CHAPTER V PORTO GRANDE AND PARADISE ISLAND:

CHITTAGONG AND SANDWIP

Chittagone : A Rose between two thon1s

Certainly the best-known of the Portuguese settlem~nts in the eastern

delta was Chittagong, along with its proximate suburban off-shoot at Dianga.

Chittagong was a flourishing port early in the 16th century, which was closely

linked with the capital of the Bengal sultanate at Gaur. It was the chosen destination

of state-sponsored trading vessels to Bengal which gave it a special status as an elite

port. In fact, it was designated 'o porto de Bern galla' in the Portuguese sources and

was also the termination point of annual concession voyages from Cochin-Goa and

Malacca. In 1535 the Estado da India set up a customs-house at this port, thus

acquiring hegemonistic legitimacy in the region.

The exact date of the founding of the Portuguese settlement in the

region is not clear. Contemporary accounts however do indicate that in 1600 a

Jesuit church and residence had been built there "as there are many Portuguese

there." With the decline of the Bengal sultanate the port came within the area of

control of the kingdom of Arakan, whose king was "very friendly ..... to the

Portuguese living here." The king further made favourable concessions and

overtures to the Portuguese - " to get thern to serve and help hi.m in his wars he has

given to some something like thirty thousand ducats of revenue." 1 In return these

1 Rela¢o Annual das coisas que jizemm Padres da Companhia de Jesus nas suas missoes ..... nos anos de 1600 a 1609, pelo Padre Femiio. (fuerreiro, tr. by Fr. H.Hosten, SJ.,Hosten Collection, Vidyajyoti Library, Delhi, Cardboard box titled 'Bengal XVI, XVII', ms. 3, Chap. XIX.

95

settlers were expected to perform militar; service for the king by functioning as a

militia. Bernier noted, "the King ofRakan, who lived in perpetl.Ull dread ofthe

Mogel, kept these foreigners as a species of advance guard, for the protectiotl of

his frontier, permitting them to occupy a seaport called Chatigon, and making them

grants of land,"2

TI1e settlers at Chittagong-Dianga soon found the greatest profit in

this kind of employment and offered their military skills wherever they cou1d get a

good price for them. Ever on the lookout for plunder, they were willing to jump into

any political or military skirmish in the neighbourhood. They mostly threw in their

lot with the king of Arakan, who seemed to be the most successful of the regional

powers struggling for political control over Chittagong in the 16th century. In this

triangular contest between the sultan of Bengal, the king of Tippera and the ruler of

Arakan over Chittagong, the Portuguese seem to have played a decisive role. In the

Bengali and Arakanese sources they are depicted as being in the forefront of each of

the successful battles fought by the king of Arakan. In 1531, when the Arakan king,

Minbin, seized Chittagong from Tippera, he did so on the strength of his Portuguese

mercenaries 3 He subsequently lost it to Sultan Mahmud Shah of Bengal by 1535,

who was also careful to cultivate the support of the Portuguese, whom he granted

2 A Constable (tr. ), Fran<;ois Hernia, Jrm·el1 in the Mogul f_fnpirc, A f) /6.5f>-J 658, London, 1914, p. 175

3 S M.Ali, 'Arakan rule in Chittagoag (1550-16<:-.6 A D), 'Journal of the Asiatic 50ciety of Pakistan, Vol. 12. No.3, 1%7, pp.333-35l; M.S. Collis & San Shwe Bu, 'Arakan's Place in the Civilization of the Bay · A study of coinage and foreign relations' ,J.IJ.R.S, Yoll 5. Part t 1925, pp. 34-52.

pem1ission to build custo1i1S-houses at Chittagong as well as at Satgaon in that

year.4 The king of Arakan reoccupied it in 1553-54 and then held it for more than a

century with the help of his Portuguese elite troops. It was very clear to all his

political rivals that this was his main strength in controlling Chittagong. Thus, when

the ruler ofTippera sent a large army against him in 1585, the Portuguese soldiers

formed an important part of this invading force. It was their desertion to the Arakan

camp that led to the defeat of the king of Tippera. 5

The Mughals, too, displayed a healthy respest for the Portuguese

militia. Thus, while planning campaigns against Chittagong in 1619 and in 1623, "it

is common knowledge and notorious how the Mogors strained every sinew to win

them l the Portuguese of Chittagong] over." On both occasions the Mughal governor

of Dacca "sent them formons or decrees sealed by his sovereign [the Mughal

emperor, Jahangir] in which those Portuguese were offered under his Royal

promise, most advantageous tenns ...... 6 In this case the Portuguese seem to have

gambled on the chances of the king of Arakan against the Mughal forces, and the

key role they played was again recognized. "Had it not, indeed, been for the seven

hundred and fifty Portuguese whom the Magh ruler had in his pay the Mogores

would on both occasions have seized Chatigan."7 In 1665, when Aurangzeb's

governor of Dacca, Shaista Khan , made yet another attempt to conquer Chittagong,

4 1.1. A. Campos, History of the Portuguese in Bengal, Calcutta, 1919.

