Topass
   HOME
*





Topass
Topass (Topass, Topass Seaman or Topas) was a term used by the British Merchant Navy for the man who acted as an interpreter for a group or gang of Lascars or South Asian seamen on British vessels since at least the mid nineteenth century. Usually the topass came from the Luso-Asian communities, such as those from Goa and Bombay, and could speak English (and often Portuguese) to pass on instructions to a group of sailors and to report back or mediate between Lascars and the European crew. Topaze Indo-Portuguese was a term applied in India by the British East India Company in the eighteenth century to describe Luso-Asians - usually from the Portuguese territories in the Indian subcontinent, or formerly Portuguese territories such as Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the sec ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Topasses
Topasses (Tupasses, Topas, Topaz) were a group of people led by the two powerful families – Da Costa and Hornay – that resided in Oecussi and Flores. The Da Costa families were descendants of Portuguese Jewish merchants and Hornay were Dutch. The origins The etymology of the name is obscure. It might come from the Tamil term ''tuppasi'', "bilingual" or "interpreter". But it has also been associated with the Hindi word ''topi'' (hat) which refers to the characteristic hat worn by the men of this community as a marker of their cultural attachment to the European community. Hence, they are also referred to as ''gente de chapeo'' in Portuguese accounts or as ''gens à chapeau'' in French accounts. It partly overlapped with the Dutch concept mardijker, "free men", who also usually had a Portuguese cultural background, but had no European blood in their veins. While the mardijkers served under the Dutch colonial authorities, the topasses of Timor were staunchly opposed to the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Portuguese Timor
Portuguese Timor ( pt, Timor Português) was a colonial possession of Portugal that existed between 1702 and 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies. The first Europeans to arrive in the region were the Portuguese in 1515.West, p. 198. Dominican friars established a presence on the island in 1556, and the territory was declared a Portuguese colony in 1702. Following the beginning of the Carnation Revolution (a Lisbon-instigated decolonisation process) in 1975, East Timor was invaded by Indonesia. However, the invasion was not recognized as legal by the United Nations (UN), which continued to regard Portugal as the legal Administering Power of East Timor. The independence of East Timor was finally achieved in 2002 following a UN-administered transition period. History Early colonialists Prior to the arrival of European colonial powers, the island of Timor was part of the trading networks that stretched between India and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Luso-Asians
Luso-Asians (Portuguese: ''luso-asiáticos'') are people whose ethnicity is partially or wholly Portuguese and ancestrally are based in or hail primarily from Portugal, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. They historically came under the cultural and multi-ethnic sway of the Portuguese Empire in the East and retain certain aspects of the Portuguese language, Roman Catholic faith, and Latin cultural practices, including internal and external architecture, art, and cuisine that reflect this contact. The term ''Luso'' comes from the Roman empire's province of Lusitania, it roughly corresponds to modern Portugal. Luso-Asian Art is also known as Indo-Portuguese Art (from India), Luso-Ceylonese Art (from Sri Lanka), Luso-Siamese Art (from Thailand), Luso-Malay (from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), Sino-Portuguese Art (from China), or Nipo-Portuguese Art (from Japan). Examples of this art, especially of furniture and religious art are found throughout Europe and in the islan ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Lascars
A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland, or other land east of the Cape of Good Hope, who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the 20th century. Etymology The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that the word has two possible derivations: :Either an erroneous European use of Urdu ''lashkar'' army, camp .. or a shortened form of its derivative ''lashkarī'' ..In Portuguese ''c''1600 ''laschar'' occurs in the same sense as ''lasquarim'' , i.e. Indian soldier; this use, from which the current applications are derived, is not recorded in English. The Portuguese adapted this term to "lascarins", meaning Asian militiamen or seamen, from any area east of the Cape of Good Hope, including Indian, Malay, Chinese and Japanese crewmen. The English word "lascarins", now obsolete, referred to Sri Lankans who fought in the colonial army of the Portuguese until the 1930s. The ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

HMS Kent (1746)
HMS ''Kent'' was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was ordered from Deptford Dockyard on 10 May 1743 and was built by Joseph Allin the younger to the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment, and was launched on 10 May 1746. Her first commander was Thomas Fox, who had previously commanded HMS ''Newcastle''.Ships of the Old Navy, ''Kent''. Chasing the convoys In April 1747 ''Kent'' was part of a small squadron under Fox's overall command consisting of HMS ''Hampton Court'', HMS ''Eagle'', HMS ''Lion'', HMS ''Chester'' and HMS ''Hector'', and accompanied by two fireships. They cruised between Ushant and Cape Finisterre in an attempt to intercept a large merchant fleet that was sailing from San Domingo to France. After a month at sea they encountered the convoy, which consisted of some 170 ships carrying a cargo of cochineal, cotton, indigo and other valuable commodities. Their escort was four French warships, which fled upon the approach of the Br ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

HMS Tiger (1747)
HMS ''Tiger'' or ''Tygre'' was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Rotherhithe to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment and launched on 23 November 1747.Lavery 2003, p.173. Naval service ''Tiger'' was commissioned in December 1747 under Captain Charles Saunders, as a reinforcement for the British fleet then in action against France in the War of the Austrian Succession. She was assigned to a squadron under the overall command of Admiral Peter Warren, but saw no active engagement in her first months at sea. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in April 1748, and ''Tiger'' was returned to Deptford for service as a guard ship. Charles Steevens replaced Saunders as ''Tiger''s captain in 1749, but the vessel remained at Deptford until she was decommissioned in November 1752.Winfield 2007, p. 130 Two months later, in January 1753, ''Tiger'' was restored to her duties as a guard ship but relocated to Portsmouth Doc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, int ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-most populous city in India after Delhi and the eighth-most populous city in the world with a population of roughly 20 million (2 crore). As per the Indian government population census of 2011, Mumbai was the most populous city in India with an estimated city proper population of 12.5 million (1.25 crore) living under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Mumbai is the centre of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, the sixth most populous metropolitan area in the world with a population of over 23 million (2.3 crore). Mumbai lies on the Konkan coast on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. In 2008, Mumbai was named an alpha world city. It has the highest number of millionaires and billionaires among all cities i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]