Latest / The Hidden History of Bengal: Kingdoms, Empires, and Revolution — Fexingo History / The Portuguese in Bengal: Pirates, Merchants, and the Fall of Gaur
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Sultans of Bengal, the Mughals, the East India Company, but there's a whole chapter that often gets left out — the Portuguese. They showed up in the Bay of Bengal in the early 1500s, and for a while, they were everywhere. Luna: I thought the Portuguese were mostly on the western coast, in Goa and all that. Lucas: Right, that's the standard story. But they had a major presence in Bengal too, and it's a wild one. They came as traders, but also as pirates, mercenaries, even explorers. They didn't come through official channels at first — they were sort of freelance operators, operating under the radar of the Portuguese Crown. Lucas: The first Portuguese to reach Bengal arrived around 1512, probably a small ship blown off course. But by the 1530s, they were regular visitors to the ports of Chittagong and Satgaon, which was up the Hooghly river. They brought pepper, spices, and firearms, and they took back textiles, sugar, and rice. The Sultan of Bengal at the time, to the Portuguese he was the 'King of Bengal', he found them useful — they were the only ones who could supply good European guns. Luna: So they were like arms dealers? Lucas: Exactly, and more. They became military advisors, gunners, even bodyguards. One Portuguese man, João Coelho, he became a trusted mercenary for the Sultan. And then came the big test — the invasion of Sher Shah Suri in the late 1530s. Lucas: Sher Shah was the Afghan general who had broken away from the Mughals and was carving out his own empire in North India. He came sweeping into Bengal, and the Sultan, Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah, had to defend his capital, Gaur. And here's where João Coelho shows up in the chronicles — he was there, in the Sultan's service, and he ended up playing a key role in the city's defense. Luna: I've heard of Sher Shah Suri — he built the Grand Trunk Road, right? But I didn't know he invaded Bengal. Lucas: Oh yes, that was a huge campaign. Sher Shah wanted to control the rich delta, and he had a formidable army. The Sultan of Bengal had a lot of infantry, but he lacked cavalry — and that's where the Portuguese came in. They brought their own style of warfare, and they had these matchlock guns that the Bengalis admired. João Coelho is said to have helped organize the defense, but it wasn't enough. Sher Shah's army crossed the Ganges, and Gaur fell in 1539. The Sultan was killed, and the Portuguese scattered. Luna: So João Coelho switched sides? Lucas: That's the thing about mercenaries — they go where the pay is. After the fall of Gaur, João Coelho ended up in Sher Shah's service. He became a kind of military advisor for Sher Shah, and later he even fought for the Mughals. He was a forerunner of the mercenary captains who would become common in India in the following centuries. Lucas: But the Portuguese didn't just serve sultans and invaders. They also carved out their own little domain on the Hooghly river, about forty kilometers upstream from where Calcutta would later be founded. They built a fort, they traded, and they also got involved in piracy and slave trading. It was a pretty rough and tumble existence. Luna: A slave trade in Bengal? I thought that was more of an African thing. Lucas: The Portuguese brought slaves from Africa and also from Southeast Asia, but they also took local slaves, sometimes in raids on villages. That's one of the darker parts of their presence. They were also in competition with the Arakanese, who were based in what is now Myanmar. The Portuguese even had a base at Chittagong, which they used to launch pirate raids on the delta. Lucas: The Portuguese were also involved in the trade of saltpeter, which was a key ingredient in gunpowder. Bengal had abundant saltpeter, and the Portuguese were some of the first Europeans to ship it out of the region. They were also intermediaries in the trade of opium, which they sold to the Chinese. So they were deeply embedded in the economy of the Bay of Bengal. Luna: It sounds like they were a disruptive force but also a bridge to the outside world. Lucas: That's a nice way to put it. But as the Mughals consolidated their control over Bengal in the late 1500s, the Portuguese became a problem. They had become too powerful, too independent. They were also seen as a threat because they were missionaries — they were converting Hindus and Muslims to Christianity, which didn't sit well with the new Mughal rulers. Lucas: So Emperor Akbar, who we've talked about before, he decided to crack down. In 1608, he sent a naval expedition under his general, Mirza Nathan, to take Chittagong and the Portuguese base there. There was a long siege, and eventually the Portuguese were pushed out of Chittagong, but they held on in Hooghly for a few more decades. Luna: And what happened to the fort at Hooghly? Lucas: It ended in 1632, when the Mughal army, now under Shah Jahan, besieged Hooghly. The Portuguese were outnumbered, and after a brutal four-month siege, the fort fell. The Mughals captured thousands of prisoners, and many were forced to convert to Islam or executed. That was effectively the end of Portuguese power in Bengal, though they lingered on in smaller communities. Lucas: But their legacy is complicated. They had brought new crops like tobacco and cashew to Bengal, and they had introduced European-style firearms and shipbuilding. They also left behind a small mixed-race community that came to be known as the 'Portuguese Christians' of Bengal, who continued to exist for centuries. Luna: So they were more than just pirates — they were part of the fabric of the region. Lucas: Absolutely. And their story is a reminder that Bengal was never isolated, even before the British. It was a crossroads of the Indian Ocean world. And this is something that we keep coming back to in this show — that the history of Bengal is the history of connections, of people coming and going, of cultures mixing. Lucas: And it's a history that we try to keep alive, episode by episode. You know, we're a small independent podcast, and we don't run ads — we want to keep this as a place where history is told properly, without interruption. If you find value in these conversations, you can help keep it that way with a small donation at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a simple way to support what we do. Lucas: Now, the Portuguese weren't the only foreigners who made an impression on Bengal. Let's talk about the Arakanese, who were a constant threat from the east. They were based in Mrauk U, in what is now Myanmar, and they had their own kingdom that had strong ties to the Bay of Bengal. Luna: I've heard of the Kingdom of Mrauk U, but I'm not sure how it related to Bengal. Lucas: They were actually one of the main players in the region for a long time. They controlled Chittagong for a while, and they were the dominant power in the delta before the Portuguese. They also had a tradition of raiding Bengal, taking captives, and selling them to the Dutch and Portuguese. Lucas: Their navy was powerful, and they had a complex relationship with the Portuguese — sometimes allies, sometimes enemies. In fact, the Portuguese often worked as mercenaries for the Arakanese, helping them in their raids. But they also fought against them when their interests clashed. Luna: That sounds like a tangled web. Lucas: It really was. And it wasn't just the Arakanese — there were also the Magh pirates, who were a mixed group of Arakanese and Portuguese corsairs. They were the terror of the delta, raiding villages and ships, and they even had a base on the islands of the Sundarbans. The Mughals had to launch a whole naval campaign against them in the early 1600s, under Mirza Nathan, which we touched on in the Sundarbans episode. Lucas: The Portuguese were a single strand in the whole web of maritime trade and piracy that defined the Bay of Bengal. When they lost Hooghly, it opened the door for the Dutch and then the British to become the dominant European powers. So their story is also a story of the rise and fall of empires. Luna: It's amazing how much of this history is about the sea. Lucas: The sea and the rivers. The Hooghly was a lifeline for Bengal, and that's why so many powers fought over it. The Portuguese, the Mughals, the Dutch, the British — they all wanted to control that river and the trade that flowed along it. And that's a theme that runs through the whole history of the region. Luna: I feel like I need to go back and listen to some of the earlier episodes about the Mughals and the river ports. Lucas: Yeah, they're all connected. History is never a series of isolated events — it's a web, and the Portuguese are just one thread in that web.