[1] The local Portuguese garrison retaliated by executing the village chieftains involved, and destroying the economic infrastructure of Cuncolim.

[2] Following the Portuguese conquest of Goa by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510, missionaries of various religious orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, Augustinians, etc.)

were sent from Portugal to Goa with the goal of fulfilling the papal bull Romanus Pontifex, which granted the patronage of the propagation of the Christian faith in Asia to the Portuguese.

It was prosperous compared to neighboring areas due to its fertile land, with abundant and fresh water from rivers descending from the hinterland of Goa.

As Afonso de Albuquerque wrote in his letters back to Portugal, guns of good quality were manufactured in Cuncolim, which he found comparable to those made in Germany.

Their names, in order of precedence, were Mhal, Shetkar, Naik, Mangro, Xette, Tombdo, Porob, Sidakalo, Lokakalo, Bandekar, Rouno and Benklo.

Due to this, there was an angry reaction from the Brahmin caste towards the attempts of the Jesuits who sought to establish Christianity in Cuncolim and its satellite villages of Assolna, Veroda, Velim and Ambelim in 1583.

They were accompanied by one Portuguese layman (Gonçalo Rodrigues) and 14 native converts, with the objective of erecting a cross and selecting ground for building a church.

Meanwhile, several villagers in Cuncolim, after holding a council, advanced in large numbers, armed with swords, lances, and other weapons, towards the spot where the Christians were.

[1] According to Anthony D'Souza, writing in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, Gonçalo Rodrigues leveled his gun at the advancing crowd, but was stopped by Alfonso Pacheco who said: "We are not here to fight."

Next, the crowd turned on Peter Berno who was horribly mutilated, and Pacheco who, wounded with a spear, fell on his knees extending his arms in the form of a cross.

Francisco Aranha, wounded at the outset by a scimitar and a lance, fell down a deep declivity into the thick crop of a rice-field, where he lay until he was discovered.

[1] The captain-major of Rachol in charge of the Portuguese Army garrison at the (now extinct) Assolna Fort, Gomes Eanes de Figueiredo, was determined to punish those responsible for the deaths of the victims.

[2] The Hindu chieftains of Cuncolim, who had led the massacre, were then summoned to the Assolna fort situated on the banks of the River Sal.

[14] Following the execution of their leaders, the Hindu landlords of Cuncolim and neighbouring villages (Velim, Assolna, Ambelim and Veroda) rebelled by refusing to pay taxes on the produce generated from their fields and orchards to the Portuguese government.

He was the fifth child of the Duke of Atri and nephew of Claudio Acquaviva, the fifth General of the Society of Jesus, while on his mother's side he was a cousin of Aloysius Gonzaga.

Shortly after his arrival he was selected for an important mission to the court of the emperor Akbar the great, who had sent an emissary to Velha Goa requesting that two learned missionaries might be sent to Fatehpur Sikri, the capital of the Moghul empire.

[1] Francis Aranha was born of a wealthy and noble family of Braga in Portugal, about 1551, and went to India with his uncle, the first archbishop of Goa, Gaspar de Leão Pereira.

[1] The native Goans and the Portuguese layman who were killed along with the five Jesuits were excluded from the list of the Martyrs of the Faith, when the Church opened its Beatification process.

According to writer Délio de Mendonça, this was due to the then prevailing attitude among the missionaries that the resident Catholics were by nature incapable of performing spiritual feats.