The Austrian colonization of the Nicobar Islands (German : Nikobaren, renamed to the Theresia Islands [Theresia-Inseln]) involved a series of three separate attempts by the Habsburg monarchy, and later the Austrian Empire, to colonize and settle the Nicobar Islands. Only the first of these launched in 1778, was successful. [1] The second attempt was canceled, and the third, in 1886, was abandoned due to prior colonization by the British in 1868. [2] The Nicobar Islands had been previously colonized by the Danish in 1756; the Danes abandoned the islands after multiple outbreaks of malaria, [3] but continued to lay formal claim to the islands until 1848.
The Nicobar Islands were officially colonized by the Danish on 1 January 1756. [3] Denmark owned a significant port in India, Tranquebar, and decided to colonize the islands, citing a lack of native resistance, ease of access, and vicinity to Tranquebar. [3] [4] In December 1756, the Danish named the islands Frederick's Islands (Danish : Frederiksøerne), [4] after the then King of Denmark, Frederick V.
Within a few months of colonization, the island of Nancowry was settled, and the colony contracted malaria for the first time. The mosquito-borne tropical disease spread island-to-island until it eventually hit the Danish colonists so hard that the remaining settlers, including the head of the colony, sailed back to Tranquebar in March 1760. [3] Another expedition was made in 1768, but within less than 9 years that colony had disappeared as well. [3] [5] [6]
The origins of Austrian colonization of the Nicobar Islands can be traced back to appeals to both Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Joseph II by William Bolts. Bolts had been previously active in the British East India Company but had been convicted of trading in opium and dismissed. In 1774, he traveled to Vienna to convince the colonially inexperienced Austrians of the feasibility of trade between Trieste and the Far East. Bolts was well received by the Austrian court and was given a ten-year charter allowing him to trade through the Austrian Adriatic ports to Persia, India, China, and Africa. [7]
Bolts, who was then at the court of the Nawab of Mysore, [8] directed the Joseph und Theresia to sail to the Nicobars. In June 1778, the ship docked on the island of Nancowry, and on 12 July, the Nicobarese natives signed a document that ceded all twenty-four islands to Austria. [1] The Austrian flag was then raised on a nearby hill, and 6 men, with slaves, cattle, and arms, were left behind to start the new Austrian colony. [5] [9]
In 1781, the colonists complained about a lack of drinking water and food, but Vienna took no notice and left its outpost to its fate. [6] The colonists managed successfully until Gottfried Stahl, their leader, died in 1783; the remaining colonists decided to abandon the islands in 1785. [1] In addition to Stahl's death, the Danish decided to send a warship from Tranquebar in an attempt to remove the Austrians from Nancowry forcibly. [10]
Motivated by an urge to explore, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria in 1857 sent the frigate SMS Novara on a trip of scientific circumnavigation around the globe. On board was a team of researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, which also received the additional task of looking out for possible locations for a penal colony.
In February 1858, Novara reached the island of Car Nicobar, the northernmost island of the chain. The Austrian team sailed around the islands of Nancowry and Kamorta but did not try to occupy them. The leader of the group, ethnologist Karl von Scherzer, encouraged the team to explore the island for artifacts. The researchers acquired more than 400 native artifacts from Nancowry and Kamorta, after which von Scherzer began promoting the idea of recolonization; [1] the Austrian government ruled against it.
If von Scherzer's idea had been accepted by the Austrian government, the colonization would have been most likely uncontested. The Danish had removed all settlements from the Nicobar Islands and relinquished sovereignty over them in 1848, [2] and British colonization lay 10 years in the future.
In 1886, the Austro-Hungarian corvette SMS Aurora anchored in the harbor of Nancowry before continuing her voyage to the Far East. The Austrians then realized that the British had already settled the islands. [1] In 1868, the British had officially purchased the rights to all twenty-four of the Nicobar Islands from the Danish government. [4] There were no further plans for Austrian recolonization.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India comprising 836 islands, of which only 31 are inhabited. These islands are grouped into two main clusters: the northern Andaman Islands and the southern Nicobar Islands, separated by a 150 km (93 mi) wide channel. The capital and largest city of the territory, Port Blair, is located approximately 1,190 km (740 mi) from Chennai and 1,255 km (780 mi) from Kolkata in mainland India. The islands are situated between the Bay of Bengal to the west and the Andaman Sea to the east. The northernmost point is 901 km (560 mi) from the mouth of the Hooghly River. Indira Point, located at 6°45’10″N and 93°49’36″E on the southern tip of Great Nicobar, is the southernmost point of India.
The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, 150 kilometres (93 mi) northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) southeast of the Indian subcontinent, across the Bay of Bengal, they are part of India, as the Nicobar district within the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Together with the Andaman Islands to their north, the Nicobar Islands serve as a maritime boundary between the Bay of Bengal to the west and the Andaman Sea to the east.
