Person · Catholic martyr · India
Gonçalo Garcia
Born at Vasai to a Portuguese father and an Indian mother, he went to Japan as a lay Franciscan and merchant and was crucified with twenty-five others at Nagasaki in 1597. Canonised in 1862, he was the first person born in India to be made a saint.
- Date
- 1556–1597
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 19.331, 72.816
Worth knowing
He is claimed by three countries at once — India as the first Indian-born saint, Portugal as one of its own, and Japan as one of the Twenty-Six Martyrs. The church at Vasai that keeps his cult is a few hundred metres from the ruined fort he was born in.
About the place
Placed at Vasai, where he was born and where his cult is kept. He died at Nagasaki, and his relics are divided between Japan, Portugal and Vasai.
Connections (2)
- Institutional successionBasilica of Bom Jesus, Old Goa
Francis Xavier sailed for Japan from Goa in 1549 and the Jesuit mission he founded there was running when Gonçalo Garcia, born near Bombay, went out as a lay Franciscan and was crucified at Nagasaki in 1597 in the persecution that followed. Xavier's body lies at Bom Jesus and Garcia is claimed as the first Indian-born saint: the two ends of the same missionary network, one European going east and one Indian following him.
- BirthplaceVasai (Bassein) Fort
Gonçalo Garcia was born at Vasai about 1556 to a Portuguese father and an Indian mother, one of the mestizo population Albuquerque's marriage policy had encouraged. He left for Japan as a trader, joined the Franciscans as a lay brother in Manila, and was crucified at Nagasaki in 1597. The Estado's northern capital produced India's first canonised saint.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Gonsalo Garcia”. Vatican canonisation records, 1862; the Franciscan accounts of the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Nagasaki.
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