Zamorins of Calicut

The pepper port

The Zamorins built Calicut into the dominant trading city of the Malabar coast, and its prosperity rested on a working partnership with the Muslim merchant communities — the local Māppila traders and the Arab and Persian merchants who handled the long-distance business. The Kunjali Marakkars, the Zamorin's admirals, were a Muslim family.

Ibn Battuta, who visited in the fourteenth century, describes Calicut as one of the great ports of the world, with Chinese junks in the roads. Zheng He's fleets called there several times in the early fifteenth century, and Zheng He is believed to have died on the return leg of a voyage that had touched at Calicut.

1498 and after

Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in May 1498 and was received by the Zamorin. The audience went badly — the Portuguese gifts were derisory by the standards of a court that traded with China, and the resident Arab merchants had no interest in a new competitor — and the encounter set the pattern for what followed.

The Portuguese returned in force and demanded the expulsion of Muslim traders; the Zamorin refused, and a long naval war followed in which the Kunjali Marakkars fought the Portuguese fleets for a century. Portugal allied with Cochin, the Zamorin's rival, which is why Cochin rather than Calicut became the first European foothold in India.

Calicut declined as the Europeans took control of the sea lanes. Hyder Ali overran Malabar in 1766, and after the defeat of Tipu Sultan the territory passed to the British in 1792. The Zamorin's line continued as a titular house.