You can also look for the sources quoted in the notes.
SOURCES:
– Various Authors “Livro das plantas, das fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental”, 1991 Codex n° 1471, Paço Ducal of Vila Viçosa library.
– Various Authors “Costantine da Sa’s maps and plans of Ceylon, 1624-1628”, 1929, Colombo.
– Brohier, R.L. and Paulusz, J. H. O. “Land, maps & surveys. Descriptive catalogue of historical maps in the Surveyor General’s Office, Colombo”, vol. II, 1951, Colombo.
– Various Authors “Portuguese maps and plans of Ceylon, 1650”, 1926, Colombo.
– Various Authors “Documentos remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monçỡes, 1625-1627”, 1999, Lisbon.
– da Silva Rego, António “Documentação para a história das missỡes do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia”, 13 vols, Lisbon.
– Becker, Hendrick “Memoir of Hendrick Becker, Governor of Ceylon for his successor Isaac Augustyn Rumpf, 1716”, 1914, Colombo.
– Bocarro, António “O livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental”, 3 vols. Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda.
– Bocarro, António “Década 13 da história da Índia”, 2 vols.
– Caen, António “Extracts from the Journal of the Commander António Caen”, in: Journal, R.A.S. (Ceylon), n° 35 (1887), “The capture of Trincomalee A.D. 1639”, pp. 123-140.
– Goens, Ryclof van “Memoir left by Riclof van Goens, Jun. Governor of Ceylon, 1675-1679 to his successor, Laurens Pyl”, Colombo.
– Perniola, V. “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, 3 vols. Tisara Prakasakayo Ltd, 1989-1991, Dehiwala.
– Queyroz, Fernão de “The temporal and spiritual conquest of Ceylon”, 3 vols. 28+xxviii+1274 pp. Asian Educational Services, 1992, New Delhi-Madras.- Da Silva Rego, António “Documentação para a história das missỡes do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia”, 13 vols, Lisbon.
– Raven-Hart “The Dutch wars with Kandy, 1764-1766”, 1964, Colombo.
– Rhee, Thomas van “Memoir left by Thomas van Rhee, Governor of Ceylon, for his successor, Gerrit de Heere, 1697”, 1915, Colombo.
– Ribeiro, João “The historic tragedy of the island of Ceilão”, xvii+266 pp. Asian Educational Services, 1999, New Delhi-Madras.
– Schreuder, Jan “Memoir of Jan Schreuder, Governor of Ceylon, delivered to his successor Lubbert Jan Baron van Eck, March 17, 1762”, in: Selection from the Dutch records of the Ceylon Government, n° 5, 1946.
– Trindade, Paulo “Conquista espiritual do Oriente”, 3 vols, Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1962-1964-1967, Lisbon.
STUDIES:
– Various Authors “History of Sri Lanka, volume II (c. 1500 to c. 1800)”, xxi+614 pp. University of Peradeniya, 1995, Peradeniya.
– Arasaratnam, S. “Dutch power in Ceylon, 1658-1687”, Navrang, 1988, New Delhi.
– Arasaratnam, S. “Ceylon and the Dutch, 1600-1800”, Variorum, 1996, Aldershot.
– Barner Jensen, U. “Danish East India. Trade coins and the coins of Tranquebar, 1620-1845”, 48 pp. Uno Barner Jensen, 1997, Brovst.
– Boudens “The Catholic Church in Ceylon under Dutch rule” 1957, Roma.
– Brohier, R.L. “Links between Sri Lanka and the Netherlands”, Netherlands Alumni Association of Sri Lanka, 1978, Colombo.
– Goonewardena, K. W. “The foundation of Dutch power in Ceylon, 1638-1658”, xx+196 pp. Netherlands Institute for International Cultural Relations, 1958, Djambatan – Amsterdam.
– Kanapathypillai, V. “Dutch rule in maritime Ceylon, 1766-1796” Unpublished thesis. University of London, 1969
– Kotelawele, A. “The Dutch in Ceylon, 1743-1766”, Unpublished thesis. University of London, 1968.
– Nelson, W. A. “The Dutch forts of Sri Lanka. The military monuments of Ceylon”, xiv+152 pp. Canongate, 1984, Edinburgh.
– Silva, Chandra Richard de “The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617-1638”, 267 pp. H. W. Cave & Company, 1972, Colombo.
– Silva, O. M. da “Vikrama Bahu of Kandy. The Portuguese and the Franciscans (1542-1551)”, xv+110 pp. M. D. Gunasena & Co. Ltd., 1967, Colombo.
– Silva, R. K. de & Beumer, W. G. M. “Illustrations and views of Dutch Ceylon, 1602-1796”, viii+495 pp. Serendib Publications & E. J. Brill, 1988, London & Leiden.
– Winius, G. “Fatal history of Portuguese Ceylon. Transition to Dutch rule”, xxi+215 pp. Harvard University Press, 1971, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
8.0 THE FIRST BRITISH OCCUPATION AND THE DEFINITIVE DUTCH SURRENDER
In December 1780 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland declared war to The Netherlands. The news reached Ceylon in June 1781 and some preparations were made by the government of the island to reinforce the defence in view of an imminent and expectable British attack: An agression, which soon occurred. In fact the English acted with rapidity and attacked Trincomalee immediately.
On 8 January 1782 Trincomalee was taken by the British. The expedition was under the command of admiral Edward Hughes. Then on 29 August of the same year (1782) the town was occupied by the French under the command of admiral Suffren. The French were allies of the Dutch. The French fleet attacked the city together with a detachment of Dutch troops, which had reached Trincomalee from Jaffna by an overland route. The British surrendered without fighting. By the terms of the agreements, which were stipulated in the treaty of Versailles, signed in 1783, the French ceded Trincomalee again to the Dutch.
In the city of Trincomalee the Dutch opened a mint and produced coins in the period between 1789 and 1793. The administration of the territory was led for many years by the commander of Trincomalee, colonel von Drieberg by engaging native employees. He settled people in the villages of Kottiyar and Tamblagam and governor de Graaf also proposed to install more in Kattekolapattu. To colonel von Drieberg succeeded the last Dutch commander of Trincomalee major Jan George Fornbauer.1
In January 1795 the French revolutionary troops occupied The Netherlands, where the Batavian Republic was instituted. The Stadthouder escaped to England. The status of the Dutch colonies was seriously endangered, because nobody knew which government was responsible for the colonies. The first to reach Ceylon were the British, exhibiting the orders of the Stadhouder, asking for the occupation of the Dutch forts by their own troops to keep them away from the French. Thereafter negotiations between the British and the Dutch administrations of the island took place, which led to a preliminary agreement, by which the British were authorized to station 800 soldiers on the island: 300 in the fort Ostenburg, 300 in the forts of Negombo and Kalutara and 200 in the fort of Matara.
The 1st August 1795 the British with a letter, signed by the governor van Angelbeek, reached Trincomalee asking for being received as allies and enabling them to man the fort Oostenburgh with 300 soldiers. However, Fornbauer, the commander of the fort, refused to hand over the fort without having received a prior written order signed by the governor and the members of the council of Ceylon, as it was customary practice. The British didn’t waste their time in further negotiations and on the 2nd August they disembarked their troops 4 miles north of the fort and began to prepare themselves for the attack.
The Dutch commander of the fort as the head of the garrison had at his command approximately 500 European soldiers, 250 Malays and 150 Sepoys. This military contingent resisted for some weeks, but after an intense bombardment of four days it was forced to surrender on 26 August 1795. The Dutch garrison was granted the war honours and Trincomalee was thereupon occupied by the British. About 200 men of the regiment of Swiss mercenaries de Meuron were a part of the Dutch garrison, too. They were taken prisoners of war by the British.
The losses among the Dutch amounted to 120-130 men, either dead or wounded, while the English had 72 men either dead or wounded, among them 50 Europeans. The fort Oostenburgh, which at the beginning of the attack had a garrison of 300 soldiers, of whom 200 were Europeans, surrendered after a short bombardment a few days later, on 31 August 1795.2
The fort of Trincomalee was renamed again by the new masters Fort Frederick, and it keeps this name to this very day.
Immediately after the British occupation, the Bay of Trincomalee was considered a base of the British Royal Navy, ranking second in importance, only exceeded by Singapore. The words of Pitt with regard to Trincomalee are particularly significant: ‘the finest and most advantageous bay in the whole of India’, while admiral Nelson spoke about Trincomalee as the best port of the world.
CHRONOLOGY:
Danish: May 1620 – 1621.
Portuguese: July 1623 – 2 May 1639.
Dutch: 2 May 1639 – 1640.
King of Kandy: (the fort was destroyed in 1643? and abandoned) 1640 – September 1665.
Dutch: September 1665 – 8 January 1782.
French: (the fort remains in Dutch hands) (March 1672 – July 1672).
English: 8 January 1782 – 28 August 1782.
French: 28 August 1782 – 1783.
Dutch: 1783 – 26 August 1795 (Fort Oostenburg: 31 August 1795).
English: 26 August 1795 (Fort Oostenburg: 31 August 1795).
Main Gate, Fort Fredrick, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka. Author Bel Adone
NOTES:
1 “Governor van de Graaf’s memorial to his successor Governor J.G. van Angelbeck, 1794”, in: “Ceylon Literary Register”, p. 809.
2 “The Turnour manuscript, 1795”, in: “Historical manuscripts commission, Ceylon”, n° 1 May, 1937, pp. 16-19 and also Colin-Thome “Governor van Angelbeek and the capitulation of the Dutch settlements in Ceylon to the British, 1796”, in: JDBUC, vol. LIX, n°1-4, 1981, pp. 23-55.
This period of instability resulted in a remarkable decrease of the volume of commerce, dealt with Trincomalee. The figures of this decline are inconsistent, but it seems that in the first ten years of Dutch occupation the commerce of clothes had decreased from 480.000 Dutch Guilders, when Kottiyar was under Kandyan control, to 5.342 Dutch Guilders in 1681.
The importance of the Kandyan commerce is surely exaggerated. Also according to S. Arasaratnam, however, the contrast between the two figures is striking. The Kingdom of Kandy found all its ports under Dutch control. Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Kottiyar were in Dutch hands, while Puttalam situated on the western coast was easily controllable by the Dutch fort Kalpitiya. The districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Kottiyar were very important from the point of view of agricultural production, in particular for rice growing. Apart from this the mentioned districts cared for the self-sufficiency of the feeding of the local population and the Dutch garrisons. The agricultural products were exported and also used for the sustenance of the city of Colombo.1
From the administrative point of view the eastern coast was initially put under the jurisdiction of the commander of Jaffna, then, in 1671, the Dutch instituted a new ‘Commandment’ containing the entire eastern coast, whose capital was Batticaloa and in which was also included Trincomalee. This district was abolished a few years later and the entire eastern coast newly returned under the administration of Jaffna. In Trincomalee resided an ‘Opperhoofd’.2, who was assisted by a council. He governed the city and the surrounding area. He was under the authority of the commander of Jaffna.3 Regarding the administration of justice during the VOC period, Trincomalee was the seat of a law court (‘Landraad’) and it seems that the Dutch had established in Trincomalee a High Court of Justice (‘Raad van Justitie’) in the second part of the 18th century. However, it depended for the more important cases on Colombo.4
After the expulsion of the French, the fort of Trincomalee had an equipment of 100 pieces of artillery and a garrison of approximately 350 soldiers.5 In August 1696 in the two forts of Batticaloa and Trincomalee were stationed 236 men, consisting partly of the Dutch force and also of the crews of three sloops, anchored at Trincomalee.6 In 1716 the fort of Trincomalee was considered by Governor Becker in sufficient state of defence, even if some defensive works were still far from being completed. To better the defence of the bay of Trincomalee after the French episode, it was decided to build another fort in addition to that of Trincomalee (Pagoodsberg). In this second fort were 32 pieces of artillery and 30 soldiers.7 This new fort was built a few years after the expulsion of the French on a hill to the east of the entrance of the inner bay, to protect the bay against eventual incursions. The fort was called Fort Oostenburg. It was governor Becker who described us in his memories for the year 1716 the Fort Oostenburg as a small stone fortress, situated on a hill east of the entrance to the inner bay, whose mission was the defence of the access to the inner bay.8 To block the access to the bay a fortified dam (waterpaas) was then built on the west side of the entrance of the bay. On the island ‘Dwars-in-de-weg’, was finally erected a battery. Additionally two other fortifications (breastworks) were located on the other side of the bay (Koddiyar). These fortifications had a garrison of 30 soldiers and 16 guns each. On the south side of the Velos Bay two stockades were located at Cuchar and Arsalari. They were used for levying taxes, equipped with 16 guns and manned by 40 soldiers each.9 In the vicinity of Trincomalee at Erekelenchene (3/4 of a mile from Kottiyar, 1 mile to the south of the bay of Trincomalee) the Dutch had constructed an entrenchment.10
In 1696, seen the critical state of the commerce along the eastern coast and the vibrating Kandyan protests, the Dutch decided to reintroduce the free trade for the ports of Kottiyar and Batticaloa. This led to an immediate advance in the relations with Kandy and there was also an evident development in the volume of the traffic passing through the above-mentioned ports. Kottiyar and Batticaloa returned to be together with Puttalam on the west coast the gates of Kandy to the outside world. Unfortunately for the Kandyans the development of their ports strongly declined compared to those directly controlled by the Dutch company. This could not be permitted. Therefore already in 1703 the VOC decided to close anew the ports to foreign trade.
