Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam
Hyder Ali occupied Mangalore in 1763. From 1766–1772, Hyder Ali took de facto control of the throne of the Mysore Kingdom through the Wodeyar dynasty. In February 1768, the English captured Mangalore from Hyder. The Portuguese had offered to help Hyder against the English. But when the Portuguese betrayed Hyder, he directed his anger towards the Mangalorean Catholics, who had been converted to Christianity by the Portuguese. Toward the end of 1768, Hyder defeated the English and captured Mangalore fort, where the Mangalorean Catholics were taking refuge. Around 15,675 of them were taken as prisoners to Mysore by Hyder. Only 204 returned; the rest died, were killed, or converted to Islam. After Hyder's death in the Second Anglo-Mysore War on December 1782, the British captured the fort again. Hyder was succeeded by his son Tippu Sultan. The Mangalorean Catholics helped the British in the fort by providing them rice, vegetables, and money. Tippu decided to come down heavily upon these Christians for providing aid to the British. On 20 May 1783, Tippu Sultan laid siege to the Mangalore fort, where the Mangalorean Catholics and English army were taking refuge. The fort was finally delivered to Tippu when the British capitulated it on 30 January 1784. More than 5,600 Mangalorean Catholics, who were condemned for treachery, were killed.
The captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam, which began on 24 February 1784 and ended on 4 May 1799, remains the most disconsolate memory in their history. Soon after the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, Tippu gained control of Canara. He issued orders to seize the Christians in Canara, confiscate their estates, and deport them to Seringapatam, the capital of his empire, through the Jamalabad fort route. According to Thomas Munro, a Scottish soldier and the first collector of Canara, around 60,000 of them, nearly 92 percent of the entire Mangalorean Catholic community, were captured, only 7,000 escaped. Francis Buchanan gives the numbers as 70,000 captured, from a population of 80,000, with 10,000 escaping. They were forced to climb nearly 4,000 feet (1,200 m) through the jungles of the Western Ghat mountain ranges. It was 210 miles (340 km) from Mangalore to Seringapatam, and the journey took six weeks. According to British Government records, 20,000 of them died on the march to Seringapatam due to hunger, disease and ill treatment by the soldiers. Those who resisted were thrown down from the Jamalabad fort route. According to James Scurry, a British officer, who was held captive alongwith Mangalorean Catholics, 30,000 of them were forcibly converted to Islam. The young women and girls were forcibly made wives of the Muslims living there. The young men who offered resistance were disfigured by cutting their noses, upper lips, and ears and paraded in the city. According to Mr. Silva of Gangolim, a survivor of the captivity, if a person who had escaped from Seringapatam was found, the punishment under the orders of Tipu was the cutting off of the ears, nose, the feet and one hand.
British and modern era
In the Battle of Seringapatam on 4 May 1799, the British stormed the fortress, breached the town of Seringapatam, and killed Tippu. After his death in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the Mangalorean Catholics were freed from his captivity. Of the 60,000 Mangalorean Catholics taken captive, only 15,000 made it out as Christians. British general Arthur Wellesley helped 10,000 of them return to South Canara and resettle on their lands. According to the Mangalorean genealogist Michael Lobo, the present Mangalorean Catholic community is descended almost entirely from this small group of survivors. Later, the British took over South Canara. In 1800, they took a census of the region. Of the 396,672 people living in South Canara, 10,877 were Christians. Padre José Miguel Luis de Mendes, a Goan Catholic priest, was appointed Vicar of Our Lady of Rosary at Mangalore on 7 December 1799. He took a lot of interest in the re-establishment of the community from 1799 to 1808. Later, British general John Goldsborough Ravenshaw II was appointed collector of South Canara. He took active part in the re-establishment of their former possessions and recovery of their estates. He constructed a church for them, which was completed in 1806. Their population almost doubled in 1818. According to various parish books existing that time, Mangalorean Catholics numbered 19,068 in South Canara (12,877 in Mangalore and Bantwal, 3,918 in Moolki, 2,273 in Cundapore and Barcoor). Seventeen churches which were earlier destroyed by Tippu were rebuilt. After relocation, the community prospered under the British, and the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Goa commenced again.
The opening of the Protestant German Basel Mission of 1834 in Mangalore brought many handicraft and tile-manufacturing industries to the region and led to a large-scale rise in employment. In 1837, when the political situation in Portugal was in turmoil, Antonio Carvalho, a Portuguese priest, arrived at Goa without being consecrated as a Bishop. Many Mangalorean Catholics did not accept the leadership of Carvalho but instead submitted to the Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly in Travancore, while some of them continued to be under the jurisdiction of Goa. The parishes in South Canara were divided into two groups — one under Goa and the other under Verapoly. Under the leadership of Joachim Pius Noronha, a Mangalorean Catholic priest, the Mangalorean Catholics requested the Holy See to establish Mangalore as a separate Vicariate to ward off the differences. Conceding to their request, Pope Gregory XVI established Mangalore as a separate Vicariate on 17 February 1845 under the Carmelites. During the regime of Carmelites, the Mangalorean Catholics constantly sent memorandums to the Holy See to send Jesuits to Mangalore to start institutions for higher education. The Roman Catholic Church studied the situation and handed over the Mangalore mission to the Italian Jesuit of Naples, who reached Mangalore on 31 December 1878. The Italian Jesuits played an important role in education, health, and social welfare of the community and built the St. Aloysius College in 1880, St Aloysius Chapel in 1884, and many other institutions and churches. On 25 January 1887, Pope Leo XIII established the Diocese of Mangalore, which is considered to be an important landmark in the community's history. In 1901, Mangalorean Catholics accounted for 76,000 of the total 84,103 Christians in South Canara. During the later 20th century, they started migrating to other parts of India, especially Bombay and Bangalore. During the 1970s, coastal communication increased between Bombay and Mangalore, after introduction of ships by the London based trade firm Shepherd. These ships facilitated the entry of Mangalorean Catholics to Bombay. Events related to Mangalorean Catholics that took place in Mangalore, and made national headlines were the attacks on Christian churches in September 2008.
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