1776: A Spanish ship visits Haidar Ali’s Kodial

A Spanish frigate Rey la Deseada docked in Mangalore on April 7, 1776, and departed on March 25, 1777. Documents in an archive in Madrid preserve information on the background, purpose, and result of the expedition, while details of the voyage itself are contained in the Seville archive. The document reveals a very important reality of diplomacy in those times. In his quest to counter the rapidly growing power of the English East India Company, Haidar Ali sought alliances with other European powers, offering them favourable commercial opportunities in exchange for arms, ammunition, and military and naval expertise. The costly enterprise shows the Spaniards  in Asia, facing a similar threat from England, too were in search of allies and trading partners. This enterprise involved not only a Catholic king, a powerful Muslim sultan, but also a Jewish lobbyist as a go between. The religion of a person with skills, services, and knowledge was not an obstacle in meeting diplomatic objectives in the multiethnic Indian Ocean network. Despite their diverse backgrounds, they all operated in a world where each party negotiated regardless of religion, culturalist assumptions, universalist policies, and hegemonic claims.

The Madrid archive sources reveal that Haidar Ali had sent a Jewish merchant from Hamburg by the name of Isaac Berend Goldschmidt on a diplomatic mission to seek a military alliance with Prussia.  When the mission failed, the envoy proceeded to Madrid with a proposal, among others, that offered Spain the opportunity to open a fortified factory at Mangalore in exchange for supplying munitions, shipbuilding knowledge, and commercial goods. He was told to approach Spanish authorities in the Philippines. It resulted in the arrival of the Spanish ship in Mangalore with hopes of a trade agreement between the two states. Haidar Ali's objective was to offer trade privileges in exchange for war material and the services of military advisers and skilled shipwrights to counter the growing threat from the British East India Company, the Nizam, and Maratha powers.

The Selville archive contains the 138-page diary (Relación de Mangalore) of Miguel Antonio Gomez, the second in command and eventual captain of the ship. The diary touches on diverse topics including Haidar Ali’s navy, the first British-Mysore War, the Muscat trade, Haidar’s naval chiefs, his Jewish concubines, and the Persian mercenaries in his army who once clashed with sailors from Muscat. Gomez gives details of Mangalore's population, commerce, religious festivals, social classes, and government officials. His diary also includes four sketches and a map of Mangalore.

The Spanish frigate sailed from the Philippines on January 25, 1776, and reached Mangalore after two encounters with the British navy. Here, Gomez was shocked by the uncouth manners and greed of the stevedores who unloaded the cargo. He writes: "They swarmed all over the ship and tried to get everything they could lay hands on, including cannons on deck." The ship was confronted by the British navy again as it entered the inner harbour.

Gomez describes the fury of the monsoon, when non-stop torrential rain and howling wind uprooted trees on land, and wrecked several big ships at sea with heavy loss of human life. The roofs of the first two houses which served as infirmaries for sick Spaniards were blown off.

On May 8, the ship’s captain, Ramon Yssasi, left for Patan (Srirangapatna) along with Haidar's envoy. Gomez, left behind in command, tried to win over officials in Mangalore through gifts, favours, and feasts. Yacabai Khan, the killedar, became quite friendly. Haidar Ali's naval admiral was Raghunatha Angria, son of the Maratha chief who terrorized the Malabar coast with his fleet based in Gheria. Haidar had employed him after his father was captured by the British. On November 27, however, Angri was imprisoned as the reinstatement of his father by the British created doubts in Haidar’s mind about his continuing loyalty. He was succeeded by Baburao, a Brahman, whom Gomez describes as being very good and generous.

Being more interested in commercial prospects, Gomez gives little detail of Haidar's navy which rarely assembled in one place. The largest assembly of ships, about 40 ships, was sighted on January 27, 1777. On December 21, 1776, 11 gallivats and two grabs sailed for Kundapur in order to convoy to Mangalore ships recently constructed there. A flotilla of three packets and five gallivats plied frequently between Mahe and Mangalore, conveying arms and ammunition to Mangalore. Its commander, Hebrain Bap Donga, went to Calicut on March 9, 1777 to bring an English ship bought by Haidar for Rs 160,000. A ship belonging to Ali Rajah of Cannanore, an ally of Haidar, regularly laded rice for Bombay and returned with riggings for Haidar's fleet. Two bombaras and a grab from Bombay were sometimes seen unloading cordage and lumber for ship construction. Haidar’s frigates sailed regularly to Muscat with cargoes of rice and returned with horses, camels, dried fish, salt, sulphur, coffee, nuts, almonds, raisins, dates, and drugs.

Rice was Mangalore’s major export. Pepper, areca, and cardamon were under government monopoly and traded for guns, saltpetre, and European hardware. Products for local consumption included cotton textiles from Chandrapatent (Chandrayapatna?) and Bagalur, and kitchen utensils manufactured in Nagar (Bednur).

