Dutch Bengal | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1627–1825 | |||||||||
Status | Factory | ||||||||
Capital | Pipely (1627–1635) Hugli-Chuchura (1635–1825) | ||||||||
Common languages | Dutch | ||||||||
Director | |||||||||
• 1655–1658 | Pieter Sterthemius | ||||||||
• 1724–1727 | Abraham Patras | ||||||||
• 1785–1792 | Isaac Titsingh | ||||||||
• 1792–1795 | Cornelis van Citters Aarnoutszoon | ||||||||
• 1817–1825 | Daniel Anthony Overbeek | ||||||||
Historical era | Imperialism | ||||||||
• Establishment of a trading post at Pipely | 1627 | ||||||||
1825 | |||||||||
|
Bengal was a directorate of the Dutch East India Company in Mughal Bengal between 1610 until the company's liquidation in 1800. It then became a colony of the Kingdom of the Netherlands until 1825, when it was relinquished to the British according to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. Dutch presence in the region started by the establishment of a trading post at Pipili in the mouth of Subarnarekha River in Odisha. The former colony is part of what is today called Dutch India. [1] Bengal was the source of 50% of the textiles and 80% of the raw silk imported from Asia by the Dutch. [2]
From 1615 onward, the Dutch East India Company traded in the eastern part of Mughal Province of Bengal, Bihar & Orissa.
In 1627, the first trading post with a factory was established in Pipely Port in the coast of Utkal Plains. The port of Pipely (Pipilipattan in Odia) was situated on the confluence of Subarnarekha river of modern day Balasore district of Odisha.
In 1635, a settlement was established in the proper Bengal at Chinsurah adjacent to Hooghly to trade in opium, salt, muslin, and spices. [3] In 1655, a separate organization, Directorate of Bengal, was created. [4] The factory was walled in 1687 to protect it against attacks and in 1740, during the directorship of Jan Albert Sichterman, rebuilt into a fort with four bastions. The fort was named Fort Gustavus in 1742, after governor-general Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff. Director Sichterman built a church tower in 1742, which was joined by a church building in 1765. [5] Dutch territorial property was confined to Chinsurah and Baranagore, which they received as a gift from the Nawab. It was for all purposes subordinate to the government at Batavia. [6]
Dutch factories were established not only at important centres like Patna, Fatuha, Dacca, and Malda but also at some interior villages like Kagaram, Motipur and Mowgrama. [7]
A famous Frenchman, General Perron who served as military advisor to the Mahrattas, settled in this Dutch colony, and built a large house here.
Trade thrived in Mughal Empire's most developed region Bengal Subah in the early eighteenth century, to such an extent that the administrators of the Dutch East India Company allowed Hooghly-Chinsura in 1734 to trade directly with the Dutch Republic, instead of first delivering their goods to Batavia. The only other Dutch East India Company settlement to have this right was Dutch Ceylon.
Dutch control over Bengal was waning in the face of Anglo-French rivalry in India in the middle of the eighteenth century, and their status in Bengal was reduced to that of a minor power with the British victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. In 1759, the Dutch tried in vain to curb British power in Bengal in the Battle of Chinsurah.
Dutch Bengal was occupied by British forces in 1795, owing to the Kew Letters written by Dutch stadtholder William V, Prince of Orange, to prevent the colony from being occupied by France. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 restored the colony to Dutch rule, but with the desire to divide the Indies into two separate spheres of influence, the Dutch ceded all their establishment on the Indian peninsula to the British with the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.
Fort Gustavus has since been obliterated from the face of Chinsurah, but much of the Dutch heritage remains. These include the Dutch cemetery, the old barracks (now Chinsurah Court), the Governor's residence, General Perron's house, now the Chinsurah College known as Hooghly Mohsin College and the old Factory Building, now the office of the Divisional Commissioner. Hugli-Chinsurah is now the district town of the Hooghly district in modern West Bengal.
Cossimbazar still has a Dutch cemetery. The Dutch cemetery in Karinga near Chhapra features a mausoleum for Jacob van Hoorn, who died in 1712. [8]
The Dutch church of Chinsurah was demolished in 1988 by the West Bengal Public Works Department. [9] The memorial tablets of deceased Dutch people, which used to be displayed in the church, were donated by the bishop of Calcutta to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 1949. [10]
Dutch settlements in Bengal include:
Job Charnock was an English administrator with the East India Company. He is commonly regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta ; however, this view is challenged, and in 2003 the Calcutta High Court declared that he ought not to be regarded as the founder. There may have been inhabitants in the area since the first century CE. The High Court was right in claiming that villages that constituted colonial Calcutta were not established by Charnock or the British Raj itself, but Charnock's ambition-driven doggedness toward setting up an East Indian Company frontier along the Eastern border of India that he could control on his own terms played a huge role in the creation of the present-day city of Calcutta.
Kolkata was a colonial city. The British East India Company developed Calcutta as a village by establishing an artificial riverine port in the 18th century CE. Kolkata was the capital of the British India until 1911, when the capital was relocated to Delhi. Kolkata grew rapidly in the 19th century to become the second most important city of the British Empire after London and was declared as the financial (commercial) capital of the British India. This was accompanied by the fall of a culture that fused Indian philosophies with European tradition.
