Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   C 2 hapter CANNANORE BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE 2.1 Introduction At the arrival of the Portuguese Malabar was a miniature world of the south-western coast of India which stretched about four hundred miles from Ezhimala in the north to Cape Comorin in the south-western extremity of India.1 The coast runs diagonally in a south easterly direction, and forms a few head-lands and small bays. It is bounded on the north by the province of Canara, on the east by Coorg and Mysore, to the south-east by Coimbatore and to the south by the small province of Cochin.2 The mountainous Western Ghats isolated the region from the interior. It had many principalities and four major kingdoms like Kolathiri in Cannanore, Calicut kingdom of Zamorin, the kingdom of Cochin and the kingdom of Venad in Travancore.3 They had the power to wear crown, to coin money and to hold ceremonial umbrellas over the heads.4 There were petty kingdoms of the minor Rajas like Quilon, Kayamkulam, Vadakkumkur, Idappalli, Cranganore,                                                              1 According to Duarte Barbosa, the southernmost point of Malabar was Cape Comorin stretching 363 kilometres northwards to Chandragiri river, the frontier where the kingdom of Vijayanagara ended. The Book of Duarte Barbosa, vol. II, p.21. 2 Ward and Conner, A Descriptive Memoir of Malabar, edited by S.Raimon, Government of Kerala, 1995, p.1. 3 Ashin Das Gupta, Malabar in Asian Trade 1740-1800, Cambridge University Press,1967, pp.2-3. 4 According to Duarte Barbosa only the Zamorin had the right to mint the coins. But in course of time the kings of Cochin and Cranganore struck money by force. The Book of Duarte Barbosa, Vol.II, p.6.   42 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   Tanur, Porakkad, Mangattu etc.5 They had the rights of private wars levying customs and taxes and entering into treaties and alliances with others. There are many explanations regarding the origin of the term Malabar.6 According to William Logan, the word Malabar is in part at least of foreign origin. He explains that the first two syllables are almost certainly the Dravidian word mala which means hill or mountain and bar is probably the Persian word bar which means country or an Arabic word barr which signifies continent.7 Malabar in the Portuguese period was a common term used for the region from the border of Vijayanagara kingdom up to Cape Comorin.8 According to the description given by Tomé Pires, the Malabar province begins at Manjeswaram near present Mangalore and ends at Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari). He also asserts that the northern part borders to the kingdom belonging to the Narasinga, King of Vijayanagara empire.9 The present Malabar does not cover all these regions. Malabar of the British period is restricted to regions between Mangalore and Calicut. William Logan has given geographical structure of Malabar of his                                                              5 K.M. Panikkar, Malabar and the Portuguese, Bombay, Kitab Mahal, 1929, p.8. 6 The regional history of Malabar has a great vacuum of information and it is very difficult for the Malabar historians to coin the historical development of the Pre-Portuguese Malabar due to unavailability of the original trustworthy documents and lesser accessibility to source materials. The petty kingdoms of Malabar did not bother about their cultural and political history. The only available sources were mainly indebted to the foreign travelogues. 7 William Logan, Malabar Manual, Vol.I,p.1 8 The Book of Duarte Barbosa, Vol.II, pp.20-21. 9 Tomé Pires, The Suma Oriental, Vol.I, pp.65-66. Tomé Pires and the Portuguese mentioned the Vijayanagara empire as the kingdom of Narasimha because it was ruled by the king Narasimha from 1487 to 1508. The Portuguese started a smooth trade relationship with the king.   43 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   period. He records the boundaries of Malabar in the north South Canara district, in the east Coorg, Mysore, Nilgiris and Coimbatore, in the south, the native state of Cochin and in the west, Arabian sea.10 Logan has given also the distance of the area. Malabar extends from north to the south along the coast. It has a distance of one hundred and fifty miles and lying between north latitude 10 degree 15’ and 12degree 18’ and E.Long.75 degree 14’ and 75 degree 56’.11 The slopes in many places are formed into terraces for cultivation. A large portion of Malabar being mountains and hills overran with forests, the population is most dense along the coast and for some distance into the interior.12 The land was well protected from the north east and east winds by the mountains of Malabar that divides the land from the kingdom of Narasimha.13 Malabar was very rich in spices, and agriculture was the main source of the income of the native people. Flora and fauna of Malabar was very famous for the foreigners. They were attracted by the variety of fruits and trees. Coconut tree got a special attraction from the Portuguese.14 They consider it a tree for daily needs. It is explained in                                                              10 William Logan, Malabar Manual, Vol. I, p.1. 11 William Logan, Malabar Manual, Vol.I, p.1. 12 Ward and Conner, A Descriptive Memoir of Malabar, edited by S. Raimon, Government of Kerala, 1995, p.1. According to a census taken in 1827, the whole of population amounted to 10, 22,215 which gives 160 individuals to the square mile. 13 Tomé Pires, The Suma Oriental, Vol. I, p.66. 