Causes
Tipu Sultan succeeded his father at the age of 31. He had also taken part in the conquest of Mangalore in 1768, and accused the Mangalorean Catholics of treachery towards the sovereign, as well as their having helped the British. He was aware of the treatment of Canara Muslims by the Portuguese clergy, and had always resented his father's favourable policy towards the Mangalorean Catholics.
The British army under Commander-in-Chief, Brigadier-General Richard Matthews, landed in Canara on 9 March 1783, and captured the Mangalore fort on the orders of the Bombay Government. Many Christians were allegedly recruited into the army of General Matthews. Tipu became infuriated with the Christians of Canara for two reasons. Firstly, when French soldiers laid down their arms because of the Peace of Paris (1783) treaty, the Christians refused to fight for Tipu. Secondly, the Christians lent the sum of Rs. 3,30,000 to General Matthews, which led Tipu to believe that the Mangalorean Catholics were helping the British.
In May 1783, General Matthews was accused of procrastination and suspended by the Bombay Government. Thereafter Colonel John Campbell received provisional command of the strategic fort of Mangalore on 5 May 1783. Tipu made several assaults on the Mangalore fort up until January 1784, all of which resulted in failure. Looking at the wounded embattled garrison, Colonel Campbell considered it futile to hold out any longer. He finally delivered the Mangalore fort to Tipu when the British capitulated on 30 January 1784. On 11 March 1784, Tipu and the British East India Company signed the Treaty of Mangalore, thus bringing an end to the Second Anglo-Mysore War.
Historian Ahmad Saeed states that the Christians acted as spies and guided the British whilst historian Praxy Fernandes points out that the Christians helped Colonel Campbell in the Mangalore fort and adjoining towns by providing them with rice, vegetables, meat, men, and money. In a letter to his superiors, Colonel Campbell strongly commended the role of the Bombay Natives regiment. This was led by a native major named Francis Pinto who put up a brave defence of the fort. He also refers to these troops as the "Native Christians". Fernandes further points out that the Christians had entered into a league with Mysore traitors Kasim Ali and Mohammed Ali, who were enemies of Tipu, and had plotted with the English to overthrow him. He also states that the Head of the Congregation of Monte Mariano Church at Farangipet, near Mangalore, provided the British garrison with 1,000 bags of rice.
Severine Silva points out that the Christians of Canara were eager to get rid of Tipu. The History of the Diocese of Mangalore by J. Moore and Angelus Francis Xavier Maffei also purports to show that the Christians of Canara were charged with assisting the British during the Second Anglo-Mysore War. Tipu made a number of accusations against the Christians, including that they had invited the British to invade Canara in 1781–82, furnished supplies to and otherwise assisted General Matthews' army when it landed and took possession of Onore, accompanied the British detachment to Mangalore, provided it with supplies both before and after the march, aided the British in repairing breaches made when the fort was besieged by Tipu and plundered the state treasury at Nuggur when that fortress fell to General Matthews.
After receiving highly exaggerated reports about the role of the Christians and their help to the British during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, Tipu decided to minimise the threat to his kingdom from the British and banish the Christians of Canara. According to Severine Silva, this decision was the logical outcome of the plans he had nurtured since the time of the conquest of Mangalore with his father Hyder in 1768.
It is generally believed that the propaganda of the Goan priests and the alliance of the Christians with the English cause Tipu to banish the community from Canara. The main political reason for this decision was Tipu's belief that if he banished the Christians, he could keep the British at bay. However, Alan Machado Prabhu dismisses the idea of large-scale Christian support for the British during the Second Mangalore War as a myth which is not based on any concrete evidence.
Prabhu states that the charge that the Christians constituted a united front cannot be sustained. Apart from divergent viewpoints among the Christian community at the time, he argues that difficulties in communication for a minority Christian population spread over a 300 kilometres (190 mi) forested coastline broken by numerous streams and rivers, would have made united action practically impossible. He further states that the majority of Mangalorean Catholics were agriculturists farming land capable of growing three crops a year. The idea of neglecting their fields in the cause of a small band of British isolated in the confines of a fort besieged by a large Mysorean army would have sounded insane. Even if the British had made promises, they would have had little effect on the militarily inexperienced Christians, who would then have had to fight a large and well-trained army in support of a beleaguered army which was not even successful.
On the basis of Colonel Campbell's letter, Prabhu concludes that the "Native Christian" soldiers present in the fort were probably all East Indian infantry and artillery experts, belonging to the Bombay Natives. He believes that at best, any assistance was of a limited nature and restricted to purely individual enterprise. Prabhu points out that European troops, both English and French, including those from Tipu's own mercenaries, did receive some assistance although this was more humanitarian than military. He also states that claim of the Christians paying the British Rs. 3,30,000 is an utter fabrication. To make his point, Prabhu points out that the annual revenue of the Portuguese province of Goa itself amounted to over three to four lakh rupees. Payment of the huge sum claimed by Tipu would have required a large number of wealthy donors—which the Mangalorean Catholics were not.
Read more about this topic: Captivity Of Mangalorean Catholics At Seringapatam