Abstract
Goa’s military history, and to some extent its history of violence, cannot be readily linked to its present incarnation as a laid-back tourist haven. But in fact, Goa does have a rather peculiar military and developmental history that explains its present. The literature survey shows that the diverse Portuguese military and colonial history towards and after the turn of the millennium is still uneven but has become more sophisticated. This introductory chapter lays certain bases for the message of the entire book, i.e., the military history of the Portuguese in Goa was nothing like that of their larger British counterpart in India; it was a case study in weakness rather than of a hegemon. The chapter also lays out the outline of the subsequent chapters, which trace the evolution of the Portuguese colonial force in India and the conflicts it engaged in during the transition from the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
E. Luce, Strange rise of modern India (London: Little Brown Books, 2006); see also K. Forrester, Banyan tree adventures: Travels in India (Alresford: O-Books, 2018); V. Pinho, Snapshots of Indo-Portuguese history (IV) (Panaji: V. Pinho, 2009).
- 2.
K. Maxwell, Pombal: Paradox of the enlightenment (Cambridge: CUP, 1995), p. 128. C. Sevalgem, Portugal military (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1994). V. M. Godinho, Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial 2 vols. (Lisbon: Editoria Presença, 1981). A case is made for the economic history of Portugal, see P. Lains, “The internationalization of Portuguese historiography: View from economic history”, e-Journal of Portuguese History vol. 1.2 (2003), 2 pp.
- 3.
G. Malleson, The decisive battles of India, from 1746 to 1849 (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1885). The Portuguese accounts such as “New account of […] victories [of] D. Luiz de Menezes”, “An account of the conquest […] of Alorna” and “Account of wars in India” could be located in the Portuguese archives.
- 4.
Luís de P. Guimarães, Companha do Humbe (1897–1898) (Lisbon: np, 1938).
- 5.
C. Radulet, Sistema marcial asiático, político, histórico, genealógico, analítico e miscelânico (Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 1994). See Ethel M. Pope, India in Portuguese literature (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1989), p. 198. It should be noted that the Portuguese had begun to study Indian languages, as revealed by the publication of books such as Mahratti Grammar, Indostana (Urdu) Grammar and Vocabulary in Bengali; this was in tandem with the efforts of British antiquarians and orientalists in the eighteenth and especially nineteenth centuries to study scientifically the cultures and subject peoples under colonial rule.
- 6.
Joaquim H. da Cunha Rivara, Archivo Portuguez Oriental (New Delhi: Asian Education Services, 1992). Rivara’s other more specific work on the subject is Brados a favor dos communidades (A book in favour of the communities of the villages of the State of India) (Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1870).
- 7.
F.N. Xavier, Historical sketch of the communities of the villages in the islands, Salsette and Bardez (1852); Cunha Rivara, Archivo Portuguez Oriental (1877); L. Mandes, A Índia Portugueza (1886); J.H. Cunha Rivara, Brados a favor dos communidades (Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1870); A.B. de Bragança Pereira, Ethnography of Portuguese India (1923). The examples of the old manuals for studying the various language such as Marathi, Urdu and Bengali could be located in the Biblioteca Nacional (Portugal). Ismael J.A. Gracia, Catalogo dos livros do assentamento da gente de guerra que veio do reino para a India desde 1731 até 1811 (Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1893).
- 8.
Ângela B. Xavier, A invenção de Goa (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciência Sociais, 2008); Ângela B. Xavier, “Ser cidadão no Estado da Índia (século XVI–XVIII): Entre local e o imperial”, in A.B. Xavier and C.N. Silva, eds., O governo dos outros: Poder e diferença no império português (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciência Sociais, 2016), pp. 216–92.
- 9.
Survey of Teixeira N.S. and Barata M.T. eds., Nova história military de Portugal 5 vols. (Lisbon: Circulo de Leitories, 2003).
- 10.
N.S. Teixeira and M.T. Barata eds., Nova história military de Portugal vol. 2–3 (Lisbon: Circulo de Leitories, 2003).
