Flag Coat of arms Political structure Colony 1636-1638 Carel Reyniersz Founded 1608 | Languages Dutch 1608-1610 Pieter Issack Eyloff 1663-1665 Cornelis Speelman Date dissolved 1825 | |
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Capitals Pulicat (1610–1690, 1781–1825), Nagapattinam (1690–1781) | ||
Dutch coromandel
Coromandel was a governorate of the Dutch East India Company on the Coromandel Coast between 1610 until the company's liquidation in 1798. Dutch presence in the region began with the capture of Pulicat from the Portuguese, which then became a colony of the Kingdom of the Netherlands until 1825, when it was relinquished to the British according to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. It is part of what is today called Dutch India.
Contents
History
In 1606, a Dutch ship stopped on the shores of the Karimanal Village near Pulicat, north of the mouth of the lake requesting water. Local Muslims offered food and help to the Dutch. They struck a trade partnership to procure and supply local merchandise to the Dutch for trade in the East Indies.
Queen Eraivi, a wife of King Venkata II, ruled Prelaya Kaveri and during her reign in 1608 the Dutch East India Company was given permission to build a fort and do trading. They built a fort named Geldria at Pulicat as a defense from local kings and the Portuguese, from where they soon monopolized the lucrative textiles trade with the East Indies and other countries in the region. Under pressure from the Dutch, an English trading post was established in 1619, but this post was disbanded in 1622. The Dutch establishment met with stiff resistance from the Portuguese, who conducted several attacks on the harbor. In 1611, Venkatatapati turned against the Portuguese and the Jesuits were ordered to leave Chandragiri and the Dutch were permitted to build a fort at Pulicat.
The Portuguese tried unsuccessfully to recapture Pulicat in 1614, 1623, and 1633, respectively, but never succeeded. From 1616 to 1690, Pulicat was the official headquarters of Dutch Coromandel.
Manufacture of cloth for export was the sole occupation of several indigenous groups in Pulicat and the hinterlands of Tamil, Telegu and Kannada territories, and it is likely that over 1,000 handlooms operated in Pulicat alone. In the 1620s, the Dutch East India Company established a gunpowder factory in Pulicat. Its output was so substantial that for several decades it was able to keep many of the major Dutch trading centers in the East Indies and homeward-bound fleets well supplied. In 1615, the first VOC mint in India was established in Fort Gelria where, initially, “Kas” copper coins with VOC monogram and a Sanskrit legend were minted. The Pulicat mint operated till 1674, when a new mint was established at Nagapattinam. These coins were widely used in Ceylon.
The rise and fall of Nagapattinam
The headquarters of the colony shifted to Nagapattinam in 1690, after the Dutch had begun working on their Fort Vijf Sinnen three years earlier. The heavily armed fort in the end proved useless in the 1781 Siege of Negapatam, in which the British took the fort. In the Treaty of Paris of 1784 which ended the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of which this siege was part, Nagapattinam was not restored to Dutch rule, but instead remained British. The headquarters of the colony shifted back to Pulicat.
By the early 18th century, Pulicat's population has been estimated to have declined to just over 10,000. In 1746, the monsoon failed, resulting in a devastating famine. In the larger towns of Pulicat and Santhome alone the death toll was put at 15,000 and only one third of the textile weavers, painters and washers survived. Cloth prices increased 15% and little was available even at that price. An even more significant cause of the Dutch decline was conquest of the area by the Golconda forces commanded by Mir Jumla.
Occupation by the British and subsequent cession
Owing to the Kew Letters written by Dutch stadtholder William V, Prince of Orange, British troops occupied Dutch Malabar to prevent it from being overrun by the French. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 restored Dutch Malabar to Dutch rule in 1818, but seven years later the colony was again left to the British, owing to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. Except for two short breaks, Dutch rule of Pulicat lasted for 214 years between 1606 and 1825 till the King of Arcot acceded Chingleput District (which included Pulicat village) to the British in 1825.
Dutch Coromandel today
Pulicat today bears silent testimony to the Dutch, with the Dutch Fort dating back to 1609 in ruins, a Dutch Church and Cemetery with 22 protected tombs dating from 1631 to 1655 and another Dutch Cemetery with 76 tombs and mausoleums protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Dutch architects and scholars now intend to support efforts to restore these early Dutch settlements.