After the Portuguese defeat the Catholic Church had been forced to abandon to themselves the thousands of Catholics converted. At the end of the 17th century a new apostolate began in Ceylon with the oratories friars of Goa and mainly thanks to the mission of the friar João Vaz, called the apostle of Ceylon. Around 1695 and then in 1710 Trincomalee was twice visited by the friar João Vaz. He founded in the area various chapels and administered the sacraments to the Catholic community. He visited apart from Trincomalee Batticaloa and Kottiyar. In a letter dated 1697 11, he indicated in Kottiyar the place where a chapel and a community of one hundred Christians were to be located. Irregularly starting from the beginning of the 18th century, friars were sent to the region of Trincomalee and Kottiyar. In 1714 another friar, Miguel Francisco, visited the Christians of Trincomalee. Still in 1728 another friar, João de Sá, succeeded in reaching Trincomalee and Kottiyar in spite of the vigilance of the Dutch.12 In the following years the contacts between the friars and the Catholic population in the district of Trincomalee were multiplied: friar Joseph Pereira was active in the years 1733 and 1734, while friar Custódio Leytão, friar Francisco de Monroy, friar João de Silveira are only some of the friars, who worked or visited Trincomalee and its district in the years between 1733 and 1762.13
The closing of the ports to direct commerce with Kandy favoured the development of smuggling, rewarding mainly on the east coast of the island, where the Dutch exercised a minor control. The contraband was exercised mainly in the three ports of Alembiel (Alampil), Chialwatte and Moletivo (Mullaitivu). Trying to stop this commerce it was ordered to send during the change of the monsoon some sloops from Jaffna to cruise off the waters in front of these bays. At Mullaitivu, a bay situated half way between Jaffna and Trincomalee, the Dutch built a small fortification (It was a small structure of wood with palisades and earth.) in 1715, to block the Wannias, the Muslim merchants and the Chetties to use this bay to practice illegally the commerce with Kandy. 24 European soldiers with an insign and two sergeants and 20 lascarins with their commander were stationed in the small fortification.14
During the Dutch period a badly maintained path connected Trincomalee to Jaffna, leading through Mullaitivu. In 1749 the Dutch outpost Tambalagama in the vicinity of Trincomalee was attacked and burnt by the Kandyans. Subsequently in 1751 the Kandyans also tried to block the commerce with Koddiyar and Tambalagama.
In line with this Jan Schreuder wrote in his memories: The bay of Trincomalee was the centre of a little pearl bench, but the income of the region was mainly generated from the arrack, the customs duties and the garden cultivated by the company.15 In his momories Schreuder also described the state of the fortifications of Trincomalee. The ditch of the fort had not yet been finished and because of the lack of workers the “waterpas” under the fort Oostenburg had still to be finalized. The same regards the fort itself.16
Starting in 1760 the English often used the bay of Trincomalee as an anchorage for their fleet. In those years (1762) an English envoy, John Pybus, disembarked in Kottiyar and arrived in Kandy. This English intrusion disturbed the Dutch, who were in open war with Kandy. They were afraid of an alliance between the English and Kandy.
During the war with Kandy (1761-1766), the Dutch used Trincomalee as a base for the incursions into the Kandyan territory. In 1763 the territories under Dutch control extended to the interior as far Minneriya and Madavacchiya. Moreover Dutch troops from Trincomalee succeeeded in occupying Matale. By the terms of the peace treaty of 1766 the lands of Tamblagam, Kottiyar and Kattekolapattu became Dutch possessions, also the area controlled by the Dutch around Batticaloa extended remarkably: the Dutch were successful in controlling important agricultural districts (where rice was mainly grown) at the outskirts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa. Furthermore the peace treaty carried the Dutch control along all the coast of the island. Kandy found itself landlocked without an access to the sea and encircled by the territories of the company. With this treaty the Dutch completely controlled the Kandyan commerce and the external relations of the Kingdom of Kandy. Moreover Kandy depended on the company for the essential supplies of salt and dry fish. The territory around Batticaloa, which the Kingdom of Kandy had controlled until 1763-1766, was of great importance for the subsistence of the kingdom. In fact the fertile plains of the province of Batticaloa were called the granary of Kandy. The loss of the control of these large-scale cultivated plains definitively happened with the treaty of 1766. This entailed a remarkable impoverishment of the Kingdom of Kandy. During the war with Kandy the composition of the Dutch garrisons of the island had been remarkably increased. The same happened to the two main forts of the eastern coast Trincomalee and Batticaloa. In 1764 they had together a garrison of 881 soldiers, of which 448 were Europeans, 228 Orientals and 205 Sepoys .17
After the conquest of the new agricultural territories at the outskirts of Trincomalee the Dutch intended to restore the old tanks of Kantalai and Vendarasen Kulam to be anew able to develop the agricultural potentialities of the district. Also for this purpose a map of the province of Tamblegam was drawn in 1793 by the surveyor Struys and the engineer Fornbauer. The latter was the last Dutch commander of Trincomalee.18
In 1777 the king of Kandy, Kirti Sri Rajasinha, started new negotiations with the French. He addressed the French governor of Pondicherry (Pondichéry) offering the bays of Trincomalee and Batticaloa in exchange for a French aid to drive away the Dutch from the island. The French took the offer in serious consideration, but the outbreak of the war between Great Britain and Holland, France fighting alongside his ally Holland, put a stop to the negotiations.
A new threat encumbered on the Dutch possessions of Ceylon, it materialized in March 1672 in the shape of a great French fleet, that of admiral de la Haye. In the years between 1665 and 1670 the French governed by Colbert and with the aid of François Caron, a man of great experience and former director general of the VOC in Asia, had developed a plan of expansion in Asia to the expenses of the Dutch. Part of this plan was also the foundation of an important trading station in Trincomalee.
The French fleet under the command of the lieutenant general of India, Jacob Blaquet de la Haye on 29 March 1670, at the time of the departure from the French port of Rochefort, was composed of 9 vessels with 2,250 men on board and 251 guns. At their arrival in the bay of Trincomalee on 22 March 1672 the French fleet represented an enormous naval power for the Indian Ocean.
In March 1672 at the arrival of the French fleet of de la Haye and Caron the Dutch abandoned and burnt their outpost of Kottiyar Bay, whose garrison was sheltered in the fort of Trincomalee. The Dutch left 21 guns in their destroyed fort. The Dutch garrison of Trincomalee was forced to the defensive and remained inside the walls of the fortress to observe the movements of the French.
The French had chosen the wonderful bay of Trincomalee/Kottiyar as base for their future operations in Asia. Under the eyes of the Dutch, barricaded in their fort of Pagoodsberg, the French occupied and fortified the two islands at the entrance of the bay: calling them ‘Isle du Soleil’ (‘Dwars-in-de-weg’) and ‘Caron’ (“Compagnies Eyland”) and also occupied the outpost of Koddiyar Bay. The official Boisfontaine with 30 soldiers was soon sent to the court of Kandy in the capacity of French ambassador. He was well received by the king, who hoped to be able to drive away the Dutch, with whom he was at war, from the island.
On 28 May 1672 the French signed a treaty with Raja Sinha, in virtue of which the bays of Trincomalee and Kottiyar were ceded by the Singhalese to the French. On this occasion some pillars were raised to delimit the borders of the ceded territory. The main problem for the great French fleet was the food supply. From the moment the food dispatching from Kandy was not sufficient to feed such a great navy, the French sent three ships to India in search of supplies to resolve this problem.
A few days after the signing of the treaty with the Singhalese the Dutch fleet of van Goens arrived in the bay. The Dutch initially tried with a disembarkation in Tambalagama to stop the supply line, which came to the French from the interior. But a prompt attack by the Kandyan troops forced van Goens to withdraw his men to the ships. The Kandyans asked the French for assistance, to attack the Dutch jointly, but the French refused being still formally in peace with the Dutch. This refusal cooled down the enthusiasm of the Singhalese towards the French expedition.
The Dutch instead did not take care of being in peace with the French and at the first opportunity they attacked and succeeded in capturing two vessels, which the French had sent to India in search for supplies. A third vessel was forced to return. For the French troops the situation became more and more dramatic, in spite of the aid of Raja Sinha. The diseases and the lack of food provoked many death casualties among the French. On 9 July 1672 admiral de la Haye, after having sent another ambassador, de la Nerolle, to the court of Kandy, decided to sail with the entire fleet in search of aid, leaving in the fortification of the bay a garrison of 100 men and two boat vessels. The Dutch did not lose time. They attacked the garrison and the French, barricaded in their fort, were soon forced to surrender. A large contingent of Kandyan troops reached Trincomalee a few days after the departure of the French fleet. But it was too late by now. The short French intermezzo came to an end. Thus the hopes of the Kandyans to drive away the Dutch from the island did not materialize.1
Plan of Fort Trincomalee, made by the Chevalier de Suffren in August 1782
NOTES:
1 For the French episode you can see: Ames, G. J. “A Portuguese perspective on the emerging French presence in the East ca. 1670”, in: “Studia”, n° 46/1987, pp. 254-286; “History of Sri Lanka”, vol. II, pp. 223-225; Arasaratnam “Dutch power in Ceylon, 1658-1687”, pp. 62-63.
5.0 THE NEW DUTCH OCCUPATION AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FORT
During the subsequent years it is likely that the Dutch maintained only a small fortified outpost in Kottiyar Bay 1, but also this is not sure. Sure is that in 1660 the Dutch sent an expedition under the command of van Rhee and Wasch with the purpose to reoccupy Trincomalee, to prevent contacts between the king of Kandy and the English, the latter seemed to have had the intention to establish a small outpost in Kottiyar. The reaction of the king of Kandy was opportune, he immediately sent a large army in order to prevent the Dutch designs. His action was probably a success in reaching his aim. The Dutch withdrew in good order.2
By now the Portuguese were expelled from Ceylon. After the fall of Jaffna in 1658 the Dutch were newly interested in Trincomalee on the occasion of a rebellion at the Kandyan court, happening in 1664. On this occasion Raja Sinha asked for help from the Dutch in patrolling the east coast, to prevent the escape of the rebels, fearing that they might receive aid or flee from one of the ports on the east coast of the island.
In September 1665, the Dutch having received news that indicated that an English ship had arrived in the bay of Trincomalee and had established through an ambassador contacts with the king of Kandy.