- 11.
J. Varandes, “História miltar em Portugal: Um projeto do Ensino universitário em rede”, Revista Militar vol. 2602 (2018), pp. 949–56. See specifically for instance, A. Teixeira, Fortalezas: Estado Português da Índia (Lisbon: Tribuna, 2008).
- 12.
For instance, see V. Alexandre, “O liberalismo português e as colonias de Africa, 1820–39”, Analise Social vol. XV (1980), pp. 61–62.
- 13.
E. Carreira, Globalising Goa, 1660–1820: Change and exchange in a former capital of empire (Goa: Goa 1556, 2014), pp. 131–60 and P. Shirodkar, “British occupation of Goa”, in P. Shirodkar ed., Researches in Indo-Portuguese history vol. 1 (Jaipur: Publication Scheme, 1998), pp. 229–50.
- 14.
K. Roy, War and society in colonial India (Oxford: OUP, 2006), p. 2.
- 15.
J.A. Goldstone, “The problem of the early modern world”, Journal of Economics and Social History of the Orient vol. 41 (1998), pp. 249-84.
- 16.
Earlier wars such as P. Emmer, “The first global war: Dutch versus Iberia in Asia, Africa and the New world, 1590–1609”, e-Journal of Portuguese History vol. 1.1 (2003), pp. 1–14. See also D. Baugh, The global seven years war (New York: Routledge, 2014) and A. Mikaberidze, Napoleonic wars: A global history (Oxford: OUP, 2020).
- 17.
Refer website https://www.metricinvestments.com/history-of-international-trade (accessed 11 May 2021), specifically data by Estevadeordal, Frantz and Taylor (2003).
- 18.
See for instance, R.J. Moore, “Imperial India, 1858–1914”, in A.N. Porter and A.M. Low eds., Oxford history of the British empire: The nineteenth century, vol. III (Oxford: OUP, 2001), pp. 422–46 and S. Tharoor, The British empire in India: Era of darkness (New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2016).
- 19.
See Johnson & Browning's 1860 map of India, Ceylon, Birmah, […], detailed map accessed at https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/69997/johnsons-hindostan-or-british-india-johnson-browning. Alvin Johnson issued his illustrated family atlas from 1860 and was one of the most significant atlas publishers of the second half of the nineteenth century. The French continued to retain the port-settlements of Pondicherry, Karaikal, Yanam, Mahé, and Chandernagore. Denmark-Norway only sold Tranquebar to the British in 1868.
- 20.
Goncalo de M. Teixeira Pinto, Memorias sobre as possessões na Asia, escriptas no anno de 1823 (New Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1859).
- 21.
See for instance, Uma P. Thapliyal, Military history of India (New Delhi: Rupa Publication, 2018).
- 22.
Antonio da S. Rego, O ultramar português no século XVIII and O ultramar português no século XIX (Lisbon: Agência-Geral do Ultramar, 1966/1967). Timor was briefly detached from Macau in 1850.
- 23.
Refer S. Conrad S. and J. Osterhammel, The emerging modern world (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2018) and Stearns P., Globalization in world history (New York: Routledge, 2019).
- 24.
Jan de Vries, “The limits of globalization in the early modern world”, The Economic History Review vol. 63.3 (2010), pp. 710–33. See also corroborating data on world trade mooted in Estevadeordal, Frantz and Taylor (2003).
- 25.
World-system proponents did not give enough credence to Asian trade although the California school conferred a role for China in the world-system in their intense debates. Of the economists who gave important consideration to ‘concrete’ data and impact of world trade, what might deemed as ‘hard’ evidence by one group (for instance, Williamson and O’Rourke [2002]) might be regarded as ‘soft’, from certain perspective, in another (Flynn and Giraldez (2004)). For de Vries, the ‘process of globalization’ was a more concrete process compared to the phenomenon of imperialism (or colonialism); which was deemed more as an outcome. See de Vries, “Limits of globalization in the early modern world”, pp. 710–33. On the other references, see Williamson and O’Rourke (2002) and Flynn and Giraldez (2004).
