The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s8.12

c7.s8.12

Very little is told of the arrangements for the collection of the revenue, but the lands of Sálsette and of the North Konkan generally were at a very early period parcelled out among the Portuguese settlers at a very small quit-rent, amounting it is said to not more than four to ten per cent of the ordinary rental.¹ Villages were also sometimes given to soldiers and others for their lives.² These large landholders were called fazendars, a name which still survives in Bombay and the neighbourhood, and their descendants lived on and managed their own estates, levying from the cultivators a fixed proportion of the produce in the manner usual under the Native Governments.³ In the same way Bassein was said to owe a great part of its prosperity to the noblemen who lived there on the rents of their villages.⁴ In Sálsette there were under the veadors, presumably for those lands not granted to the Portuguese, managers of the cultivation, called mhátarás⁵ or elders, whose duties were similar to those of pátels under the Native Governments.³ From an account supplied by the Government of Goa to that of Bombay in 1821 it appears that in 1688 the total revenue of the province of Bassein was about Rs. 1,30,000, and of this sum the quit-rents amounted to about half. The tobacco tax was farmed for Rs. 47,000. Twenty-one villages had to keep for the defence of the country one Arab horse each, and one village a country horse, and these obligations were commutable by a yearly payment of Rs. 132 and Rs. 88 respectively. Alienations of land and revenue to the Jesuits of different colleges and churches are mentioned.⁶ It is expressly stated that the island of Sálsette was in a high state of prosperity under the Portuguese.³ And the Factor of Bassein in 1728 wrote that the greater part of the establishments both in Goa and the Bassein district were supported by the Sálsette villages.⁷ Yet it must be remembered that the grants of land on low quit-rents were confined to either Portuguese of European birth or to converts of high rank who adopted the names and style of living of their conquerors. The list of cesses at that time in addition to what would now be considered a heavy assessment on the lands⁸ would of itself raise doubts as to the prosperity of the island having extended to the lower classes. But an acute observer of the seventeenth century allows of no doubt on this point,⁹ for he speaks of the native inhabitants as " poor wretched Gentiles Moors and Christians, worse than vassals to the lords of the villages." And in the articles of the cession of Bombay to the English¹⁰ it is implied that their condition was that of slaves, for it was stipulated that "the Curumbies, Bandaries, or other inhabitants