14 Coconut is so important in Malabar. People cultivated it in a large amount. It is mentioned in the later gazetteers: “The soil in all these vallies is extremely fertile, but along the coast is sandy which in many parts extends about three miles inland, but is admirably adapted for the coconut, which valuable tree thrives also in the borders of the cultivated vallies a considerable distance into   44 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   the letter written by King Dom Manuel to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on 29th July 1501: “…other letters written on leaves of trees which resemble palms, on which they ordinarily write. And from these trees and their fruits are made the following things: sugar, honey, oil, wine, water, vinegar, charcoal, and cordage for ships, and it serves them for everything which they need. And the aforesaid fruit, in addition to what is thus made of it, is their chief food, particularly at sea.”15 King Manuel when he constructed the Jeronimos Monastery in Belem tried to depict the models of coconut trees and palms in its pillars and roofs16. 2.2 Trade in Malabar Malabar has a long history of international trade relations with western as well eastern countries. From the time of the Emperor Augustus to the arrival of the Portuguese emissaries trade in Malabar was unaltered: pearls, pepper, ginger etc. During the period of Emperor Augustus after the annexation of Egypt to Rome and especially after learning the discovery of Hippalos of the seasonal character of monsoon, trade with Rome developed in an extensive scale.17 The discovery of Hippalos helped the sailors to take advantage of the winds for the navigation in the Arabian Sea. The recent excavations and discoveries of great hoards of Roman coins from the Malabar coasts like Musiris are clear evidence of the early Roman trade with                                                                                                                                                                       the interior.” Ward and Conner, A Descriptive Memoir of Malabar, edited by S. Raimon, Government of Kerala, 1995, p.1 15 William Brooks Greenlee, The Voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1995,p.44. 16 King Manuel was famous for his special art. The pictures of palm trees and leaves were very common during his time and his style of art architecture is known as Manuelian architecture. 17 K.M.Panikkar, History of Kerala 1498-1801, Annamalai University, 1960, p.3.   45 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   Malabar.18 The Romans exported mainly the pearls and pepper and imported coral, led, tin etc.19 It shows that the commodities of Roman trade were the same as the commodities of Portuguese trade with Malabar. The most important group of traders during this period were the Jews, Chettis and Christians. The Jews were a merchant community by nature and they settled in Muziris till the arrival of the Portuguese.20 Since the Portuguese were very anyagonistic to the Jews they lost their higher influence in trade after the arrival of the Portuguese. The Chettis constituted a powerful trade guild who carried on commerce with Arabia and Egypt. The local people who received faith in Christ by the influence and teachings of St.Thomas the Apostle, too engaged in trade.21 After the Romans, the next important traders were the Chinese. Till 15th century China had good trade relation with Malabar especially in the port of Quilon.                                                              18 According to Pliny, the main port for trade in Malabar during the early period was Miziris, the present Cranganore or Kodungallur. In Periplus of the Erithreyan Sea, the anonymous author mentions that ‘Muziris is a city at the height of prosperity frequented as it is by ships from Ariake and by Greek ships from Egypt.’ 19 K.M.Panikkar, History of Kerala 1498-1801, Annamalai University, 1960, p.4. 20 The Jews reached Malabar at the beginning of Christian era and settled here for trade. Portuguese encountered a very ancient merchant population of the Jews. The exodus of the Jews to India and in particular to Malabar was traditionally attributed to the persecutions of Titus and Vespasian and it was followed by the influx of those who came there to seek their future in the medieval period. 21 It is believed that St.Thomas the Apostle of Christ came to India and landed in Muziris in A.D. 49. Pantaenus, the head of the Alexandrian school, who visited India in the second century, recorded in his statements that he found a flourishing community here. A Syrian merchant, Thomas of Kana, visited Malabar in the fifth century and he settled his emigrants here together with the Christian community.   46 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2     47 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   The heavy flood in Periyar in 1341, made a drastic change in the trade history of Malabar. The pressure of flood damaged the mouth of the port in Muziris and later it lost its significance in the commercial history of Malabar. Later Cochin and Calicut became the major ports in Malabar as well as Quilon and Cannanore.22 In Malabar it was the Muslim merchants from Aden and Ormuz and the port of the East African coast like Mogadishu, Zanzibar, Kilwa, Sofla and Malindi, dominated the trade when the Portuguese arrived there. The Muslim Arab Merchants engaged in flourishing trade with the kings of Malabar especially Calicut, Cochin and Cannanore. They purchased the goods like Indian cotton textiles, rice, iron, sugar and spices like pepper, ginger and cinnamon in exchange of goods which they carried from their land or other trade centres such as gold, silver, copper, rosewater, velvet, saffron, vermilion, mercury, horses etc. It was mainly a kind of barter system of trade. So when the Portuguese came to the land of Malabar they had difficulty to find and provide the goods which were in needed by the people of Malabar. That is the reason for issuing new coinage by the Portuguese; for example Afonso de Albuquerque issued a new coin in 1515 immediately after his conquest of Malacca.23 Arab merchants arranged the timings of their voyages determined by the alternation of the southwest and northeast monsoons. Sometimes they had to wait for a long time even up to five months in the ports to get the proper monsoon for their voyage back.                                                              22 K.M. Panikkar, History of Kerala 1498-1801, Annamalai University, 1960, pp.4-6 23 John Villiers, “The Portuguese and the Fading World of Asia”, in Portuguese Voyages to Asia and Japan in the Renaissance Period, published by the Portuguese Embassy in Japan, 1993, p.9.   