Publication Date
2009
Categories
The casados (Portuguese men overseas who married indigenous women) were first mentioned in the Portuguese documentation in a letter dated 22 December, 1510, which was sent to King Dom Manuel I by Governor Afonso de Albuquerque, to relate the taking of Goa. From the narrative it can be determined that marriage was a means of tying men to the land, so that they would become farmers. A tença (annuity) for such marriages had been established; the casados received a horse, a house, land, and cattle. The women they married, some of whom had been imprisoned after the conquest of the city, brought to the marriage their possessions, which were their dowry.
With the instituting of casados as a social category, the men involved in the overseas expansion were divided into two groups, as indicated by Charles Boxer, who designated them unmarried soldiers and married settlers. The men who went to India were at the service of the Crown either as missionaries under patronage or as laypersons, soldiers of the king. Once in India, the latter could marry Hindu or Muslim women converts to Christianity and leave military service, to become casados. According to Sanjay Subrahmanyam, generally the casados can be described as the Asian Portuguese equivalent of the middle class: urban merchants. They would be os homens bons, the good men, of the Iberian Peninsula, sometimes designated as cidadãos honrados, upright citizens, falling somewhere between the low nobility at one extreme and the little people at the other.
The social category casados can be understood based on the different roles its members acquired in Portuguese India. First they functioned as settlers. The casados became established as a social group through mixed marriages but, especially, by being granted certain privileges. In 1515, the Charter of Privileges sent by Albuquerque and confirmed by the King with some modifications, established that aldermen, justices of peace, market inspectors and craftsmen would participate in the Municipal Council of Goa. While serving on this council, the married settlers could not be imprisoned in the public jails. All public positions in the municipality, except those appointed by the Crown, were earmarked for married Portuguese settlers. All who filled these positions could sail freely and import provisions as well as consumer goods without being taxed. Spices were one of the exceptions to the tax exemption.
The second approach to understanding the casados requires that we view them as a homogeneous group, easily identified within the emerging Indo-Portuguese society as a whole. They became a group that had to be contended with: economically, because of their material possessions, and politically, due to the influence they exerted. Commerce was the casado´s field of action, as they were involved in the inter-Asiatic trade or in the Rota do Cabo, the maritime route between East and West, established after Vasco da Gama´s discovery of India. In Goa, the casados operated mainly on two fronts. The first was linked to coastal commerce with the region of Guzarete, which was accomplished in two annual runs by the coastal fleet. The second front went hand in hand with the caravans that traded with Kanara, which supplied most of the pepper for the Carreira da India (India route) and for Malabar.
Being second in importance, the community of Cochim, operated as an intermediary in the commerce between Coromandel, Malaca, Macao and the Bengali ports on one side, and Guzarete on the other. In the East Coast of India, in Coromandel, the casados´ operation was centered on São Tomé de Melipor and Negapatão.
The casados were also involved in long-distance commerce. Beginning in 1570, the greater portion of oceanic commerce occurred through concession contracts, the viagens (trips). The right to viagens invariably was granted to noblemen; however, casados from Goa, Cochim, and Malaca, frequently were the real investors behind the holders. From the early decades of the 17th century, due to the losses that the Dutch caused the Portuguese trade networks, revenues from the lands in the Northern Province (Damão, Baçaim and Diu) came to constitute a good portion of the casados´ income.
In the political arena, the nominations to the Câmaras Muncipais, (Town Halls) were known to come from within this group. These, along with the Santas Casas da Misericórdia, were the casados´central means of resistance to the Estado da India To a significant extent, it was through the influence of the casados that the founding of Santas Casas throughout the cities of Asia took place. Despite their privileges, the casados were discriminated against by the noblemen, facing two points of divergence with the administration. Diverging commercial interests were the first: both when the Crown participated directly in commerce and when it granted monopolies. Secondly, the casados petitioned that the nominations to the positions of captain and other public offices would be drawn from within their own communities, because the short duration of their time of service - the nominations, usually of members of the nobility from mainland Portugal, lasted three years, for captains and overseers - did not allow the incumbents to become familiar with local needs. Although they also Indicate the strength of the Crown´s strategies, these conflicts signal the emergence of local power which, in specific situations, attempted to oppose the central power.
