Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/260

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EURASIAN
234

were driven out of the place. As soon as affairs became tolerably settled again at that port, he had them converted to Christianity, and married them to Portuguese men. No less than 450 of his men were thus married in Goa, and others who desired to follow their example were so numerous that Albuquerque had great difficulty in granting their requests. The marriage of Portuguese men to native women had already been sanctioned by Dom Manuel, but this privilege was only to be conceded to men of proved character, and who had rendered good service, Albuquerque, however, extended the permission to many far beyond what he was authorised to do, and he took care that the women so married were the daughters of the principal men of the land. This he did in the hope of inducing them to become Christians. To those who were married Albuquerque allotted lands, houses and cattle, so as to give them a start in life, and all the landed property which had been in possession of the Moorish mosques and Hindu pagodas he gave to the principal churches of the city, which he dedicated to Santa Catherina.

The names of some members of the community at Calicut recalled to mind Pedro Alvares Cabral, who anchored before Calicut in 1500, and established a factory at Cochin; the first Portuguese Governor, Dom Franciso de Almeida; André Furtado de Mendonca, who concluded a treaty with the king of Calicut; and many others, whose exploits are handed down to posterity in the Indo- Portuguese archives. Though Portuguese names persist at the present day, it does not follow of necessity that their owners have any Portuguese blood in their veins, for some are merely descendants of Native converts to Christianity, or of household slaves of Portuguese officers. " In Malabar," writes the Census