Portuguese Colonial History of Bengal Quiz

Answer: Chittagong

'Chittagong' was called 'Xatigan' by the Portuguese. The Portuguese called the port city as Porto Grande de Bengala, which meant 'The Grand Harbor of Bengal'. Chittagong was the largest seaport in the Sultanate of Bengal. In 1528, the Sultan of Bengal permitted the Portuguese to establish factories and customs houses in Chittagong.

A fort and naval base was established in the present day location of Firingi Bandar (literally 'Foreign Port') in Chittagong. It grew into an important Eurasian port on the Bay of Bengal for the Portuguese during the Age of Discovery.

Answer: Ceylon

The first commercial settlements in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was established by Lourenço de Almeida, son of Francisco de Almeida, first viceroy of Portuguese India. On 9 May 1512, a fleet of four ships under João da Silveira from the Estado da India (literally' State of India' in Portuguese) arrived in Chittagong from Goa.

Some Portuguese settled in Pipli in the present-day state of Orissa in 1514. From the settlement in Orissa, the Portuguese also visited the modern-day state of West Bengal in India. The Portuguese established a system where ships in the area needed to purchase naval licenses from them.

Answer: Gauda

The city of Gauda is located on the banks of the Meghna river, a part of the Ganges delta, near the border of India and Bangladesh, in the northern part of the state of West Bengal. The Portuguese had established other settlements from Chittagong, including Dhaka in Bangladesh, and Satgaon and Bandel in the district of Hooghly in West Bengal.

In 1565, the city was conquered by the Mughal emperor Humayun, and then again sacked by Sher Shah Suri. This made internal trade within the Indian subcontinent less lucrative, and the Portuguese started focussing on exports more.

Answer: Sandwip

Sandwip is part of the Chittagong district, and is located east of Noakhali district of Bangladesh. In 1590, the Portuguese conquered the island under Antonio de Sousa Godinho. In 1602, it was conquered by the Portuguese from Kedar Rai of Sripur. Portuguese pirates named Gonçalves and Carvalho ruled the island of Sandwip in the 17th century. Roughly 300 salt loaded ships sailed for Liverpool from Sandwip every year.

In 1616, the Mughal officer Delwar Khan drove away the Portuguese pirates and ruled the island for around 50 years. Delwar Khan was arrested by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1665.

Answer: Rakhine State

The Kingdom of Mrauk U was based around the city of Mrauk U in the region of Arakan, forming present-day Rakhine province, from 1429 to 1785. Initially a vassal state of the Bengal Sultanate, the Kingdom of Mrauk U became independent in 1531. In 1597, allied with the Portuguese, the Kingdom joined the Burmese First Toungoo Empire in the campaign against the territory of Bago (Hanthawaddy).

The Portuguese were appointed as governors of Thanlyin, a port city near Yangon. From 1531 to 1629, Arakanese raiders and Portuguese pirates operated from the coast of the Kingdom of Mrauk U, heavily involved in the slave trade.

Answer: Mango

The Alphonso cultivar of mangoes was named after Afonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese general who helped establish the Portuguese colonies in the Orient, notably playing a role in the Portuguese conquest of Goa in 1510. The Portuguese introduced grafting on mango trees to produce new cultivars to India.

The mango is the national fruit of India, and other cultivars like Himsagar and Langra are very common in the region of Bengal today. The flowering plant Delonix regia, as well as chillies, guavas, pineapples and papayas were introduced by the Portuguese in Bengal.

Answer: Shahjahan

There were multiple reasons for the growing enmity between the Mughals under Shahjahan and the Portuguese settlements. Most importantly, the Portuguese were involved in a slave trade, and sold slaves in the ports of Tamluk in modern-day West Bengal, Balasore in modern-day Odisha and other Deccan ports.

In 1629, the Portuguese raided Dhaka and took many prisoners including the wife of a Mughal military officer, angering the Mughals. Earlier, the Portuguese settlement in Bandel also failed to send an embassy to the court of Shahjahan early into the ascension of Shahjahan onto the Mughal throne in 1628.

The siege of Hooghly started in June 1632 and 400 Portuguese were taken captive to the Mughal court at Agra after the sacking of Hooghly. The Portuguese however retook the settlement in 1633 after Shahjahan issued a new farman granting the Christian missionaries land.

Answer: Dutch

This naval war led to the loss of Chittagong for the Portuguese. The Mughals were led by the Mughal viceroy Shaista Khan, a maternal uncle of Aurangzeb, and the main aim was to drive out Arakanese slave raiders from Bengal. The Mughals attacked with a 6500-man army supported by 288 ships of war.

The Mughals asked for naval support from the Dutch settlements based in Batavia, modern day Jakarta in Indonesia, in the Dutch East Indies. However the battle had already mostly ended by the time the Dutch ships had arrived.

This naval war was the defacto end of the Portuguese settlement in Bengal.

Answer: Bengali grammar

Father Manoel da Assamção published 'Vocabulario em idioma Bengalla e Portuguez' ('Vocabulary and Idioms in Bengali and Portuguese'), which included a section 'Breve compendi da gramatica Bengala' ('brief understanding of Bengali grammar'). It did not use the modern Bengali script, or any Indic script for that matter, but was entirely written in Roman script, with Portuguese spelling conventions. Most Bengali literature at that time was in poetry, so this text was known for being in prose style. Father Manoel reportedly arrived from Portugal to Bengal in 1695, and compiled the 592 pages long book.

The first 40 pages consist of rules of Bengali grammar, while the remaining is a dictionary of Bengali as spoken in that time.

Answer: Foreigner

The word 'firingi' or 'firangi' is used to denote foreigners in many other Indian languages, such as Hindi. The word mostly refers to white foreigners, and due to British colonization, later also became synonymous with 'British'. The word actually comes from Persian 'farangi', itself from Arabic ''ifrangjiyy', with the ultimate source being the Old French 'franc', which meant 'free' or 'French'.

The Portuguese established Christianity (Roman Catholic Church) in Bengal in the 16th century, and Chittagong was the seat of the first Vicar Apostolic of Bengal.

In 1498, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama visited Bengal as well. Jesuit missionaries also established churches in Bandel and Dhaka.