- 26.
Maria de J. dos Mártires Lopes, Goa Setecentista: Tradição e modernidade (Porto: Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 1999).
- 27.
E. Carreira, Globalising Goa, 1660–1820: Change and exchange in a former capital of empire (Goa: Goa 1556, 2014).
- 28.
C. Pinto, Situating Indo-Portuguese trade history: A commercial resurgence, 1770-1830 (Kannur: Irish, 2003). C. Pinto, Trade and finance in Portuguese India (New Delhi: Concept publishing, 1994). C. Pinto, Colonial Panjim: Its governance, its people (Goa: Goa 1556, 2017). C. Pinto, Anatomy of a colonial capital: Panjim (Goa: Goa 1556, 2016). Paulo T. de Matos and J. Lucassen, “Goa at work around 1850”, IISH Research paper no. 54 (2020).
- 29.
Xavier, A invenção de Goa; Xavier, “Ser cidadão no Estado da Índia (século XVI–XVIII): Entre local e o imperial”, pp. 216–92.
- 30.
P. Kratoska, High imperialism, 1890s–1930s (New York: Routledge, 2001); older works such as H. Gollwitzer’s Europe in the age of imperialism, 1880–1914 (New York: WW Norton, 1979) also discusses multifaceted reasons.
- 31.
I. Wallerstein, The modern world system vols. I-II (New York: Academic Press, 1974-80). See also M. Pearson, Before colonialism: Theories on Asian-European relations, 1500-1750 (Delhi: OUP, 1988), pp. 32-50.
- 32.
C. Daniels and M. Kennedy ed., Negotiated empires: Centers and peripheries in the Americas (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 105–42.
- 33.
B. Yun-Casalilla, Iberian world empires and the globalization of Europe, 1415–1668 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). The continued resilience of the Iberian states, and in certain instances revival of power and influence, was a testimony to their strength, attested to by writers such as D. Goodman and J. Habron. Spanish naval power, 1589–1665 (Cambridge: CUP, 2003) and J. Habron, Spanish experience of sea power: Trafalgar and Spanish navy (Annapolis: US Naval Academic Press, 2004).
- 34.
Jan Glete, War and state in early modern Europe: Spain, Dutch republic and Sweden as fiscal-military states (New York: Routledge, 2002); S. Dunn, D. Grummitt and H. Cools, “War and the state in early modern Europe: Widening the debate”, War in History vol. 15.4 (2008), pp. 371–88. See also B. Downing, Military revolution and political change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) and B. Porter, War and the rise of the state (New York: Free Press, 1994).
- 35.
The fluctuations included for example the re-organization of Estado da Índia colonies in the Indian Ocean and farther East as well as loss of Brazil trade after 1822).
- 36.
M. Roberts, The military revolution, 1560–1660; an inaugural lecture (delivered before the Queen's University of Belfast) (Belfast: M. Boyd, 1956). G. Parker, The Military Revolution, 1500–1800: Military innovation and the rise of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (first edition 1988)). The first theories refer to paradigms which explain the rise of the modern (Western) state through military innovation such as the mass adoption of muskets (Roberts), the building of star fortress (G. Parker) etc. that had impacts on the organization of state and society.
- 37.
J. Black, War in the early modern world (New York: Routledge, 2005); J. Black, War and the world: Military power and the fate of continents, 1450–2000 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). C. Rogers, The Military revolution debate: Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe (New York: Routledge, 1995). Some tenets of Black’s observations are as follows: (1) Black posits that the adoption of military technology (for instance, cannon or small arms) was undertaken after the tumultuous (religious) wars of the first half of the seventeenth century, not earlier. (2) Black accounts for non-European conflicts outside Europe and highlights that these were not necessarily inferior in their conduct or organization to those in Europe. Moreover, many focused on well-known conflicts or successful battles. Less-successful engagements have their lessons, and interludes between conflicts were equally important periods for developments in weaponry.
