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{{Short description|Portuguese-Brazilian businessman (1770–1848)}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Sir Rogério de Faria
| image =
| caption =
|birth_date = {{birth date|1770|10|14|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[Chorão (Island)|Chorão]], [[Goa]], [[Portuguese India]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1848|3|15|1770|10|14|df=y}}
|death_place = [[Bombay]], [[Bombay Presidency]], [[British India]]
| occupation = Businessman
}}

'''Sir Rogério de Faria''' (14 October 1770 — 15 March 1848) was a Portuguese-Brazilian businessman.<ref name="Teo_2006">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2fUS0OHs9R0C&pg=PA136 |title=Reflected in Water: Writings on Goa |editor=Jerry Pinto |editor-link=Jerry Pinto |publisher=Penguin Books India |year=2006 |isbn=9780143100812 |pages=136–142 |author=Teotónio de Souza |author-link=Teotónio de Souza }}</ref>

==Early life==
Sir Rogério de Faria, also known as Sir Roger Faria, was a native of [[Chorão (Island)|Chorão Island]],<ref name="PintoTrade94">{{Cite book |last=Pinto |first=Celsa |author-link=Celsa Pinto |url=https://archive.org/details/tradefinanceinpo0000pint |title=Trade and finance in Portuguese India : a study of the Portuguese country trade, 1770-1840 |date=1994 |publisher=New Delhi : Concept Pub. Co. |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-81-7022-507-2 |page=58}}</ref> son of Joao de Faria and Ana Maria D'Albuquerque e de Faria. The family migrated to [[Bombay]], [[British India]] after [[epidemics in Chorão Island]] in 1775. A [[Goan Catholic]] in international business, he was a pioneer in the [[opium trade]] in [[China]], long before the [[United Kingdom|British]] thought of entering this branch of commerce.

==Consul of Brazil in Bombay==
De Faria was known in [[Bombay]] and internationally as a "prince merchant".<ref name="PintoTrade94" /> A resident of Bombay, where he was [[Consul (representative)|Consul]] of [[Brazil]], de Faria did business in [[Bengal]], Bombay and [[Macau]]. He was a big supporter of fellow [[Goan]] 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. This was unacceptable to Sir Roger Faria because Da Silva was the first native born Portuguese Governor. Sir Roger Faria staked his fortune unsuccessfully on a naval expedition thwarted by heavy monsoons to restore Bernardo Peres da Silva to the post of Portuguese Governor of India.

==Biographies==
According to historian [[Teotonio de Souza]],<ref name="Souza1985">De Souza, Teotonio R. (1985) "Capital Input in Goa's Freedom Struggle" in ''Indo-Portuguese history: old issues, new questions.'' p 102-113 Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi.</ref> he accessed part of de Faria's business correspondence dating back to 1789–1830, involving dealings with the [[Mhamai Kamat House]] in [[Portuguese Goa]]. De Souza<ref name="Souza1985" /> 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."

Abbé 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.<ref>''Instituto Vasco da Gama'', (May, 1874) n.29, p.105</ref> cited by Souza <ref name="Souza1985" />).

De Souza<ref name="Souza1985" /> says that Faria made his fortune in "opium-peddling", and 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 [[Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy|Sir Jamsetjee 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 Jamsetjee had made his first voyage to China in a ship belonging to Sir Roger de Faria."

Faria faced prohibitive financial losses, after the naval expedition he backed to restore Bernardo Peres da Silva, the first native-born Portuguese Governor, failed owing to an inclement and ruinous monsoon. His only son 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 <ref>''Sir Roger de Faria'', Nova Goa, 1928</ref> which Souza says "gives more details about the numerous progeny of Sir Roger than about him."

He lived out the rest of his life on a pension granted to him by his friend Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bombaywalla.org/facades-gloria-church-1913/|title=Gloria Faria {{!}} Bombaywalla|last=admin|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-09}}</ref>

==Legacy==
Naresh Fernandes writes in Bombaywallah.org:<ref>http://bombaywalla.org/facades-gloria-church-1913/ Facades: Gloria Church (1913)</ref> "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." His children married into other prominent Luso-Indian aristocratic families and his descendants continue to play prominent roles in Mumbai's politics and entertainment industry.

==Further reading==
* de Souza, Teotonio R, ''For Goa and Opium''. Goa: Penguin Books, 2006.
* de Souza, Teotonio R. "French slave-trading in Portuguese Goa (1773–1791)." ''Essays in Goan History'' (1989): 119–3.
* Trade and Finance in Portuguese India: A Study of the Portuguese Country Trade 1770–1840 by Celsa Pinto, Concept Publishing Company (1994)
* Markovits, Claude. "The political economy of opium smuggling in early nineteenth century India: Leakage or Resistance?." ''Modern Asian Studies'' 43.01 (2009): 89–111.
* Siddiqi, Asiya. "Pathways of the Poppy." ''India and China in the Colonial World'' (2005): 21.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faria, Rogerio de}}
[[Category:1770 births]]
[[Category:1848 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Chorão (island)]]
[[Category:Portuguese diplomats]]
[[Category:Brazilian diplomats]]
[[Category:Portuguese people of Goan descent]]
[[Category:People from Portuguese India]]
[[Category:18th-century Portuguese businesspeople]]
[[Category:19th-century Portuguese businesspeople]]
[[Category:Opium in India]]
[[Category:Opium in China]]
[[Category:18th-century Indian businesspeople]]

Rogério de Faria - Revision history

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