Introduction^{Footnote 1}

Historians of slavery in the Atlantic World have increasingly turned to Portuguese inquisition records to examine the cultural and social lives of slaves.^{Footnote 2} A wealth of material for such research exists in the form of prosecutors’ notebooks and full inquisition trials. The trials have come from tribunals in Portugal – that is, Lisbon, Coimbra, and Évora. Yet for scholars interested in slaves coming from the Swahili coast and the Horn of Africa, the Goa Tribunal produced records that are of interest. Most of the cases are no longer extant; however, Goan inquisition case summaries of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century trials provide invaluable information about African and Asian slaves in the Estado da Índia, the eastern domains of the Portuguese Empire stretching from southern Africa to China. The Goa Tribunal, Portugal’s only overseas inquisitorial tribunal, had jurisdiction over the entire Estado da Índia. Between 1560 and 1623, the Goa Tribunal handled 3,800 trials, which were summarized in João Delgado Figueira’s Reportorio, now housed in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal in Lisbon.^{Footnote 3} Figueira was the fourteenth inquisitor of the Goa Tribunal.^{Footnote 4} As the bulk of the full trial records have been destroyed, these case summaries fill a crucial gap. The summaries also provide context for the extant Goan trials. This article examines the methodological challenges of using such summaries. The case summaries silenced the multiple voices that shaped the original trial records, imposed a narrative that covered the contested nature of the cases, hid the lengthy process that characterized the trials, applied categories that obscured the complexity within the cases, and provided incomplete data. However, despite these limitations, the case summaries enable historians to glean information on slave trade routes, the diversity of the slave population, and the heterogeneity of the African (free and enslaved) population in the Estado da Índia. The summaries also highlight the existence of multiple forms of unfree labor and provide a glimpse at slaves’ religious choices. The following discussion stems from my observations from analyzing ten inquisition cases and a sample of 2,254 case summaries from Figueira’s Reportorio.^{Footnote 5}

The Source

The Reportorio’s case summaries emanated from trials coming from multiple places in the Estado da Índia. Included are trials held in Goa, as well as cases decided in inquisitorial visits to Ormuz, Cochim (the South), and the Province of the North (Agaçaim, Baçaim, Taná, Bandorá, Mazagão, Mombaim, and Chaul).^{Footnote 6} In addition, cases decided by commissioners in Chaul, Malacca, Meliapor, and Mozambique are included.^{Footnote 7}

The case summaries consist of the defendant’s name, the inquisitorial crime, free(d) or slave status (when applicable), religious background, geographical place of residence, place of birth, ethnic identity, gender, marital status, occupation, abjuration details (the date, place, and the level of suspicion of guilt), family details (name of spouse if married along with the names of the defendant’s parents), and sentence. Figueira did not uniformly include all these details for each case summary, and his omissions will be discussed below.

Omission of Details

Multiple case details do not uniformly appear in each summary; this is a key limitation of the source. In particular, slave/freed status appeared only if someone was a slave, and freed status was noted very sporadically.^{Footnote 8} Thus, there is an assumption that defendants were free people without any prior slave status, unless noted as otherwise in the Reportorio. This assumption makes any estimate of freed people in the Reportorio conservative. Also, defendants’ abjuration date appeared along with the level of proof against the defendant, but Figueira sometimes omitted the sentence details of the defendant.^{Footnote 9} Sentence details are often absent from the case summaries of slaves. Out of a sample of 2,254 case summaries, Figueira recorded 159 slaves. Thus, their case summaries constituted approximately seven percent of the sample. However, ninety of those slaves are missing sentences; in other words, Figueira recorded sentences for only forty-three percent of the slaves in my sample.^{Footnote 10} We cannot assume that they were simply not punished, because Figueira did take the time to specify when defendants were merely reprimanded or simply absolved. Unfortunately, because the vast majority of the Goan trials were burned, we cannot fill in the details that Figueira omitted or double check the entries for most of the cases.

