Fr. Gonçalo Martins
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Fr. Gonçalo Martins (PGM) and St. Francis Xavier
By Teotonio R. de Souza | Herald Goa25 Nov, 2014
(Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa).
Martins: An outstanding 17th century Jesuit
Fr. Gonçalo Martins was an outstanding Jesuit in Goa during the seventeenth century. There is nothing to incriminate him as a bad religious, but his passion and inventiveness at raising funds won for him friends and enemies in the highest business and political quarters.
He purchased the island of Cumbarjua from André Salema, a government official, in July 1665. He discouraged the ethnic Portuguese from frequenting prostitutes in the capital city and invited them to Cumbarjua where he taxed them. The Hindus were banned from celebrating weddings publicly in Goa. Gonçalo Martins licensed the public celebration of such weddings in his island.
Gonçalo Martins also permitted movement of goods across the border through the island for less customs duties than the ones payable at the official check-posts. It was a calculated investment of a hefty 26,010 xerafins for acquiring the island. He brought large tracts of land under cultivation in the island for paddy and coconut plantations. He had also set up kilns for baking lime and manufacturing roof tiles. We read in the license-books of the Goa Municipality that tiles sold in the market should conform to the Paulist standard. This proves the Jesuit industriousness that became legendary and led to creation of local myths about them.
Arranged funds for evangelical missions
While Gonçalo Martins had no opportunity to go on missions of direct evangelization, he arranged funds for them as Mission Procurator and served in diplomatic missions to the neighboring native rulers. Using the missionaries as political agents was not a new practice in the Portuguese Estado. If Gonçalo Martins was called upon three times in emergency situations to undertake diplomatic missions, that was because he combined in himself the qualifications of a religious and a businessman.
Peace mission
In 1653, Shivappa Nayak of Ikkeri had conquered Basrur and Camboly from the Portuguese. He continued the pressure on Honawar and Mangalore. The Nayak was well aware of the relentless war that the Dutch had been waging to throw the Portuguese out of Ceylon. When the siege of Honawar reached an unbearable stage and the garrison had to survive literally on rats and cats, the Goa government decided to send Fr. Gonçalo Martins to Honawar to make a reasonable deal, but Shivappa Nayak was determined to end to the Portuguese presence, which he did few years later.
In 1654 troubles were brewing at Goa's borders with Bijapur. Around this time a native Goan Bishop Matheus de Castro Mahale had settled in Bicholim and was conspiring with Adil Shah and the Dutch in Vingurla to throw the Portuguese out of Goa. His conspiracy was discovered by the Portuguese in time and neutralized.
Sale of ruby
In the meantime, Fr. Gonçalo Martins and his jewel-trading friend Baltazar da Veiga had sold a rare spinel ruby to the Bijapuri ambassador in Goa, Malik Yakut, for 18,000 xerafins. That was to be a State gift to mollify Adil Shah. But Gonçalo Martins was killing two birds with one stone: He had gained peace for the Estado and gained business for his friend Baltazar da Veiga. That was the approximate amount Baltazar da Veiga gave as endowment to build and furnish the sacristy of Bom Jesus, where we can still see a grave stone dedicated to him.Fr. Gonçalo Martins had earlier arranged funds from a Goa-based Augsburg banker to build a new chapel for St. Francis Xavier, shifting from the opposite side where humidity of a sewage in the vicinity was affecting the body of the saint.
His last diplomatic mission was to Raigarh for settling peace with Shiva ji after his invasion of Bardez in 1667. Fr. Gonçalo Martins fared so well in his mission, that the viceroy reported to the home government that Fr. Gonçalo Martins brought back all prisoners and all the cattle that was taken away and even more.
When information was being sought many years later in the archives of the Goa Province about the legacies of Baltazar da Veiga, the successor of Fr. Gonçalo Martins reported his inability to trace back any details. He further declared that Fr. Gonçalo Martins had shown to the Provincial all his accounts two days before he died, to convince him that everything was in order.
Fr. Gonçalo Martins died on 2nd February 1669. A later report dated 28 July 1683 by Fr. Theotonio Rebello as administrator of the island of Cumbarjua refers to his predecessor: “Fr. Gonçalo Martins, who has gone for a better life (emphasis is mine) for over 15 years now, was once in charge of Cumbarjua island...”
A couple of years before he died, Fr. Gonçalo Martins (PMG=Pater Gonçalo Martins) paid homage to St. Francis Xavier and immortalized himself discretely with a monument which stands facing Bom Jesus church. Many devotees stop and place marigolds there before they enter Bom Jesus to invoke the saint as PMG may have done regularly in his times.
