This writing is to highlight an issue that everybody thought was dead. The belief may be that it has been erased legally. The mindset however continues. Slavery survived in a cauldron of authoritarianism where mental state of dependency and fear of autonomy thrives!
The transatlantic slave trade began in the mid-15th century with the Portuguese as the first slave traders in the triangular trade. This referred to the triad–Africa, which supplied labour, America which received them and Europe which paid for them. Europe’s discovery of the American continent with its plantations led to an increased demand for unpaid labour. For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women, and children from Africa were the victims of the transatlantic slave trade.
August is a commemorative month of the black movement for many reasons. August 23 is observed all over the world as the International Day for the remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition. From August 22 to 23 in 1791, the first major slave uprising took place in Saint Domingue in modern-day Haiti and lasted for 13 years, from 1791 to 1804 when the former French colony got its independence.
On August 28, 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act, received royal assent. On coming into effect, slavery was officially abolished throughout the British Empire. The British Government spent a sum equivalent to £16 billion today compensating slave owners for the ‘loss of their property’ in the Empire, but no compensation was paid to the slaves. The Indian Slavery Act of 1843, was enacted during the tenure of Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General of India, declaring slavery illegal within the territories of the East India Company.
On a recent visit to Browness-on-Windermere of the Lake district in North West England, we visited a quaint little Church, off the tourist directory dedicated to St Martin. Like in most Anglican Churches outside London, it is surrounded by a cemetery. The ‘Walk around guide’, of a single page, mentioned the grave stone of Rasselas Belfield a freed slave, which is a listed monument as part of English Heritage’s ‘Sites of Memory’. The Church of Goa, Daman & Diu, Temples, Mosques and the Govt of Goa, need to emulate the importance of ‘Sites of Memory’ for posterity and enlist them, especially those not on the tourist map but yet important to Goa’s history and culture.
Again on August 28, 1955 Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy was brutally murdered by two white men in Mississippi. The accusation was flirting with a white woman, a store owner where he went to buy some bubble gum. Both men were acquitted. Emmett’s mother took the brave decision to hold an open casket funeral for the world to see her son’s mutilated corpse with eyes gorged out. More than 50 years later the woman, Carolyn Bryant admitted she had lied under oath.
Yet again on August 28, 1963 Martin Luther’s King Jr. delivered his iconic speech ‘I have a dream’ to over 250,000 civil rights supporters. His vision was “where people would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”. It is no wonder that Senator Barack Obama chose this day to accept the Democratic Presidential nomination in Denver in 2008.
Nobody talks about slave trade in Portuguese Goa. The Arab sea trade with India enabled slave trade to reach Goa, from Africa and these were referred to as habshis. Discussions focus on the slave problem in America and the Civil War over slavery between the northern states and the southern states from 1861 till 1865 when it ended. Much before this, the Anglo-Portuguese Anti-Slavery treaty of 1818 and the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1842 sought to put a definitive end to Slave trade from Portuguese Africa to any destination in the Indian Ocean. However these laws were difficult to implement as there were economic inducements which made trade from Mozambique profitable with India and China. The Church action through the ‘Father of Christians’ who supervised the process of manumission freed many slaves. Goa therefore was not free from the taint of slavery!
Many scholars have worked on this subject like C R Boxer, Ann Pescatello, G Clarence-Smith, P P Shirodkar, Jeanette Pinto and Teotonio de Souza. The Mhamai Kamat’s were a Goa based business house, brokers, money-lenders and traders with the French East India Company in Goa from 1764 till 1791. Slaves went sent to Mauritius then a French colony. The term, servidores was used in the documents so that slaves pass off as servants for the custom clearance in the shipping process. Souza in his study on the ‘Slave trade in Goa’, mentions the name of a French man Couronat, who wrote to the Mhamai’s from Pune on October 15, 1777 with a request for 400 young and strong negrito slaves and was willing to invest Rs 20,000 for this transaction.
The accounts of foreign travellers like Linschotten and Pyard de Laval have details of the slave markets in Goa. Linschotten writes about Abyssinian slaves in Goa serving the Portuguese as sailors. He describes the Christian habshis having four cross shaped branding on their faces. In the recent past, the Siddis now settled in Yellapur, Karnataka have come to Goa in search of employment as maids or menial workers. They speak the Salcette Konkani and they have very typical Goan Catholic names like Bostiao, Sebestiao, Antonette, etc. They all have a common oral history of running away from the Pakles.
Goa had its use for the slaves in domestic service, as well as in the State run galleys and the gunpowder factory. There are references in the letters sent by Afonso de Albuquerque to twenty-four slave girls he sent to the Queen of Portugal. In ‘Viagem de Francisco Pyarard de Laval’, he writes about a public square where slave auctioning was held. The most expensive were sold for 20-30 pardaus and the African female slaves were in demand although they emitted an acrid smell of garlic. Jean Mocquet who visited Goa in the early seventieth century, discusses the cruelty meted out to the slaves in Goa when some slave mistresses would even drop hot melted sealing wax on the bodies of their women slaves.
José Wicki S.J. in his book, O Livro do Pai dos Cristãos writes that although the Church tried to put an end to such excesses, it brought young Chinese boys and girls,especially from Macau as slaves. Most religious orders had their own slaves. Church authorities enacted laws ordering the Hindu slave owners to free the converted slaves. The Municipality of the City of Goa had slave retrievers, to help the slave owners recover their runaway slaves. In fact it was the Portuguese slave trading in the Bay of Bengal that provoked the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to put an end to the flourishing Portuguese settlement at Hughly, in 1632.
Indentured labour and other forms of concealed slavery are new versions of slavery. A slave mindset like bowing to majoritarianism and belief in the caste system, where birth is more important than ability is an aberration to post liberated Goa and India. Slavery is not a dead, it is still well and alive today. Modern slavery is most prevalent in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Various protective discrimination laws have not fully ameliorated the oppressed. Black people and the low castes in India have been historically marginalised and dedicated days help to remember why ‘people over the world’, as the popular song goes, need to make reparations for this. A slave mindset is not a healthy breeding ground for a thriving democracy.
(Dr Sushila Sawant Mendes is a Professor in History and Independent researcher and Recipient of Goa Govt Best Teacher Award)