Issue of Categorization

When summarizing cases, Figueira applied categories to describe the religious offenses committed by the defendants. These categories cannot be taken at face value. Inquisitors had their own religious categories stemming from Catholic theology, and their categories did not always match the religious experiences of defendants.^{Footnote 11} Thus, when using Reportorio data, since we do not have full inquisition cases to examine but rather categories of religious crimes, it is imperative not to assume that the category of crime consistently matched defendants’ religious practices. For example, the crime “pact with the devil” probably did not always mean that defendants in the Estado da Índia made a pact with the same devil that theologians considered the author of evil, the accuser of the saints, the adversary, etc. A pact with the devil would assume that the defendants were operating with the same cosmological views. On the other hand, I am less skeptical of the crime of converting to Islam or “Moorish sins.” Portuguese Catholics had a long history of cultural exchange and familiarity with Islam because of previous Muslim rule over the Iberian peninsula and the Reconquista. Thus, in those cases I am sure that inquisitors recognized Muslim practices when they encountered them. What is less certain is defendants’ views of conversions to Islam as sinful departures from Catholicism. Inquisitors saw the commitment to Catholicism as binding and permanent from the moment of baptism, whereas slaves seemed to have strategically switched religions to improve their status and deployed multiple identities.^{Footnote 12}

Loss of the Trial Process

Condensing an inquisitorial trial into a pithy summary belies the lengthy process leading up to a defendant’s sentencing. By occluding this process, the case summaries hide the passage of time as well as the contested nature of the trials. This loss of the trial process is especially apparent when contrasting case summaries and full inquisition trials. The cases themselves vary in length and detail. For example, cases of New Christians tried in Goa directly preceding the Goa Tribunal’s establishment include a long list of components: denunciations, lists of charges, appointments of lawyers, ratifications of judges, requests by the lawyers for delays, protests against such delays, interrogations of defendants, counterstatements, the defendants’ formal statements of defense, the questioning of defense witnesses about those articles of defense, the questioning of defense witnesses about points made in the defendants’ counterstatements, the multi-session confessions, incarceration information, sentences, abjurations, petitions, and commutations of sentences.^{Footnote 13} Not all cases included these multiple components. For example, the records for the freed slaves Gabriel Abexim and Gonçalo Toscano are much shorter. Despite this variation in case length and detail, the full cases point to the process that led to defendants’ abjuration and sentencing.

The lengthy process by which defendants’ cases moved from the denunciation stage to sentencing included multiple forms of pressure meant to extract what the inquisitor considered a full confession. Figueira did note when torture was applied, yet the summaries do not include the number of confessional sessions and length of time spent in jail. Incarceration and multiple interrogatories produced shifts in confessions, which cannot be analyzed using the case summaries. Carlo Ginzburg and James Sweet’s analyses of inquisition records noted the relentless and coercive role of inquisitors in extracting information.^{Footnote 14} The questioning of defendants was meant to elicit full confessions of religious crimes defined by inquisitors, and inquisitors used torture and multiple sessions of interrogations to elicit all the details they could possibly extract. In their efforts to extract details, their dialogues with defendants sometimes produced confessions of crimes that never happened. Thus, it is important to ponder the interactions between the inquisitors and the defendants. In my sample of 2,254 case summaries, torture was applied in only fifty-seven cases and was at least threatened in one other case.^{Footnote 15} None of these cases were against slaves or freed slaves. Yet, the full records of cases do reflect the attempts of inquisitors to draw out the information they thought would constitute a full confession. For example, in his case Gonçalo Toscano had seven different sessions for his confession, because inquisitors were not convinced he had provided a sincere confession. This prolongation of the case was meant to elicit more information. Moreover, in the course of his confessions, he shifted from saying that he made sincere (re)conversions to Catholicism from Islam and merely pretended to be a Muslim to admitting that he had truly converted to Islam in his heart and pretended to be a Catholic. Thus, he eventually confessed that he practiced Islam as a religious act rather than merely using a Muslim identity strategically.^{Footnote 16}

Silencing of Voices

Multiple voices exist in full inquisition trial records. In other words, the documents are polyphonic and multi-authored. Not all voices were equal in power, yet each voice contributed to the texts. Inquisitors, defendants, witnesses, denunciators, prosecutors, lawyers, translators, and notaries all participated in the writing of inquisition cases. Denunciators provided content from which the prosecutors developed their list of charges and organized the alleged actions into categories of religious transgressions. Inquisitors interrogated defendants, seeking a confession to the transgressions. Yet, defendants also provided content for the texts. Their confessions, rebuttals, and lists of people they felt should be disqualified from testifying against them added to the documentation that we call an inquisition case. Witnesses for the defense likewise added their voices, providing their commentary on the defendants’ character and the defendants’ statements. The lawyers contributed their voices to the case, scripting documents on their clients’ behalf, lobbying inquisitors for delays, and protesting when they thought the prosecutor was unnecessarily retarding the trial process. In addition, inquisition cases contain the authorship of the notaries who chose what to record and what to omit. Rather than rooting out the biases and correcting the distortions of inquisition records, it is fruitful to examine these multiple voices present in the inquisition records.^{Footnote 17}

