[[Thanjavur Nayak kingdom|Thanjavur Nayak]]"},"combatant2":{"wt":"{{Tree list}}\n*{{flag|Portuguese Empire}}\n**{{flagicon|Portuguese Empire}}[[Portuguese India]]\n{{Tree list/end}}"},"commander1":{"wt":"{{flagicon|Danish India}}[[Roland Crappé]]{{WIA}}
{{flagicon image|The regal emblem of Rajasinghe II.png}}[[Senarat of Kandy|Senarath Adahasin]]
Roland Crappé's raids on Portuguese colonies | |||||||
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Part of Sinhalese–Portuguese conflicts | |||||||
Map of Roland Crappé's campaign, 1619 | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Supported by: Thanjavur Nayak | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Roland Crappé (WIA) Senarath Adahasin Raghunatha Nayak | João Coutinho Fernão de Albuquerque | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
Øresund | Unknown | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
~44 men 1 ship | 7 ships 5 sampans 2 catamarans | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 ship 27 imprisoned 4 killed | 5 Sampans |
Roland Crappé's raids on Portuguese colonies (Danish; Roland Crappés plyndringer på portugisiske kolonier: Portuguese; Os ataques de Roland Crappé às colónias portuguesas) refers to a series of raids by Dutchman in Danish service, Roland Crappé, on Portuguese Ceylon and India. The raids were partially unsuccessful, in that Crappé's ship, Øresund (meaning the Sound), caught fire and sank.
In 1611, after the Portuguese captured Kandy and set fire to the city, [1] King Senerat of Kandy urgently dispatched courier, Marchells Michielsz Boschouver, to Europe in hopes of negotiating an alliance-treaty with the Dutch East India Company. [2] Despite his efforts, the mission was unsuccessful and Boschouver ended up in Denmark, where he signed an un-ratified treaty with Christian IV of Denmark. [2] Denmark then sent five vessels and 300 soldiers, led by Ove Gjedde, to Ceylon to fulfill the terms of the treaty. [2] Along with Gjedde, Dutchman and experienced seafarer, Roland Crappé was sent too. Because of his earlier experiences, Crappé was sent to India two months before Gjedde. [3]
Crappé arrived on board of Øresund, as the first representative of the Danish expedition, on Ceylon in January 1619. [4] Crappé's task was to prepare for Ove Giedde's arrival. [5] Crappé met with the raja, Senarat of Kandy, and mentioned Boshouwer's mission, which the raja seems to have knowledge about. [4] Senarat encouraged Crappé to attack the Portuguese, which was an encouragement that demanded careful consideration; to conduct privateering against a European Great Power was a dubious affair, which could end in destruction. [5]
Crappé wanted to make a good impression on the raja, and attacked the Portuguese on the Coromandel Coast. [6] [4] [7] He hijacked five Portuguese sampans and attacked Jaffna, Nagapattinam and other coastal Portuguese outposts. [6] Despite Portuguese irritation, they didn't want to politicize the situation. [5] Instead they retaliated by attacking Øresund at Karaikal. [6] [4] [5] [8] [7]
Near the fishing village of Karaikal, seven smaller Portuguese vessels tried to recapture the five sampans. [4] Under fire, Øresund caught fire and sank. [4] [5] [8] Crappé recalls the event:
...I found myself surrounded by some drawn sabers, and they dragged me by the throat through a quarter where I thought they were going to murder us...
Twenty-seven of the ship's crew, including Crappé, were imprisoned. [4] Crappé was brought over to the lifeguard's house to sleep. [4] Next morning he witnessed 4 of his comrades heads on spikes. [4]
Roland Crappé got in contact with a senior official of the local Thanjavur kingdom. [4] And after a month 14 healthy or wounded Dano-Norwegians were rescued out of Portuguese imprisonment. [4] Together with Crappé, the 15 men went out to the city of Thanjavur, and through friends, Crappé managed to get into audience with the king, Raghunatha. [4] Raghunatha got five additional Dano-Norwegians out of Nagapattinam, and fined Portugal for the loss of Øresund. [4]
Raghunatha could see the benefit in forging ties with another European power in the hope of decreasing the influence of the Portuguese in his kingdom. [4] [7] For that reason he allowed the Danes to establish as the first Danish trading post in India at Tranquebar. [9] [7]
Tharangambadi, formerly Tranquebar, is a town in the Mayiladuthurai district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu on the Coromandel Coast. It lies 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north of Karaikal, near the mouth of a distributary named Uppanar of the Kaveri River. Tranquebar was established on 19 November 1620 as the first Danish trading post in India. King Christian IV had sent his envoy Ove Gjedde who established contact with Raghunatha Nayak of Tanjore. An annual tribute was paid by the Danes to the Rajah of Tanjore until the colony of Tranquebar was sold to the British East India Company in 1845.
The Danish East India Company refers to two separate Danish-Norwegian chartered companies. The first company operated between 1616 and 1650. The second company existed between 1670 and 1729, however, in 1730 it was re-founded as the Asiatic Company.
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.
Fort Dansborg, locally called Danish Fort, is a Danish fort located in the shores of Bay of Bengal in Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Fort Dansborg was built in the land ceded by Thanjavur king Ragunatha Nayak in an agreement with Danish Admiral Ove Gjedde in 1620 and acted as the base for Danish settlement in the region during the early 17th century. The fort is the second largest Danish fort after Kronborg. The fort was sold to the British in 1845 and along with Tranquebar, the fort lost its significance as the town was not an active trading post for the British. After India's independence in 1947, the fort was used as an inspection bungalow by the state government until 1978 when its archaeology department took control of the fort. The fort is now used as a museum where the major artifacts of the fort and the Danish empire are displayed.