~ Ali, op.cit., p. 339.

6 C.E.Luard &. H. Hosten (tr.), The Trawls q[Fray &ho.Hien Manrique, /629-1643,2 Vols., Oxford, 1927, VoL l, pr 146-7. -

7 Ibid, p. 285.

97

he too approached the Portuguese settlers with the offer of defection or death.

Overawed by the size of the Mughal forces, the Portuguese now decided to throw in

their lot with them and moved with their families to Mughal territory. The

significance of this was not lost on Shaista Khan who "regarded the coming over of

the Feringis as the commencement of the victory" aild attacked immediately. Thus,

in 1666, after nearly 50 years of trying, the Mughals were successful in capturing

Chittagong from the king of Arakan. The contribution of the Portuguese was

gratefully acknowledged and "wealth beyond measure was given to the Feringi

. ,,H ptrates.

The relationship that the Portuguese had developed with the king of

Arakan during their century-long invovement with Chittagong was mutually

beneficial. Manrique perceptively observed that "with the object of securing ... two

entrances [to Chittagong] the Magh kings decided to always retain Portuguese in

their service, granting the best of them the rank of Captain and conferring on

them .... revenue producing lands, on the understanding that they maintained a

certain force of their own countrymen and also Gelias. Gelias are very swift vessels

which are used on lhe Ganges for fighting. "9 Apart from this responsibility in

providing military assistance, the king of Arakan even delegated control over the

civil administration and commercial affairs of this frontier region to the Portuguese

8 Shihabuddin Tal ish, Fathiyya -i-ibriyya, (tr) Jadunath Sarkar. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. III, New Series, No. 6, June 1907, pp. 405-425, set! p. 416.

9 Manrique. Vol. t p.285.

98

at Chittagong. 10 This alliance extended to the most daring and lucrative aspect of

his operations - slave raids conducted beyond his borders into the territories of

Mughal Bengal, and it is in this context that the Portuguese of Chittagong became

particularly notorious. Given their general appetite for adventure and their constant

yearning for opportunities to make money, as well as their advanced maritime

skills, it was not long before the Portuguese became associated with piracy and

slave-trade. From the end of the 16th century, if not earlier, the more legitimate

component of the trade that had long been centred on the Porto Grande seems to

have moved east towards Satgaon-Hugli and Pipli. 11

The Portuguese settlement at Chittagong acquired great notoriety in

the 17th century as a nest of brigands and pirates. "From the reign of the Emperor

Akbar, when Bengal was annexed to the Mughal Empire, to the time of the

conquest of Chatgaon during the viceroyalty of Shaista Khan, Arracan pirates both

Magh and Feringi used constantly to [come] by the water-route and plunder

Bengal." 12 Almost every visitor to the region describes the Portuguese of

Chittagong and its environs as 'these renegades [who] pursued no other trade than

that of rapine and piracy. They scoured the neighbouring seas in light galleys .....

entered the numerous arms and branches of the Ganges, ravaged the islands of

Lower Bengale and, often penetrating forty or fifty leagues up the country,

10 This has been argued by Michael W. Charney, 'The 1598-99 Seige of Pcgu and the Expansion of Arakanese Imperial Pov.oer into Lower Burma', Journal of Asian History, Vol. 28, 1994, pp. 39-57, see pp 52-3.

11 S. Subrahmanyam, 'Notes on the Sixteenth Century Bengal Trade', in lmpmvising Empire, Portuguese Trade and Settlement in the Bay of Bengal, 1500-1700, Delhi, 1990, pp. 119-125.

12 Fathiyya-i ibriyya, op.cit., p.422.

99

surprised and carried away the entire population of villages on market days .... The

marauders made slaves of their unhappy captives .... .It is owing to these repeated

depredations that we see so many fine islands at the mouth of the Ganges, formerly

thickly peopled, now entirely deserted by human beings ...... " 13 They usually made

these general attacks three or four times in the year, irrespective of minor raids

which went on most of the year. 14

These Portuguese slave-raiders had become so ubiquitous and

omnipresent around the delta and seaboard that by the early 17th century tales about

them had begun to pass into the realm of folklore. At Sripur in the year 1600, "as

Father Francisco Fernandez was going to the church early in the morning, he found

at the door a riddle with a piece of velvet above for the one who would guess it... .. it

was said in the verses that it had made more Christians than all the Fathers [of the

Society of Jesus], he guessed at once that it was a Jalia, a kind of boat with which

the corsairs of those parts continually make their depredations~ and they themselves

boast that they make more Christians than the Fathers, for they catch the people of

the country and send them for sale to India, where they are baptized. Accordingly,

the Father took the piece of velvet which served as a good red ornament for the

altar." 15

It is difficult to gauge the scaJe and extent of this slave trade as it

------------

n Bernier, p.l75.

