Religion Roman Catholicism Residence Mumbai | Died 15 March 1848, Mumbai | |
Born October 14, 1770
Chorão, Goa ( 1770-10-14 ) | ||
Rogério de Faria (Goa, 14 October 1770 — Bombay, 15 March 1848) was a Luso-Goan businessman.
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Biography
Rogério de Faria was a native of Chorão Island Son of Joao de Faria and Ana Maria D'Albuquerque e de Faria of Chorão Island, The family migrated to Bombay after Epidemics in Chorão Island in 1775. A Catholic Goan in the world of business, he was a pioneer in the opium trade in China, long before the British thought of making use of this branch of commerce.
Resident in Bombay, Consul of Brazil
Rogério de Faria was referred to in Bombay Circles as "Prince Merchant.A resident in Bombay, where he was Consul of Brazil, Roger Faria had business in Bengal, Bombay and Macau. He was the big supporter of the mayor Bernardo Peres da Silva, who had been appointed governor of Goa by the Liberal government of Dom Pedro IV of Portugal, but rejected by the military stationed in Goa.
Biographies
According to Souza, part of the business correspondence from Faria dating back between 1789 and 1830, involving dealings with the Mhamai Kamat Agency House in Goa, was accessed by him some time back. Souza suggests that the pre-1818 papers offer "much interesting information" that could help correct and supplement "whatever we know about Rogerio de Faria from a few contemporary published sources and from a few late and sketchy biographies."
Abbe Cottineau's Journal describes Sir Rogerio Faria's house as "commanding a most lovely view of the sea, the ramparts, the suburbs, the city, the Colaba island, and the West coast as far as the so-called Malabar Point.IVdG" cited by Souza ).
Souza says that Faria made is fortune in "opium-peddling". Souza writes: "We are not able to fully collaborate the statement, but we are told by the otherwise critical Indo-Portuguese administrator-historian, J.H. da Cunha-Rivara, that Sir Jamshetjee Jeejeebhoy, the most glamorous Parsee figures of the mid-nineteenth century in the annals of Bombay, started his prosperous career as a simple clerk in the firm of Rogerio de Faria. Reporting the death of Sir Roger's daughter, Miss Margaret de Faria, the Bombay Gazette of 7 October 1889 added that Sir Jamshetjee had made his first voyage to China in a ship belonging to Sir Roger de Faria."
Faria lost out in the financial world, and his only son also died, of tetanus after an accidental fall, a couple of years before him in 1848. The Goan journalist-editor A.M. da Cunha wrote a 30-page booklet which Souza says "gives more details about the numerous progeny of Sir Roger than about him.
Memorial in Byculla
Naresh Fernandes writes in Bombaywallah.org: "Gloria Church [in Byculla, Bombay now known as Mumbai ], contains a memorial stone to an almost-forgotten Bombay character: the Goan opium trader Sir Roger de Faria."