As they lost control over the spice trade, the Portuguese were reduced to trading in African slaves although they were not above kidnapping Indian children and selling them in faraway markets. A particularly intriguing case is that of an eleven-year-old girl, Meera, who was kidnapped from India’s west coast and then sold to the Spanish in Manila. She was then taken to Mexico where she is remembered as Catarina de San Juan. She came to be considered a popular saint although her veneration was explicitly prohibited by the Inquisition. Her life is an amazing tale of how a young girl adapted
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