View source for Topass

{{Short description|Luso-Asian interpreters between British and South Asian merchant marine sailors}}
{{distinguish|text=[[Topasses]], the Indonesian communities associated with Portuguese colonial rule, particularly in [[Portuguese Timor]]}}
{{unreferenced|date=May 2020}}
'''Topass''' ('''Topass, Topass Seaman''' or '''Topas''') was a term used by the British [[Merchant Navy]] for the man who acted as an interpreter for a group or gang of [[Lascars]] or South Asian seamen on British vessels since at least the mid nineteenth century. Usually the topass came from the [[Luso-Asians|Luso-Asian]] communities, such as those from Goa and Bombay, and could speak English (and often Portuguese) to pass on instructions to a group of sailors and to report back or mediate between Lascars and the European crew. '''Topaze Indo-Portuguese''' was a term applied in [[India]] by the British East India Company in the eighteenth century to describe [[Luso-Asians]]—usually from the Portuguese territories in the Indian subcontinent, or formerly Portuguese territories such as [[Bombay]]. One of the first references to them is in the British Anti-piracy campaign of 1756 when 300 Topaze Indo-Portuguese on the British ships [[HMS Kent (1746)|''Kent'']], ''Kingfisher'', and [[HMS Tiger (1747)|''Tiger'']] captured the fortress of Geriah on 14 February 1756.
==References==
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[[Category:Merchant navy]]