They decided apart from patrolling the east coast, as the King had asked for, that it was necessary to reoccupy Trincomalee. To this purpose an expedition of two ships and 100 soldiers under the command of Captain Pierre du Pon was sent. The troops reconstructed the fort on the place where the rests of the old Portuguese fort were still to be found.3
The new fortress of Trincomalee was provided with four main bastions (called “Zeeburg”, “Amsterdam”, “Enkhuizen” and “Holland”) and a platform for the guns (called Cat). The bastions “Amsterdam” and “Zeeburg” were protected by a ditch, which cut the peninsula into two parts, thus isolating the fort from the rest of the city. “Zeeburg” was the larger of the two bastions. It was also the northernmost of the two and was situated along the back bay. Always along the same bay was the platform for the guns called Cat, a wall connecting this platform with the “Zeeburg” bastion and a small gate was situated halfway in this wall. The bastion “Amsterdam” was the southernmost, facing the Dutch Bay and the two other bastions “Enkhuizen” and “Holland” were also facing this bay. These two were connected with the first by a wall. Approximately half way between the bastions “Amsterdam” and “Enkhuizen” the main gate of the fort was situated.4
In 1668 the fortifications of Kottiyar and Batticaloa were reoccupied and improved. In 1670 Pieter de Graauw, who was in command of a company of Dutch troops, extended the Dutch control on a large part of the eastern coast 5, by deals of protection and vassalage with some heads of the eastern coast. But such control was of short duration, just a few months till August 1670, a massive attack of the king of Kandy on all the eastern coast being the reason. The Dutch were forced to shelter themselves in their forts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa.6 In Trincomalee the Dutch lost in a crash with the Kandyans 24 Dutch soldiers and 22 lascarins.7
2 Arasaratnam “Dutch power in Ceylon, 1658-1687”, pp. 18-19.
3 Herport “A Short description…”, published in: Raven-Hart “Germans in Dutch Ceylon”, vol. I, p. 34.
Also Baldeus wrote about Captain Peter du Pon and its expedition to Trincomalee. Baldeus “A description of East India …”, p. 819; Arasaratnam “Dutch power in Ceylon, 1658-1687”, p. 33.
4 Nelson “The Dutch forts of Sri Lanka”, pp. 124-131.
5 To the south of Batticaloa, in the same period, the Dutch built several fortifies outposts in Panama, Yala and Magama. In Chinnecallette Delle (approximately 4 -5 miles to the south of the river of Batticaloa), the Dutch built also an entrechment.
6 “History of Sri Lanka”, vol. II, p. 215-219; Arasaratnam “Dutch power in Ceylon, 1658-1687”, pp. 42-43.
4.0 THE DUTCH CONQUEST AND THE ABANDONMENT OF THE FORT
The first attack of the Dutch on the Portuguese forts of Ceylon was directed towards the eastern coast of the island, where the Portuguese were less strong. Their first objective was the fort of Batticaloa.
On 9 April 1638 the Dutch commander Coster with three ships reached Batticaloa, on 10 May other five Dutch ships reached the place and on 14 May arrived also the troops of the king of Kandy, about 15,000 men. The fort was cannonaded and on 18 May 1638 after a poor resistance of four hours the garrison of the fort of Batticaloa was forced to surrender.1 During the Dutch attack approximately 700 persons had been sheltered in the fort, 50 of whom were Portuguese and Mestiços, the rest was formed by native inhabitants, which resided in the city near the fort, which was burnt shortly before the attack of the Dutch. All the Portuguese officials and soldiers were deported to the city under Portuguese control of Negapatam, situated on the Coromandel coast, whereas the Mestiços and the other inhabitants of Batticaloa were allowed to remain.2 After the conquest the Dutch left a garrison of 100 soldiers under the command of Willem Jacobsz Coster, who had been the commander of the Dutch troops during the siege.
In the wake of the obtained victory in Batticaloa and after some failed attempts, the Dutch headed by the admiral Westerwold succeeded in making the King of Kandy Rajasinha II sign a treaty of anti-Portuguese alliance. In such a treaty the Dutch engaged themselves to help Rajasinha II in his war against the Portuguese. In exchange they obtained the monopoly of the rich island commerce. In virtue of this treaty of alliance with Rajasinha, the Dutch attacked, supported by the troops of the kingdom of Kandy, the other Portuguese settlements along the coasts of the island.
The fort of Trincomalee was the second objective to fall in the hands of the Dutch. It was conquered after a short siege, during which, as narrated by Ribeiro, 23 soldiers of the Portuguese garrison were killed.3
In the description of the events the same Dutch commander Antonio Caen helps us with his diary, where he describes the preparations for the siege, the bombardments of the Portuguese fort and the surrender of the garrison.4 The fleet under the command of Antonio Caen was composed of 11 ships with on board 353 guns and 1,280 men, of which 325 were soldiers and the rest sailors.5The Dutch ships arrived in the bay of Coutijar in the evening of the 18 April 1639 and here the Dutch met the governor of Samantura (Sammanture), who had arrived overland from Batticaloa. The following day the wanniya6 of Kottiyar paid a visit to the Dutch. He described in detail the defences of the fort and the composition of the garrison. According to the testimony of the wanniya the fort was of dimensions similar to those of Batticaloa and had three bastions. The bastion facing the land side was defended by six guns as well as that which controlled the bay, while on the bastion, which controlled the sea, two guns were mounted. All the guns were of iron and had been salvaged from a Danish ship, which turned into an abandoned shipwreck in the bay approximately twenty years before. The garrison was composed of 40 Portuguese, about 100 mestiços and blacks and finally about 30 casados with their families.
On 20 April a squad of Dutch soldiers, headed by vice commander Coster, made an inspection of the defence of the fort. During this inspection they succeeded in detecting some weak points. The next day, with two boats, one of these overturned, the north east side of the fort was explored. On 22 April about 60 soldiers disembarked for a closer inspection of the Portuguese fort. It was surveyed from a very close distance. On the other hand the Portuguese garrison made two gunshots as a warning.
On 23 April 163, early in the morning the Dutch disembarked 40 sailors and several soldiers, they began to clean up a road so as to render the transport of the artillery possible for a siege and chose a place suitable for the erection of a battery. While these works were well advanced, the Portuguese from the fort shot many gun and musket shots in order disturbing the works, then a group of 30 Blacks tried an escape, but they were driven back by the Dutch soldiers.
The following morning other sailors and soldiers disembarked. They began to work at the construction of some batteries. A new escape was tried by the Portuguese and during the skirmish, which followed, a Dutch was mortally wounded. The Dutch continued for all the day to work at the batteries. Furthermore some guns were disembarked from the ships and in the evening the construction of three casemates was practically finished.
On 25 April five soldiers of the garrison of the fort disembarked on a small boat in the vicinities of the Dutch works of entrenchment. This was followed by a short skirmish, in which a Dutch soldier was wounded, while on the Portuguese side a black was killed. In spite of this inconvenience in the evening the Dutch had finished the construction of 10 embrasures, 4 of which were already encircled by palisades. During the 26 April it was the first mutual exchange of artillery shots between the fort and the Dutch batteries. For the entire afternoon the Portuguese bombed the Dutch positions intensely, but, as Caen informs us in his diary, the cannon-balls were nearly all of stone and this denoted the lack of iron cannon-balls. The Dutch on their side bombed some defence works, which the Portuguese were feverishly building in the vicinities of the main entrance of the fort. The exchange of shots resulted in the wounding of two Dutchmen and the death of a Black. Subsequently other artillery was disembarked from the ships and put in the batteries by now nearly finished. In order to prevent every communication and aid from the sea to the besieged, two ships the ‘Ryswyck’ and the ‘Nachtegael’ were sent to garrison the side of the fort towards the sea. Also the following day the works incessantly continued, although the bombardment from the fort continued.
On 28 April before noon the ship ‘Cleyn Amsterdam’ with on board the ambassador Jacob Compostel arrived from Batticaloa. He reported the news that Rajasinha was involved in attacking the Portuguese in the environs of Colombo and could not come in aid of the Dutch. However, he informed Caen that he would soon send some mudaliyars7 a force of 4,000 soldiers to help him in the siege of Trincomalee. The Dutch troops suffered very much in consequence of the climate of the area and Caen informs us that many men died because of this fact. It was decided to increase the speed, so that all would be ready 1st May. In the afternoon of the 28 April Caen disembarked in order to verify the works made. The soldiers were organized in three companies composed of 70 soldiers each and besides this was formed a fourth company composed of soldiers and sailors. The troops were passed in review. On the following two days the works of the batteries were finished and all pieces of artillery were placed.
On 1st May 1639 an hour before dawn all the soldiers were disembarked. The Dutch decided to carry directly the main attack against the north bastion8 but in the meantime also the bastion “St. Cruz”, which was situated more to the west, was bombarded, to prevent the use of it by the Portuguese. The effect that the bombardment made on the defence of the fort was devastating. After an hour and a half of intense bombardment all the guns of the Portuguese fort were practically destroyed. The garrison could only fire musket-shots. After three hours of continued bombardment the blows had opened a large breach in the bastion ‘St. Jago’. Thus it was easily possible to enter through it into the inside of the fort. Caen decided that the time had arrived to send the lieutenant Blaauw with a drummer and a white flag to propose the Portuguese garrison the surrender in favourable terms, but the negotiators were received with artillery shots and they were forced to a hasty withdrawal. After this dishonourable behaviour of the Portuguese garrison the bombardment of the fort was resumed and it was decided after a council on board the ship ‘Armuyden’ the following morning to prepare for the attack of the bastion ‘St. Jago’ and the wall next to the bastion ‘Sancta Cruz’. In the resolution taken by the council the bastion ‘St. Jago’ was described as demolished for its greater part and all the guns were assumed to be out of service from 10 o’clock in the morning, since the moment when no more gun shots had been discharged from the fort. A detailed plan for the assault of the fort was also drafted, in which 514 men, among them soldiers and sailors, had to be involved.
While the preparations of the plans for the assault were well advanced, two Portuguese captains arrived from the fort with a white flag. They were sent by the captain of the fort to make excuses for the earlier reception reserved by some inexpert soldiers to the negotiator. Caen asked them to surrender, seen the miserable condition, to which the fort had been reduced by the Dutch artillery. But they refused resolutely, saying that inside the fort was a garrison of 300 Portuguese and that only a Black and a Kanarese had been killed by the bombardments. The Dutch commander determined then to put in custody the two men and to continue the preparations for the assault.
On 2 May at dawn, while the Dutch soldiers prepared themselves for the definitive assault, a priest and another person with a truce flag advanced from the fort. They declared that they were there to negotiate the surrender. In exchange the Portuguese asked for a free leave with their own goods and their own slaves. Moreover the Portuguese asked for being able to be followed by the fishermen (Careas)9, Caen agreed in part with their demands, but refused to accept that the fishermen followed the Portuguese. He also limited the choice of the places, where the Portuguese could move to Tranquebar and Nagapatnam preventing peremptorily their transfer to Jaffnapatnam or to any other place in Ceylon. The priest, after having received these assurances returned to the fort to report to the Portuguese commander the conditions of surrender. In the meantime the Dutch troops quickly drew up to assault the fort. The priest returned fast delivering the keys of the fort and declaring that the garrison accepted the surrender conditions. A company of Dutch soldiers entered the fort ordering —– the soldiers of the garrison to leave their own weapons within the fort and to enrol the name in a registry. The commander of the fort, Francisco Deça 10 together with his captains and the soldiers of the garrison waited for Caen and in sign of submission he delivered to the Dutch commander his gilded silver court-sword. Caen in sign of courtesy gave back to the Portuguese commander his court-sword. It was therefore on 2 May 1639, after some days of siege 11that the short period of Portuguese occupation of Trincomalee came to an end.
