Latest / The Hidden History of Bengal: Kingdoms, Empires, and Revolution — Fexingo History / Firangi Pirates of the Sundarbans: Bengal's Portuguese Mercenaries
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the British East India Company's takeover of Bengal, but they weren't the first Europeans to leave their mark here. A full century before Plassey, the Portuguese had already established a violent, chaotic presence along Bengal's coastline. Luna: Oh right — the Bandel church episode touched on them, but that was mostly about the settlement upriver. Lucas: Exactly. Bandel was the official Portuguese trading post, authorised by the Mughals. But what I want to talk about today is the other side of the Portuguese presence — the pirates. Or, as the Mughals called them, the 'firangis'. These were Portuguese privateers, often acting without any official backing, who set up fortified bases in the Sundarbans and basically became the terror of the Bay of Bengal. Luna: Pirates in the Sundarbans — that's a mental image I didn't know I needed. Lucas: It's a wild story. The Sundarbans mangrove forest was the perfect hideout — thousands of tiny islands, shifting channels, tigers, crocodiles. And right in the middle of it, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Portuguese pirates built a little empire. Their main base was on an island called Sondip, near the coast of what is now Bangladesh. Lucas: The leader of this pirate kingdom was a man named Sebastião Gonçalves Tibau. He was a Portuguese mercenary who arrived in Bengal around 1590, supposedly to trade, but soon realised that raiding was far more profitable. He gathered a fleet of about 300 small boats, manned by Portuguese renegades and local converts, and started attacking Mughal ships on the Meghna River. Luna: He built a kingdom out of piracy? How did the Mughals not crush him immediately? Lucas: Well, Bengal was in a bit of a chaotic period. The Mughals had only recently conquered Bengal under Emperor Akbar, and the local governor, or subahdar, was busy consolidating control over the interior. The coastline was a frontier zone, and the Portuguese were useful sometimes — they supplied firearms and naval expertise. So the Mughals tolerated them, as long as they didn't get too bold. Lucas: But Tibau overstepped. He started demanding tribute from local zamindars, the Bengali landlords, and even raided villages for slaves. The slave trade with Arakan — modern-day Myanmar — was booming, and the Portuguese were happy to supply captives to the Arakanese king in exchange for silver. Luna: So they were both pirates and slave traders. That's grim. Lucas: It was. Contemporary Portuguese chroniclers, like a man named João de Barros, actually tried to justify it by saying they were 'civilising' the region. But the reality is that the Sundarbans became a no-go zone for local shipping, and the Portuguese monopoly on the cartaz system — basically a pass that ships had to buy to travel safely — made them even more hated. Lucas: By 1616, the Mughals had had enough. Emperor Jahangir appointed a new subahdar of Bengal, Islam Khan Chishti — we've mentioned him in earlier episodes about the Baro-Bhuiyans. He decided to wipe out the pirates once and for all. Luna: Islam Khan — that name rings a bell. He was the one who defeated Pratapaditya, right? Lucas: Same guy. He was a very effective general. He assembled a massive fleet of about 300 war boats, manned by Mughal soldiers and armed with cannons. They sailed down the Meghna and attacked Sondip directly. Tibau's pirates were outgunned and outnumbered. The battle was over in a day. Lucas: Tibau himself was captured. According to the Mughal chronicles, he was brought before Islam Khan in chains. The subahdar offered him a choice: convert to Islam and serve the emperor, or die. Tibau chose death. He was executed, and his head was sent to the Mughal court in Agra as a trophy. Luna: That's brutal. But also kind of a fitting end for a pirate king. Lucas: After the fall of Sondip, the Portuguese presence in Bengal never fully recovered. Some Portuguese traders stayed on in Hooghly and Bandel, but the days of pirate kingdoms were over. The Mughals tightened control over the coast, and the Portuguese were reduced to a minor trading community. Lucas: But the legacy of those firangi pirates lingers. Even today, there's a place called Feringee Bazaar in Old Dhaka, named after the Portuguese who once lived there. And the word 'firangi' itself — from 'Frank', meaning European — became a common term for any white foreigner in India. Luna: You know, listening to these stories makes me realise how much of Bengal's history is tied to the sea. We've talked about Dutch, Portuguese, British — it's like every European power had a go at this coastline. Lucas: Absolutely. And speaking of that — if you've been enjoying these deep dives into the hidden corners of Bengal's past, I just want to say that this show is entirely listener-supported. We keep it ad-free because of people like you who chip in at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to make sure we can keep digging into stories like the firangi pirates and all the other forgotten histories. Lucas: Exactly. And speaking of forgotten histories — let's talk about what happened after the Portuguese were pushed out. The vacuum they left didn't go unnoticed. Luna: Oh, who moved in? Lucas: The Arakanese. They took over the slave trade and even expanded their raids deeper into Bengal. But that's a story for another episode.