RESEARCH

PROJECTS

Bombay Before the British. The Portuguese Legacy at the Bombay Peninsula’s Territory

Code . POCTI/HAR/47225/2002

Start . 2004

Duration . 40 months

Principal Investigator . Walter Rossa (CES / UC)

Institutions

Funding Entity

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Main Research Unit

Centro de Estudos em Arquitectura / Universidade de Coimbra

Coordenator Institution

Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia / Universidade de Coimbra

Collaboration

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas / Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Sponsor

Fundação Oriente

Partnerships

CHAM — Centro de Humanidades

Most of the territory between the river of Daman North and Colaba South was controlled by Portuguese during 200 years, between the decades of 1530 and 1740. This Portuguese called this territory the Northern Province. Its capital was Bassein. Mumbai's historic centre, between the Bandra river and Colaba, was ceded to the British after 1661. But the territory immediately north (Salsette and Bassein) and other areas to the east (Trombay, Uran), currently integrated into the city, remained under Portuguese control for over a century.

There is a surprising amount of unpublished, published but forgotten or little known information about this historical reality: from the onset, ruins and traces on the field of entire cities, parts of cities, smaller towns (Bassein, Chaul, Thane, Bandra, etc.), forts and fortified houses, churches and convents, houses and villages, roads and bridges. Subsequently, cartography, prints and drawings, old photographs, unprecedented documents of Portuguese, Indian, British and Italian archives, an extensive ancient and more recent bibliography.

The term "Bombay before the English" and the acronym BBB refer to a joint research project between the Study Centre for Architecture - University of Coimbra (CEARQ) and CHAM, whose work began in 2002.

This project’s team is committed to confirm or revoke that the “pre-history" of colonial Bombay explains to a large extent Bombay’s current forma urbis and the explosive growth of urban occupancy of its vast territory from the late 19th century.

In fact, these settlements, the forts and the network of roads created in the Portuguese period, along with the strongly urbanized Catholic communities who used and completed these infrastructures, may have established the network that British Bombay would later occupy, complement and extend. Moreover, this "pre-history" extends through history up until the 1920-30, as the Goan Catholic emigration to Bombay from about 1850, increased and added value to the villages and road network the Portuguese left.

Goals

The objectives of the project are to compile and make available as much information about the architectural, political, territorial, socio-economic and religious history of the current metropolitan area of Mumbai/Bombay during the Portuguese period (16th-18th centuries), and enable the assessment of urban and territorial impacts of the Portuguese legacy on the metropolitan growth in the 19th and 20th centuries.

To trace the history of the ancient district of Bassein and the present-day metropolis of Bombay, we must, firstly, re-read and re-analyse all of the vast bibliography written in Portuguese and English on the Northern Province. For this context, the descriptions of the area, made by both by the Portuguese and the British, are of special importance. Simultaneously, we will complete the survey of the material traces of the Portuguese presence, already started by members of this team: fortresses and churches, ruins of neighbourhoods and civilian buildings.

Secondly, there is much written, cartographic and photographic material to study. While some 18th-century Portuguese charts, currently unreferenced, and some photographs of missing buildings were found, it is still necessary to systematise the research in various archives and libraries both Portuguese and Indian (Bombay and Goa). It is essential to survey and study the vast unreleased document corpus on the Portuguese presence in the region, during the 16th-18th centuries, scattered across numerous archives and fonds, in order to decisively contribute to the developing modern historiography on the topic.

Finally, it should be noted that there is no reliable contemporary cartography of the city and its metropolitan area: hence, the team will need to work from satellite photos georeferenced in order to establish the former territory of the District of Bassein and retrace the steps of its urban proliferation since the 19th century until the present day.

Team

Walter Rossa . Coordenator

André Teixeira (CHAM)
Isabel Gomes de Almeida (CHAM)
Silvana Roque de Oliveira (CHAM)
Paulo Varela Gomes (CES / UC)
Sidh Daniel Losa Mendiratta (CES / UC)

Outputs

GOMES, Paulo Varela, ROSSA, Walter, “O primeiro território – Bombaim e os Portugueses”, in Oceanos, nº41, Lisboa, Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2000, pp. 210-224. GOMES, Paulo Varela "«Bombay Portuguese», ser ou não ser português em Bombaim no século XIX" in Revista de História das Ideias, Coimbra, Instituto de História e Teoria das Ideias, (2000).

GOMES, Paulo Varela, “There is no spot in the world where the Catholic and Heathen imagery come so closely in contact as here. Franciscan architecture in Mandapeshwar / Mount Poinsur, Bombay”, paper apresentado no symposium The Arts & the Portuguese Colonial Experience, org. Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 24 e 25 de Março de 2006.

