A Inquisição na Ásia: idolatria e gentilidades no Mundo Índico Português (1560-1700)

Abstract

In 1560, after some years of discussion about the necessity to control the faith and the population in the Portuguese territories from the Cape of Good Hope to East Asia, the Holy Office of the Goa Inquisition was created, at a time when political intolerance and persecution of certain groups already prevailed in Portugal. In the Estado da Índia capital, Goa, this unique Portuguese inquisitorial court commences its activity, the single one outside the European continent, and which center of attention is mainly on different targets of persecution, as well as its way of acting does not become the same as it was in the kingdom. Through inquisitorial sources from the 16th and 17th centuries, this thesis aims to investigate the functioning and procedures of this court in these two centuries, in order to understand the following questions: were there significant changes in the focus and performance of the inquisitors over this time? In what way were the very large territories around the Indian Ocear world a challenge to the Goa Inquisition, and how did they deal with it? How did they view the gentilidades? Who were the condemned for this crime of faith? Yet, how did the gentiles were faced be them – since they dealt with societies in which different beliefs were present, despite Christian impositions? In comparison between different moments, is it possible to notice different profiles of defendants? How do the trajectories of prosecuted women and men show aspects of the attempt to evangelize Asian peoples? For these questions, correspondence, lists of autos-da-fé, fragments of procedural documents, and varied historical sources destined or produced by the Holy Office in Asia were analyzed, from its beginning until the last decades of the 17th century. Comparisons were made sometimes in the form of figures, tables, and graphs, to clarify the particularities of the Inquisition of Goa in relation to other Portuguese courts, and in this task, the prevalence of the so-called gentilidades and idolatries was highlighted to approach the limits of religious conversions in the Estado da India.