The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s8.23

c7.s8.23

of the villages belonging to the Portuguese shall not be admitted into Bombay, and all such persons resorting there shall be immediately delivered up to their respective masters.” There is in fact nothing whatever either in their own histories or in the accounts of travellers to show that the Portuguese ever took any trouble to protect or raise the condition of their native subjects as Shiváji did in the seventeenth century. With this fact may be mentioned their great establishments of domestic slaves brought in Portuguese ships from the African settlements and distributed at very low prices all over their Asiatic possessions.¹ In the treaty of peace after the fall of Bassein the negroes are specially mentioned in the stipulation for the release of prisoners.² To this institution of domestic slavery may no doubt be ascribed the strain of negro blood frequently perceptible in the Goanese.