Portuguese, The were first among the Europeans to come to Bengal. Since the early 15th century they had embarked upon seafaring enterprises. The arrival of Vasco da Gama at Calicut in August 1498 was followed (a couple of decades later) by the arrival of the Portuguese in Bengal. From the end of the fifteenth century, the quest for spices from Asia led to the Portuguese explorations in an attempt to bypass the Venetians and the Arab merchants. The development of the caravel ship around 1445 and the capacity of the Portuguese to use the quadrant to determine onwards latitude from 1456 helped the process that was patronised by Prince Henry and later by King Joao II.
It was after the conquest of Malacca (1511) that the Portuguese effort to move inside the Bay of Bengal succeeded from where the supply of rice and textiles could be assured. The first indirect contact with Bengal was made in 1512-13. The map of Asia, drawn in 1516 by Diego Reinel, gives an outline of the Bengal coast but not the islands and the ports, which possibly were not yet known to the Portuguese. The appointment of Lopo Soares as governor after the death of Albuquerque marked the end of state controlled commercial activities and the liberal policy that followed saw the arrival of the Portuguese in Bengal.
While a private Portuguese trader, Martin Lucena, was living at gaur, capital of Bengal, the first Portuguese merchant to have reached the Ganges was Joao Coelho, who was sent by Giovanni de Empoli, a Florentine merchant, around 1516. Soares sent a fleet of four ships commanded by Joao de Silveria, who after plundering ships from Bengal, anchored at chittagong on 9 May 1518. Intermittent war and peace with the governor's men followed. This was complicated by the help demanded by the King of Arakan from Silveira to recover Chittagong from the Bengal sultan. But Silveira preferred to leave for Ceylon and thus ended the first official Portuguese contact with Bengal.
Diego Lopes, who succeeded Soares, was far more interested in the Coromandel and Pegu. However he sent three ships to Bengal commanded by Antonio de Britto, whose unnamed interpreter has left an invaluable account of Britto's visit to Gaur from Chittagong (October 1521). Britto carried a letter from the Portuguese governor of India to the sultan of Bengal along with presents and goods for sale. His job was made difficult by the arrival of another Portuguese mission led by Rafael Prestelo a few days befor. Rafael's representative, Christovao Jusarte, an old Bengal hand, had gone to Gaur to obtain permission to reduce the customs duty to 10%. Britto sent Gonsalves Travers to the sultan with the proposal to exempt the payment of custom duties for the Portuguese in Bengal. The arrival of two embassies, both claiming official status, created confusion and finally led to an actual fight between them at Chittagong, in which the Turkish merchant Agha Khan took the side of Rafaelo.
At the court of Gaur, Jusarte had managed to persuade the officials to declare Britto's interpreter as a spy, who was finally allowed to leave Bengal with the promise that the Portuguese would be exempted from paying customs duties. This perhaps led the Portuguese to send ships regularly to Bengal. In 1526, Ruy Vaz Perceira came to Chittagong and plundered the ship of a Persian merchant, Khwaja Sahabuddin, whose friendship with the governor of Chittagong led to reprisals.
Thus from the early sixteenth century, both private Portuguese merchants as well the official Portuguese representatives had begun to come to Bengal regularly, which often led to violent conflicts between them, a hangover of the contradiction prevailing at Lisbon for sometime. The involvement of the Portuguese in local politics created further complications. In 1528, Khuda Baksh Khan imprisoned the Portuguese stranded at Chakaria district of Chittagong after a storm. The negotiations for their release by Martin Alphonso Jusart de Mello having failed, the prisoners tried to escape but were caught. After the young nephew of de Mello was put to death, the prisoners were ransomed by the merchant Sahabuddin, on condition of getting help from Goa for Sahabuddin's enterprise against the Bengal sultan nusrat shah.
