Goa is a former Portuguese province; the Portuguese overseas territory of Portuguese India existed for about 450 years until it was annexed by India in 1961
GOA is a small state on the western coast of India. Though the smallest Indian state, Goa has played an influential role in Indian history. Goa was one of the major trade centres in India, thus it had always been attracting the influential dynasties, seafarers, merchants, traders, monks and missionaries since its earliest known history. Throughout its history Goa has undergone continual transformation, leaving an indelible impression on various aspects of its cultural and socio-economic development.
THE GOAN COMMUNITY IN CANADA
Although Goans have come to Canada from several parts of South Asia and East Africa, their identity is defined by association with the small territory of Goa. Only 3,700 square kilometres in size, Goa is located on the western Malabar coast of India along the Arabian Sea between the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. It is distinct from other lands on the Indian subcontinent in that for over four and a half centuries it was a colony of Portugal and as such was known in the language of that country as Estado da India (“The State of India”).
The history of Goa, a rich trading post that until 1327 had been ruled by various Hindu dynasties and thereafter by the Muslim rulers of Mogul India, changed dramatically when in 1510 a Portuguese fleet under Alfonso de Albuquerque arrived in the city. Within a decade, the Muslim ruling elite was eliminated and the city was transformed into a major centre of commerce and trade between Europe and Portugal’s extensive colonial empire in southeast Asia. Led by the missionary work of St Francis Xavier, the local Hindu population was converted to Roman Catholicism, and in 1557 Goa became the seat of an archbishopric at the top of a Catholic hierarchy spread throughout all Portuguese colonies in this part of the world. Despite frequent attacks by Portugal’s overseas rival, the Dutch, the attempts of the neighbouring Maharashtrian rulers to annex the territory, and its gradual economic decline beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century, Goa was to remain a Portuguese colony until 1961–62, when it was seized by India.
Read more: http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/g2
THE GOAN COMMUNITY IN CANADA
Although Goans have come to Canada from several parts of South Asia and East Africa, their identity is defined by association with the small territory of Goa. Only 3,700 square kilometres in size, Goa is located on the western Malabar coast of India along the Arabian Sea between the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. It is distinct from other lands on the Indian subcontinent in that for over four and a half centuries it was a colony of Portugal and as such was known in the language of that country as Estado da India (“The State of India”).
The history of Goa, a rich trading post that until 1327 had been ruled by various Hindu dynasties and thereafter by the Muslim rulers of Mogul India, changed dramatically when in 1510 a Portuguese fleet under Alfonso de Albuquerque arrived in the city. Within a decade, the Muslim ruling elite was eliminated and the city was transformed into a major centre of commerce and trade between Europe and Portugal’s extensive colonial empire in southeast Asia. Led by the missionary work of St Francis Xavier, the local Hindu population was converted to Roman Catholicism, and in 1557 Goa became the seat of an archbishopric at the top of a Catholic hierarchy spread throughout all Portuguese colonies in this part of the world. Despite frequent attacks by Portugal’s overseas rival, the Dutch, the attempts of the neighbouring Maharashtrian rulers to annex the territory, and its gradual economic decline beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century, Goa was to remain a Portuguese colony until 1961–62, when it was seized by India.
Read more: http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/g2