The fort was found by the Dutch in poor condition, the guns, found on the bastions ‘St. Jago’ and ‘St. Cruz’, had been swept away and were buried under the ruins of the wall.12 According to the testimony of Caen two hours after the occupation of the fort reinforcements promised by Rajasinha arrived. They were about 3,000 combatants headed by two mudaliyars. Afterwards a ceremony of thanksgiving for the victory was held inside the Portuguese church. The Dutch losses were two death casualties and two wounded, while on the Portuguese side there were 11 fatal casualties among the Europeans, 1 mestiço and 2 Kanars and 9 wounded.13 After the conquest of the fort there were some episodes of violence concerning the Portuguese inhabitants. This led Caen to publishing a ‘placaat’ 14 where he menaced the hanging of those, who were guilty of such actions. These acts of atrocity were accomplished either by the Dutch or by the Singhalese.
According to the Dutch version the two mudaliyars with their troops arrived after the occupation of the fort and they immediately asked that the fort should be entrusted to their troops. The Dutch answered exhibiting the treaty signed with the king, in which it was clearly indicated that the captured forts had to be occupied by a Dutch garrison.15 That is why the Dutch felt themselves in the right to occupy the fort with a garrison of their own. As the commander of the garrison of the fort was left the fiscal Gerrit Herbers. The occupation by the Dutch of the fort of Trincomalee without the cession to the king’s troops, made the king of Kandy remarkably nervous. He strongly protested with the Dutch for not respecting his wish. He even installed a blockade of the supply shipments for the troops of the garrison of the fort, but later on he softened his position.
In the same year the Dutch reconstructed and reinforced the fort, but the following year (1640), as a result of an agreement with the Kandyans it was abandoned 16 and in exchange for 10 elephants ceded to the king of Kandy17. A few years later it was demolished (perhaps in 1643) by the Kandyans. In 1641 the fort of Batticaloa was also ceded to the Kandyans, who immediately demolished it. The reasons of this cession of the two forts to the king must be searched beyond the continuous demands of the king to the fact that the Dutch regarded the territories around the two forts as little profitable.18
The ports of the eastern coast, those of Trincomelee, Kottiyar and Batticaloa, were used during the period, in which they were under the control of the kingdom of Kandy, as ports of free commerce with the other Asiatic kingdoms and also with other European powers (mainly the English 19 and the Danish). This annoyed the Dutch much. Through the three ports the Kandyans traded rice, ivory, elephants, areca, honey, timber, clothes and other goods of first necessity. The port of Kottiyar in particular was intensely used by the Kandyans. They had in Kottiyar a customs house, which they maintained until 1668, the year, in which the Dutch reoccupied the area. After this occupation the custom house was transferred more inland, to Minneriya. A road, connected the highlands of Kandy with Matale and Kottiyar. Such road followed in great part the course of the Mahaveli Ganga. All this zone made use of the port of Kottiyar for the commerce with the exterior. A market, where the merchandise exchanges happened was implanted at Killevetty, a few miles from the coast. At Kottiyar a colony of Chetties also settled.
2 Theirs descendants, approximately 2.000 persons, still today speak a Creole Portuguese, and are Catholics.
3 Ribeiro “The historic tragedy of the island of Ceilão”, pp. 105-106.
4 In: J.R.A.S. (Ceylon) n°35 (1887) “The capture of Trincomalee A.D. 1639”, pp. 123-140.
5 The names of the ships were the following: “Utrecht”, “Henrietta Louisa” , “Egmont”, “’s-Hertogenbosch”, “Wassenaar”, “Der Veer”, “Armuyden”, “Valkenburgh”, “Reyneburch”, “Onderwater”, “Zeeuwsch Nachtigael”. In the Caen’s diary is indicated like a yacht flagship the ship “Armuyden”.
10 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. III, p. 817.
Francisco Deça was a ‘casado’ (a married man) of Colombo, he will soon return to Ceylon, because he is mentioned by Queyroz among the wounded of the battle of Caymel (Kammala) in December 1639 (in January 1640 according to Goonewardena “The foundation of Dutch power…” p. 31) against the Dutch. Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. III, p. 823.
11 Queyroz indicates the duration of the siege as 40 days of bombardment. But the diary of Caen clearly indicates that the Dutch reached Trincomalee on 18 April 1639 and the fort surrendered on 2 May 1639. Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. III, p. 817.
12 The poor state, to which the bastions of the fort were reduced, was also due to their weakness, being filled up with earth only. Ribeiro “The historic tragedy of the island of Ceilão”, p. 105.
13 This according to the diary of Caen, while according to Ribeiro the dead among the Portuguese were 23 on a total of 50 men of the entire garrison. Ribeiro “The historic tragedy of the island of Ceilão”, p. 105.
3.0 THE ARRIVAL OF THE DANES, THE DUTCH AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PORTUGUESE FORT
The strategic importance of the control over the bays and the ports on the eastern coast of Ceylon discovered, it was clear with the arrival of the first European contenders on the Asian seas, that in fact the first contact between the Dutch and the king of Kandy had taken place in 1602 in the region of Batticaloa. In June 1602 the Dutch admiral Joris van Spilbergen disembarked in the vicinities of Batticaloa and from here he proceeded towards Kandy, in the attempt to stipulate an alliance against the Portuguese. Spilbergen succeeded in obtaining protection and he was granted trade privileges for Dutch merchants, and in September of the same year he left again. Three months after the departure of Spilbergen, another Dutch expedition arrived in Batticaloa. It was under the command of vice-admiral Sebald de Weert. He was initially received with great enthusiasm by the King of Kandy Vimala Dharma Suriya I, but then on his second visit to the king, things went bad because of his behaviour and de Weert was killed. The eastern coast and in particular Batticaloa were during those years the preferred places of disembarkation of the Dutch flotillas at the try of contacts with the reign of Kandy.
But the first Europeans to attempt a first settlement in Trincomalee, were neither the Portuguese nor the Dutch, but the Danes. They arrived at Ceylon on the end of 1619 with a first ship, called “Øresund” under the command of Roelant Crape. This small expedition was the vanguard of another Danish fleet, this one composed of four vessels and three hundred soldiers, commanded by Ove Giedde, which reached the island in May 1620. Such an expedition had been equipped by the Danish East India Company1 by following the example of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), thus wanting to make a fortune in the Asian seas.
The Danish expedition occupied the temple of Trincomalee, and it was here where the Danes began the works for the fortification of the peninsula. Initially the king of Kandy, Senarat, was much colder in comparison with the Danish. He had, in fact, only a few years ago (in August 1617) concluded a peace treaty with the Portuguese and he noticed that the small Danish expedition, would never be able to destroy the Portuguese power on the island. Initially he suggested to the Danes to form an alliance with Mayadunne 2, who was still at war with the Portuguese, but later on he agreed to sign an alliance with the Danish company and on 21 August 1620 a treaty of alliance was signed between the Danes and king Senerat in an anti-Portuguese objective. Senarat sent to Trincomalee 60 men in order to help the Danes in the construction of their fort. During their stay in Trincomalee the Danish also coined some “Larins”, on which were recorded the words ‘Dom Erich Grubbe’. Today there is no trace left of these coins, except in the diary of Ove Giedde.3 Queyroz informs us also about this Danish expedition: he narrates that 5 large Danish ships were in the port of Trincomalee where they were building, with the aid of the Singhalese, a fortified place. The Portuguese had well noticed this new intrusion in the affairs of the island and readily reacted: the Captain General marched through Trincomalee and sent the captains Cabral and Barreto to Kottiyar, where one of the enemy ships was berthed. The Danes were forced to a hasty escape, in which they lost two ships and some men.4 Subsequently, the Danes, decimated from diseases, abandoned the enterprise in 162.
After this Danish attempt the Portuguese became aware of the urgency to establish at least a fortified base on the eastern coast of Ceylon, in order to be better able to control the traffic of goods along the coast and in order to hold under tighter control the kingdom of Kandy. The Portuguese believed mistakingly, that the Danish had been asked by king Senarat not to respect the peace treaty, which he had signed in August 1617. In the meantime the Portuguese crown had already sent new orders for the fortification of Trincomalee and Batticaloa in 1619 and later in 1620. But this meant to break the peace treaty and to reopen the conflict with Kandy. The news of the Danish expedition did not make other sense than assuring the Portuguese of the necessity to occupy the ports of the eastern coast.
In 1623 Constantino de Sá e Noronha arrived in Ceylon for a second time as Captain General, and at this occasion he had received specified orders from the Viceroy Dom Francisco da Gama to proceed with the fortification of Trincomalee. 5 He did not lose time and in July 1623, reached Trincomalee, resolute to fortify the bay in order to stop the commerce, which the king of Kandy entertained through Muslim merchants with the other Asian kingdoms. Moreover there was still a more important reason: Preventing other European nations to use Trincomalee as a base for the conquest of the island.6 The place, which was chosen for the construction of the fort was situated where the temple of Konesar (Koneswaram) was and had already been installed by the Danish during their short occupation. This time the temple was destroyed, and its stones were used for the construction of the Portuguese fort. During the destruction of the temple a stone slab, in ancient Singhalese, was found by the Portuguese, in which was foretold the destruction of the temple by a part of the people called “Francos“, with whom the Portuguese identified themselves. According to the inscription the temple would not have been reconstructed. This stone was placed at the entrance of the Portuguese fort.7 The king of Portugal, informed of the construction of the fort, complimented Constantino de Sá e Noronha and ordered, in spite of the contrary opinion of the latter, the construction of a fort in Batticaloa, too. Moreover the king suggested the transfer of a part of the Christians of the coast ‘da Pescaria’ to Ceylon (Trincomalee) to populate the island.8
Constantino de Sá left a garrison of 80 Portuguese and 100 Lascarins behind9 under the command of Francisco Pinto Pimenta10, with the aim to finish the works of the fort and to extend the Portuguese influence in the neighbouring villages, thus securing provisions and men for the work. Initially 14 pieces of artillery were mounted in the fort, which were taken with great difficulty from the shipwrecked Danish ships.11 The Portuguese put under their direct control several surrounding villages (Tambalagama, Gantale etc.), on which they imposed a tribute: the villages had to supply to the captain of the fort rice and elephants.12 As reprisal the king of Kandy organized various expeditions against these villages to prevent every kind of aid to the Portuguese.13 The successive year (1624)14 the Portuguese were forced to organize a new expedition and once again Constantino de Sá arrived in Trincomalee. This time he finished the works for the construction of the fort. At that occasion a community of 30 Casados, coming from Goa, was also settled.
