Paper short abstract:

The present essay focuses in the report of four European travelers, about what they saw, observed and narrated of a stay in Goa.

Paper long abstract:

The present essay focuses in the report of four European travelers: D. Garcia de Silva Y Figueroa (1550/1624) - Spanish, Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1563/1611) - Dutch, François Pyrard de Laval (1578/1623) - French and Piettro Della Valle (1586/1623) - Italian, about what they saw, observed and narrated of a stay in Goa.

Despite a common starting point they had different criteria for analysis, comparison and objectives, although converging in some geographic points, on a mission that consists in analyzing and identifying the ways, habits and uses that Portuguese had absorbed and imposed in their territorial appropriation of India. The report also reflects the detailed geography of the places revealing detailed descriptions of physical and human characterization of the Goa territory.

They all traveled in the dual monarchy period, where a dynasty - the Habsburgs - intended to assume a universal sovereignty that was characterized for embracing the four parts of the world.

Also in this period, Netherlands, France, Spain, France and others reportedly taken by sea and land their interest in the East, which consequently resulted in the formation of numerous commercial companies and led to the loss of the Portuguese hegemony in the field of trade routes, helping to accentuate the decline that have been manifested since the mid-sixteenth century, of the Portuguese State of India.

The analysis reflects the way how these travelers, differently and critically, revealed and describe the geography of the territory of the island and city of Goa, not forgetting their distinct motivation, education and origin.