The case summaries elide the multiple voices present in the full inquisition cases.^{Footnote 18} Figueira imposed the singular perspective of an inquisitor, as he wrote the summaries. In most of the summaries, a pithy narrative portrayed a guilty defendant who committed a religious crime, was punished, and was subsequently reconciled to the Church. However, the men and women tried for religious crimes defended themselves, presenting another narrative of events. Figueira’s summaries nearly always quashed those narratives; defendants’ refusals to hew to inquisitors’ narratives of events and the religious meanings of those events are only subtexts in the case summaries involving execution, torture, or absolution for lack of proof. In addition to the defendants’ voices, Figueira silenced the voices of denunciators in his case summaries. Because of the format of the summaries, we do not know who denounced the defendants, their relationship to the defendants, and what the denunciators said against the defendants. In fact, for the cases summarized by Figueira we do not know the number of denunciators who participated in each case; some cases might have completely lacked denunciators, because the defendant denounced himself. Besides the denunciators, the case summaries also lack the voices of witnesses who testified in favor of the defendants.

By eliminating the multiple voices present in the actual cases, Figueira’s case summaries excise the contested process that led to the sentencing. Rather than a tidy progression from denunciation to sentencing, full case records reveal inquisitorial encounters full of conflicts. The denunciators gave denunciations, and subsequently prosecutors developed lists of charges. Yet, the defendants (and their lawyers in some cases) refuted the charges and submitted lists of people they believed should be disqualified from testifying against them. The summaries included none of these stages of the inquisitorial process. Also absent are the arrest of the defendant (and the date of the arrest) and all of the interrogatories and confessions that followed. It could take a long string of confessional sessions for an inquisitor to extract a confession that he deemed complete: withholding information about the crime allegedly committed and reluctance to denounce supposed accomplices lengthened the process. Figueira’s case summaries smooth the bumpy process by which defendants became guilty apostates pardoned by the Church.

The mediation of voices shaped full inquisition trial records, and this mediation is hidden in the case summaries. Kathryn McKnight discussed the ways in which inquisition cases are records of “mediated voices.”^{Footnote 19} She pointed out that testimonies had multiple “layers of mediation,” created by notaries and translators. This mediation creates a bias in the source. According to McKnight, notaries only recorded details that were pertinent to the case. While she analyzed Spanish inquisition cases, the same issue pertains to the trials in Goa. Defendants, witnesses, and inquisitors had first-person dialogues, which notaries transformed into third-person narratives that lacked the exact words that were spoken. For example, in the New Christians’ cases cited above, notaries did not record all the information that slaves shared, and the notaries left direct evidence that they omitted parts of slaves’ testimonies. For instance, when the enslaved Brianda Jaoa testified in Branca de Oliveira’s case in 1557, the notary recorded “Among other things she said that….”^{Footnote 20} Moreover, we know that notaries recorded denunciations containing multiple defendants, and notaries redistributed the denunciations among the different cases of the defendants. Thus, Brianda Jaoa’s denunciation in Branca de Oliveira’s case overlapped with the record of her denunciation which appeared in Guiomar de Oliveira’s case. Again, the presence of the notary who shaped the records left traces of his imprint. The wording of her denunciation in both cases was largely the same, but the notary chose to record certain details in the record of one case and omit those details in the other. This occurred specifically when the notary recorded names of people Brianda was denouncing. In her denunciation as recorded in Guiomar de Oliveira’s case, she said that certain relatives of Alvoro Gomes ate meat during Lent. These family members were listed: “Diogo Soares and his wife, Estevão Lopes and his wife, and ‘so-and-so’ and his wife.”^{Footnote 21}

In Branca de Oliveira’s case, Brianda Jaoa shared the same information about members of the family who ate meat during Lent; however, the notary chose to record the testimony differently. Again, she said that certain relatives of Alvoro Gomes ate meat during Lent, yet the list is recorded as “so-and-so and so-and-so; and so-and-so, and Francisco Diaz and his wife Branca de Oliveira.”^{Footnote 22} This omission of information necessitates the reading of all recordings of her denunciation across the different cases, rather than relying on a recorded denunciation in only one of the cases. Yet, even still, it is impossible to recover everything that was said, since notaries cut out anything not germane to the case. Thus, it is important that we remember that we do not have a direct transcript of inquisitorial encounters.^{Footnote 23}