14 Manrique, Vol I, p 286.

15 Guerrerio. Hosten Collection, op.cit .. ms.3

100

was essentially a clandestine commerce which was not well documented. We can,

however, surmise some of its essential aspects. It seems by the early 17th century

regular markets for the transaction of slaves had developed in the Bengal-Arakan

region. These included Hugli, Pipli, Tamluk and Balasore in the west and

Chittagong-Dianga and the port of Arakan (Mrau-ku) in the east. 16 This trade seems

to have been largely in the hands of the Portuguese as we are told that 'only the

Feringi pirates sold their prisoners ..... the Maghs employed all their captives in

agriculture and other kinds of service."1 7

The main demand for this slave labour seems to have been in

the southern islands. It received a major impetus in the early 17th century with the

emergence of the port of Acheh as a major trading enlrepot. The sultanate of Acheh

needed more labour to expand its pepper plantations and to cultivate its paddy ,fields

for a growing trade and population, as well as to work its tin mines further inland.

Much of this demand was met by the Portuguese slave traders of the eastern

Gangetic delta. 1 s

The arrival of the Dutch Company in Southeast Asia also gave a·

great filipe to this trade. ihey built numerous forts and townships in the region and

began to control the production of spices in the Moluccas and other islands. Given

16 S. Arasratnam, 'Slave Trade in the Indian ocean in the I7'.r. century' in K.S.Mathew (cd), Mariners, Merchants and Oceans: ,<.,'rodies in Maritime History, Delhi, 1995, pp.l95-208; J.Sarkar, 'The Fcringi Pirates ofChatgaon', op.cit.

17 Fathiyya - i ibriyya, op. Cit., p.422.

18 Arasratnam, op.cit. p.l97-3.

101

the basic sh011age of manpower that they faced and the difficulties and expense

involved in organizing wage labour in the region, they soon hit upon slave labour as

they most viable aitemative. Dutch sources bear out that from 1625 onward<; they

began to tap the Bengal-Arakan region for a steady supply of slaves that were used

in Batavia for building construction, agriculture and domestic service, and in the

spice islands on the plantations and in the houses of the Dutch planters. In 1626, 4

ships of the VOC sent to Arakan to buy rice and slaves returned to the Coromandel

with 250 slaves. A little later a fifth ship brought back 130 more slaves, and the

Dutch officials began to report enthusiastically on the possibilities of this trade.

They estimated that they could buy 1 000-1500 slaves per year in Arakan. The king

of Arakan captured up to 10,000 slaves in his annual raids into Bengal, most of

which were, however, not put up for sale. The Dutch then began to rely more on

Portuguese traders. Contemporary sources indicate that they entered into a contract

with a Portuguese captain to buy up all the slaves that his men captured, at fixed

prices and paid out an advance of Rs.2500 to him for this. Thc~c should have been a

fairly substantial number as Friar Manrique tells us that in the 5 years that he spent

in the kingdom of Arakan (1629-34 ), the Portuguese slave-raiders brought to

Dianga and Angarcale about 18,000 people from Bengal. Jessore, Sulaimanvas,

Bakla, Hijli and Orissa were the chief hunting grounds. while no area was secure

from Chittagong to Hugli. 19 We know· that the YOC set up a factory in Arakan to

ensure a steady supply of commodities of the region, including slaves. The Mughal

officials were accusing the Dutch authorities by the 1650s, of transporting 5000 to

6000 kidnapped Bengalis from Arakan and another 1600 from Pipli, to their

19 Manrique, Vol I, pp. 145,286.

102

headquarters at Batavia every year. 20

Apart from such direct shipments, slaves were abo exported by the

Portuguese from Bengal and Arakan to several ports along the Coromandel coast

for transshipment to Acheh and Batavia. Besides Pipli, slaves were sent to

Masulipatnam, Nagapatnam and Porto Novo for re-export. While we do not have

much evidence of prices, from the high export duties that were levied this seems to

have been a very profitable trade. Thus, in the ports of Arakan the king levied an

export tax of25% per slave. Later in the 17u-. century, in the Coromandel the

English Company at Fort St. George imposed an export duty of one pagoda (Rs.