GOMES, Paulo Varela "Two (and a few other) Bombay churches. Issues of architecture and identity" in Mumbay Reader, Mumbay, Urban Design Research Institute, n.º 2 (2007).

MENDIRATTA, Sidh, “From Islands to Mainland. Territorial policy change and the creation of the Northern Province of the Estado da Índia”, paper apresentado na conferência Histories Form the Sea. Multimedia for Understanding and Teaching Europe-South Asia Maritime Heritage, org. Jawaharlal Nehru University, Nova Delhi, 30 e 31 de Janeiro de 2007. [No prelo].v MENDIRATTA, Sidh, “Two Towns and a Vila. Baçaim, Chaul and Taná: the defensive structures of three Indo-Portuguese urban settlements in the Northern Province of the Estado da Índia”, paper apresentado no International Seminar on Cities in Medieval India (1200-1800), org. Jawaharlal Nehru University, Nova Delhi, 6 e 7 de Março de 2008.

ROSSA, Walter "Bombay before the british: the indo-portuguese layer" in Mumbai Reader, Mumbay, Urban Design Research Institute, n.º 1 (2006), pp. 262-269.

ROSSA, Walter, “Bombaim antes dos Ingleses: apresentação do projecto”, in Actas do XIIº Seminário Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa (Lisboa, 23 a 27 Outubro 2006), Lisboa, Centro de História de Além-Mar da Universidade Nova de Lisboa e Centro de Estudos dos Povos e Culturas de Expressão Portuguesa da Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

ROSSA, Walter, MENDIRATTA, Sidh, “Ghost Towns. Ruined and disappeared Portuguese colonial settlements in coastal Maharashtra, India: new research results”, paper apresentado na conferência 61st Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians, org. Society of Architectural Historians, Cincinnati, 23 a 27 de Abril de 2008.

TEIXEIRA, André "Os Primórdios da Presença Portuguesa em Baçaim, 1534-1554: notas sobre a situação financeira e político-militar do primeiro «território» do Estado da Índia." in D. João III e o Império, Actas do Congresso Internacional Comemorativo do Nascimento de D. João III, Lisboa, CHAM (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) e CEPCEP (Universidade Católica Portuguesa), 2004, pp. 337-365.

TEIXEIRA, André, ALMEIDA, Isabel, NOBRE, Pedro, “A concessão de Bombaim aos ingleses: suas implicações no território de Baçaim (1661-1668)”, in Actas do XIIº Seminário Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa (Lisboa, 23 a 27 Outubro 2006), Lisboa, Centro de História de Além-Mar da Universidade Nova de Lisboa e Centro de Estudos dos Povos e Culturas de Expressão Portuguesa da Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

TEIXEIRA, André, PIRES, Silvana Remédio, “O Tombo de Baçaim de 1727-1730”, in Anais de História de Além-Mar, vol. VIII, Lisboa, Centro de História de Além-Mar da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2007, pp. 325-63. TEIXEIRA, André, “Baçaim, the city and its hinterland”, paper apresentado no International Seminar on Cities in Medieval India (1200-1800), org. Jawaharlal Nehru University, Nova Delhi, 6 e 7 de Março de 2008.

TESES MENDIRATTA, Sidh, Dispositivos de Arquitectura e Engenharia na defesa do território da Província do Norte do Estado da Índia (1520-1740), tese de Doutoramento em História da Arquitectura ao Departamento de Arquitectura da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra, orientada pelo Prof. Doutor Walter Rossa e Prof. Doutor Paulo Varela Gomes.

NOBRE, Pedro, A Entrega de Bombaim ao Reino Unido (1661-1668): um processo político-diplomático, dissertação de Mestrado em História dos Descobrimentos e da Expansão Portuguesa à Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, orientada pelo Prof. Doutor João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, 2008.

TEIXEIRA, André, Baçaim e o seu território: administração, economia e sociedade, séculos XVI a XVIII, tese de doutoramento em História, especialidade de História dos Descobrimentos e da Expansão Portuguesa à Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, orientada pelo Prof. Doutor João Oliveira e Costa.

TRINCA, Mafalda, Sistemas de informação histórico-geográfica: modelos, tecnologia e estudo de casos, dissertação de Mestrado em Património Europeu, Multimédia e Sociedade da Informação (EUROMACHS), à Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra, orientada pelo Prof. Doutor Joaquim Ramos de Carvalho e Prof. Doutor Walter Rossa.