Testimonies of slaves were mediated by notaries and, when necessary, translators. For example, in the case of Gabriel Abexim, multiple translators were employed to examine whether he departed from the faith. It is important to remember that these translators were agents of their own. When Gabriel spoke, translators interpreted his words and reported their own interpretations back to the inquisitors. It was their translations that would help determine the defendant’s eventual sentence. Their influence extended far beyond translation. In Gabriel’s case, for example, they were questioned by the inquisitor about their opinion of Gabriel’s character and mental faculties.^{Footnote 24} Both Gabriel Abexim and Gonçalo Toscano’s cases appeared in Figueira’s Reportorio, but of course, these details of the mediation of their voices are not apparent in the case summaries.^{Footnote 25}

Incomplete Nature of Case Summaries

The Reportorio’s summaries are incomplete; they capture moments in time or snapshots of the inquisitorial process and indeed of the defendants’ lives. Their lives continued after their sentencing, and sentences were sometimes changed.^{Footnote 26} Comparing an inquisition case with the Reportorio’s summary of that case is instructive. Gonçalo Toscano’s case and the case summary are available for comparison. Figueira’s case summary stated that Toscano was of the Moorish caste, born in Balagate to Moorish parents. He was a baptized adult who abjured his “Moorish sins” on 24 August 1597 with the sentence of incarceration and a penitential habit at the inquisitors’ discretion. Antonio de Barros and Marcos Gil Frazão were listed as the inquisitors who handled the case.^{Footnote 27}

Gonçalo Toscano’s case summary differed from the full case record in ways that hinder a thorough analysis, if one is dependent only on the case summaries. His conversion to Islam was noted in the case summary. In a sample of 2,254 cases between 1560 and 1623, roughly eighteen percent or 410 cases were prosecutions involving a conversion to Islam as a primary or secondary crime.^{Footnote 28} However, what Figueira did not record was Gonçalo’s slave status at the time of at least one of his conversions. The notary recording Gonçalo’s first confession in May 1597 identified Gonçalo as a freed slave, and Gonçalo named his former master, Matteus Carvalho, from whom he ran away before converting to Islam the first time.^{Footnote 29} Inquisitors prosecuted slaves who converted to Islam at a higher rate, when compared to the free population prosecuted by the Goa Tribunal for the same crime. One hundred fifty-nine cases in the sample were brought against slaves; they constituted only seven percent of the sample. Yet, seventy percent of cases brought against slaves in my sample were conversion cases – instances in which slaves had converted to Islam.^{Footnote 30} This percentage stands in marked contrast with the overall 18.18% of the sample of cases involving conversions to Islam. Similar to Gonçalo, untold numbers of freed slaves are listed in the Reportorio, but without the full case records we are unaware of their former status. Moreover, Gonçalo Toscano’s case included other religious crimes that Figueira omitted from the case summary. The actual case, for example, included details of Gonçalo’s use of a feitiço or “charm.”^{Footnote 31} Additionally, the full case described his military activity in the service of a sultanate; such service constituted a religious offense at the time.^{Footnote 32} However, his case summary in the Reportorio only indicated that he had converted to Islam.^{Footnote 33}

Besides the omission of biographical data and other religious offenses, case summaries presented only snapshots of a life and sometimes only fragments of a person’s inquisition experience. The process leading up to the trial and sentencing of course was omitted. But, it is important to note that the sentence recorded in the summary did not necessarily mean the permanent ending to the inquisitorial encounter. Gonçalo publicly abjured on 24 August 1597 and received his sentence, as recorded by the case summary.^{Footnote 34} Yet, his story did not end there. By December, he had exited India on a ship to Portugal, as his inquisitors had wished.^{Footnote 35} Figueira’s case summary for Gabriel Abexim, a freed Abyssinian slave, likewise was a snapshot. Gabriel had two cases in the same year, yet Figueira only recorded the first.^{Footnote 36} While Figueira did note when a person had multiple cases over the years, it is impossible to tell if the omission of Gabriel’s second case was an anomaly without having the larger corpus of full case records to check against the case summaries.