3.75) on each slave.21 Given that in the 16th century taxes on overseas trade varied

between 5% and 16.5% on different commodities and in different ports of the

Indian Ocean, this level of taxation was very high. 22 The P0rtuguese merchants also

made repeated petitions to the Crown to reduce, or better still, to abolish the already

rock bottom (2-5%) customs duties at Malacca. Against this background the

exceptional profit-margins of the slave trade from Bengal, Arakan and Coromandel

clearly stand out. 23

In their long association with the king of Arakan, the Portuguese of

20 Arasratnam. pp.20 1-2

21 Ibid, p. 201,206

22 S. Subrahma.nyam, 1he Portuguese Empire in Asia. 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History, New York, 1993, p. 15-17

23 Letters of the Camara of Goa to His Majesty, 1595- I 609, J .H da Cunha Rivara ( ed), Ard1ivo Portuguez Oriental, New Delhi, 1992, (reprint) ,Fasciculo I, Part 2. pp. 5-74.

103

Chittagong prospered. Many became more ambitious and branched out with bands

of their supporters to create little settlements of their own. In 1602 a band of 400

Portuguese adventmers of Chittagong, led by one Manoel de Matos, played a

decisive role in the conquest of the island of Sundiva, which they ruled for a few

years jointly with another band of adventurers led by Domingos Carvalho, who

came from Sripm. 24 Sundiva was recaptured in 1609 by Sebastiao Gonsalves Tibau,

yet another well-known pirate of Dianga, who built a flourishing trade system from

here for over 8 years 25 The most successful of the homizados of Chittagong was

undoubtedly Filipe de Brito e Nicote who presided over a virtual kingdom that he

carved out around Syriam in Pegu for 13 long years. 26

The king of Arakan inevitably came down hard on all such attempts

at building independent power bases within his own empire. The Portuguese

settlement at Chittagong-Dianga too faced his wrath in November 1602, when he

attacked it with a huge force and imprisoned all the men, women and children and

destroyed the church befvre coming to terms with the Portuguese captains. 27 The

Portuguese recovered their settlement and functioned within the policy framework

set by the king thereafter. By the middle of the l7ili century, "the king of Arakan did

not send his ships to conduct piratical activities in Mug hal territory [any more]. He

considered the Feringi pirates in the light of his servants, and took the booty they

24 Guerreiro, tr. by Hosten, Catholic Herald of India, 27.11 .1918, p.24.

21 Guerreiro, tr. By C. H. Payne, Jahangir and the Jesuit~. London,1930, p.265, note 5: p.274, note 2.

u, Ibid, p.194.

27 Guerreiro, CHI, 4. 12.1918, p. 947

104

brought [as his share] ..... Half their booty they gave to the Rajah of Araccan, and

other half they kept. "28 Together they commanded the eastern Gangetic delta and

became the bane of the Mughal administration. "When the mutasaddis of Bengal

did not really wish to pay any man whose salary was due, they gave him an

assignment on the revenue ofChatgaon!"29

After the Mughal conquest of Chittagong in 1665, the Portuguese

continued to stay on in the settlement and were employed by the Mughal emperor to

defend his newly-extended border with Arakan. "Two thousand rupees were

presented from the Nawab's [Shaista Khan's] own purse as reward to Captain Moor

and the other Feringis who had come from Chatgaon, and from the Imperial

Treasury a monthly stip~nd of Rs.500 was settled on the captain, and other

comfortable salaries on others of the tribe. "30

Sandwip : the short-lived, idyllic paradise

A better-known much longer-lived and probably, larger Portuguese

settlement was situated on the island of Sandwip(the Sundiva of the Portuguese

sources), at the mouth of the river Ganges. It is first heard of in the Portuguese

sources in 1591, reportedly having been conquered by Antonio de Sousa Godinho,

who had been sent by the viceroy in 1588 as captain-major of a fleet to Bengal and

Pegu. His mission was to protect the Estado 's imagined monopoly of trade in the

28 Fad1iyya-i- ibriyya, p.424-25.

29 Ibid, p.421.

30 Ibid, p.425.

105

region and especially to exclude the ships of the Sultanate of Acheh from this

trade 31 In 1591 he was reported to have continued his stay there, having "served

[the King] .... with distinction in Bengalla", having conquered the island of Sundiva

and the fort of Chatigao (Chittagong). 32 In the official correspondence about these

events they were perceived as conquests made for the Estado da India-

" .... [Godinho] made the island ofSundiva a tributary to this state .... "; the king of

Arakan extended through him the invitation to put up fortresses in other places in

his kingdom, which offer the king of Portugal declined; the service rendered to the

state was acknowledged by the king and the governor, Manoel de Sousa, was

instructed "to thank [read, reward] him suitably.":n

The nature of this conquest and the extent of control exercised

by Antonio de Sousa Godinho over Sundiva really was not certain, but in 1602 we

are told that the king of Sri pur was "the right owner of tht: island" which had been

"tyrannically usurped" by the Arakanese since the last few years.34 Perhaps

Godinho and his Portuguese mercenaries had conquered Sundiva from Kedar Rai,

the raja of Sripur, on behalf of the king of Arakan. This would not be surprising as

most Portuguese adventurers in this region began their careers in the employ of

local rulers.

