Ostindisk Kompagni
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As part of our school syllabus, all of us are taught about how the British East India Company came into the Indian sub continent for trading and slowly colonised the entire nation. We also know that it was the Portugese that first landed in India towards end of 15th century (even before the Mughals set their foot in) and their erstwhile colony of Goa is the party capital of India.
The question for today though is “How many European powers had their own East India Company setup trading posts in India?” (If you know the answer, enumerate in the comments section!).
France is the next most obvious European power after British and Portugese to be recalled. The French were indeed powerful and aligned with Tipu Sultan. The end of Tipu was pretty much the end of potential French dominance. Another European power that had a trading outpost was Holland, with the Dutch East Indies company having a base from Sri Lanka.
I grew up in a town about 25 miles away from the Coramandel coast. My place was closer to many towns that European powers had setup trading posts — Like Pondicherry, which was the French Indian HQ. Some of the other setups aren’t that popular — For example, in the town of Parangipettai near Cuddalore — this was known as Porto Novo then — the Swedish East India company setup a factory, which was later demolished by their British counterparts. (Parangipettai actually means — white men town with the word ‘parangiar’ referring to the white Europeans).
In this episode of Masala History by Siva, I will take you to a Bay of Bengal costal town in modern day Tamilnadu. A European power setup their trading hub there, at one point traded more tea than that of British; and yet were never successful in their 200+ year quest. Come travel with me and learn about yet another but lesser known East India company. Lets set our dials to 1620 CE and head to Tharangampadi, a little town near the French outpost of Karaikal.
Tharangampadi was founded by Maravarman Kulasekhara Pandiyan in the 13th century and a popular port of its times. In early 17th century, the town had an interesting population comprising of Indo-portugese settlers who arrived from the nearby port of Nagapattinam and also local Catholics who had been converted into that religion by the Goan Portugese. During this time, the Nayaks of Tanjore maintained rulership of this important port.
Exactly 405 years back to this week, March 1616, the King Christian IV of Denmark signed a Charter to establish the Danish Norwegian East India Company called the “Ostindisk Kompagni”. The goal of the company was to claim Ceylon (or modern day Sri Lanka) as a Danish colony and establish spice trade routes with Asia. Sadly, the venture was a failure from the very beginning. In 1618, the first expedition was a disaster with the team not being able to establish any trade relations in India or Sri Lanka and also losing most men and ships. Finally 1620 CE, the Danes struck a deal with the Nayaks where they got a piece of land in Tharangambadi for Rs 3000 — they called it Tranquebar, a name that is still used commonly even today. This deal was later ratified by none other than Chatrapthi Shivaji Maharaj himself in 1676 CE. The Danes were allowed to build a fort, and they built a very large fort called Fort Dansborg — infact it was the second largest fort that Danes ever built (see attached pic)!
During their heyday, the Ostindisk Kompagni imported more tea than the British East India Company, smuggling 90% of it into England, where it could be sold at a huge profit. Between 1624–36, the Danish trade extended to Surat, Bengal, Java, and Borneo, with factories in Masulipatam, Surat, Balasore and at Java. However, in their first 15 years of trading, less than 30% of the ships successfully made return trips back from India to Denmark (voyage map in attached pic). Their only profitable setup was the transatlantic slave trade though an outpost in Ghana. By mid 1640s, the Danish East India company became bankrupt, all previous Indian acquisitions were lost except Tranquebar, all sea traffic was suspended to India. And the new King Fredrick abolished the company.
The company folks in Tranquebar didn’t realise their employing organization had collapsed. They continued to hold out all by themselves flying the Denmark flag high up on their Fort Dansborg for 25+ years. Imagine, their state — everyday they may have been waking up hoping to see a ship from their homeland — with news, supplies, reinforcements — and all they saw instead was the vast stretch of the sea for decades.
In 1670, another Danish East India company was established and sent ships to Tranquebar to revive the trade relations. This went on for few decades, albeit slowly; and even a new outpost was setup at Serampur in Bengal in 1755. During this time Bengal must have looked like Mini-Europe along the Hooghly settlements — the French at Chandernagore, British at Calcutta, Portugese and Bandel & Hooghly, Dutch at Chinsura and Danish at Serampore.
However the Danish setup was never meant to be. They incurred heavy losses, especially when British ships destroyed the ones from Denmark during the Napoleonic wars . After trying to make futile attempts to make profits, finally the Danish East India company sold all their possessions in India to the British East India company in 1845 and put an end to their 200 year Asiatic adventures.
Though short lived and not profitable, the Danish East India Company’s setup in India left quite some impressions. They setup India’s first Protestant Church — the Zion Church in Tranquebar. One of the early printing press was also established in India by them and by 1715, had printed over 300 Tamil books. The missionary Ziegenbalg lived in this settlement for 12 years in early 1700s and had amazing & daring impact on local public. He translated the Old and New Testaments into Tamil (the first ever full translation of the Bible to an Indian language), started a seminary, opened the first school for girls, established a paper mill, imported a printing press all the way from Denmark etc. His memorial reads ‘Be Always the First, Ziegenbalg Was.’
Today the silent town of Tharangampadi stands with ruins that speaks to the memories of its heydays during the Tranquebar avatar.
[PS: Sorry about no podcast version for this story. I didn’t want to delay publishing the episode]
#history #indianhistory #denmark
#danisheastindiacompany #eastindiacompany
#tranquebar #tamilnadu #calcutta #southindia
#shivaji #british #portugese #trade #spices
