Storia do Mogor 265.18.1

265.18.1

Long ago, when the Portuguese were still great and rich, citizens kept many Kaffir slaves in their houses. Each householder had fifty, seventy, and up to a hundred, or thereabouts. At night these men were masters [217] of the city, moving in all directions, robbing, murdering, and committing many excesses. They paid no heed to the Portuguese soldiers, and in the morning these guards would be found lying dead in the streets. At Goa, in the time of the viceroy Dom Phelipe Mascarenha, there were every morning dead soldiers, plundered houses, and robbed individuals. The viceroy found that the patrols could not overcome the great number of Kaffirs, and therefore ordered the citizens to keep all their Kaffirs within doors from eight o'clock at night. He then gave secret orders to the captains of infantry to post soldiers at night, with orders to kill every Kaffir they came across. On receiving such orders, the Portuguese soldiers were delighted to take vengeance on the Kaffirs for their misdeeds, at the same time acquiring liberty for themselves to wander about at night. In executing the viceroy's orders, owing to their ill-feeling towards the Kaffirs, they collected one morning two hundred and fifty dead bodies, not reckoning wounded who had got away. Continuing this process for several days, the Kaffirs were intimidated, and did not venture on so much violence. In spite of this, there continues to this day to be some of this disorder.