The most number of merchant ships arrived from Muscat.  Six, seven, and eight bombaras arrived in October, November, and December 1776 respectively. Sixteen bombaras and a huge frigate belonging to the Imam arrived in January 1777. Their cargoes included dates, lemons, garlic, shark fins, sulphur, dried fish, camels, more than 100 horses, three Jewish women for Haidar's harem, and 300 Persian recruits for his army. They returned with large quantities of rice, some areca nuts, sandalwood, sugar, and pepper.

British ships regularly called at Mangalore where the English factor was a man called Stewart. While most were small merchant vessels flying the British flag and sailing alone or in groups of as many as 30, large warships occasionally brought fresh European troops. Gomez does not mention any resident French factor. Only 10 French ships arrived during a period of almost one year. One was a frigate that arrived in October, allegedly sent by Governor Picot of Mahe with a secret message about an English plot to seize the Spanish ship. Dutch and Portuguese ships sailed past Mangalore without entering its harbour.

Gomez writes Mangalore was situated at the confluence of the Mangalore and Kodial rivers (Netravati and Gurpur). Smaller vessels sailed inland on the Netravati as far as Bantwal, and on the latter river as far as the town of Gurpur. The downtown coastal area was called Codeal (Kodial). The outlying residential areas were located on hilly terrain and separated from one another by vast rice fields. A gunpowder factory employed about 160 women who pounded the ingredients with such impressive timing that their pestles produced only one sound. The powder, however, was of poor quality.

Gomez places the inhabitants into four categories:

1) Moplahs (15,000) who lived in Kodial and monopolized its trade and bureaucracy

2) Gentiles including Brahmans (nobles), Parsis (military, arts), "Banias" (commoners- labourers, peddlers, boatmen), Sudras (20,000) who performed the most menial jobs. Gomez considered them as very good people.

3) Catholics (4,000): "Portugese, other Europeans, creoles, mestizos, Canarians, old Christians and converts" concentrated in the parishes of Rosario and Milagres. They worked mostly in the service trades, such as tailoring, shoemaking, etc. Many mestizos served as soldiers garrisoned in the town.

4) other nationalities: Europeans, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Mongols

Gomez gives lengthy descriptions of the festivals related to Ganesh, Gowri, Bakrid, and Muharram. Also celebrated were occasions like the arrival of the new governor, on which occasion Gomez gave a sumptuous party in his honour, and Haidar’s victory over the Marathas near Bankapur in January 1777.

As the months dragged on, the Spaniards found their visit to Mangalore turn into a trying experience that varied from boredom, culture shock, and sickness, to destitution. The visit to Srirangapatna was even more traumatic, and led to the death of Commander Yssasi. The to and fro journey was exhausting, and the expenses, compounded by delays and unplanned for demands, skyrocketed.[1] After spending a great deal of money on accommodation and gifts, the Spanish delegation was finally received by Haidar. It eventually returned to Mangalore on November 10 to the relief of the starving Spaniards.

Gomez was able to augment income by selling the ship’s cargo. With this, the crew fed well once again, and Gomez resumed befriending local officials and other Europeans with gifts and feasts. The governor-general of Bednur, on Haidar's order, gifted an elephant to the Spanish governor-general in Manila. Trade negotiations were conducted before the Spaniards prepared for the return journey. The killedar, Baburao, while wishing them well, told Gomez, that it was Haidar's wish that "they come back with a huge amount of weapons, especially cannons, and accompanied with skilled shipwrights."

The threat of being intercepted by the British navy loomed large as the ship sailed on March 25, 1777. The return journey to the Philippines was uneventful.

Despite the many errors in Gomez’s account of local history and culture, his diary contains invaluable firsthand observations of Mangalore during a critical period in its history when Haidar converted it into frontline naval station, ship building yard, and commercial port in his overall strategic plan to counter the growing threat from the British East India Company. Gomez’s map contains not only a detailed mariner's guide to the seaport, but it is also a map of the town and its outlaying areas. Gomez undertook this "very difficult task" of mapping the town's "extensive irregular terrain and sinuous streets," with great discretion to avoid suspicion as he roamed the streets with measuring equipment.  He was able to complete it on the return voyage so as not to arouse any suspicions of spying.

References

Escoto, Salvador P. A Spaniard’s Diary of Mangalore, 1776-1777 in Asian Studies

Tremml-Werner B (2023). The Elephant in the Archive: Knowledge Construction and Late Eighteenth-Century Global Diplomacy. Itinerario 47, 185–202. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115323000165. (Elephants had been symbols of global power for centuries.)

[1] In Srirangapatna, Ysassi  was kept waiting in costly lodgings and told “to be able to talk to the prince, it is necessary to bring a gift to him and to the people surrounding him. Even all the silver of Potosi will appear little to him.”