Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam
1784 CE to 1799 CE
The Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam (1784–1799) is a fifteen-year imprisonment of Mangalorean Catholics and other Christians at Seringapatam in the Indian region of Canara by Tipu Sultan, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore.
Estimates of the number of captives range from thirty thousand to eighty thousand but the generally accepted figure is sixty thousand, as stated by Tipu in the Sultan-ul-Tawarikh.
The captivity is the most disconsolate period in the community's history.
It's cause is disputed; however, it is generally agreed by historian that it was purely due to religious reasons, as Tipu states: "To spare them was mercy, to honor them with Islam a favor. No fault being imputed except them being Christians."
The Mangalorean Catholic community in Mangalore flourishes during the regime of Tipu's father, Hyder Ali.
Soon after Tipu inherits the territory in January 1784, he issues orders to seize the Christians in Canara, confiscate their estates, and deport them to Seringapatam.
His orders are carried out on February 24, 1784.
Twenty thousand Christians die during the journey from Mangalore to Seringapatam.
During captivity they suffer extreme hardships, torture, death, and persecutions with many Christians forcibly converted to Islam.
Their captivity leads to a near disintegration of the community and ends only when Tipu is killed by the British at the Battle of Seringapatam on May 4, 1799, during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
Of the sixty thousand to eighty thousand Christians taken captive, only fifteen thousand to twenty thousand both make it out alive and retain their original faith.
The episode has a deep impact on the literature of Mangalorean Catholics.
The bi-centennial anniversary of the Christians' release from captivity is celebrated across the region on May4, 1999.
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They are Konkani people who speak the Konkani language.
All earlier records of South Canara's Christians are lost at the time of their deportation by Tipu in 1784 and it is not known when Christianity was introduced in South Canara.
It is possible that Syrian Christians settled in South Canara as they had in Malabar, a region south of Canara.
During the thirteenth century, Italian traveler Marco Polo recorded that there were considerable trading activities between the Red Sea and the Canara coast.
Scholars have surmised that foreign Christian merchants were visiting the coastal towns of South Canara during that period for commerce, and that some Christian priests possibly accompanied them in their evangelical work.
In 1321, the French Dominican friar Jordanus Catalani, of Severac in southwestern France, arrived in Bhatkal, North Canara.
According to historian Severine Silva, no concrete evidence has yet been found that there were any permanent settlements of Christians in South Canara before the sixteenth century.
Propagation of Christianity in the region only began after the arrival of the Portuguese in 1498, when Vasco da Gama's landed on St Mary's Islands in South Canara and planted a cross there on his voyage from Portugal to India.
In 1500, the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived at Anjediva in North Canara with eight Franciscan missionaries under the leadership of Frei Henrique Soares de Coimbra.
On arrival they converted twenty-two or twenty-three natives to Christianity in the Mangalore region.
In 1526, during the viceroyship of Lopo Vaz de Sampaio, the Portuguese took possession of Mangalore, whereupon Portuguese Franciscans began slowly spreading Christianity in Mangalore.
Contemporary Mangalorean Catholics are descended mainly from the Goan Catholic settlers, who migrated to Canara from Goa, a state north of Canara, between 1560 and 1763 in three major waves.
The first wave of immigrants came to Mangalore to escape the trials of the Goa Inquisition of 1560.
These migrants were welcomed by the native Bednore rulers of Canara for their agricultural skills.
They were followed by a second major wave precipitated by the Portugal–Adil Shahi wars between 1570 and 1579.
A final influx of immigrants arrived during the Portugal–Maratha wars in Goa during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
According to Mangalorean historian Alan Machado Prabhu, the Mangalorean Catholics numbered about fifty-eight thousand by the time of the capture of Canara by Hyder Ali in 1765.
Tipu expels the thirteen Goan priests from his kingdom.
They are issued with orders of expulsion to Goa, fined Rs. 200,000, and threatened with death by hanging if they ever return.
He also banished Fr. Joachim Miranda, a close friend of his father Hyder Ali.
In a letter to the Portuguese Government, Tipu writes that he had commuted the priests' sentences of capital punishment and ordered a fine of thirty million rupees instead.
According to a report of 1784, Tipu has driven twenty-six missionaries out of his state, three of whom had secretly gone to join the captives.
Two die en route and one is killed by a soldier.
The missionaries were warned that they faced the death penalty if they re-entered Tipu's kingdom.
On February 24, 1784, (Ash Wednesday), in a secret and well planned move, Tipu arrests a large number of Christians across the province of Canara and other parts of his kingdom.
Accounts of the number of captives range from thirty thousand to eighty thousand.
According to historian Kranti Farias, all arrests may not have been made on a single day, but instead carried out in stages.
Captives also include Malayali Christians, and Tamil Christians from the Tamil-countries.
The Portuguese, guardians of the Christian faith in Canara, intervene and requested Tipu not to imprison the priests.
They suggest that he let the Christians live peacefully as his father Hyder Ali had done, but Tipu pays no heed to their request.
Estimates suggest that about seven thousand people remain in hiding.
Many are actively assisted by the Hindus while the few Christians in Canara who escape Tipu's initial captivity flee to Coorg and Malabar, where they are protected by the native rulers.