Tipu’s saltanat-i-khudadad. Therefore, about 20% of Christians of Goan origin (Goa 1779- 185,824, Kanara- 50,000) lived in Kanara and Mysore in 1784 and were subjected to the devastating episode known as the Captivity. The only plausible reason for this is their identification with Goa and Christianity, or as was perceived in those times, their belonging to the ferangi mezhab, the Portuguese sphere of influence.
The Mangalorean identity was to appear much later, after the Italian Jesuits took over the Mangalore diocese in 1878, and the steady recovery of the post-Captivity community. This Mangalorean identity expressed itself in ways different from the Goan: in houses that incorporated local and English architecture in addition to Goan; in the use of the English language to express itself; in higher education that took the brightest of the younger generation to other parts of the British empire; into industry and new professions. The 2011 census estimated Goa had a Christian population of 360,000, and Karnataka 1,142,647 of different denominations and regions. Of these, a large percentage belong to the descendants of Christian migrants from Goa. Besides, significant populations of both communities live abroad. Perhaps, dissemination of information related to our common history, origins, and culture would bridge the Goan-Mangalorean identity gap and help create a greater community sharing a unifying common heritage.
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