Colonial India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was occupied by European colonial powers during the Age of Discovery. European power was exerted both by conquest and trade, especially in spices. The search for the wealth and prosperity of India led to the colonisation of the Americas after Christopher Columbus went to the Americas in 1492. Only a few years later, near the end of the 15th century, Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama became the first European to re-establish direct trade links with India by being the first to arrive by circumnavigating Africa. Having arrived in Calicut, which by then was one of the major trading ports of the eastern world, he obtained permission to trade in the city from the Saamoothiri Rajah. The next to arrive were the Dutch, with their main base in Ceylon. Their expansion into India was halted after their defeat in the Battle of Colachel to the Kingdom of Travancore, during the Travancore–Dutch War.
Nancowry is an island in the central part of the Nicobar Islands chain, located in the northeast Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
Trinket Island is one of the 24 islands that make up the Nicobar Islands chain, located in the northeast Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. It is located east of Kamorta Island.
The Nicobar Islands rain forests is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion in the Nicobar Islands, which is part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory of India. The Nicobar Islands are in the Indian Ocean, lying north of Sumatra and south of the Andaman Islands. The islands are politically part of India, although physically closer to Southeast Asia. Millions of years of isolation from the mainland has given rise to a distinct flora and fauna, including many endemic species.
Danish India was the name given to the forts and factories of Denmark in the Indian subcontinent, forming part of the Danish overseas colonies. Denmark–Norway held colonial possessions in India for more than 200 years, including the town of Tharangambadi in present-day Tamil Nadu state, Serampore in present-day West Bengal, and the Nicobar Islands, currently part of India's union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Danish and Norwegian presence in India was of little significance to the major European powers as they presented neither a military nor a mercantile threat. Dano-Norwegian ventures in India, as elsewhere, were typically undercapitalized and never able to dominate or monopolize trade routes in the same way that British, French, and Portuguese ventures could.
Trimeresurus labialis, commonly called Nicobar bamboo pit viper, is a venomous pit viper species endemic to the Nicobar Islands of India. No subspecies are currently recognized.
SMS Novara was a sail frigate of the Austro-Hungarian Navy most noted for sailing the globe for the Novara Expedition of 1857–1859 and, later for carrying Archduke Maximilian and wife Carlota to Veracruz in May 1864 to reign as Emperor and Empress of Mexico.
From the 17th century through to the 19th century, the Habsburg monarchy, Austrian Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire made a few small short-lived attempts to expand overseas colonial trade through the acquisition of factories. In 1519–1556 Austria's ruler also separately ruled Spain, which did have a large colonial empire. However, no other Austrians were involved when Emperor Charles V held the crown of both the Spanish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and the Spanish colonies were not linked to Austria.
Teressa is one of the Nicobar Islands, India.
William Bolts was a Dutch-born British merchant active in India. He began his career as an employee of the East India Company, and subsequently became an independent merchant. He is best known today for his 1772 book, Considerations on India Affairs, which detailed the administration of the East India Company in Bengal which began shortly after their victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The observations and experiences he recorded offer a unique resource for scholars inquiring into the nature of Company rule in Bengal. Throughout his life, Bolts continued to propose and execute various trading ventures on his own behalf and in conjunction with various commercial and governmental partners. The ventures of individual traders like Bolts did much to spur governments and large corporations into the expansion of their own interests.
Austrian East India Company is a catchall term referring to a series of Austrian trading companies based in Ostend and Trieste. The Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp and Asiatic Company of Trieste or the Trieste Company were founded by William Bolts in 1775 and wound up in 1785.
Jhoola is a village in the Nicobar district of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. It is located in the Nancowry tehsil.
Ramzoo is a village in the Nicobar district of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. It is located in the Nancowry tehsil.
When the German Empire came into existence in 1871, none of its constituent states had any overseas colonies. Only after the Berlin Conference in 1884 did Germany begin to acquire new overseas possessions, but it had a much longer relationship with colonialism dating back to the 1520s. Before the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, various German states established chartered companies to set up trading posts; in some instances they also sought direct territorial and administrative control over these. After 1806, attempts at securing possession of territories overseas were abandoned; instead, private trading companies took the lead in the Pacific while joint-stock companies and colonial associations initiated projects elsewhere, although many never progressed beyond the planning stage.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is an archipelago of 572 islands of which 37 are inhabited. It is a union territory of India.
Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff was a Danish philologist who worked in the Andaman penal colony in India, where he was shot dead by a convict. He studied the languages of Andaman and Nicobar tribes and collected numerous natural history specimens. The Andaman masked owl was named after him by Hume.
The plunder of Nancowry' or the Battle of Nancowry was the British capture of the Danish colony at Nancowry Island in 1805.
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