The construction of the fort and the destruction of the temple at the same time considerably complicated the relationship with Senerat, the king of Kandy. He felt besieged: the best ports of the island were in Portuguese hands and the kingdom of Kandy risked to become dependent on the Portuguese for every trading activity and for every contact with the outside world. It seems that an important role in trying to calm the reaction of the king to the occupation of Trincomalee has been played by the Franciscan friar Eleutério de Santiago. He was sent to Kandy by Constantino de Sá just for this purpose. 15
Queyroz strongly criticized the occupation of Trincomalee. He in fact judged it an error to close Kandy in the forthcoming time and nearly to force it to form an alliance with other European powers. Moreover seen the scarcity of troops and means it was suicide to disperse the troops in so many small fortifications. Moreover the aim to close the commerce of the reign of Kandy was not easy to carry out, unless the Portuguese were able to be the masters of the whole island. The same function of control exercised over the Kandyan commerce from the fort of Trincomalee could be easily carried out from boats, leaving from the ports of Galle and Jaffna and patroling the coast and this without offending the Kandyans and at minor cost for the finances of the ‘Estado da Índia’.16 In 1627 the viceroy Dom Francisco da Gama judged the construction of a new fortress in Batticaloa as useless. He voiced his opinion that 6 boats were enough to guarantee the security of the entire eastern coast.17
The fort, built “of stone and mortar” by the Portuguese, was of triangular shape. With three bastions to the three angles, the more important bastion was called ‘Santa Cruz‘. It was the key for the defence of the bay and situated on the south side of the isthmus, thus having direct access to the water of the bay. On this bastion were mounted six pieces of artillery. On the north end of the isthmus there was the bastion of ‘Santo António’ to be found. It was equipped with five pieces of artillery. The two main bastions were connected by a wall 100 “paços” long, three and half “braças” high and six “palmos” thick. This wall closed the isthmus on its narrowest part. A third bastion, the smallest of the three, was situated on the north side up on the peninsula. On this bastion three pieces of artillery were mounted. All the artillery has been recovered together with the remains of a Danish ship. Another wall of the same dimension of the previous one, connected on the south side this third bastion with the main bastion of ‘Santa Cruz’. While on the north side the third bastion was connected with that of Santo António only by a parapet of “pedra and cal” situated on the top of the rock cliff to the sea, the Portuguese had modified the escarpment below this wall to render it steeper. On the higher end of the peninsula a small settlement of Portuguese ‘casados’ and indigenous people was situated: in total ‘vinte brancos e vinte e cinco pretos’. The casados together with 50 Portuguese soldiers guaranteed the garrisoning of the fortress. The soldiers resided inside of the fortress together with their captain, while the captain of the fort named by the King or by the Viceroy, resided in a house in the settlement of the casados.18 In accordance with a map in the “Livro das plantas, das fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental” another isolated bastion existed on the south side of the rocky promontory. In front of the two main bastions a ditch seemed to have existed. A small native village was situated between the Portuguese fort and the bay. In the Bocarro’s map are also shown three temples on the extreme end of the peninsula. On the other hand temples did not exist on the map of the “Livro das plantas, das fortalezas, cidades and povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental” in the library of the Paço Ducal de Vila Viçosa. The entrance of the fort seems to have been situated along the southern wall on the side of the village of the ‘casados’.
Another interesting map of the Portuguese age, compiled by the same Constantino de Sá, governor of Ceylon, shows the fort of Trincomalee situated on the isthmus of the peninsula, clearly indicated on it the village of the casados, called “pouvasam“, situated on the peninsula beyond the fort, the same fort was of triangular shape with three bastions. It is a part of the same collection, a greater map of the fort, entitled “Planta da fortalesa de Trinquilimale” indicating the names of the three bastions: S. Cruz (the larger bastion), S. António and the small S. Tiago, with the indication “este baluarte se acomodou ao sítio“. On the inner side of the fort the name of N. S. de Guadalupe is to be found, indicating the name of the church of Trincomalee. Constantino de Sá informs us that on the three bastions 16 pieces of artillery were mounted and the garrison comprised 40 soldiers and 30 casados. The place was judged by de Sá as impregnable, being placed on high cliffs and, according to his opinion, this Portuguese city with several works of fortification could be considered as one of the strongest places of the entire East.19 This is the description, which captain João Ribeiro gives us of the fort of Trincomalee: the fort was a triangular fortress with three bastions, one on each angle, armed with 10 iron guns, it was constructed on a hill near the ‘Baia dos Arcos’, inside the fort was a church 20 and a warehouse for the goods and ammunitions. A captain and 50 soldiers formed the garrison, in the fortress resided a constable, 16 Casados and a chaplain. 21The dimensions of smaller sides of the fortress were 75 meters, the greater side measured 150 meters.
In 1628, after the continuous insistences by the King of Portugal and against the opinion of the viceroy and the governor of Ceylon, to prevent a feared occupation by the Dutch, the Portuguese occupied also Batticaloa and constructed there a fort. It was the same Constantino de Sá e Noronha who commanded the expedition who built the fort of Batticaloa. He reached with three boats Trincomalee in March 1628, where he reinforced the garrison, then he marched to Batticaloa with 100 Portuguese and 2000 lascarins. He chose for the site of the fort an island of the lagoon.22 In July 1628 the construction of the fort was entrusted to Damião Botado and it was called “Forte da Nossa Senhora
da Penha de França“. The small fort was constructed on an island, which protected the bay, and where the boats could only enter with high tide, the island was and is still called island of Puliyantivu. The fort was of square shape, with four bastions armed by 12 iron guns and on the inner side was a church and a warehouse for the goods and ammunitions. It had a garrison of 40 – 50 soldiers, a captain, a constable, a chaplain and 20 casados. The chosen place for the construction of the fort of Batticaloa, had various weak points, in fact it lacked a supplying source of water inside of the walls, the channel that separated the island from the mainland was too shallow and too narrow and it did not prevent the passage of troops in case of attack. Finally the access to the sea was difficult and it was more than three miles from the fort. A few years after its construction it was proposed to rebuild the fort on a better place, but the chronic lack of funds from Goa, prevented this achievement.
The king of Kandy, Senerat, as reprisal for the construction of the fort of Batticaloa, stopped every land connection with the forts of Batticaloa and Trincomalee, the Portuguese garrisons succeeding in surviving thanks to the aids that reached them by sea from Jaffna. Just as during the whole history of Ceylon the control of the seas was a decisive advantage, which Europeans (Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British) always possessed compared with the Singhalese. This circumstance allowed them to dominate uninterruptedly the coastal areas of the island for approximately 450 years.
After their construction, the two Portuguese forts of the eastern coast, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, were put under the jurisdiction of the captain of Jaffna.23 Normally, in each of the forts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa a Jesuit father resided.24 It seems that the first result of conversion in the area of Trincomalee had been encouraging. In fact father Rebelo, head of the mission of Jaffna, already wrote in November 1625 that in the preceding year the Jesuit father in the fort of Trincomalee had converted 11,000 souls.25
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) Map (1681). Robert Knox. An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon.
NOTES:
1 The Danish company was founded on 17 March 1616.
2 Mayadunne was forced after having hardly been defeated by the Portuguese to shelter, on 2 July 1620, on a berthed Danish ship in the port of Kottiyar.
3 Barner Jensen, U. “Danish East India. Trade coins and the coins of Tranquebar, 1620-1845”, pp. 11-12; Holden Furber “Imperi rivali nei mercati d’oriente, 1600-1800”, note n° 66, p. 326.
4 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 727.
5 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…” vol. II, p. 734.
6 de Silva “The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617-1638”, p. 67, 69 note n° 33.
7 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. I, pp. 66-67.
8 Various Authors “Documentos remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monçỡes, 1625-1627”, CNCDP, 1999, Lisbon, pp. 34-35, doc. n° 66 (Lisboa, 13 de Fevereiro de 1625), p. 203, doc. n° 635 (Lisboa, 4 de Abril de 1626).
9 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 737.
10 Subsequently he was replaced, for familiar reasons (the death of his father-in-law, who had left a young daughter), by Diogo Vaz Freire. Various Authors “Documentos remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monçỡes, 1625-1627”, p. 102 doc. n° 283 (Goa, 23 Janeiro 1625), p. 184 doc. n° 595 (Goa, 23 de Fevereiro de 1626).
11 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 737.
12 Queyroz indicates us that the lands near Trincomalee were most fertile, with abundant rice production. Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…” vol. I pp. 68-69
13 After the Portuguese occupation of Trincomalee many farmers of the villages of Tambalagama and Gantale moved to Kottiyar. Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. I, p. 69.
14 Summer 1624 says Queyroz. Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 736.
15 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 698; Perniola, V. “The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. II, pp. 352-353; Trindade “Conquista espiritual do Oriente”, vol. III, pp.79-80.
16 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 735.
17 Various Authors “Documentos remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monçỡes, 1625-1627”, p. 331 doc. n° 880 (Goa, 20 de Fevereiro de 1627).
18 Bocarro, A. “Livro das plantas das fortalezas cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental”, p. 238.
19 “Costantine de Sa’s maps and plans of Ceylon”, p. 57.
20 Called in Caen’s diary “Nossa Senhora de Garde Rope” that is “Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe”, in: J.R.A.S. (Ceylon), n°35 (1887) “The capture of Trincomalee A.D. 1639”, p. 138.
21 Ribeiro “The historic tragedy of the island of Ceilão”, p. 36.
22 de Silva “The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617-1638”, p. 89.
23 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, pp. 757-758.
24 In the year 1628 in Trincomalee the father Sebastião de Fonseca was present, while in Batticaloa resided father António Soeiro. In 1634 was present in Trincomalee father João Moura, while the father Melchior Grasão preached in the fort of Batticaloa. Perniola, V. “The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. III, pp. 125-126, 217 and 242.
25 Perniola, V. “The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. III, p. 84.
A first interest of the Portuguese with regard to Trincomalee has been in the first years of the 1540s. All had begun, when the king of Kandy, Jayavira, on the advice of Nuno Alvarez Pereira 1, asked the Portuguese governor Martim Afonso de Sousa to open a ‘feitoria’2 with a factor in Trincomalee and to send Portuguese soldiers to Kandy. The king of Kandy on that occasion promised also to pay a tribute to the king of Portugal. It’s obvious that the main aim of the king of Kandy, beyond establishing direct trade relations with the Portuguese, was to receive military aid against the kingdoms of Kotte and Sitavaka, which laid claim to the reign of Kandy.
In February 1543 the demands of Jayavira seemed on the point of being fulfilled. Actually for this purpose a Portuguese expedition started from Negapatnam, guided by Amaro Mendez 3 and Miguel Ferreira,4 and arrived in the bay of Trincomalee. About 60-80 Portuguese were initially a part of this expedition. The king learnt about the arrival of the Portuguese and immediately sent a contingent of 2,000 men to Trincomalee. Together with the Portuguese Nuno Alvarez Pereira these men had to join the Portuguese in Trincomalee. They were supposed to be of assistance and support for the construction of the small trading base and later to be partly transferred to Kandy. But the expedition was a failure, because there were numerous defections among the Portuguese, caused by the lack of provisions, the hostility of the local head and by the incomprehension between the two parts.5
According to what Queyroz said, also Saint Francisco Xavier visited Trincomalee in 1543-44 , converting some inhabitants and being confronted in religious topics with some local religious heads.6 A letter written by Nuno Alvarez Pereira in 1545 did not mention clearly specified heads of Trincomalee (Trycanamalle) that 3,000 persons wanted to be converted together to the Christian faith.7 This demand for conversion could have been the consequence of the visit of the saint.
