Resumo de The Pombaline Era In Goa - Mira Pinto Mascarenhas

The Pombaline Era in Goa (Panjim, Goa, 1977) by Mira Pinto Mascarenhas is the result of her indefatigable research into primary and secondary sources of Goan history from 1750 to 1777. ?As my primary sources, I have used over one hundred of the handwritten, unpublished documents in Portuguese which have been so neatly preserved, bound and filed away in the Historical Archives of Goa by the late honoured Dr. Panduranga S. S. Pissurlencar. Those pertaining to the period mentioned remain largely untapped.? On obtaining the Bombay University M.A. for which she wrote it, the author presented copies of this valuable 500-page typescript to two libraries, enabling plagiarism to which several unethical persons have resorted after her death.
Sebastião José de Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal and Prime Minister of Portugal, was the most outstanding Portuguese statesman of the eighteenth century. The effects of his enlightened reforms are evident even today in the equitable laws of inheritance peculiar to Goa among all the states of India. In her work, Mascarenhas has fleshed out a comprehensive picture of life in Goa during Pombal?s term of office. The political scene, the territory, the administrative set-up, religion, social customs, education, culture, and the economy are described. Pombal?s impact on Goa is evaluated.
Much, the author notes, has been written about the prosperous first decades of Portuguese rule in Goa. ?There was a century and more of mounting splendour, followed by another of political reverses and insidious decay. Then came 1739. This was the year of disaster that tolled the bell for Portuguese power in the East. Historians abruptly shifted their attention elsewhere, and Goa lay forgotten among the ruins of its capital. The remaining years of the eighteenth century command a scarce half-dozen pages in any account of Goa. As if the history of any country were exclusively bound up with the fortunes of its foreign rulers! If not, then what of the Goan people?
?Indeed, their history was just beginning. After centuries of almost unrecorded existence, of unintentional or deliberate exclusion from public affairs, they now begin to emerge, to take their place in the scheme of things. The very reverses that so impoverished the State and its rulers as to deal a death blow to their real power in the East, proved a stepping-stone to the final emancipation of the Goans. For the lack of resources obliged the Portuguese to recast their overseas policies and directives. And, fortunately for the Goans, there arose a statesman equal to, and worthy of, the task. That man was the Marquis of Pombal, chief minister to King José I of Portugal.?

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