31 Letter ofthe King to the Viceroy, 21.1.1588,A/'O, or.cit, Fasciculo 3, Document 33, pp.II0-120.

32 Letter of the King to the Viceroy, dated the year 1591, APO, Fasciculo 3, Document 76, pp. 242-274.

33 Ibid.

·'4 Guerreiro, CHI, Nov.27, 1918, p.24.

106

In any case, in 1602 Sundiva was conquered from the Arakanese by

yet another "brave and valiant Portuguese adventurer in the region, Domingos

Carvalho, "who was in the service of this same Canderray [Kedar Rai] "who gave it

to them [the Portuguese] of his own accord and renounced his rights over it."

Sundiva, thus, became the site of a Portuguese settlement. The local population on

the island, however, soon revolted against them and their settlement was saved by

the armed assistance of a band of 400 Portuguese based at Chittagong, led by

Manoel de Matos. The island was then divided between Domingos Carvalho and

Manoel de Matos.35

The Portuguese settlement at Sundiva grew rapidly in prosperity.

The island was "so rich in salt that it supplied the whole of Bengal with the article.

It is the chief salt mart of those kingdoms and yields, therefore great revenues .... the

salt trade ..... keep[s] more than tv.:o hundred ships busy ... " the Portuguese came to

monopolize this very lucrative trade, besides partaking of the trade in "other

articles, such as very fine (delicate) clothes of all kinds, butter, sugar, iron, wax, and

immense quantities of rice, which those who go trading in those kingdoms deal

. ,36 Ill.

The settlement at Sundiva was also one of the few fortified

Portu!,'llese settlements in the region 37 It had its own church and Jesuit residence38

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid

107

and the settlers became so powerful that the king of Arakan begar, to feel threatened

by them.

The Portuguese settlement at Sundiva was attacked twice by the

king of Arakan - in November 1602 and, being unsuccessful in dislodging the

Portuguese, again in March 1603. Under attack in this manner, the homizado

Domingos Carvalho hastened to seek shelter under the Portuguese flag. He wrote to

the king of Portugal, turning the island settlement over to him and asking for

military aid in the form of fleets and artillery. 39

The idea of establishing Portuguese control over Sundiva was being

actively considered by th~ Portuguese crown since the last quarter of the 16th

century, since the viceroyalty of Dam Luiz de Ataide ( 1578-1581) and, again, in the

viceroyalty of Dam Duarte de Menezes ( 1584-1588). This was due to its strategic

location - it was situated at the pivot of all important trade routes converging on the

"porto grande" of Bengal, Chittagong, and was the starting point for the domination

of the whole gulf of Bengal.40 The conquest of Bengal itself was on the royal

agenda from the early 17th century. In this context, Sundiva was regarded as the

most suitable base to draw together all the Portuguese scattered over Bengal in

several small settlements. This was because there was enough land on the island to

redistribute among these settlers to encourage them to relocate. Sundiva was also

----·---.l~ !hid.

39 Letter of the King to the Viceroy, 2.3.1605, R.A.Bulha Pato (ed), Documentos Remettidos da India, 5 vols, Lisbon, 1935, VoL I, Doc. 5, pp. 23-26.

40 Letter of the King to the Viceroy, 4.1.1608, DHJ, Vol I, Doc. 60, pp. 173-177.

108

" .... very rich in provisions and the port ... much frequented" so that it could sustain

this increased population.41 At one point early in the 17th century, the king wanted

to build a new fortress here, or at least to take over and strengthen the existing one

and then use Sundiva as a pad to conquer Chittagong. 42

The king of Portugal actually displayed a remarkably astute

perception about the prosperity and potential of Sundiva. A similar view was also

held by the king of Arakan. According to one report, he too had decided to attack

Domingos Carvalho's settlement in March 1603 "because of the importance 0fthe

said island, which yields much profit and revenue; he wa~ also casting envious eyes

on other kingdoms of Ben gala, which he desired to conquer at the same time as the

island."4J

The feel of the strength and vitality of the Portuguese settlement at

Sundiva pulsates through many contemporary sources. In 1608, it was reported to

the king of Portugal that "the said island yields seventy thousand pardaos, and will

yield more, at the rate that the population is &rrowing."44 In the naval battle for

Sundiva between the king of Arakan and Domingos Carvalho and Manoel de

Matos in November 1602, the Portuguese had, between them, a force of 50 vessels,

which would have been manned by at lear;;t 700 to 800 men. 45 While the king of

41 Letter of the King to the Viceroy, 4.1. 1608, op. cit.

42 Ibid.

43 Guerrciro, Annual Relation for 1604 and 1605 on Bengal, Arakan and Pegu', Hasten Collection, ms. 9, Bk. Ill, Chap. lil

44 Letter of the King to the Viceroy, 4.1.1608, op. cit.

109

Arakan had 250 vessels in this battle, the Portuguese won with ease here, and once

again in March 1603, a great testimony to their capability and prowess.