Notwithstanding the first failure, Jayavira still insistently demanded the aid of the Portuguese in 1545. This time the King offered to pay the tribute to the King of Portugal and the permission to build a small trading post in Trincomalee and also the payment of the wages for the factor and an employee of the trading farm. Besides he also offered to pay the wages for 20 more men, who had to reside in his capital city and finally also promised his conversion and that of his family to Catholicism.8 Like an answer to these demands in March 1546 a new expedition was sent by the governor of Portuguese India to the aid of the Kandyan kingdom.9 To the precise question of the captain of the expedition, André de Sousa, which route to follow to reach Kandy, the king Jayavira ordered that they should proceed by the way of Trincomalee. With a troop of Singhalese Nuno Alvarez Pereira was sent by the king to Trincomalee to help the Portuguese contingent in their transfer to Kandy. But when the Kandyan troops arrived in Trincomalee, they saw that once again the Portuguese expedition had disappeared, and of the supposed 150 soldiers only 13 or 14 Portuguese had stayed behind. The reason for this was that the soldiers, who had arrived in Trincomalee, had been strongly attacked by the inhabitants of the region and were forced to withdraw to Negapattam. A part of the Portuguese soldiers reached Kandy via Yala. In all approximately 50 soldiers arrived in Kandy.10 The envoy of the king of Kandy, Nuno Alvarez Pereira, was then abandoned by nearly all his men, afraid of an eventual attack by the inhabitants of the district of Trincomalee. But fortunately the feared attack didn’t materialize.11 It is understood by these events that the territory of Trincomalee, even if nominally subject to the king of Kandy, was not a really sure one for the Kandyans. But in spite of this Jayavira thought that the road, which started for Trincomalee was the safer one to reach Kandy.12 Miguel Fernandes13 indicates in one of his letters the reason of the behaviour of the inhabitants of Trincomalee. According to his writings the reason of those reactions seemed to be rumours of the conversion to Christianity of Jayavira.14
Still in 1546 some ambassadors of the ‘king’ of Trincomalee were present, through them he insistently asked the Portuguese to become Christian.15 A letter (dated 16 March 1547) written by João de Vila de Conde de Castro introduces us into a new request by the king of Kandy concerning the construction of a ‘feitoria’ in the port of Trincomalee. This time the king of Kandy had also promised to appoint Nuno Alvarez Pereira for this place as a factor.16 Fulfilling this request in 1547, a new contingent of Portuguese reached the eastern coast. They were about 100 men under the command of António Moniz Barreto. Although this time the disembarkation point had initially been fixed in Trincomalee, the Portuguese disembarked in Batticaloa and arrived in Kandy this way. However, this expedition will also end in a failure.17
In the last months of the year 1551 the prince of Trincomalee, a boy hardly seven or eight years old, was christened by father Anrriques. The reason of his conversion was to be found in a power struggle between two factions. One of these, guided by a leader, namely the uncle of the young prince, was thinking to benefit from the aid of the Portuguese, thus deciding to transport the young prince to the coast of Pescaria 18, where the Portuguese Jesuits resided. Here all the party insistently asked to be converted to Christianity. In this way the prince, his uncle and 30-40 of his followers became Christians. An expedition to put the prince in power in his province was also organized. About 1,000 Christians and some Portuguese participated in this campaign, but owing to the state of rebellion of the region the expedition did not obtain the hoped results and after two months it was decided not to put in danger the life of the prince and to abandon the enterprise. The young prince, who had been christened as D. Afonso (Afonço), was sent to Goa where he was introduced to the Viceroy. In Goa he was educated in the college of São Paulo and entrusted to the spiritual cures of father António Gomez.19 Subsequently in 1560, when the Portuguese tried to conquer Jaffna, the prince of Trincomalee participated in the expedition. The Viceroy D. Constantino de Bragança thought that once conquered Jaffna, this circumstance would bring him back Trincomalee, where he would be able to resume his reign and helped the Portuguese in the conversion of his people. But the expedition did not have the hoped results and the prince never reached Trincomalee. He instead returned to Goa.20 During his life in Goa he also conducted a correspondence with King D. Sebastião of Portugal.21 In 1568 he participated as a voluntary in the siege of Mangalore, where he was killed.22
A few other people mention Trincomalee in the following years:
In 1555 there was a request for missionaries by the Christians of Trincomalee to realize the christianization as far as Punnaikayala on the coast of Pescaria. But the insufficient number of clergymen prevented every mission.23 In 1560, the king of Jaffna, panic-stricken during the assault of his capital, carried out by the Viceroy de Bragança, escaped together with the royal family, sheltered in the territory of the vanniyar of Trincomalee, from the Portuguese .24 In 1569 two Portuguese ships arrived in the port of Trincomalee to take aboard the princess of Kandy, daughter of Karaliyadde (Javira Astana), to become the spouse of King Dom João.25
As we have seen, although the timid attempts by the Portuguese to install a ‘feitoria’ in the years between 1543 and 1547 meant that Trincomalee and the eastern coast remained for the entire 16th century free from Portuguese settlements. In the meantime they had extended their control over the south – western coastal area of the island. Practically till the end of the 16th century the Portuguese had the control over the territories, which once belonged to the reigns of Kotte and Sitawaka and moreover controlled the island of Mannar. However, toward the last decades of the century the influence of the Portuguese power began to be felt on the eastern coast. Starting from the years around 1570, the Portuguese began to collect tributes from the vanniyar of Trincomalee and also from that of Batticaloa.26 A protection tax was also imposed on the Hindu temple of Konesar (Koneswaram) in Trincomalee. Then the Portuguese collected taxes on some goods the reign of Kandy exported through the two main ports of Trincomalee and Batticaloa.27
In 1582 at the time of the conquest of the reign of Kandy by the troops of Sitavaka, the king of Kandy Karalliyadde Bandara (Dom João) together with some Portuguese who had helped him, took shelter in Trincomalee. This happened immediately after the defeat of his troops fighting against those of the reign of Sitavaka. It was exactly in Trincomalee that the king died of an epidemic of smallpox. Among the Portuguese, who followed the king Karalliyadde to Trincomalee was also the Franciscan friar André de Sousa.28 The king of Ceylon D. João Parea Pandar, Dharmapala, mentioned in a certificate on the work of the Franciscans in the reign of Kotte also the name of the Franciscan friar André de Sousa, who had sacrificed his life in Trincomalee. A mention of the same friar was also made by Trindade .29
In 1602 the region lying between Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa was assigned to the spiritual cures of the Jesuits. They had the permission to erect churches and to convert the inhabitants.30 In that very year the first Portuguese order for the construction of a fort in Trincomalee occurred.31 This order must be surely a first Portuguese reaction to the arrival of a Dutch expedition and to the subsequent first contact between the Dutch and the king of Kandy, which had taken place in the region of Batticaloa in 1602. Another motivation was the fact that during the periods of war with the Portuguese, Trincomalee was used as one of the ports through which the king of Kandy received aids and troops from the Nayak of Madura and the king of Meliapor.32
In the years around 1605 and 1609 D. Francisco de Menezes twice reached Trincomalee during military expeditions against the king of Kandy.33 A more detailed description of one of these expeditions is reported in the annual relation of the Jesuits of 1606. In fact here you find the description of a punitive expedition, which occurred in 1606 to fight a rebellion. The expedition was composed of a squadron of Portuguese soldiers and 4,000-5,000 Singhalese lascarins. in its way it also reached Trincomalee, being the place of the capture of about 200 men, women and children, who on the order of Simão Correia (a Singhalese captain) were beaten to death and for ‘compassion’ all were christened before being killed.34
A letter of the Jesuit frei Barradas, written from Cochin in November 1613, narrates the following Portuguese expedition to Trincomalee, which happened in the year 1612. The expedition was guided by D. Hierónymo de Azevedo. He crossed the Kandyans mountains, where underway were discovered two large tanks. “…our people came across two remarkable tanks. They were four legues in length, skillfully hemmed around by dug out mountains and by a wall, a piece of wonderful workmanship that one would expect from the Romans rather than the Chingalas”. After great difficulties due to torrential rains the Portuguese arrived in Trincomalee, and here de Azevedo “was keen on building a fort”. For this purpose he called in aid the king of Jaffna, but not seeing him to arrive he abandoned the enterprise and he marched towards Jaffna.35 A short description of this enterprise in Trincomalee was made also by Bocarro. He factually narrates that de Azevedo was waging a war in parts of Trincomalee, when he received the news that he had been proclaimed Viceroy.36 Another text narrates us instead the plans that de Azevedo cared for the fortification of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, and leaving Ceylon in November 1612 to go to Goa to assume the assignment of Viceroy. He planned to send in March of the following year ‘seis navios’ with the necessary materials for the construction of the fortresses of Trincomalee and Batticaloa and even planned to send two ships to patrol the coast of Galle and ordering these ships to stay the next winter in Trincomalee to assist in the construction of the fortress.37 According to de Azevedo one of the better ways to weaken Kandy was exactly to block the commerce of the kingdom, exerted from the ports of Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Rio de Água Doce and Jaffna. But for the moment (1614) he judged the Portuguese not to be able to occupy all these ports.38
Subsequently in the peace treaty between the king of Kandy and the Portuguese, signed in August 1617, were also defined the frontiers between the two territories, establishinged also the borders along the eastern coast, where the two main ports, namely Kottiyar/Trincomalee and Batticaloa, remained under the control of the kingdom of Kandy. In the treaty it was factually indicated that the frontier of the territories under the authority of the king of Kandy reached as far as the ports of Kottiyar, Batticaloa and Panama.39
In the year 1619 all the territory of the kingdom of Jaffna, including Trincomalee and Batticaloa, was assigned to the spiritual cures of the Franciscans. This decision was taken by the bishop of Cochin, fray Dom Sebastião de S. Pedro.40 Later another decree of the same bishop of Cochin, dated 11 November 1622, based on a earlier decree of 1602, entrusted anew the spiritual cure in the districts of Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa to the Jesuits, giving them the possibility to build churches, to teach the sacraments and to convert the souls.41 And in fact the Jesuits were to follow the Portuguese soldiers to Trincomalee and Batticaloa, when they occupied the two localities.
3 Amaro Mendes had been appointed factor of the feitoria.
4 Miguel Ferreira was the Portuguese captain of the Coromandel coast. For the life of this important personality confer the article written by J. M. Flores “Um Homem que tem muito crédito naquelas partes: Miguel Ferreira, os alevantados do Coromandel e o Estado da Índia”, in: “Mare Liberum”, n° 5/1993, pp. 21-32.
5 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, pp. 80-81.
6 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. I, pp. 236-237.
7 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 62.
8 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period” vol. I, pp. 71-72.
The tribute promised from the king of Kandy was: “fifteen elephants with tusks and three hundred oars of beech wood for the galleys.” Vedi: Perniola, V. “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, pp. 86-87.
9 The reign of Kandy had been attacked since November 1545 by the forces of the reign of Sitawaka, thus needing support urgently
10 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 162, 177.
11 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, pp. 160-161.
12 In order to reach Kandy the road, which started in Batticaloa, was also often used.
13 Miguel Fernandes was a Portuguese “casado” (married soldier) from Kotte.
14 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 177.
Jayavira was secretly christened by friar Francisco di Monteprandone on 9 March 1546.
15 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 154.
16 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 216.
17 For the details of this expedition see: O. M. da Silva “Vikrama Bahu of Kandy. The Portuguese and the Franciscans, 1542-1551”, pp. 63-76.
19 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, pp. 286-288.
20 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 372, 374, 382.
21 See the letter of answer of King Sebastião dated 7 March 1567 and published in: Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. II, p. 23.
22 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 382 n. 1 and vol. II, p. 23 n. 1.
23 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. I, p. 346.
28 F. F. Lopes “A evangelização de Ceilão desde 1552 a 1602”, in: “Studia” n° 20-22/1967, pp. 30-31; “History of Sri Lanka”, vol. II, p. 96.
29 The certificate is dated 1 December 1594. Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. II, p. 137; Trindade “Conquista espiritual do Oriente”, vol. III, p. 56, 68.
30 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. II, p. 266.
31 Silva, Ch. R. de “The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617-1638”, p. 59 nota n° 149.
32 Abeyasinghe “Portuguese rule in Ceylon, 1594-1612”, p. 36.
33 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 611.
34 Perniola “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. II, p. 256.
35 Perniola, V. “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, Vol. II, p. 366.
36 Bocarro “Década 13 da história da Índia ”, vol. I, p. 11.
37 “Relación del estado en que quedavam las cosas de la India, sacada de las cartas, que escrivio el virrey Dom Hieronymo de Azevedo…”, published in: “Documentação Ultramarina Portuguesa”, vol. I, p. 73 and vol. II, p. 157.
38 Bocarro “Década 13 da história da Índia ”, vol. I, p. 277.
39 “History of Sri Lanka”, vol. II, p. 154 and also Silva, Ch. R. de “The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617-1638”, p. 59.
40 Perniola, V. “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. II, p. 458.
41 Perniola, V. “The Catholic church in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese period”, vol. III, p. 51.
The bay, called by the Portuguese ‘Baía dos Arcos’, where is situated the city of Trincomalee 1 on the island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) has always been considered as one of the best ports of the world. Its highly strategic position in the centre of the Indian Ocean trade routes and its control of the entire Gulf of Bengal would have rendered the place ideal for the development of a great port and trading centre, but this did not happen. In fact otherwise from what it could be thought, seeing the beauty and the importance of such an anchorage, Trincomalee, never became a centre of primary importance during the Portuguese and Dutch colonial age. The first two colonial powers, which dominated and occupied the coastal areas of the island of Ceylon for about 300 years (1505/6-1796), preferred to focus their interest towards the southwestern part of the island (where have been the ports of Colombo and Galle), while along the east coast the Portuguese and Dutch presence was non-existent, or for part of the mentioned period limited to the surrounding zone of the forts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa.
