will be carried forward into the subsequent
analysis .
The next section describes the origin of the Anglo-Indian
community which would not have been created had it not been
for European expansionist policies and the pursuit of
wealth through trade.
2. The creation of the Anglo-Indian community
The creation of the Anglo-Indian community began in the
fifteenth centuιry with "Europe's touch with India". The
Portuguese voyager Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut on the
south west coast of India in 1498 after discovering the
sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope. (2)
The Portuguese were the first Europeans who married
Indians. In 1510, Alfonso d'Albuqurque, the second
Governor of Portuguese colonies in India, encouraged his
men to marry the widows of Muslim warriors slain in battles
with the Portuguese. (3) He was a colonialist and a
missionary, who offered dowries of land, cattle and horses
to the married couples while insisting that the women were
converted to Christianity. (4)
The Anglo-Indian community increased rapidly during the
rise of the Portuguese in India between 1497-1550. Later,
the Anglo-Indian "mixed bloods" belonged to various classes
in India, because the Europeans married Indian women from
different sections of Indian society and caste-divisions
appeared in non-Hindu communities. The Dutch, French,
Germans, Flemish, Italians and Danes who arrived in India
to trade also intermarried with Indian women. (5)
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, microcosmic
Anglo-Indian communities sprang up where Europeans traded
47
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