The expedition from Goa of five ships led by Jusart came to Chittagong after the death of Nusrat Shah. Jusart sent a mission to Sultan ghiyasuddin mahmud shah at Gaur to obtain a treaty. But the sultan imprisoned the Portuguese members of the mission for plundering a Muslim ship while Jusart along with the other Portuguese was arrested at Chittagong. Five of them were killed and the rest were imprisoned at Gaur. Goa sent a strong expedition to obtain the release of prisoners. The negotiations at Gaur failed and Jorge Alcocorado, who was leading the Portuguse delegation, barely escaped after putting fire to the city. The appearance of sher shah in Bengal however changed the situation.
Facing the new danger, Ghiyasuddin Mahmud held talks with Diego Rabello, perhaps the first Portuguese who had advanced to Gaur by the Ganges. Mahmud released the prisoners in lieu of assured Portuguese help against Sher Shah. The encounter with Sher Shah went against Mahmud Shah despite Portuguese help. Sher Shah left Gaur soon after getting 13 lakh gold coins paid by Mahmud against the advice of the Portuguese. The sultan now permitted the Portuguese to build factories with custom houses in Bengal. Nuno Fernandez Freire was appointed to Chittagong with special power to collect rent from houses. Joao Correa took charge of the custom house of satgaon. The Portuguese prisoners were released. Sher Shah's return to Gaur saw some resistance by Mahmud, but the expected help from Goa arrived too late to save the dying sultan, whose death ended the Hussain Shahi dynasty. The custom houses of Satgaon and Chittagong remained under Portuguese control.
The Portuguese control of Chittagong port was ephemeral, as it had become the bone of contention between Arakan, Tripura, Bengal and Burma since the mid-fifteenth century. In 1559, the Portuguese viceroy of Goa concluded a commercial treaty with Parmanand Ray of Bakla, in which the Portuguese would be able to buy goods on payment of duties. They offered military help in lieu of Bakla supplying provisions to visiting Portuguese ships. Perhaps the Portuguese wanted to direct the Chittagong traffic to Bakla with monopoly concessions. Chittagong continued to be under Portuguese control. In 1569 caesar frederick saw eighteen Portuguese ships anchored at Chittagong.
While the official Portuguese efforts aimed at consolidating their foothold in Bengal with bullion and gunpowder, the Portuguese mercenaries were indulging in piracy off the Bengal and Arakan coasts. The pirates found a convenient base on the island of Sandwip, famous for its salt, where private Portuguese merchants had also begun to operate. The Afghan families living there did not look with favour either on the piracy or the Portuguese attempt to control the island, with whose chequered history the Arakanese ambition to develop it as a springboard to attack the mainland was increasingly linked up.
Thus Portuguese society in Bengal was gradually segmented into official and private merchants, adventurers and pirates, though the distinction often became blurred. The gradual disintegration of the Hussain Shahi dynasty saw the emergence of the Arakan and Orissan powers in coastal Bengal, often penetrating inland; the segmented Portuguese groups, without any central control, began to establish their individual sway based on slave trading.
The first Portuguese settlement on the Bhagirathi was at Satgaon, and not at Bandel, founded by Affonso de Mello. It seems that the Portuguese were not permitted to establish a factory at Satgaon, which was, in reality, a customs shed. By 1554, the Portuguese called Satgaon Porto Pecquono (small port) in contrast to Chittagong, which was called Porto Grandoi (grand port). In the seventeenth century, Abdul Hamid Lahori suggested that some Portuguese from Sandwip had come to Satgaon where they had erected some buildings with fortifications. After the decline of Satgaon, they got some land around hughli at low rent. Their settlement at Triveni or perhaps at Bansberia, whose eighteenth century temple still bears the memory of the Portuguese in their wall sculptures, would thus pre-date Akbar's farman of 1579. The narrative of Frederick showed that the Portuguese settlement was not at Satgaon proper and was located between Adi Saptagram station and the now dry bed of the settled Saraswti River. There was no Portuguese settlement at Hughli ie on the Bhagirathi, prior to 1565, since the Portuguese used to transfer the goods from Bettore (opposite Howrah) by smaller boats to Satgaon. One of the reasons of the Portuguese use of Bettore instead of Triveni on the Bhagirathi was perhaps the occupation of Triveni by the Orissa King between 1560 and 1567.