This lack of interest for Trincomalee and in a generalized manner for the eastern coast was caused by various factors. The main reason, was at the age of the arrival of the Portuguese in Ceylon, the more important kingdom of the island and with which the Portuguese had trade relations (mainly because of the commerce of cinnamon) was that of Kotte, whose territories extended in the south western zone of the island 2 and whose capital, Jayawardhanapura Kotte, was a few kilometers from Colombo, thus Colombo became used from the Portuguese as the main base for the subsequent expansion on the island. During the first Portuguese period the east coast of Ceylon was practically neglected, and only after the first European contenders (the Danish and the Dutch) reached threateningly the Asian seas, the Portuguese deemed the occupation and the fortification of Trincomalee and Batticaloa necessary.
Another reason, for which Trincomalee never rose to the rank of an important trading centre during the Portuguese period, was well explained by Queyroz: “[Trincomalee] … had one great inconvenience, that at that time there were no other neighbours save the Bedas who are such barbarous and unruly men that they did not even show their face.” 3 Queyroz further on observed, that if the zone around Trincomalee would become inhabited and cultivated, it could be easily self-sufficient.4
The port of Trincomalee, together with those of Kottiyar and Batticaloa, was used, in the 16th century by the kingdom of Kandy, as a port for the export of elephants and walnuts of areca and for the import of the goods of first necessity from other Asian countries. Although Barros indicates Trincomalee between the nine reigns of the island of Ceylon,5 it was only a small principality under the dominion of the Vanniyar6 of Trincomalee and Kottiyar who was tributary and subject at least nominally to the king of Kandy. The territory subject to the Vanniyar of Trincomalee was scarcely inhabited and had an extension of 23 leagues.7 Trincomalee was situated between the areas nominally controlled by the kingdoms of Kandy and Jaffna. The presence of the river Mahaweli Ganga, which does not flow far away from Trincomalee, facilitated the connections with the plateau and with Kandy and thanks to this, an intense traffic of goods was carried out through the ports of Kottiyar and Trincomalee. In the village of Vintêna, which was situated three leagues from Trincomalee, the Kandyans used to trade and to exchange the products of Ceylon (mainly elephants and walnuts of areca) with opium and other consumer goods, with the merchants arriving from the rest of Asia.8
According to what Queyroz writes, Triquilemalê means “mountain of the three pagodas”, which were erected 9 by the king of Ceylon on a high cape above the sea, two of them were situated at the extremity of an overhanging cliff to the sea, the third instead was situated in the middle of the cape on a higher point. This last pagoda, the temple of Koneswaram, was the main of all and one of the most venerated of all India.10 The main reason of the importance of Trincomalee was this pagoda, which Queyroz called the Rome of the populations of the East or the Rome of the pagans.11 The temple is described, in a letter of 1613 written by the Jesuit fray Barradas: “[The temple is]… a massive structure, a singular work of art. It was of great height, constructed with wonderful skill in blackish granite, on a rock projecting into the sea, and occupied a large space on the summit.”12 The village of Trincomalee was situated on the isthmus of the cape where there were the pagodas.
1 Called by the Portuguese: Triquinimale (Bocarro “Livro das plantas…”, vol. II, p. 238; Bocarro “Decada 13 da história da Índia”, vol. I, p. 11), Triquilemalê (Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. I, p. 66), Trinquilamale (Bocarro “Década 13 da historia da India”, vol. I, p. 277), Trinquilimale (Bocarro “Década 13 da história da Índia”, vol. I, p. 277), Triquilimale (“Carta do Vice-Rei da Índia” Livros das Monções, Goa, vol. 37, fls 129-129 v).
2 The monarch of the kingdom of Kotte called himself emperor of the entire island, but the directed authority of the reign of Kotte in the first decades of the 16th century extended exclusively on the rich and densely inhabited lands comprised between the course of the rivers Malwatu Oya to the north and Walawe Ganga to the south, while towards the interior it reached the borders of mountains of the central plateau. The kingdom that occupied the mountainous part of the island, scarcely inhabited and poor, was the reign of Kandy or Udarata it at least nominally recognized the power of the reign of Kotte. Also some scarcely inhabited zones situated on the eastern side of the island and subject to small heads called ‘vanniyars’ or ‘princes’ nominally recognized the authority of the kingdom of Kotte, even in effect were independent of fact. In the north part of the island instead the kingdom of Jaffna was situated, this kingdom did not recognize the pretensions of Kotte on all of the island. In 1521 inner revolts carried to the division of the reign of Kotte and to the formation of three reigns, Kotte (governed by Bhuvanekabahu VII), Sitavaka (governed by Mayadunne) and Raigama (governed by Pararajasimha).
3 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. II, p. 735
The Veddah (Bedas) are the most ancient original aboriginal population of the island. The word Veddah is of singhalese origin and means wild. Today some communities of Veddah still remain, the three main ones find themselves in the vicinities of Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Anuradhapura.
4 Queyroz “The temporal and spiritual…”, vol. III, pp. 1153-1154.
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Written by Marco Ramerini. Photos by Dietrich Köster.
The city of Galle is located along the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, about 120 km south of Colombo. Here first the Portuguese, and then the Dutch had built a fort to control the bay.
The Portuguese sacked Galle in 1587 and then in 1597 built a small fort on a hillock. In 1620 they built a new fort on the promontory, they called this new fortification: Forte Santa Cruz. The Portuguese lost Galle on 13 March 1640.
The Dutch, after the conquest of the city – which occurred in 1640 – rebuilt the fort – this happened around 1663- surrounding the entire peninsula, making it an important strategic stronghold, it now encompasses the oldest part of town. The Old Town of Galle and its Fortifications were declared by UNESCO a world heritage site, and are in good state of preservation.
Inside are the Dutch government house, the evangelical church (Groote Kerk) built in Baroque style in 1775 – the church is paved with grave stones from the old Dutch cemetery (Kerkhof)-, and several houses in the Dutch style.
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
The defensive structure is formed by 14 bastions, and with its walls encloses the entire peninsula where is the old city of Galle. The area of the fort encloses an area of approximately 52 hectares and its main entrance, during Dutch period, was located along the northeastern part of the walls, is what today is called “Old Gate”, here on the inside is the inscription of the symbol Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindindische Compagnie, VOC) and the date 1669. What today is called “Main Gate” was opened by the British in 1897, between the Moon bastion and the Sun bastion.
According to UNESCO Galle remains the best example of a fortified city built by Europeans in South and South-East Asia.
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
Meera Mosque built in 1904, Dutch Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka. Author and Copyright Dietrich Köster
The city of Khor Fakkan (Corfação) is located along the east coast of the United Arab Emirates (25°20’N – 56°22’E). Here, the Portuguese, around 1620, built a triangular fortress with triangular bastions and a round tower in the center.
In the log book of the Dutch vessel the Meerkat (1666) we read: “Gorfacan is a place on a small bay, which has about 200 small houses all built from date branches, near the beach. It had on the northern side a triangular Portuguese fortress, of which the desolate ruins can still be seen. On the southern coast of the bay in a corner there is another fortress on a hill, but there is no garrison nor artillery on it, and it is also in ruins.”
Just 35 km south of Khor Fakkan is the town of Quelba (Kalba). Here on March 1624 the Portuguese built a square fortress.
Portuguese forts of Quelba and Corfacão from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Quelba and Corfação. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
Situated in a natural harbour near the Oman capital Muscat, tha city of Matrah (Matara).
The Portuguese built a fort in Matrah in 1588, the fort was part of the defenses of the city of Muscat.
The Portuguese controlled the fort between 1588 and 1648.
The fort at Matrah was a square fort with four bastions at the corners.
Portuguese fort of Matarâ (Matrah) from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Matara. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
The city of Sohar (24 ° 21’N – 56 ° 43’E) is located along the Omani coast about 200 km north-west of Muscat.
The Portuguese came to Soar in 1507 and made the city tributary. After several rebellions, the Portuguese retook the city in 1516 and again in 1523.
The Portuguese fortified Soar probably between 1559 and 1561 building a square fortress with bastions and surrounded by walls.
The city was lost by the Portuguese on 7 November 1643.
Portuguese fort of Soar from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Soar. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
Sibo (As Sib) (23°40’N – 58°12’E) is a coastal town located along the Oman coast 50 km north-west of Muscat, where the Portuguese in the 17th had a triangular fortress with bastions in the angles.
Here a description of this fort extracted from António Bocarro “O livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental”:
DISCRIPSSÃO DO FORTE DE SIBO: “Quatro legoas de Mascate correndo a mesma costa, ao noroeste, junto a hum palmar, na costa brava, está situado o forte que chamão Sibo, que he ja antigo, feito pellos arabios. E o procurou senhorear o Capitão Geral Rui Freire d’Andrade, como fes, por ser hum dos caminhos por onde dessem fazendas a Mascate e se recebem outras que se despendem na Arabia. Está feito em modo de triangulo, com tres baluartes nos tres cantos, hum mais eminente que os dous, onde mora o capitão. Os panos de muro, cada hum sera de des pera doze paços geometrios. Tem algûa artelharia meuda de falcõis, e lhe asiste o capitão portugues e trinta lascarins, que o vigião e defendem, cuja despeza se sostenta a mayor parte com o rendimento da terra, e só o capitão he pago do rendimento de Mascate ou da parte das rendas que os xeques tinhão na Alfandega, que pera este e outros beneficios largarão à Fazenda de Sua Magestade.” From: António Bocarro “O livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental”
Portuguese fort of Sibo from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Sibo. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
The Portuguese first conquered and sacked Mascate in Oman in 1507. The Portuguese retained the control over Muscat for more than a century. The Turks conquered from the Portuguese Muscat on two occasions: in 1552 and in 1581-1588. The fortifications of Muscat were reinforced by Belchior Calaça in 1588 by order of the governor of Portuguese India Don Manuel de Sousa Coutinho.
The fortifications of the city of Muscat were based on the presence in strategic points of the bay of two imposing fortifications: the Forte do Almirante (Al-Mirani Fort) and the Forte de São João (Al-Jalali Fort), which flank and dominate the entrance to the bay. The Milanese architect Giovanni Battista Cairati since 1590 improved the defenses of the city.
After the loss of the fortress of Hormuz, in 1622, the port of Muscat became the main base of the Portuguese fleet in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.
The Portuguese lost Muscat on 26 Janaury 1650.
Portuguese fort of Mascate from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
The two fortresses of Mada and Libedia were located along the eastern coast of the present United Arab Emirates.
Libedia has been identified in the present town of Bidyah (25 ° 26’N – 56 ° 21’E) along the coast midway between Fujairah and Dibba.
The two forts were square or rectangular shape with bastions at each corner.
Portuguese forts of Mada and Libedia from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Mada and Libidia. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
The fortress of Doba, probably the present town of Diba al Hisn (25 ° 36’N – 56 ° 17’E) today in the emirate of Al-Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, was a square fortress with round bastions and a tower in the center. The Portuguese controlled the city from 1624 to 1648.
Portuguese fort of Doba from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Doba. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
Curiate (Kuriyat/Qurayyat) is a town situated south-east of Muscat along the Oman coast.
The Portuguese fortress of Curiate (Kuriyat/Qurayyat) was rectangular fortress built by the Arabs and conquered by the Portuguese in 1507. The fort was probably rebuilt in the last quarter of the 16th century. The Portuguese lost this fort in 1648.