Hugli-Chuchura, also known by its former names Chinsurah or Hooghly-Chinsurah, is a city of Hooghly district and the district headquarters of Hooghly division in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is one of the densely populated cities of West Bengal. It lies on the bank of Hooghly River, 35 km north of Kolkata, the state capital. It is located in the district of Hooghly and is home to the district headquarters. Chuchura houses the Commissioner of the Burdwan Range. The District Court building of Chinsurah is the longest building in West Bengal. It is a part of Greater Kolkata covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA).
Hooghly district is one of the districts of the Indian state of West Bengal. It can alternatively be spelt Hoogli or Hugli. The district is named after the Hooghly River. The headquarters of the district are at Hooghly-Chinsurah (Chunchura). There are four subdivisions: Chinsurah Sadar, Srirampore, Chandannagore, and Arambagh.
The Nawab of Bengal was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the de facto independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which constitute the modern-day sovereign country of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The Bengal Subah reached its peak during the reign of Nawab Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan. They are often referred to as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Nawabs were based in Murshidabad which was centrally located within Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. Their chief, a former prime minister, became the first Nawab. The Nawabs continued to issue coins in the name of the Mughal Emperor, but for all practical purposes, the Nawabs governed as independent monarchs. Bengal continued to contribute the largest share of funds to the imperial treasury in Delhi. The Nawabs, backed by bankers such as the Jagat Seth, became the financial backbone of the Mughal court.
Mir Syed Jafar Ali Khan Bahadur was a commander-in-chief or military general who reigned as the first dependent Nawab of Bengal of the British East India Company. His reign has been considered by many historians as the start of the expansion of British control of the Indian subcontinent in Indian history and a key step in the eventual British domination of vast areas of pre-partition India.
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:
Cossimbazar is a sub-urban area of Berhampore city in the Berhampore CD block in the Berhampore subdivision of Murshidabad district in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Dutch India consisted of the settlements and trading posts of the Dutch East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. It is only used as a geographical definition, as there was never a political authority ruling all Dutch India. Instead, Dutch India was divided into the governorates Dutch Ceylon and Dutch Coromandel, the commandment Dutch Malabar, and the directorates Dutch Bengal and Dutch Suratte.
Chak Bansberia is a census town in Chinsurah Mogra CD Block in Chinsurah subdivision of Hooghly district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is a part of Kolkata Urban Agglomeration.
Dharmapur is a census town in Chinsurah Mogra CD Block in Chinsurah subdivision of Hooghly district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is a part of Kolkata Urban Agglomeration.
Alivardi Khan was the fourth Nawab of Bengal from 1740 to 1756. He toppled the Nasiri dynasty of Nawabs by defeating Sarfaraz Khan in 1740 and assumed power himself.
Chinsurah subdivision is an administrative subdivision of the Hooghly district in the state of West Bengal, India.
The Maratha invasions of Bengal (1742–1751), also known as the Maratha expeditions in Bengal, were the frequent invasions by the Maratha forces in the Bengal Subah, after their successful campaign in the Carnatic region at the Battle of Trichinopoly. The leader of the expeditions was Raghoji Bhonsle of Nagpur. The Marathas invaded Bengal five times from April 1742 to March 1751, which caused widespread economic losses in the Bengal Subah.
The Bengal Subah, also referred to as Mughal Bengal, was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire encompassing much of the Bengal region, which includes modern-day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and some parts of the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha between the 16th and 18th centuries. The state was established following the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world, when the region was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. Bengal was the wealthiest region in the Indian subcontinent.
Naldanga is a census town in Chinsurah Mogra CD Block in Chinsurah subdivision of Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of Kolkata Urban Agglomeration.
Keota is a census town in Chinsurah Mogra CD Block in Chinsurah subdivision of Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of Kolkata Urban Agglomeration.
Patna Collectorate or Patna district Collector is administrative head office of Collector of Patna district in Patna, Bihar, India. It is on the bank of river Ganges, close to Gandhi Maidan. It is in the style of Dutch architecture and British architecture and is over 200-year-old building complex. In 2008, the Collectorate was listed as heritage building by the Government of Bihar. In 2016, the government proposed its demolition and replacement with a new office complex. The Indian Supreme Court dismissed petitions from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, a heritage organisation, to stay the demolition in May 2022, and the complex began to be razed the following day.
Hooghly Chinsurah Municipality is the civic body that governs Hugli-Chuchura and its surrounding areas (Bandel) in Chinsurah subdivision of Hooghly district, West Bengal, India.
Jan Albert Sichterman was Dutch East India Company employee who went to Bengal and returned to his hometown of Groningen and built a palatial home for himself known as the Sichtermanhuis at Ossenmarkt. He also collected fine artwork and some of his collections were acquired by the Groninger Museum. Sichterman was also involved in the transport of the famous rhinoceros Clara to the Netherlands.