History of Mangalorean Catholics
The History of Mangalorean Catholics comprises three major eras. The first era consists of the cultural heritage shaped by Indo-Aryan migration into the Indus valley (banks of the Sarasvati river), later the migration to Govapuri (pre-Portuguese Goa) and other prominent areas of the Konkan region, possibly due to a natural disaster that caused the drying up of the Sarasvati. Also, the various invasions and the political upheavals that followed in the pre-Partition eras of the northwest Indian subcontinent might be responsible for migration to Konkan in Western India. The second era was the legacy of Lusitanian culture, from the conversion of their Konkani ancestors to Roman Catholicism in the colonies of the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay-Bassein, and the final era being the migration of the Roman Catholics in Goa to Mangalore and other parts of South Canara between the mid-16th and mid-18th centuries, forming a unique Mangalorean Catholic identity, and the subsequent growth and development of the community. Several centuries of living in South Canara gave these Catholics an identity of their own. Roman Catholics from Goa migrated to Mangalore in three major waves, the first after 1560, the second after 1570, and the third in about 1683. The