After such hard and continuous warfare the Portuguese settlement at

Sundiva was so depleted of ammunition and equipment that Domingos Carvalho

decided to abandon it temporarily. He sought refuge with his old mentor, Kedar

Rai, the raja of Sripur, while "the Portuguese and other Christian" population of the

settlement "scattered among the lands of Syripur, Bachala and Chandecan." It was

while he was at Sri pur with this depleted force of 30 vessels in April 1603, that he

defeated the 1 00-ship strong attacking Mughal fleet of Raja Mansingh, killing its

commander, ''Mw1darray". Soon after he routed the Mughal garrison stationed in a

fortress further up river, near Hugli, the 400 Mughal soldiers proving to be no

match for Carvalho's 80 Portuguese. "Ihese victories made Domingos Carvalho so

formidable that he was the terror of all those Kingdoms of Bcngala. To dream of

him was enough to make the enemies run away."4<i

Catvalho was treacherously betrayed and killed by the king of

Chandecan later that same year, and the church and settlement at Chandecan were

also destroyed 47 What happened to Sundiva is not clear. According to one account

the island was occupied by the king of Arakan in 1603 itself, immediately after it

4 ~ Gueneiro, CHI, Nov. 27, 1918, pp. 923-925. Fr Guerrciro tells us that the Portuguese had a force of 50 vessels, "among them 2fusts, 4 catures, and 3 hateis. the rest beingjaleas, or very light ships with 30 oars. i.e. 15 a side.

46 Guerrciro, op. cit, Hasten Collecrion, ms. 9, Bk. JU, Chap IJI.

47 Ibid

110

was abandoned by Domingos Carvalho. 48 The king of Arakan handed control

over it to Filipe de Brito, the Portuguese ruler cf the settlement of Siriam, in a peace

treaty concluded between them in 1605 after the Portuguese victory in a naval battle

at Siriam. 49 Unable to get the terms of the treaty actuaily implemented- the

Pmtuguese party led by de Brito's son that went to take possession of the island

were treacherously killed- Filipe de Brito conveniently surrendered Sundiva to the

Portuguese crown. 50

Other reports indicate that Manoel de Matos "had retained the whole

of the island after the death of Domingos Carvalho", and the king of Portugal was

urging the viceroy to reach an understanding with him that would be "for the

greater benefit of my treasury ."51 Matos died before any such arrangement could be

worked out, bequeathing the Portuguese settlement to his minor son tmder the

guardianship of one Pero Gomes, a Portuguese from the resident community of

Sundiva. The h-stado da India then began negotiations with them, in an effmt "to

take possession of the said island" and give them suitable compensation. 52

Sundiva went out of the control of the Portuguese arour.d

this time. According to one report, after the death of Manoel de Matos "one Moor

4M Ibid

~9 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Letter of the King to the Viceroy, 4.1.1608, op. cit, Letter of the King to the Viceroy, 23.1.1607, DRI, Vol I, Doc. 60, pp. 111-112.

52 DRI. Vol. I. Doc. 60, ibid.

11 I

had rebelled with the island of Sundiva ..... killing the Portuguese that were

there .... " 53 Another account says that Sundiva was taken by the Mughal general,

Fateh Khan, in 1607.54 What is clear is that the island remained a much sought after

possession among all the powers in the region. The Portuguese collaborated with

the king of Bakla to attempt to reconquer it, while the Mughal emperor promised it

to the Dutch Company in return for bringing their trade to his ports in Benga1.55

The Portuguese homiziados in Bengal regained control over Sundiva

around 1609, under the leadership of Sebastiao Gonyalves Tibau, "the foremost of

the Portuguese pirates" in Bengal.Y' We first hear of him in 1606, when during the

king of Arakan's raid on the Portuguese settlement of Dianga, he was one of those

who managed to escape in a gallioC'57 In 1608, when the king of Arakan was

preparing to lay seige to the Portuguese settlement at Siriam, Tibau, who "with

somejulcas & a few Portuguese had made himself greatly feared in those parts"

joined with Belchior Godinho, a Portuguese captain who had come from India with

four ships, and took the opportunity to attack Dianga and capture sixty pieces of

artillery from the king of Arakan. SHIn 1609 he succeeded in taking Sundiva from

Fateh Khan, the Mughal general, and made it the base of his activities for the next

~ 3 Letter of the King of the Viceroy, 20 2.1610, DRI, VoL I, Doc. 120, pp. 347-358.