Ove Gjedde was a Danish nobleman and Admiral of the Realm. He established the Danish colony at Tranquebar and constructed Fort Dansborg as the base for the Danish settlement. He was a member of the interim government that followed the death of King Christian IV, which imposed restrictions by the Haandfæstning on his successor King Frederick III.
When to date the start of the history of the Jaffna kingdom is debated among historians.
Raghunatha Nayak was the most powerful king of the Thanjavur Nayak Dynasty. He was the third ruler of Thanjavur, southern India, from the Nayak dynasty. He belongs to Balija caste. He ruled from 1600 to 1634 and is noted for the attainments of Thanjavur in literature, art, and Carnatic music.
Sinhalese–Portuguese conflicts refers to the series of armed engagements that took place from 1518 AD to 1658 AD in Sri Lanka between the native Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms and the Portuguese Empire. It spanned from the Transitional to the Kandyan periods of Sri Lankan history. A combination of political and military moves gained the Portuguese control over most of the island, but their invasion of the final independent kingdom was a disaster, leading to a stalemate in the wider war and a truce from 1621. In 1638 the war restarted when the Dutch East India Company intervened in the conflict, initially as an ally of the Sinhalese against the Portuguese, but later as an enemy of both sides. The war concluded in 1658, with the Dutch in control of about half the island, the Kingdom of Kandy the other half, and the Portuguese expelled.
The Cattle War also commonly referred to as the Perumal War or the Perumal Naik-War was a colonial conflict between the Danish East India Company and the Thanjavur Maratha kingdom over the Danish governor Hans Georg Krog's expansionistic foreign policy. The conflict started over the raiding of Danish cattle by the local supervisor of a small land district, Perumal Naik.
The Conquest of Koneswaram Temple, also known as the Destruction of Koneswaram Temple, was the destruction of the Hindu temple of Koneswaram, at Trincomalee by the Portuguese governor of Ceylon, Constantino de Sá de Noronha in April 1622. Koneswaram was at the time of conquest a Danish fortress.
The Loss of the St. Jacob, also referred to as the Seizure of the St. Jacob(beslaglæggelsen af St. Jacob), was a destruction and seizure of a Danish merchant ship, the St. Jacob, by local Bengali authorities. The loss and destruction of the ship and its crew, led to the Dano-Mughal War, which would last for 56 years.
The Siege of Dansborg or the Siege of Fort Dansborg, was a short siege lasting from 20 to 30 December 1644, between general Tiagepule of Thanjavur and the Danish command at Fort Dansborg. The conflict started over the Danish rejection of the general's demand to tax Tranquebar, and as a result, a series of confrontations followed. The confrontations had no major result, and an armistice may have been signed.
The Siege of Dansborg alternatively the Siege of Fort Dansborg sometimes also referred to as Willem Leyel's siege of Dansborg, was a siege initiated by traveler and seafarer, Willem Leyel, against the men loyal to governor Bernt Pessart. The siege was concluded after the men at Dansborg opened the gates for Willem Leyel, surrendered, and accepted Leyel as the new governor.
The Siege of Dansborg or the Siege of Fort Dansborg, was a siege of the newly finished Danish fort of Dansborg in Trangebar in 1624. The siege was initiated by the nayak of Thanjavur, Raghunatha, because of the Danish rejection of the demands from the nayak. The Siege, laid by general Calicut, was abandoned after the arrival of Danish reinforcements from sea. The event is mostly described by Icelander, Jón Ólafsson, in his work The Life of the Icelander Jón Ólafsson, Traveller to India.
The Siege of Tranquebar was a siege of the Danish colony of Tranquebar by Shahuji I of the Thanjavur Maratha kingdom in 1699. Despite the dire situation of the besieged Danes, the English at Madras came to relieve the Danes, and the Thanjavurians would eventually retreat.
The Conflict between William Leyel and Bernt Pessart refers to the tensions and minor civil war between Willem Leyel and Bernt Pessart over the governorship of Tranquebar and the Danish East India Company. The conflict led to the escape of Bernt Pessart, and the command at Tranquebar accepted Willem Leyel as governor of Danish India.
Roland Crappé or Roelant Crappé was a Dutch colonial official serving the Dutch and Danish East India Company. He became director general of the Ceylonese department of the Danish East India Company in 1618 and became commander in chief and governor of Tranquebar upon his seventh arrival in the Indies in 1624. During his leadership, new factories and offices were established and Danish trade went exceptionally well. He died in 1644 only a few years after his homecoming to Denmark.
The Tranquebar Treaty of 1620 formally the Treaty between Raghunatha Nayak and Christian IV, was a treaty of friendship between the Thanjavur Nayak kingdom and Denmark–Norway in 1620. The treaty would establish Danish Tranquebar: a base that would be the headquarters of Danish India for the next 200 years.
The Dano-Carical Conflict was a small-scale conflict between the Danes at Tranquebar and the Portuguese at Carical (Karaikal). The conflict includes three smaller naval engagements, which eventually led to a four-hour-long imprisonment of Danish Captain Simon Jansen.
Ove Gjedde's Expedition or the Danish Expedition to India of 1618–1622 was the first Danish colonial expedition to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, reaching Ceylon, Thanjavur and Ayutthaya. The expedition was initiated by the newly established Danish East India Company and led by 24-year-old Ove Gjedde. Despite not achieving its original goal of monopolizing Ceylon, the expedition still managed to receive control and trading privileges over various coastal towns and cities.