Cochin

Cochin
Presidency: Madras
Coordinates:	9.9509843°N 76.251649°E
Altitude:
Present Day Details
Place Name:	Kochi
State/Province:	Kerala
Country:	India
Transport links

FibiWiki Maps
See our interactive map of this location showing places of interest during the British period
Cochin

Cochin (now called Kochi) is a city in the modern state of Kerala. In the British era it was part of the Madras (Presidency). Kochi City comprises three municipalities in the Cochin area: Fort Cochin, Mattancherry and Ernakulam. Ernakulam is the largest urban area.

Spelling variants

Cochin, Kochi, Kuchi

History

Cochin became the site of the earliest European settlement in India when the Portuguese landed in 1500. The Kingdom of Cochin (see Cochin State) agreed friendly relations with the Portuguese, who cemented their involvement in the city by winning a war with the rulers of Calicut. Although the Raja of Cochin was nominally in charge, the Portuguese effectively ruled the city from 1503-1663. The Dutch then conquered Cochin and ruled the territory until 1773 when Hyder Ali took possession. In 1814, the British acquired Cochin under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty in exchange for the island of Banca (in Indonesia).

Fort Cochin area

Built around the old Portuguese Fort Emmanuel, this area is the oldest part of Cochin, with Portuguese, Dutch and British buildings.

• "New life for a monument" by Priyadershini S. The Hindu Kochi, March 3, 2013. The historic Bastion Bungalow in Fort Kochi will become a Heritage Museum.
• Slideshow: A peek into India's enduring maritime history Photographs by K.K. Mustafah. The Southern Naval Command’s Maritime Museum, located at Fort Kochi, hosts a variety of exhibits tracing the origin and evolution of the Indian Navy. The Hindu May 21, 2013

Churches

• St Francis Church, Cochin, including details of memorial inscriptions.

External links

• Wikipedia:

• Kochi
• History of Kochi
• Kingdom of Cochin
• Ernakulam

• British capture of Fort Cochin Google Books
  
• The Dutch Cemetery Fort Cochin thefortcochin.blogspot
• Dutch Cemetery [Fort Kochi] by keralatourism YouTube.
• Dutch cemetery- Kochi City Time Aug 09, 2011 part 2 YouTube. Not in English.
• Cochin is briefly mentioned in a background description of the social situation of Indian women in the settlements on the Malabar and Coromandel Coasts who married Europeans (in the years to c 1800-1820), where it is suggested this may have included Hindu women.
• "Lost rulers of the Malabar Coast" by N P Chekkutty 10 December 2012 himalmag.com. "Tales of love and loss from the heyday of Portuguese rule in Kochi".
• "Step into history": Jew Street, Mattancherry, Cochin by Priyadershini S. December 20, 2012 The Hindu, now archived. Also see the page Jewish
  • Mattancherry’s 463-year-old synagogue now a cattle shed by Nidhi Surendranath September 14, 2013 The Hindu Kochi
• "Hell on Ascension" by N P Chekkutty 19 December 2014 Himal South Asian. Mentions the Dutch fort in Cochin which was involved in the trade of pepper and other spices c 1718, and the building of Lazarus House for lepers in 1728.
• Archives Department Government of Kerala Records of the Cochin State (AD 1567-1949) are available at the Regional Archives, Ernakulam
  • "Gold-Leaf Flattery, Calcuttan Dust, and a Brand New Flagpole: Five Little-Known VOC Collections in Asia on India and Ceylon" by Lennart Bes Itinerario Volume 36 Issue 01 April 2012, pp 91 - 106. The section "Dutch Records, Regional Archives Ernakulam (Kochi)" commences page 91.
• "They landed here…" by Arun Bhatia The Hindu March 1, 2013. Mentions the small port called Cranganore by the British, 35km from Cochin
• Cranganore and Early views of Cranganore from Professor Frances Pritchett’s website.
• The Gothic landmark by Esther Elias December 23, 2013 The Hindu Kochi. St. Albert’s Higher Secondary School was begun by the Carmelite Missionaries. The two Gothic red buildings were built between 1892 and 1897.
• Fort Cochin in Kerala 1750-1830 : the social condition of a Dutch community in an Indian milieu by Anjana Singh. June 2007 Doctoral thesis, Leiden University [Digital] Repository. Subsequently published in the series TANAP monographs on the history of the Asian-European interaction ; v. 13.
  • Article about the thesis/book by Markus Vink e-JPH, Vol. 9, number 1, Summer 2011 brown.edu.
  • "The Dutch who stayed back" by K. Pradeep March 1, 2010 The Hindu, archived.

Historical books online

• British and Native Cochin by Charles Allen Lawson 2nd edition 1861 Google Books. First published 1860
• The land of the Permauls: or Cochin, its past and its present by Francis Day 1863 Google Books
  
• "Kingdom of Cochin" page 156 A description of the coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the beginning of the sixteenth century by Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese. Translated from an early Spanish manuscript in the Barcelona library with notes and a preface by Henry E. J. Stanley. 1866 Archive.org
• Reminiscences of Life and Sport in Southern India by Colonel Heber Drury, late Madras Staff Corps and Assistant Resident in Travancore and Cochin 1890 Archive.org
• World War II Operational Documents: Port summary of Cochin, India, 1945 from Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library.