48 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   2.3 Malabar in the Fifteenth Century Till the fifteenth century, the trade of spices, drugs and other luxurious goods from Malabar and the orient were conducted in Europe mainly centred on Venice. They collected the cargo from Egypt and Levant and distributed them in different parts of Europe. But the commercial phase was changed drastically due to the fall of Constantinople Empire and thus the closing of Persian Gulf routes by the Turks. The restriction of the spice trade to the routes of the Red Sea by the Turks led to the monopoly of spice trade into the hands of the Arabs and Egyptians.24 Hence the control of trade in the second half of the fifteenth century was in the ports of Egypt and Syria and they extracted large revenue due to the collection of customs and taxes. The growth of Venice as a centre of European trade inspired the Portuguese to engage in the field of Oriental trade. They were conscious of the fabolous profit which the Venetians acquired through trade. The king and the people were ready to make any sacrifice to jump into the field of trade and the poverty of Portugal compelled them to secure wealth through trade. Hence the Lusitanians were trying to find out and settle down in the eastern trade pockets. 2.4 The Kingdom of Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Cannanore was a peaceful region of Malabar thirsting for the development of the society and region. The commercial developments of Calicut kindled a desire in the people of Kolathunad to attain economical development by making contacts with international traders.                                                              24 William Brooks Greenlee, The Voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India, Asian educational Services, NewDelhi,1995,p.xi.   49 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   It was an apt time for the Portuguese also because they were treated negatively at the court of Zamorin from whom they expected to make a better trade contract by avoiding the trade supremacy of the Persian merchants. The king whole heartedly welcomed the Portuguese traders into his kingdom expecting a powerful support both economically and militarily on the part of the Portuguese. The term Cannanore has different meaning. According to Hobson Jobson it means the ‘town of Lord Krishna’.25 Varthemma who visited Cannanore wrote that “Canonor is a fine and large city in which the king of Portugal has a very strong castle... This Canonor is a port at which horses which come from Persia disembark...”26 Even before the arrival of the Portuguese the name Cannanore was familiar to the travellers and they pronounced it with familiarity. The term Cannanore in its modern sense appeared first in the original Mandados dated February 1503. Barbosa wrote that many Moors and Heathen were living in Cannanore during his time.27 Cannanore got its historical importance only with the advent of the Portuguese. Primarily it was a centre for pirates who attacked and robbed the vessels passed through their port.28                                                              25 William Crooke (ed.), Hobson-Jobson, A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical Geographical and Discursive, Oriental Publishers, Delhi,1902, p.157. Cannanore in Malayalam is Kannannur or Kannur. The term Kannu signifies eye and Ur signifies town or village. So it is considered as the town of Lord Krishna. 26 Ludovico da Varthema, The Itinerary of Ludovico da Varthema de Bologna, New Delhi, 1997, p.123. 27 The book of Duarte Barbosa, Vol.II, p.81. 28 Geneviéve Bouchon, Regent of the Sea: Cannanore’s Response to Portuguese Expansion, 1507-1528, OUP, Delhi, 1988, p.1.   50 Cannanore before the Arrival of the Portuguese Chapter-2   2.5 The Kingdom of Kolathunadu The kingdom of Kolathunadu existed in between the territories of Calicut and the Vijayanagara empire. In the north it extended up to Kumbala citadel and in the south Korapuzha river separated it from the kingdom of Calicut. William Logan explains the extent of the Kolathiri kingdom: the kingdom of the Kolathiri Raja extended from Kasargod in the north, to Korappuzha in the south.29 According to Keralolpathi, the Musika kingdom comprised of the territories between Perupula (Chandragiri river) and Korappula (Korappuzha).30 The historical and geographical information available from the contemporary source Musikavamsa kavya of Atula also confirms this view.31 The eastern boundary was Kudakumala or the western ghats and in the west the Arabian sea serves as a more open natural boundary. Within the territory included the jagirs of Kottayam and in the north Neeliswaram and Kadathanadu. The first was given to the Kottayam raja while the other two were given to the children of Kolathiri Raja. Kottayam was a rich forest land which produced considerable quantity of pepper for trade. It is traversed by many rivers and streams. The kingdom of Kolathunadu32 extended to the south by the island of Darmadam. The kingdom at its zenith of power extended from Nethravathi river in the north to Korappuzha in the south, with Kutakumala in the east and                                                              29 William Logan, Malabar Manual, Vol. I, pp221-240. 30 A.P. Ibrahimkunju, Medieval Kerala, University of Kerala, Trivandrum, 2007, p.24. 31 Atula, the author of Musikavamsa kavya, is a contemporary of Vallabha II and his successor Srikantha of the eleventh century. 32 Alfred Martineau, The Origins of Mahe of Malabar, translated by Tayil Sadhanandan, Mahe, 2004, p.12.   51