Mooshaka
Kings and Kolathiris
Early in the 9th century A.D.,
the Cheras re-established their political supremacy in Kerala under
Kulasekhara Varman. This second line of Chera emperors ruled till 1102
A.D with their capital at Mahodayapuram. The bulk of the area,
comprising of the present Kannur district, seems to have been included
in this empire. A separate line of rulers known as the Mooshaka kings
held sway over Chirakkal and Kasaragod areas (Kolathunad) with their
capital near mount Eli. It is not clear whether this line of rulers was
attached to Mahodayapuram or whether they ruled as an independent line
of kings in their own right. By the 14th century A.D., the
old Mooshaka kingdom had come to be known as Kolathunad and the rulers
known as Kolathiris and had come into prominence in north Kerala.
The
Kolathiris were a power to reckon with the time of the arrival of the
Portuguese towards the end of the 15th century. They were
political and commercial rivals of the Zamorins of Kozhikkode.
During the medieval age,
several Arab scholars visited the west coast. Balipatam, Srikantapuram,
Dharmadom, bekal and Mount Eli (Ezhimala) are some of the places, which
figure prominently in their travelogues.
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Vasco
Da Gama
Through Vasco Da Gama, the famous Portuguese navigator, did not visit
Kannur on his way to Kozhikkode in May 1498, he established contacts
with the Kolathiri ruler. His ships which had left kozhikkode on August
29, 1498 were contacted by the boats sent by the Kolathiri was to gain
wealth and power with the help of the Portuguese, the same way the
Zamorin had acquired with the help of the Arabs. In winning the alliance
of the Kolathiri, Vasco Da Gama, in turn, had successfully exploited the
jealousies of the native princes and won for the Portuguese a virtual
monopoly of the pepper trade.
Francisco De Almedia was
sent from Portugal with specific instructions to erect forts at
strategic points. He started constructing the Kannur Fort in 1505 and it
was named St. Angelo.
On March 16, 1506, the
Portuguese effectively intercepted an armada of Turks and Arabs, whom
the Zamorin had launched against Kannur. The Portuguese navy under
Lorenzo Almedia engaged the Zamorin’s fleet in battle and the
Portuguese ships won a decisive victory. This naval victory resulted in
the establishment of Portuguese naval supremacy in the Indian seas.
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Portuguese
Ascendancy
An important political development, which took place at this juncture,
was the alliance between the Kolathiri and the Zamorin who were till
then sworn enemies. The Zamorin was able to convince the Kolathiri of
the real motives of the Portuguese in India and the perils inherent in
his policy of befriending them.
The Portuguese followed a
policy of religious persecution and forcible conversion. They therefore
clashed with most of the native princes and chieftains.
In 1558, the Koalathiri
came openly into the field against the Portuguese by providing active
support to the Kunjali Marrikkars of Kozhikkode. The Kolathiri and the
Zamorin fought a common war against the Aportuguese and they besieged
the fort of St. angelo at Kannur, in 1564. But the Portuguese continued
to maintain a precarious foothold at Kannur till 1663 when the fort was
captured by the Dutch in February that year.
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Arrival
of the English East India Company
The English East India Company got its first foothold in the district
towards the closing years of the 17th century, when it
acquired a site at Thalassery for the erection of a fort and a factory.
The disintegration of the
Kolathiri’s dominion started in the latter half of the 17th
and the beginning of the 18th century following dissensions
in the royal family by the extensive surrender of territory to consorts
of the ruling members.
In spite of the many
difficulties it had to face in the initial stages, the trade of the
English East India Company prospered during the latter part of the 17th
and beginning of the 18th century, by their liberal trade
policies. Further, unlike the Portuguese, they refused to interfere in
the religious and caste affairs of the local population.
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Mysorean
Conquest
In 1725, the French captured Mayyazhi and renamed it as Mahe in honor of
the French captain Francois Mahe De Labourdonnais.
The most important episode
in the political history of north Kerala in the second half of the 18th
century is the conquest of Mysore by the two muslim rulers, Haidar Ali
and Tipu Sultan. Haidar Ali conquered Malabar in 1773.
In January 1788,
Tippu Sultan descended on Kerala with a large army and founded a
new capital at Feroke for his Malabar province.
The treaties of
Seringapatanam, signed on February 22 and march 18, 1792, formally ceded
Malabar to the British.
The British entered into
agreements with the rajas of Chirakkal, Kottayam and Kadathanad and all
of them acknowledged the full sovereignty of the Company over their
respective territories.
The British Government
divided the province of Malabar into two administrative divisions –
the Northern and Southern, presided over by a superintendent each at
Thalassery and Cherpulasseri, under the general control of the
supervisor and chief magistrate of the province of Malabar who had his
headquarters at Kozhikode.
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Pazhassi
Revolt.
While the British were busy with the political settlement of the
district, a serious revolt was headed by Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja of
the padinajare Kovilakom of the Kottayam family. The potent cause of the
revolt was the unpopular revenue policy followed by the East India
Company in Malabar. He stopped all collections of revenue in Kottayam.
The Raja further threatened to cut down all the pepper vines if the
Company’s officers persisted in revenue collection.
In April 1796, a determined
effort was made by the British to capture the Raja in his own palace at
Pazhassi. This was in vain.
On December 18, the British
Commissioner issued a proclamation forbidding the people to assemble or
to assist the Pazhassi Raja and warning them that if they did so, they
would be considered as irreconcilable enemies of the Company and that
their property would be confiscated.
On December 30, a futile
attempt was made to reconcile the differences between the Raja and the
Company.
On 8th January
1797, Pazhassi Raja’s men launched daring attack on the havildar’s
guard stationed at pazhassi and the whole party except one man was
killed. In the battles fought on three successive days, -9th,
10th and 11th March 1797, the detachment made by
the Company forces was overpowered by the swords, spears, bows and
arrows of Pazhassi Raja’s
men. As the situation was
full of perils, reconciliation with the Pazhassi Raja became a matter of
political expediency.
While South Canara and
other part of South India were being brought under British imperial
control, following the fall
of Seringapatnam (1799), Pazhassi Raja raised the standard of revolt a
second time and shook for a while the very foundations of British power.
Colonel Stevenson’s
efforts early in 1801 cut off the Pazhassi Raja from his adherents in
South Malabar and by May the British troops had made much headway and
with every port both above and below the ghats in British hands and the
whole country disarmed, the Pazhassi Raja became a wanderer in the
jungles accompanied by his wife and immediate attendants.
On May 24, 1804. Colonel
Macleod issued a proclamation warning the people that they would be
treated as rebels if they failed to furnish information about rebel
movements and if they helped the Pazhassi troops with arms, ammunition
or provisions. Finally the proclamation of June 16 offered rewards for
the apprehension of Pazhassi Raja, two other members of his family and
his principal lieutenants and declared their estates and properties
confiscated from that date.
On 1st November,
Baber took direct charge of the operations and on November 30, 1805 he
surrounded and shot the Raja dead in an operation on the banks of a
nullah. The Raja’s body was cremated with “customary honours”.
With the death of Pazhassi Raja, the resistance movement in north Kerala
came to and end.
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