Here a description of this fort extracted from António Bocarro “O livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental”:
DESCRIPÇÃO DA FORTALEZA DE CURIATE: “A fortaleza de Curiate, de Sua Magestade, está doze legoas antes de Mascate pera o Cabo Rosalgate, sita na costa braba, a borda da praya, onde não ha rio nem emceada nenhûa mais que hum ilheo pegado e continuo com a terra firme, que he somente ilheo em lançar ao mar hum outeiro pequeno, o qual em aguoas vivas fica em nado. Neste lugar se abrigão algûas embarcações pequenas de pescadores do sul e sudueste, porque pera mayores não tem fundo. Ao longo delle, está neste ilheo feito hum baluarte, couza pequena, do tamanho de hûa caza, de des paços andantes de praça, em quadro, que se fes pera vigiar daqui artilharia pera o campo e o mar (oje não tem nenhûa). A fortaleza de Curiate que dizemos esta a borda da praya he em quadro não perfeito, senão hum pouco mais comprida que largua, e terá de comprimento, nos dous lanços de muro que vão da praya pera a terra dentro, sincoenta paços andantes e, nos outros dous, de largura (que correm a borda da praya) trinta.” From: António Bocarro “O livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental”
Portuguese forts of Curiate and Sidabo from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the image thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Curiate and Sidabo. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
Borca was a Portuguese fortress that stood at 12 (?) leagues from Muscat along the coast of Oman. The fortress had a triangular shape with three bastions at the corners of the triangle. In the fortress lived a Portuguese captain with 8 Portuguese soldiers and 30 lascarins.
Probably the Portuguese fort of Borca corresponds to the present city of Barka (23°46’N – 57°46’E) in Oman which is located 65 km north-west of the country’s capital Muscat.
Currently in the town of Barka there are three forts: Fort Barka, which is located a few hundred meters from the beach of the Gulf of Oman. Fort Fulaij a rectangular fort with two towers. The fortification of Beit al-Numan.
Portuguese fort of Borca from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
For the images thanks to Prof. Nuno Varela Rubim and Prof. Rui Carita (“O Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia, na Fortaleza de S. Julião da Barra, com 22 plantas de anónimo (I Manuel Godinho de Erédia, de cerca de 1620), e 55 plantas de anónimo (II de cerca de 1640)”).
Borca. Text of the document from Prof. Rui Carita Lyvro de Plantaforma das Fortalezas da Índia
Written by Marco Ramerini. English text revision by Dietrich Köster
The Portuguese decided shortly after their arrival in the Eastern Seas to prevent the Arabs’ trade by the conquest of Ormuz. For its strategical position, dominating the entrance to the Persian Gulf, Ormuz was one of the two strategical strongholds on the trade routes between the Arab world and Asia (the other being Aden near the Strait of Bab el Mandab). The city of Ormuz (Hormuz) was one of the most important trade centers of the whole East. On its market Persian horses and pearls were exchanged. The town was placed on a dry and barren island near the Persian mainland at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. For nearly 150 years Portugal ruled the Persian Gulf area. Ormuz was regarded by Albuquerque as the third key to the Portuguese Empire in Asia (the other two were Goa and Malacca).
The first attempt to conquer Ormuz was done in 1507 by Afonso de Albuquerque. He, at the head of a small Portuguese fleet of 7 ships and 500 men, proceeded to Ormuz. During the journey he stormed and conquered the towns of Kuryat, Muscat and Khor Fakkan. Differently the towns of Kalhat and Sohar expressed their willingness to become tributary to the King of Portugal. The Portuguese fleet anchored in front of the town of Ormuz. The King of the city was prepared for an attack and he could count on 15,000/20,000 armed men. Albuquerque was resolute and he asked the King to pay a tribute and become a vassal of Portugal, but the King’s reply was evasive, a simple attempt to protract the negotiations. After three days of waiting Albuquerque attacked the city and the King’s fleet was entirely destroyed. Seeing the complete defeat of his forces, the King sent a flag of truce offering to deliver up the city to the Portuguese.
In September 1507 Albuquerque concluded a treaty with the King of Hormuz, under which the King had to pay to the King of Portugal a yearly tribute. After this Albuquerque and his men began to build the fortress, the first stone was laid on 24 October 1507, the fort was named “Nossa Senhora da Victória”.
During the construction of the fortress insubordination arose among the Portuguese. Some Portuguese captains, with the help of the King of Ormuz, rebelled against Albuquerque. In January 1508, after several days of skirmish with the Ormuz’s forces, Albuquerque was forced to abandon the city. This was the first attempt to challenge the Portuguese rule in the Persian Gulf. The second attempt was made in 1515. In March 1515 Albuquerque with a force of 27 ships, 1,500 Portuguese and 700 Malabarese soldiers arrived in front of Ormuz. He was determined to take the town in the name of the King of Portugal and this time he was successful. The fortress was occupied by the Portuguese on 1 April 1515.
Portuguese Fort, Hormuz, Iran. Author Ninara
The fort was renamed “Nossa Senhora da Conceição”. When the Portuguese arrived, the main ports of the Persian Gulf and Arabia such as Julfar, Bahrain, Calayate (Qalhat), Mascate, Catifa (al Qatif), Corfação and the islands of Queixome and Lareca were all under the jurisdiction of the King of Hormuz. With the fall of Ormuz, all the cities and ports on the Persian Gulf became tributary to Portugal. The kings of Hormuz continued as a regional power in conjunction with the Portuguese. In this way the Portuguese rule began in the Persian Gulf, which lasted till the years 1620/1650.
In a document of the year 1515 (“Rendimento da cidade de Oromuz e seus reinos”) are reported the ports that paid tribute to Portugal. They were: Aigom and Docer “portos que estam na barra de terra firme”, Brahemim “porto que está de fora da ilha d’Oromuz na terra firme”, Tezer “lugar na terra firme”, Beabom, Borate, Jullfar (Julfar), Callayate (Qalhat), Horfacam (Khor Fakkan), Caçapo (Khasab), Broqete “na ilha Qeixa”, Lafete “na ilha Qeixa”, Qeixa “na ilha Qeixa”, Garpez “na ilha Qeixa”, Rodom, Costaque, Chagoa, Callecazei and Lebedia (Al-Bidyah).
“A cidade de Ormuz está situada em hua pequena ilha chamada Gerum que jaz quasi na garganta de estreito do mar Parseo tam perto da costa da terra de Persia que avera de hua a outra tres leguoas e dez da outra Arabia e terà em roda pouco mais de tres leguoas: toda muy esterele e a mayor parte hua mineira de sal e enxofre sem naturalmente ter hum ramo ou herva verde. A cidade em sy é muy magnifica em edificios, grossa em tracto por ser hua escala onde concorrem todalas mercadorias orientaes e occidentaes a ella, e as que vem da Persea, Armenia e Tartaria que lhe jazem ao norte: de maneira que nam tendo a ilha em sy cousa propria, per carreto tem todalas estimadas do mundo /…../ a cidade é tam viçosa e abastada, que dizem os moradores della que o mundo é hum anel e Ormuz hua pedra preciosa engastada nelle” Joao de Barros, Decada II, L. II cap. 2
Portuguese Fort, Hormuz, Iran. Author Fariborz
In 1521 the King of Ormuz rebelled against the Portuguese, but the latter crushed the rebellion and put a new king on the throne. In 1523, Dom Luís de Menezes occupied Soar, which had revolted, and after this, he proceeded to Qeshm, where a new treaty was concluded with the new King and a feitoria was established. In 1526 Lopo Vaz de Sampayo, the Governor of Portuguese India (1526-1529), reduced to obedience Mascate and Khalat, which had revolted. In 1542/43 the entire Customs duties of Ormuz were assigned to the King of Portugal. The years between 1550 and 1560 were years of continued warfare with the Turks for the supremacy in the Persian Gulf. In 1550/51 the Portuguese conquered from the Turks the fort of El Katiff (Al Qatif) in Arabia. In 1551/52, in order to help Ormuz’s defence a fort was built in Mascate. The Turks were determined to take revenge and in 1551/52 they attacked Mascate and sacked the town. In 1559 the Turks besieged the Portuguese fort of Bahrein, but after several months of siege, they were forced to withdraw. In 1581, Mascate was again destroyed by the Turks. In 1582 the King of Lara (Larack, an island near Ormuz), who had revolted, laid siege to the fortress of Ormuz, but the Portuguese succeeded in driving away the invaders and they in turn besieged Lara’s fort of Xamel, which was taken by the Portuguese. Finally, in 1588 the Mascate’s fortresses were again rebuilt. This time the town was also fortified and in nearby Matara (Matrah) a fort was built, too. In 1602 Shah Abbas expelled the Portuguese from Bahrain.
Ormuz used for its provisions of water the wells of Comorão on the Persian coast. Here the Portuguese had a fort. It was conquered by the Persians in 1615 (1614?). In 1616 Soar, which had revolted, was captured by a Portuguese fleet and the King was put to death. In 1619 the Portuguese fortress of Ormuz had a garrison of 500-700 soldiers. The fort of Khawr Fakkan (Corfação) was built in 1620 by Gaspar Leite. On 8 May 1621 Rui Freire de Andrada, the “General do Mar de Ormuz e costa da Persia e Arabia”, began to build a fort in Queixome (Qeshm), this fort was built to have the control of the island’s water wells. The building of this fort was regarded as an act of open hostility by the Shah of Persia, who waged war against the Portuguese. In 1622, the Arabs, who had joined the Persians, succeeded in capturing Julfar from the Portuguese. On 11 February 1622, the Portuguese fort of Queixome, after a feeble resistance, was forced to surrender to a joint Persian-English army. On 20 Febraury 1622 the Persian flotilla of more than 3,000 men with the help of 6 English ships besieged the Portuguese fortress of Ormuz. Ormuz was lost by the Portuguese on 3 May 1622. The entire Portuguese population, about 2,000 persons, were sent to Mascate.
During the decade after the fall of Ormuz, the Portuguese, under the command of Rui Freire de Andrada, tried several times (1623, 1624, 1625, 1627) to regain the fortress. The last attempt in 1631 was a diplomatic one, but all these attempts failed. After the loss of Ormuz the Portuguese established their base in Mascate, and in 1623, a feitoria (trading station) was established also in Bassora at the mouth of the Euphrates River. In 1623 Rui Freire reoccupied the fort of Soar, which had been taken in 1622 by the Persians. In the same year a new base was established in Cassapo (Kashab) on the Musandam Peninsula. Kalba (Quelba) was conquered by Gaspar Leite in 1624. The fort of Mada was conquered in May 1624 by Mateus de Siebra. In 1624/25, following a treaty with the Persians, a feitoria and a fortress were established in Congo (Bandar-e Kong) on the Persian coast of the Persian Gulf. In 1631 a Portuguese fortress was built in Julfar, an important strategic point on the Musandam Peninsula. This town enjoyed during Portuguese rule great prosperity as the regional trading entrepôt. In September 1633 Rui Freire de Andrada, the great protagonist of these years, died and his body was buried in the church of St. Agostinho in Mascate. In 1633/35 peace treaties were concluded with the English and the Persians.
The Portuguese rule in the Persian Gulf was nearly more stable after the loss of Ormuz than before. In fact several fortresses and feitorias in a lot of places such as Soar, Julfar, Doba, Libedia, Mada, Khor Fakkan, Caçapo (Khasab), Congo (Kung) and Bassora were established. In August 1648, the Arabs besieged Mascate and on 31 October a treaty was signed between the two opponents. The terms were as follows: the Portuguese should raze to the ground the fortress of Kuriyat, Doba and Matara. In January 1650 Mascate, the last Portuguese base in Arabia, was taken by the Omanites. By the loss of Mascate the Portuguese were deprived of their last stronghold in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf and thus the so-called “Portuguese period” came to an end on the Persian Gulf.
The Portuguese forts in the Persian Gulf and in Oman (1500-1650). Author Marco Ramerini
Map of the Portuguese forts in the Straits of Hormuz. Author Marco Ramerini
Map of the Portuguese forts in Oman. Author Marco Ramerini
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