Using the Reportorio

While the Reportorio has many caveats, the case summaries shed light on the slave trade, slavery, and forced labor in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By tracking the geographical origins along with the eventual residences of slaves, one can cursorily sketch slave trade routes while simultaneously giving names to the slaves who traveled along those routes. Precise ports of departure and the precise mixture of maritime and overland routes are not recorded in the summaries, but they are at best a starting point for inquiry and a way to personalize the anonymous bonded travelers. For a few of the African slaves in the sample, this is possible. In 1564, a Mozambican slave living in Goa was prosecuted for divination, after which he was sold to Portugal.^{Footnote 37} Antonio, a slave from the coast of Malindi lived in Cochim before his 1566 inquisitorial trial that resulted in his sale and shipment to Portugal.^{Footnote 38} In 1581 Jerónimo, a slave from Mombasa living in Goa, was prosecuted for paganism.^{Footnote 39} In 1585, a slave named Diogo, born in the kingdom of the “Monomotapa” and living in Goa, was sentenced by the Goa Tribunal.^{Footnote 40} Figueira recorded the birthplaces of two other African slaves in the sample but did not record their place of residence; thus it is not possible to track their movement.^{Footnote 41} Yet, the presence of these slaves in Portuguese India is reflective of a slave trade from East and Southern Africa – a trade that on average consisted of the export of “a couple hundred” slaves from Mozambique to Portuguese Asia each year between 1500 and 1850.^{Footnote 42}

The slave trade was not unidirectional, a fact to which the case summaries attest.^{Footnote 43} Slaves from Portuguese India were shipped to the metropole. Some slaves within Portuguese India, as seen above, were sold to Portugal after committing inquisitorial crimes. While the slaves mentioned above were from Africa, slaves from elsewhere were sold to the metropole. For example in 1564, a Burmese slave named Bernardim who lived in Goa was sold to Portugal for having converted to Islam.^{Footnote 44} Similarly, four years later a Javanese slave named Joane was sold to Portugal, after being sentenced by the Goa Tribunal.^{Footnote 45}

The information contained in the case summaries can elucidate aspects of slavery in the Estado da Índia. First, the case summaries highlight the diversity of the slave population. My sample from the Reportorio strongly suggests that African slaves did not make up the bulk of enslaved defendants tried by the Goa Tribunal at least in the early decades of the Inquisition. Enslaved African defendants were, rather, atypical. Thus, being an enslaved defendant generally did not correlate to having African origins. Only ten cases in the sample involved enslaved defendants who were Africans.^{Footnote 46} All were males whom Figueira categorized as “cafres.” They were not the only Africans in the sample, however. Figueira recorded seven Abyssinian men and women, all of whom lacked a slave or freed slave status notated in their entries.^{Footnote 47} This lack of slave or feed status did not mean that these defendants had not experienced slavery. As mentioned previously, Figueira did not record the prior slave status of Gabriel, an Abyssinian whose full case records included his freed slave status. The sample is too small to speculate on the significance of the enslaved “cafre” in juxtaposition to the free Abyssinian. With investigation of other available inquisition lists, however, it would be possible to examine which Africans tended to encounter the Goan Inquisition – did they tend to be enslaved or free, “cafres” or Abyssinians?^{Footnote 48} Besides African slaves, inquisitors prosecuted local slaves residing in Goa.^{Footnote 49} Moreover, case summaries show that Japanese, Bengali, East and Southern African, Javanese, and Malabar slaves worked in Goa between 1561 and 1623.^{Footnote 50} This eclectic mix of slaves was not limited to Goa. For example, inquisition cases were launched against Bengali, Malabar, Sinhalese, Gujarati, corombim, Javanese, Chinese, and Burmese slaves in Chaul.^{Footnote 51} Similarly in Cochim, there were cases against an East African slave from Malindi and a Bengali slave.^{Footnote 52} Admittedly, these records are not representative samples of the entire slave population. It is entirely possible that the local slave population dwarfed the number of slaves coming from elsewhere. However, these records do constitute proof of a heterogeneous slave population that was not wholly characterized by one ethnic group. Moreover, such mixed groups of slaves matched contemporary patterns of slaveholding elsewhere in the Estado da Índia.^{Footnote 53}

