Calicut

The Zamorin's port

Calicut rose from about the thirteenth century under the Zamorins, the Samoothiri, rulers from the Eradi family who expanded from a small chiefdom to dominate much of the Malabar coast. The port had no natural harbour, but its rulers were known for protecting traders and their goods, and it drew Arab and Persian merchants, Gujaratis, Chettis and Chinese ships. Pepper, ginger and other spices from the hinterland were its chief exports. Muslim merchant communities, both resident Mappilas and foreigners, were central to its trade and to the Zamorin's power.

The Zamorin's claim to precedence among the Malabar rulers was displayed at the Mamankam, a festival held every twelve years on the sandbanks of the Bharathappuzha at Tirunavaya. The Zamorin had taken the right to preside over it from the rulers of Valluvanad, and at each festival Valluvanad sent small bands of warriors, the chavers, sworn to die trying to reach and kill him through his guards. The festival lapsed after the Mysore conquest.

Travellers

Ibn Battuta stayed at Calicut in the 1340s and saw Chinese junks in harbour; he was preparing to sail to China on one of them when a storm wrecked the fleet. In the early fifteenth century the great Ming fleets under the admiral Zheng He called repeatedly at Calicut, which the Chinese accounts describe as a major country of the western ocean. The Persian envoy Abd al-Razzaq visited in 1442. These accounts describe a cosmopolitan city with a Hindu king, Muslim merchants, and a tolerant commercial order.

Vasco da Gama

In May 1498 Vasco da Gama's ships anchored near Calicut, at Kappad, after the first sea voyage from Europe round Africa. The Zamorin received him, but the Portuguese gifts were thought poor, and the Arab merchants opposed them. Relations broke down quickly. Pedro Alvares Cabral, who came in 1500, set up a factory that was attacked, and he bombarded the city in reply. Da Gama returned in 1502 with a fleet, sank ships and bombarded Calicut. The Portuguese then made their base with the Zamorin's rival, the king of Cochin.

The Zamorin's navy, led by the Kunjali Marakkars, a family of Muslim admirals, fought the Portuguese at sea through the sixteenth century. The Portuguese built a fort at Calicut in 1513, which was later abandoned. In 1600 the last Kunjali was surrendered to the Portuguese by the Zamorin, who had allied with them against him, and executed at Goa.

Mysore and the British

In 1766 Hyder Ali of Mysore invaded Malabar. The Zamorin is said to have set fire to his palace and died in it rather than surrender. Mysore ruled the coast until the Third Anglo-Mysore War, after which Tipu Sultan ceded Malabar to the East India Company in 1792. The cotton cloth exported from the port gave English the word calico.