Tiswadi, along with the rest of Goa, regularly exchanged hands between the Muslim
Bhahmani Sultanate and the Hindu
Vijayanagara Empire of
South India prior to the 14th century. By the 15th century, the
Bijapur Sultanate under the Adil Shahi dynasty conquered Goa, and it came under Muslim rule. The
City of Goa was the regional capital of the sultanates as well as a hub for the
Hajj pilgrimage. Numerous temples were demolished under the rule of the sultanates. The Adil Shahi dynasty was defeated by a
Portuguese–Vijayanagar alliance, and Ilhas de Goa was conquered under
Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510. By the time Tiswadi was relieved from Muslim rule, Hindus formed a minority in the region, and the Portuguese started conversion efforts against the Muslim majority. The populace was made to accept Christianity or leave the islands. There was a mass exodus of natives who left the islands, for the safer havens of
Ponda and the
Canara,
Malabar Coast,
Chandgad and
Joida. The first temple to be built in
Panjim was in the mid-1700s, when the Portuguese authorities granted permission to the Hindus to build their place of worship. The evangelization of Tiswadi was spearheaded by the
Dominicans, who were assigned 15 villages, and the
Jesuits, who were assigned the remaining part along with the smaller islands of
Chorão and
Divar, by the Portuguese authorities. In 1552, the island of Chorão had a population of 300 Christians out of 3,000 and, by this time, also had a small church which was visited by a Jesuit from St. Paul's every Sunday. By the end of 1559, over 1,200 had accepted
baptism. The following year, the first bishop from the
Jesuit order, Dom João Nunes de Barreto, set up residence in Chorão, which eventually became a Noviciate. Most of Chorão's population converted en masse to Roman Catholicism in mid-1560. By January 1563, the Jesuit provincial claimed that Ilhas de Goa had been completely Christianized, with a population of 70,000, the great majority of which had converted in the last six years, corresponding to the terms of Viceroys
Francisco Barreto and
Constantino of Braganza, whose -year term saw between 25,000 and 30,000 conversions. ==Demographics==