~ 4 Guerreiro. (tr.), C.HPayne, op.cil., p. 265, note 5

~~ DRI. VoL I, Doc. 120, op. cit.

~. Guerreiro. (tr.)Payne. op.cit., p.265, note 5

~ 1 Ibid, p.270, note 6.

~ 8 Ibid, p.238.

112

. h 59 etg t years.

Working in the absence of numbers, that remain as elusive as ever

in our Portuguese sources, we are yet able to fathom the stren!,rth of the Portuguese

settlement at Sundiva under Tibau. The best indicator of this be~omes the

perception of the contemporary powers about it, most of which seem to have been

eager to engage him as an ally in the rapidly shifting power politics in the region.

Thus, the Arakanese rulers recognized that he had become a center of power. In the

struggle between the princes of Arakan, Minkhamaung and Min Mangri in the

Chittagong area, the younger prince, Min Mangri, sought Tibau's help. The

Augustinian friar, Sebastiao Manrique who travelled to Bengal and Arakan early in

the 1 ih century noted that the prince sealed this friendship with a matrimonial

alliance between his own daughter and either Tibau or his son. 60 After the death of

their father, the king of Arakan, Min Razabrri, in 1612, both princes approached

Tibau anew to fight on their side in their struggle for the throne.

Much further away, the viceroy of Goa and the king of Portugal

were equally impressed with the success and potential of Tibau' s little settlement at

Sundiva. They were eager to attract him to come under the umbrella of the Estado

da India, so that they could further the state's own interests in the region. In the

detailed and fairly lengthy correspondence between the king and the viceroy

between 161 0 and 1612 tj,ey discussed his usefulness to the Estadu and various

l9 Ibid, p. 274, note 2.

60 Manrique, op.cit., Letter ofthe King to the Viceroy, DR/, Vol. I, Doc. 120,20 Feb. 1610.

113

gestures by which the route for his return to the fold could be cleared. The viceroy

of Goa acknowledged his power and recommended him as an asset to the Estado as,

had it not been for his powerful presence in Sundiva, the Mughal conquest of

Bengal would have progressed even further east than it had. He praised Tibau's

conduct, as reported to him, to the king- "[he] gives particular emphasis to things

Christian and maintains the Church and their ministers that are settled there and

treats them all with respect .... and in lands so free .... these qualities are to be

. d ,,(iJ pratse ....

The viceroy reacted very favourably to all this evidence of Tibau' s

loyalty to the Portuguese Crown and referred to him as "a captain of Your Majesty"

in 1610. He recommended that the king's longstanding plan to extend his rule over

Bengal, Arakan and Pegu be relaunched on the shoulders of Tibau, by making him

responsible to attract as many of the Portuguese renegades scattered along the coast

of Bengal, to come to Sundiva, as was possible. To this end, with the approval of

the Council at Goa, the viceroy sent to him the title of captain-major of all the

Portuguese of that coast, giving him authority over the captains of all the

Portuguese settlements in Bengal, in case of war. In this respect he was yet

subordinated to Filipe de Brito- " .... in all [matters] it being obligatory to follow the

orders and opinion of Filipe de Brito, with whom [he] wo,lld have to consult about

everything ... .',o2 He was asked to strengthen the fortifications of the island and to

61 Reply to the untitled letter that starts : "The Bishop Meliapor wrote to me through the Governor Andre Furtado de Mendonya ..... " without date, in Livros das Mon¢es do Reino, in the Goa Archives, VoL 12, ofthe year 1612-1613.

114

reinforce his control over the very lucrative salt trade, whose revenues were coveted

by the /~'stado da India. The viceroy, on his part, sincerely promised him for his

services, honours and grants in the na~e of the king of PortugaL 63

Sebastiao Gon~alves Tibau responded, and asked for official

recognition from Goa for himself as ruler of the island of Sundiva. In return he

promised a galleon loaded with 2000 candies of rice to be sent to Cochin every 3

years. For this he was rewarded by being made captain-major of Bengal, by the

Estado, in all its dealings with the king of Arakan. Further, he was specifically

made independent of the control of Filipe de Brito at Siriam, whose authority in, this

regard was to be restricted to matters related to Pegu.64

In 1612, the Est ado also sent, as an envoy to Sundiva, Diogo de

Mendon~a Furtado, to investigate properly the importance of the island to the

Estado, and especially to determine the worth of its trade. The purpose was that the

tribute to be paid by Tibau to the Fstado could be a-;certained and fixed so as to

give maximum benefit to the royal treasury.65 According to one account, Diogo de

Mendon~a was also supposed to establish an official customs house at Sundiva,

which Tibau resisted and disallowed. 66 To pave the way for an amicable reunion,

62 Letter of the King to the Viceroy, with its reply, 20.2.161 0, op. cit.

63 Ibid.

64 Document cited in note 62 above.

65 Ibid.

66 'Letter of D. Jer6mimo de Azevedo about Sebastiao Gon~ves', Goa, 31 Dec. 1615, in Maria Ana Marques Guedes, Jnterferencia e lntegrat;ilo dos Portugue.sse.r na Birmilnia, ca 1580-1630, Lisbon, 1991, p. 163.