The casados were also united in their rejection of armed conflicts, viewing these as an obstacle to commerce due to making enemies of their partners in trade. The Portuguese casados also rejected war opportunities, because these implied being called on to make loans to the crown for the construction of fortresses as well as fighting in the war along with their slaves. This brings us to the third role played by the casados group. There was always a shortage of Portuguese effectives in the overseas expansion; therefore, the casados were viewed as a military reserve, forming a second line military force. In Goa, at the beginning of the 17th century, the estimate was ten slaves per casado household, which indicates that a minimum of eight thousand slaves were part of casado households in Goa alone. Based on Antonio Bocarro´s research, which ocurred between 1637 and 1638, there would have been 4,900 white casados and 7,400 black casados; the chronicler does not refer to the latter category in all fortified areas.
The children of the mixed marriages faced exclusion. They were not deemed trustworthy as soldiers, being seen as "too soft and effeminate." Nor could they be members of religious orders. They attended the Jesuit colleges but were not ordained: they could be useful as interpreters or catechists. Both decisions evidently generated dissatisfaction and rebellion among the mestizo or descendant populations, being gradually suspended after the second half of the eighteenth century.
Bibliography:
ALBUQUERQUE, Afonso de. Cartas para el-Rei D. Manuel I. Seleção, prefácio e notas de António Baião. Lisboa: Livraria Sá da Costa Editora, 1942. BOXER, Charles. "Soldados, colonos e vagabundos". Império Marítimo Português. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002. BOYAJIAN, James C. Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580-1640. Baltimore-London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. COUTO, Dejanirah. "Alguns dados para um estudo ulterior sobre a 'sociedade espontânea' no Estado da Índia na primeira metade do século XVI". In: Charles Borges, S.J. & M. N. Pearson (coord.) Metahistória. História questionando História. Lisboa: Vega, 2007. LOPES, Maria de Jesus dos Mártires. "D. João III e a gênese da sociedade indo-portuguesa". In: D. João III e o Império. Lisboa: CHAM, 2005, pp. 417-432. RODRIGUES, Vitor Luís Gaspar. "O papel das tropas locais e dos "casados" no seio da organização militar portuguesa no Oriente (séc. XVI)". In: Futuro e História da Lusofonia Global. Lisboa: IICT, 2008, pp. 64-72. http://www2.iict.pt/?idc=102&idi=12798#_ftn14. SUBRAHMANYAM, Sanjay. "O mundo dos casados". Império Asiático Português 1500-1700. Lisboa: Difel, 1995.
Translated by: Maria João Pimentel
With the instituting of casados as a social category, the men involved in the overseas expansion were divided into two groups, as indicated by Charles Boxer, who designated them unmarried soldiers and married settlers. The men who went to India were at the service of the Crown either as missionaries under patronage or as laypersons, soldiers of the king. Once in India, the latter could marry Hindu or Muslim women converts to Christianity and leave military service, to become casados. According to Sanjay Subrahmanyam, generally the casados can be described as the Asian Portuguese equivalent of the middle class: urban merchants. They would be os homens bons, the good men, of the Iberian Peninsula, sometimes designated as cidadãos honrados, upright citizens, falling somewhere between the low nobility at one extreme and the little people at the other.
The social category casados can be understood based on the different roles its members acquired in Portuguese India. First they functioned as settlers. The casados became established as a social group through mixed marriages but, especially, by being granted certain privileges. In 1515, the Charter of Privileges sent by Albuquerque and confirmed by the King with some modifications, established that aldermen, justices of peace, market inspectors and craftsmen would participate in the Municipal Council of Goa. While serving on this council, the married settlers could not be imprisoned in the public jails. All public positions in the municipality, except those appointed by the Crown, were earmarked for married Portuguese settlers. All who filled these positions could sail freely and import provisions as well as consumer goods without being taxed. Spices were one of the exceptions to the tax exemption.
The second approach to understanding the casados requires that we view them as a homogeneous group, easily identified within the emerging Indo-Portuguese society as a whole. They became a group that had to be contended with: economically, because of their material possessions, and politically, due to the influence they exerted. Commerce was the casado´s field of action, as they were involved in the inter-Asiatic trade or in the Rota do Cabo, the maritime route between East and West, established after Vasco da Gama´s discovery of India. In Goa, the casados operated mainly on two fronts. The first was linked to coastal commerce with the region of Guzarete, which was accomplished in two annual runs by the coastal fleet. The second front went hand in hand with the caravans that traded with Kanara, which supplied most of the pepper for the Carreira da India (India route) and for Malabar.
