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Estado da Índia Renegades in Deccan Nogueira, Eduardo

Description

Trying to escape from Estado da Índia authorities or searching for better life conditions in ways and places beyond the control of Portuguese Empire in Asia, many men originally submitted to the Portuguese Crown went far from its reach. Many of them had Christian roots, born either in Europe or in PortugueseIndian domains. A few, as it is possible to realize in the current researches about it, were half-blood Portuguese and Hindu or Muslim Indian native converts. All those men, aiming to settle where they could live distantly from the Estado da Índia, transformed themselves, changing their political and religious affiliations according to the circumstances. Spreading across Dekkan, many of them became Muslims in way to be accepted by the sultanates where they would inhabit. In addition, if necessary, when they had to travel in the Indian lands in war, they adopted tactically traces of Hindu sects. Besides that, there were those who came back to Estado da Índia’s territories because many reasons, manipulating their already fluid identities and aesthetics. In this way, they assumed different beliefs and social-cultural behaviors, which allowed them to cross political and religious barriers in Early Modern Dekkan.