115

the king of Portugal issued a royal pardon to the hom iziados in the region, thus,

welcoming them back into the honourable fold of the crown as well as the

Estado.67

What stands out most clearly about the career of Sebastiiio

Gon~alves Tibau, a powerful and ambitious adventurer in Bengal in the early 17tl1

century, is his confidence in his own power and how he clung fiercely to his own

ambitions through all the developments in the region. He negotiated with the Estado

da India, on the one hand, and simultaneously allied with the king of Arakan, on the

other, and then did not hesitate to betray and attack the king when the opportunity

appeared. The fact that this was a powerful A~ian monarch, at peace with the

Estado, to whom Tibau professed to pay at least lip-service, did not deter him.

The new king of Arakan, Minkhamaung (coronated in 1612),

collaborated with Tibau to stop the onslaught of the Mughals, who had defeated the

"harah hlwiyas" of Bengal and were moving further east, virtually unstoppable.

Minkhamaung gave Tibau the command of a fleet, keeping as safeguard his

nephew, as hostage. After they bad together captured Bhulua and divided the spoils

of the victory, Tibau attacked the Arakanese army, forcing Minkhamaung to take

refuge with his vassal, the ruler of Tipe:a. Taking advantage of his absence, Tibau

destroyed the Arakancse fortresses of Chittagong, Maju and Ramu and set fire to

the ships of the merchants of Masulipatuam, Cam bay and Acheh that were in those

ports. Further, he planned to attack the capital city of Mrauk-U (Rangoon) itself, to

67 Ibid. p. 162.

I 16

gain control of the treasure of Pegu stored there. Minkhamaung, meanwhile,

returned to his kingdom, beheaded Tibau's nephew, who was in his custody, and

threatened to attack Sundiva.

Tibau beat a hasty retreat to the island, where he proceeded to

auction off, as slaves, the Arakanese prisoners-of-war that he had captured. The

Portuguese chronicler, Antonio Boccaro, tells us that most of them were sent to

Malacca and to Goa. Tibau then turned back to Goa for help and convinced the

viceroy to send an armada to attack Mrauk-u.68

To sum up, the relationship that these adventurers had with the

Estado da India was clearly one of convenience. They were fully independent in all

their initiatives and actions and kept the Estado at an arm's length. They were,

however, clever enough to realize the instability of their own position and were

careful not to rupture all links with it. Thus, they were always quick to pledge

allegjance to the crown, especially in precarious circumstances. Such gestures of

bowing before the authority of the crown and Est ado were usually indications of

the loss of real power by these settlers themselves.

These Portuguese adventurers proved to be cleverer than the

Portuguese state in this matter. If, in the mid-16u1 century, the crown had followed

a policy of giving incentives to itsfidalgoes to make conqu~sts on their own

initiative and expense, in an attempt to extend the frontiers of the empire, 69 fifty

6M Ibid, pp. 161-163.

I 17

years later the situation had been reversed. The homiziados settled in Bengal were

now dangling carrots before the state to take over and pump new life, in the form of

military and naval assistance, into these precariously poised settlements that had

resisted being part of the empire.

The Estado da India sent a fleet to assist Tibau to wage war against

the ruler of Arakan in 1615. The Est ado was tempted by the lure of the treasures

that Tibau told them were stored there. Further, the prospect of gaining control over

the entire trade of the kingdom to the exclusion of the Dutch, and the promise of the

island of Sun diva itself were major incentives. The enterprise ended, however,in

disastrous failure. The Arakanese forces were much stronger and better-equipped

than they had imagined, and easily defeated the Portuguese fleet. Minkhamaung

then attacked Sundiva and massacred most of its Portuguese population. Tibau, we

are told, escaped and fled to mainland Bengal, where he took refuge, in all

probability, at Hugli. The Portuguese settlement at Sundiva was thus destroyed

and the island passed into the control of the king of Arakan70

-------------------- ----------69 Jorge Cabral to the King, Cochin, 21 .2. I 550, A Silva Rcgo (ed), Documentatyiio- para a Mis.mes do----Padroado Porn1g~tt!s do Oriente :India, Lisbon 1991, Vol. IV, Document 84, pp. 488-499.

70 M.A. Marques Guedes.lnterjerncia .... op.cit., p. 165-169

118