- 38.
This deepens the discourse raised by C. Tilly (1985) and F. Lane (1953) delving into the nature of governments or their societies and how resources might be mobilized under different regimes. See Glete, War and state in early modern Europe: Spain, Dutch republic and Sweden as fiscal-military states; S. Dunn et al., “War and the state in early modern Europe: Widening the debate”; Downing, Military revolution and political change. See also C. Tilly, “War making and state making as organized crime”, in P. Evans et al. eds., Bringing the state back in (Cambridge: CUP, 1985), pp. 169–86 and F.C. Lane, “Economic consequences of organized violence”, Journal of Economic History vol. 18.4 (1953), pp. 401–17.
- 39.
F. Dores Costa, Review of ‘The Military Revolution in early modern Europe: A revision’, e-Journal of Portuguese History vol. 16.2 (2018), accessed at https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:841404/.
- 40.
S. Alavi, The sepoys and the company: Tradition and transition in northern India, 1770–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); P. Rosen, Societies and military power: India and its armies (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996); D. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and sepoy: The ethnohistory of the military labor market in Hindustan, 1450–1850 (Cambridge: CUP, 1990).
- 41.
C. Wickremesekera, Best black troops in the world: British perceptions and the making of the sepoy, 1746–1805 (Delhi: Manohar, 2002); P. Bandopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition and after (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2014).
- 42.
K. Teltscher, India inscribed: European and British writing on India, 1600–1800 (Oxford: OUP, 1995); D. Peers, Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial armies and the garrison state in early nineteenth-century India (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995); K. Roy, War, culture and society in early modern South Asia, 1740–1849 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).
- 43.
J. Lynn, Battle: A history of combat and culture (New York: Basic Books, 2004). The other terms used in the model are: (i) perfected reality (ideal scenario of war that the society creates in line with what it is able to accept); (ii) refusal to consider a certain scenario as war (this represents a step further from ‘perfected reality’ where society refuses to consider this and does not even bother to create an alternative); (iii) extreme reality (scenario of war that occurred outside the norms/ethics of society), (iv) alternative discourse (society creates this to explain extreme reality).
- 44.
Conference “Military revolution in Portugal and its empire”, Evora, Portugal (June 2018). A. Muteira et al. eds., First world empire: Portugal, war and military revolution (Thames: Routledge, 2021).
- 45.
C. Rogers ed., The Military Revolution debate: Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe (New York: Avalon Publishing, 1995), pp. 76–77.
- 46.
A. Saaksvuori, Product lifecycle management (New York: Springer, 2008). See also R. Bess, “Seven reasons why products fail” (2021), accessed at https://280group.com/product-management-blog/7-reasons-products-fail/.
- 47.
M. Stephen, Albuquerque (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892) and Roger L. de Jesus, “Gunpowder, firepower and the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century”, in P. Malekandathil et al. eds., India, the Portuguese and maritime interactions vol. 1 (New Delhi: Primus Books, 2019), pp. 220-31. See also F. Jacob and G. Visoni-Alonzo, “The theory of Military Revolution: Global, numerous, endless?”, RUHM vol. 3 (2014), pp. 189–204.
- 48.
Lynn, Battle: A history of combat and culture. See C. Bayly, Indian society and the making of the British empire (Cambridge: CUP, 1988) and P. Marshall, Bengal: The British bridgehead (Cambridge: CUP, 1988).
- 49.
R. Trevers, “Imperial revolutions and global repercussions: South Asia and the world, 1750–1850”, in D. Armitage and S. Subrahmanyam eds., Age of revolutions in global context (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 144–66.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Y.H. Sim, T. (2022). Literature Survey and Military Developments in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. In: Portuguese Colonial Military in India. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6294-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6294-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-19-6293-6
Online ISBN: 978-981-19-6294-3
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)