Burton’s Racist Critique of Portuguese Goa

Richard Burton (1821-1890), the iconic Victorian traveller of the nineteenth century, is famous for being a man of many parts. Burton‟s phenomenal wanderlust went hand in hand with myriad concurrent interests – cartographical, ethnological, and anthropological. Also, besides being an exceptional swordsman, Burton was a translator and a polyglot. Burton began his career in India as a recruit in the East India Company‟s Indian Army. After starting as a soldier based in Bombay and Gujarat, Burton‟s linguistic prowess helped him to advance to the administrative role of an assistant surveyor in Sindh. It was during his term in Sindh that Burton made a convalescence trip to Otacumund that is, present day Ooty. However, in the travel account Goa, and the Blue Mountains: Or, Six Months of Sick Leave(1851), that emerged from the trip, it is evident that Burton‟s interest in Portuguese Goa exceeds the purpose of his travel to the sanatorium. The book‟s focus on colonial Goa outstrips all manner of other ethnological detail, not to mention the official destination of his trip - Ooty. This paper shall interrogate Burton‟s interest in Goa and his reflections on Portuguese colonial policy. The paper shall analyze Burton‟s rigid stand within the dynamics of race theory, which this visit gave occasion to crystalize.