Anchuthengu Fort

Anchuthengu fort

The British East India Company (EIC) established Anchuthengu Fort or Anjengo Fort in 1695 after the Queen of Attingal gave it permission to do so. The fort served as the first signalling station for ships arriving from England.[1]

The fort was the East India Company's first permanent post on the Malabar Coast. The EIC received permission in 1690 to build the fort, which they began in 1695 and completed in 1699. In June 1696 pirates destroyed the Bengal Pilot Service's sloop Gingali at Anjengo.[2]

Two years later the locals attacked the EIC factory, but the incident was of little importance.

Of more importance was the rebellion at Attingal on 15 April 1721. Local notables, who objected to the EIC's policy of providing the Queen with gifts but ignoring them, attacked a 140-man EIC expedition bringing gifts to the Queen from Anjengo fort, some 10 miles away. After massacring the expedition the locals attacked the fort, which withstood their efforts. The EIC sent a relief force from Thalassery that ended the siege.

The fort played an important role in the Anglo-Mysore War. During the Anglo-Mysore wars the EIC stored ammunition at the fort.

In 1748 the Bombay Dockyard built the snow Luconia for the Anjengo Pilot Service. In 1802 Anjengo, a ship of 260 tons (bm) was built there, the first vessel of that large a size.[3]


Citations and references

Citations
  1. ↑ Sathyendran, Nita (26 January 2012). "Hidden 100: In the land of five coconut palms". The Hindu. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  2. ↑ Hackman (2001).
  3. ↑ Phipps (1840), p.174.
References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anchuthengu.

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, January 29, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.