Conspiracy of the Pintos

Conspiracy of the Pintos, also known as the Pinto Revolt or the Pinto Conspiracy, and in Portuguese as A Conjuração dos Pintos, was a rebellion against Portuguese rule in Goa in 1787.

Coat of Arms of the Pintos, awarded by the King of Portugal in 1770

The leaders of the plot were three prominent priests from the village of Candolim in the concelho of Bardez, Goa. They belonged to the Pinto clan, hence the name of the rebellion.

Principal characters

• Caetano Vitorino de Faria, the mastermind
• José Custódio de Faria, also known as Abbé Faria, his son who was also a priest
• Caetano Francisco do Couto
• José António Gonçalves, a priest from Divar
• Ignacio Pinto, head of the Pinto clan and a fervent supporter of Fr. Faria, who was to be installed as the ruler of Goa post the revolt
• José da Rocha Dantas e Mendonça, a Judge of the Goa High Court, who was in charge of the inquest into the conspiracy

Causes

P. Kamat writes that the protests of the various priests she studied for their non-submission to the Portuguese authority in Goa were by and large manifestations of personal grievances arising out of nepotism and class envy.

Marquis of Pombal

Dr. Celsa Pinto claims that the American War of Independence influenced many Goans living in Lisbon.

There was also much anger against the government of Portuguese India against the lack of using the fertile land for proper cultivation. This was one major cause of anger of Jose Antonio Pinto who saw it as a loss of earnings for the local Goans.

While Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, had issued laws known as the Pombaline reforms which allowed for all citizens of the Portuguese Empire including Goans to be considered equal. The local colonial administration continued to follow a policy entrenched with colourism. This was prior to constitutionalism in Portugal which occurred in 1822.

José António and Caetano visited Rome and Portugal to plead for their appointment as Bishops in Southern India dioceses, but these Goan priests were bypassed in favour of the local South Indian clerics (e.g. Bishop Joseph Kariattil) for the appointment to the vacant sees of Cranganore and Mylapore. As a result of this refusal, they hatched the conspiracy along with Abbé Faria. They also managed to obtain the sympathy of similarly disaffected Christians in the Army and local clergy.

The conspirators also negotiated secretly with Tippu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore, inviting him to rule Goa after they had thrown Goa into disorder.

The conspiracy was revealed by a Goan Catholic baker from Salcette to the authorities (the conspirators had approached him to poison the Army's bread supplies), thereby preventing invasion from the Muslim sultanate and similar ill-treatment of Goan Catholics as what was taking place during the Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam.

Aftermath

The conspiracy being made known to the authorities; they took vigorous steps to pre-empt it. Some of the conspirators fled in disguise to British territory. However, the authorities arrested and punished 47 persons, including 17 priests and seven army officers.

The area around the present-day GPO (General Post Office) in Panjim is called São Tomé. The present GPO building used to be the old tobacco house, and the building to its right was the Government Mint. The area in front of these buildings was the old Panjim pillory and used to be the site of public executions and was where fifteen conspirators of the failed revolt were executed.

Gonçalves fled to British territory and lived the remainder of his life as an English teacher in Calcutta. Abbé Faria teamed up with the revolutionaries of the French Revolution and participated along with the "juring" clerics in the Revolutionaries' brutal persecution of the Catholic Church in France and elsewhere. Two Pinto brothers Lt. Col Francisco and Jose Antonio joined the army of the Maratha Empire under Baji Rao II and fought against the British in the Second Anglo-Maratha War and Third Anglo-Maratha War.

Revolutionaries who received death sentences on 13th December 1788

Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara, chronicler of the Pinto Revolt

• Tenete Manoel Caetano Pinto, son of Inacio Pinto.
• Tenete Pedro Luiz Gonzaga
• David Fransisco Viegas
• Caetano Xavier da Costa
• Nicolao Luis da Costa
• Inacio Caetano Toscano
• Miguel Antonio da Costa
• Inacio Caetano Lopes
• Salvador Alvares da Costa
• Baltazar Caeiro
• Manoel Ferrao
• Antonio Fernandes
• Joao Vas
• Jose Monteiro
• Bernado de Mesquita

They were tied by ropes and dragged by horses for 40kms, after which their hands were chopped, head severed from their body and property confiscated and children and grandchildren branded by infamy.

Effects of the revolt

Bernardo Peres da Silva, the only ethnic Indian governor general in Colonial India

For decades after, the Conspiracy was used as a stick to defame and denigrate Goan missionaries and priests in British India by their opponents, the Vicars Apostolic of the Propaganda party, Goans being of the Padroado party. The incident was used to represent the Goans to the British government and to the Christians in British India as untrustworthy, rebellious and willing to compromise with their own enemies (Tipu Sultan). This became Goa's black legend.

While the revolt failed, Goans did achieve stronger forms of Government and when the Portuguese Constitution of 1822 was adopted, two native Goans Bernardo Peres da Silva and Constâncio Roque da Costa were elected to the first parliament in Portugal, a practice that continued till the Annexation of Goa.

An account of this was done by the Portuguese civil servant Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara which is one of the major accounts of the Pinto Revolt and subsequently translated into English by Dr. Charles Borges.

References

• da Cunha Rivara, Joaquim Heliodoró. Goa and the Revolt of 1787, New Delhi: Concept Publ. Company, 292 pgs., 1996. (Author was the Portuguese Chief Secretary of the Goa Government from 1855 to 1877)
• Borges, C. J. Goa and the Revolt of 1787, 1996, 290 pgs. $22 ISBN 81-7022-646-5
• Kamat, P. Some Protesting Priests of Goa, in T.R. de Souza (ed.), Essays in Goan History, New Delhi, Concept Publication Co., 1989 : 103-117.
• https://web.archive.org/web/20061214092018/http://www.goacom.com/culture/history/pinto.html
• http://www.goacom.com/the-pinto-rebellion