It was after the conquest of Malacca (1511) that the Portuguese effort to move inside the Bay of Bengal succeeded from where the supply of rice and textiles could be assured. The first indirect contact with Bengal was made in 1512-13. The map of Asia, drawn in 1516 by Diego Reinel, gives an outline of the Bengal coast but not the islands and the ports, which possibly were not yet known to the Portuguese. The appointment of Lopo Soares as governor after the death of Albuquerque marked the end of state controlled commercial activities and the liberal policy that followed saw the arrival of the Portuguese in Bengal.
While a private Portuguese trader, Martin Lucena, was living at gaur, capital of Bengal, the first Portuguese merchant to have reached the Ganges was Joao Coelho, who was sent by Giovanni de Empoli, a Florentine merchant, around 1516. Soares sent a fleet of four ships commanded by Joao de Silveria, who after plundering ships from Bengal, anchored at chittagong on 9 May 1518. Intermittent war and peace with the governor's men followed. This was complicated by the help demanded by the King of Arakan from Silveira to recover Chittagong from the Bengal sultan. But Silveira preferred to leave for Ceylon and thus ended the first official Portuguese contact with Bengal.
Diego Lopes, who succeeded Soares, was far more interested in the Coromandel and Pegu. However he sent three ships to Bengal commanded by Antonio de Britto, whose unnamed interpreter has left an invaluable account of Britto's visit to Gaur from Chittagong (October 1521). Britto carried a letter from the Portuguese governor of India to the sultan of Bengal along with presents and goods for sale. His job was made difficult by the arrival of another Portuguese mission led by Rafael Prestelo a few days befor. Rafael's representative, Christovao Jusarte, an old Bengal hand, had gone to Gaur to obtain permission to reduce the customs duty to 10%. Britto sent Gonsalves Travers to the sultan with the proposal to exempt the payment of custom duties for the Portuguese in Bengal. The arrival of two embassies, both claiming official status, created confusion and finally led to an actual fight between them at Chittagong, in which the Turkish merchant Agha Khan took the side of Rafaelo.
At the court of Gaur, Jusarte had managed to persuade the officials to declare Britto's interpreter as a spy, who was finally allowed to leave Bengal with the promise that the Portuguese would be exempted from paying customs duties. This perhaps led the Portuguese to send ships regularly to Bengal. In 1526, Ruy Vaz Perceira came to Chittagong and plundered the ship of a Persian merchant, Khwaja Sahabuddin, whose friendship with the governor of Chittagong led to reprisals.
Thus from the early sixteenth century, both private Portuguese merchants as well the official Portuguese representatives had begun to come to Bengal regularly, which often led to violent conflicts between them, a hangover of the contradiction prevailing at Lisbon for sometime. The involvement of the Portuguese in local politics created further complications. In 1528, Khuda Baksh Khan imprisoned the Portuguese stranded at Chakaria district of Chittagong after a storm. The negotiations for their release by Martin Alphonso Jusart de Mello having failed, the prisoners tried to escape but were caught. After the young nephew of de Mello was put to death, the prisoners were ransomed by the merchant Sahabuddin, on condition of getting help from Goa for Sahabuddin's enterprise against the Bengal sultan nusrat shah.
The expedition from Goa of five ships led by Jusart came to Chittagong after the death of Nusrat Shah. Jusart sent a mission to Sultan ghiyasuddin mahmud shah at Gaur to obtain a treaty. But the sultan imprisoned the Portuguese members of the mission for plundering a Muslim ship while Jusart along with the other Portuguese was arrested at Chittagong. Five of them were killed and the rest were imprisoned at Gaur. Goa sent a strong expedition to obtain the release of prisoners. The negotiations at Gaur failed and Jorge Alcocorado, who was leading the Portuguse delegation, barely escaped after putting fire to the city. The appearance of sher shah in Bengal however changed the situation.
