Power, Religion and Violence in Sixteenth-Century Goa

This study seeks to discuss some aspects of the processes of Christianisation in the context of the Portuguese imperial experience in India. The object is a violent event that took place on the outskirts of the region of Salcete (in the villages of Cuncolim, Veroda, Assolna, Velim, and Ambelim), situated south of the city of Goa, in 1583. The episode resulted in the deaths of five Jesuits and several Christians, as well as of the villagers who were later held to be responsible for these killings. This incident will be analyzed here not just in terms of the metropole-colony relationship (which was becoming increasingly evident after the re-incorporation of these territories in 1543, three decades after the conquest of the city of Goa by Afonso de Albuquerque) but also in the context of the local political, social, and religious configurations.