In addition to slaves’ ethnic origins, the case summaries provide information about slaves’ religious backgrounds and religious choices. While not uniform in his recording, Figueira noted the religious heritage of slaves, noting whether they were born to Christian, Muslim, or pagan parents. In addition, slaves’ religious choices – the identities they chose as well as their conversions – can be studied by utilizing the Reportorio.^{Footnote 54} Through Figueira’s summaries, it is possible to track slaves who were born to Muslim parents, converted to Catholicism, and then reconverted to Islam. For instance, of the six African slaves who were prosecuted for converting to Islam, four were born to Muslim parents.^{Footnote 55} It is also possible to track new conversions of slaves to Islam; some slaves born to Christian or pagan parents eventually converted to Islam.^{Footnote 56}

Despite their atypical provenance, the patterns of African slaves’ religious crimes were not anomalous in the context of the sample of slave cases. Only one African slave’s case summary involved a religious crime that stood out from among the rest. In 1564, the enslaved Antonio was sentenced for the crime of divination.^{Footnote 57} All the other African slaves were prosecuted for religious crimes resembling cases of non-African slaves. The other cases involving enslaved Africans were prosecutions for carrying messages to prisoners of the Inquisition, converting to Islam, paganism, and an unspecified crime.^{Footnote 58} In the sample, none of the enslaved Africans were prosecuted for crimes such as sacrifices, pacts with the devil, witchcraft, false testimony, bigamy, bribery, or irreligious words (blasphemous, ill-sounding, or heretical). As mentioned earlier, the categories used by Figueira are problematic. However, the summaries do point to contemporary concerns about slaves’ religious choices.

The Reportorio also provides a window into forced labor in the Estado da Índia. The Goa Tribunal was an institutionalized producer of forced laborers, and case summaries from 1561 to 1623 clearly show the way inquisitors provided laborers for the state: religious offenders were transformed into laborers for the galleys, gunpowder factory, and hospital. The Portuguese Empire had to be maintained, and the Goan Inquisition provided necessary manpower.^{Footnote 59} Galley labor was indispensable, as these forced laborers enforced the Portuguese trade monopolies by patrolling the coasts in the Indian Ocean.^{Footnote 60} In a sample of 2,254 cases, roughly ten percent of them contained sentences of galley labor.^{Footnote 61} These defendants’ crimes varied. A few examples include bigamy, sodomy, and paganism. Cases of bigamy often produced sentences to the galleys.^{Footnote 62} In 1589, Antonio de Matos, born in Hormuz, was sentenced to the galleys forever after being found guilty of sodomy.^{Footnote 63} Likewise, in 1607 Bras Coelho de Sancoalle was sentenced to the galleys for six years. A baptized resident of Salcete born to pagan parents, Sancoalle was punished for both paganism and sodomy.^{Footnote 64} Cases of paganism sent religious offenders such as Andre Vaz to the galleys. Inquisitor Ruy Sodrinho sentenced Vaz, a native Christian living in Goa, in 1593 for this religious crime. He was also whipped before his two-year stint of forced labor.^{Footnote 65} All who received this punishment of forced labor in the galleys were men irrespective of ethnic or religious heritage.^{Footnote 66} These sentences of forced labor were generally for fixed periods of time. For example on the shorter end of the sentencing spectrum, Domingos Vieira, born in Diu to the son of a “mulato,” was sentenced in 1606 to the galleys for six months for speaking blasphemous and heretical words.^{Footnote 67} On the other hand, sentences of exile “forever” to the galleys were possible, which occurred in the aforementioned case of Antonio de Matos in 1589 for sodomy.^{Footnote 68}

Women were not exempt from being sentenced to help with empire building: they, along with men, were sentenced to the gunpowder factory and the hospital. While a less frequently chosen sentence than the galleys, inquisitors sentenced men and women to the gunpowder factory.^{Footnote 69} All but one case in the sample of gunpowder factory sentences occurred between 1603 and 1614.^{Footnote 70} The religious crimes punished by sentences to the gunpowder factory varied. A few include sacrifices, paganism, bigamy, and sodomy.^{Footnote 71}

The Goa Tribunal also produced laborers for the Church, as well. Gabriel Abexim, whose first stint of church-mandated forced labor was in a religious college, was not a complete anomaly.^{Footnote 72} For instance, in 1586 Antonio, a Gujarati prosecuted for paganism by the Goan Inquisition, was ordered to serve in a monastery for a year.^{Footnote 73} Likewise, in 1595 a freed man of Javanese descent living in Chaul, Diogo Vaz, was sentenced to servitude in a monastery for six months.^{Footnote 74} Thus, similar to Gabriel, he had experienced slavery and found freedom, before slipping back into servitude through the inquisitorial process.