Facing the new danger, Ghiyasuddin Mahmud held talks with Diego Rabello, perhaps the first Portuguese who had advanced to Gaur by the Ganges. Mahmud released the prisoners in lieu of assured Portuguese help against Sher Shah. The encounter with Sher Shah went against Mahmud Shah despite Portuguese help. Sher Shah left Gaur soon after getting 13 lakh gold coins paid by Mahmud against the advice of the Portuguese. The sultan now permitted the Portuguese to build factories with custom houses in Bengal. Nuno Fernandez Freire was appointed to Chittagong with special power to collect rent from houses. Joao Correa took charge of the custom house of satgaon. The Portuguese prisoners were released. Sher Shah's return to Gaur saw some resistance by Mahmud, but the expected help from Goa arrived too late to save the dying sultan, whose death ended the Hussain Shahi dynasty. The custom houses of Satgaon and Chittagong remained under Portuguese control.
The Portuguese control of Chittagong port was ephemeral, as it had become the bone of contention between Arakan, Tripura, Bengal and Burma since the mid-fifteenth century. In 1559, the Portuguese viceroy of Goa concluded a commercial treaty with Parmanand Ray of Bakla, in which the Portuguese would be able to buy goods on payment of duties. They offered military help in lieu of Bakla supplying provisions to visiting Portuguese ships. Perhaps the Portuguese wanted to direct the Chittagong traffic to Bakla with monopoly concessions. Chittagong continued to be under Portuguese control. In 1569 caesar frederick saw eighteen Portuguese ships anchored at Chittagong.
While the official Portuguese efforts aimed at consolidating their foothold in Bengal with bullion and gunpowder, the Portuguese mercenaries were indulging in piracy off the Bengal and Arakan coasts. The pirates found a convenient base on the island of Sandwip, famous for its salt, where private Portuguese merchants had also begun to operate. The Afghan families living there did not look with favour either on the piracy or the Portuguese attempt to control the island, with whose chequered history the Arakanese ambition to develop it as a springboard to attack the mainland was increasingly linked up.
Thus Portuguese society in Bengal was gradually segmented into official and private merchants, adventurers and pirates, though the distinction often became blurred. The gradual disintegration of the Hussain Shahi dynasty saw the emergence of the Arakan and Orissan powers in coastal Bengal, often penetrating inland; the segmented Portuguese groups, without any central control, began to establish their individual sway based on slave trading.
The first Portuguese settlement on the Bhagirathi was at Satgaon, and not at Bandel, founded by Affonso de Mello. It seems that the Portuguese were not permitted to establish a factory at Satgaon, which was, in reality, a customs shed. By 1554, the Portuguese called Satgaon Porto Pecquono (small port) in contrast to Chittagong, which was called Porto Grandoi (grand port). In the seventeenth century, Abdul Hamid Lahori suggested that some Portuguese from Sandwip had come to Satgaon where they had erected some buildings with fortifications. After the decline of Satgaon, they got some land around hughli at low rent. Their settlement at Triveni or perhaps at Bansberia, whose eighteenth century temple still bears the memory of the Portuguese in their wall sculptures, would thus pre-date Akbar's farman of 1579. The narrative of Frederick showed that the Portuguese settlement was not at Satgaon proper and was located between Adi Saptagram station and the now dry bed of the settled Saraswti River. There was no Portuguese settlement at Hughli ie on the Bhagirathi, prior to 1565, since the Portuguese used to transfer the goods from Bettore (opposite Howrah) by smaller boats to Satgaon. One of the reasons of the Portuguese use of Bettore instead of Triveni on the Bhagirathi was perhaps the occupation of Triveni by the Orissa King between 1560 and 1567.
(To be continue.....)
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