Being second in importance, the community of Cochim, operated as an intermediary in the commerce between Coromandel, Malaca, Macao and the Bengali ports on one side, and Guzarete on the other. In the East Coast of India, in Coromandel, the casados´ operation was centered on São Tomé de Melipor and Negapatão.
The casados were also involved in long-distance commerce. Beginning in 1570, the greater portion of oceanic commerce occurred through concession contracts, the viagens (trips). The right to viagens invariably was granted to noblemen; however, casados from Goa, Cochim, and Malaca, frequently were the real investors behind the holders. From the early decades of the 17th century, due to the losses that the Dutch caused the Portuguese trade networks, revenues from the lands in the Northern Province (Damão, Baçaim and Diu) came to constitute a good portion of the casados´ income.
In the political arena, the nominations to the Câmaras Muncipais, (Town Halls) were known to come from within this group. These, along with the Santas Casas da Misericórdia, were the casados´central means of resistance to the Estado da India To a significant extent, it was through the influence of the casados that the founding of Santas Casas throughout the cities of Asia took place. Despite their privileges, the casados were discriminated against by the noblemen, facing two points of divergence with the administration. Diverging commercial interests were the first: both when the Crown participated directly in commerce and when it granted monopolies. Secondly, the casados petitioned that the nominations to the positions of captain and other public offices would be drawn from within their own communities, because the short duration of their time of service - the nominations, usually of members of the nobility from mainland Portugal, lasted three years, for captains and overseers - did not allow the incumbents to become familiar with local needs. Although they also Indicate the strength of the Crown´s strategies, these conflicts signal the emergence of local power which, in specific situations, attempted to oppose the central power.
The casados were also united in their rejection of armed conflicts, viewing these as an obstacle to commerce due to making enemies of their partners in trade. The Portuguese casados also rejected war opportunities, because these implied being called on to make loans to the crown for the construction of fortresses as well as fighting in the war along with their slaves. This brings us to the third role played by the casados group. There was always a shortage of Portuguese effectives in the overseas expansion; therefore, the casados were viewed as a military reserve, forming a second line military force. In Goa, at the beginning of the 17th century, the estimate was ten slaves per casado household, which indicates that a minimum of eight thousand slaves were part of casado households in Goa alone. Based on Antonio Bocarro´s research, which ocurred between 1637 and 1638, there would have been 4,900 white casados and 7,400 black casados; the chronicler does not refer to the latter category in all fortified areas.
The children of the mixed marriages faced exclusion. They were not deemed trustworthy as soldiers, being seen as "too soft and effeminate." Nor could they be members of religious orders. They attended the Jesuit colleges but were not ordained: they could be useful as interpreters or catechists. Both decisions evidently generated dissatisfaction and rebellion among the mestizo or descendant populations, being gradually suspended after the second half of the eighteenth century.
Bibliography:
ALBUQUERQUE, Afonso de. Cartas para el-Rei D. Manuel I. Seleção, prefácio e notas de António Baião. Lisboa: Livraria Sá da Costa Editora, 1942. BOXER, Charles. "Soldados, colonos e vagabundos". Império Marítimo Português. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002. BOYAJIAN, James C. Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580-1640. Baltimore-London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. COUTO, Dejanirah. "Alguns dados para um estudo ulterior sobre a 'sociedade espontânea' no Estado da Índia na primeira metade do século XVI". In: Charles Borges, S.J. & M. N. Pearson (coord.) Metahistória. História questionando História. Lisboa: Vega, 2007. LOPES, Maria de Jesus dos Mártires. "D. João III e a gênese da sociedade indo-portuguesa". In: D. João III e o Império. Lisboa: CHAM, 2005, pp. 417-432. RODRIGUES, Vitor Luís Gaspar. "O papel das tropas locais e dos "casados" no seio da organização militar portuguesa no Oriente (séc. XVI)". In: Futuro e História da Lusofonia Global. Lisboa: IICT, 2008, pp. 64-72. http://www2.iict.pt/?idc=102&idi=12798#_ftn14. SUBRAHMANYAM, Sanjay. "O mundo dos casados". Império Asiático Português 1500-1700. Lisboa: Difel, 1995.
Translated by: Maria João Pimentel