Mammali Marakkar – Regent of the seas (Regedor do Mar)
Posted by Labels: Ali Raja, Malabar - Portuguese, mamali Marakkar, Mammali, Regent of the Seas
And his connections
to the Maldives
The balanced trade networks between the Red Sea and the Far
East had Malabar and Gujerat as the fulcrums with the Arabs controlling the
west and the Chinese controlling the east. The delicate balance with traders
spread over many ports in the Indian Ocean and smaller seas, working on a large
amount of trust, ferried goods and spices, based not only on the barter system but
also various currencies of the trade and gold. As the ships of the desert, the
camel trains moved men and material over the northern Indian deserts and
steppes, while the winds of trade or the monsoons moved small ships and junks
between these distant ports.
Into this somewhat settled calm rushed in an unruly giant to
disturb it, the Portuguese state sponsored colonial raider, who not only wanted
the articles of trade, but also to control the sources and establish a complete
monopoly of it all in the name of religion and their king. The reverberations
of those attacks on the many eastern citadels have still not settled down to
this day, for in their wake came other greedy players and nations in the name
of development and renaissance, only to rip away the riches and leave entire
regions in cesspools and poverty, after they left.
A group of traders working at the southern edges, based at
Kayalpatanam, trading mainly in rice, moving the paddy from the rice growing
regions (Orissa, Andhra as well and Canara) to the new port towns were the Marakkars.
As demand in Malabar increased with improved profits from trade, some of them
moved to Cochin and Calicut, while a few went as far as Cannanore, thus
representing the three main kingdoms of medieval Kerala. I had previously
covered these traders in an article on the Marakkars.
Starting with supply of rice, spices, pearls and goods to
the rich Portuguese buyers, they came to the fore in Cochin markets. This
continued until Portuguese Casados (Children from Muslim and Hindu consorts) took
up that trade and became competitors to the Marakkar retailers. The Marakkars
got incensed, for the casados had the backing of the powerful Portuguese who gave
them many special concessions such as reduced customs duties and preferences to
fill their ships first. This was the situation in the early part of the 16th
century after Vasco’s second trip to Malabar and Albuquerque had taken over.
The Marakkars of Cochin had enough, they decided to fight the Portuguese and in
this found an able ally, the powerful Zamorin of Calicut. They moved from
Cochin to Kotakkal, and with this started the reign of the Kunjali’s, otherwise
known as the dreaded Calicut corsairs or the admirals of the Zamorin. Nevertheless,
there was one interesting anomaly. There was a special type of Cochin Casado
(Portuguese married to girls from Muslim families) and these Casados heavily
influenced by their wives and in laws, got into cahoots with the rebelling Marakkars,
helping them with capital diverted from the Portuguese and even having ships
built for them by proxy. To top it all this was screwing up the Arab traders who
were planning to move onto safer zones such as Surat, Kanara ports and so on.
As the Portuguese ventured eastward, after seeing that many other
spices came from the far eastern countries, and took over the Malacca market
where again the Marakkars had family interests controlling spice supplies, those
traders had no choice but to accept the situation or go back home as their
clout had been lessened. The Portuguese later tightened their grip on the
Arabian seas and the Indian Ocean with the cartaz system enforced by their armadas
and as expected the Malabar seamen got very few for their ships. The exasperated
Kotakkal Marakkars took to policing the sea lanes and raiding their cargo
ships, to break the Portuguese grip and succeeded to some extent, while the
Portuguese settled down and festered in Goa.
But a few of the local traders had settled in Cannanore
where another power play was going on, between the declining powers of the
Kolathunaad– the Kolathiris and the new Muslim players headed by a rich and
powerful Marakkar. That was a very interesting person named Mammali Marakkar in
Portuguese records. And interestingly
his own fate and livelihood was controlled by his hold, connections and
relations with the Maldives islands, some 350 miles away, islands which were
small specks in the seas. How this large island archipelago influenced Malabar
trade is an interesting subject which has been analyzed by Genevieve Bouchon at
length. Her study casts light on so many areas which were and are still dark
when it comes to the periods during which Malabar was under many kinds of
Portuguese pressure and subjugation. In facts she implies that so little has
been uncovered as most historians have limited themselves to inputs from the
biased chronicles of a few Portuguese scribes, instead of studying the many
reams and volumes of paperwork still available in Portugal. The correspondence
available in Lisbon even includes correspondence from Malabar rulers and traders.
In this article we will concentrate on this Mohammed Ali Marakkar
or Mammali Marakkar a.k.a Mammali, and how he circumvented the trade embargo by
befriending the rulers of the remote islands of Maldives, today known as the
Maldives. His 30 year domination of Cannanore trade culminated in the
strengthening or for that matter even the establishment of the Arakkal dynasty.
Even this discussion, the exact connections between the Mammali and the Ali
Raja’s of Cannanore will remain unclear. Did a successor of Mammali Marakkar
end up as the Arakkal Ali Raja? What connections did the Mammali have with the
Arakkal Swaroopam? Let’s try and find out.
The earliest mention of Mammali or Mammali is in 1494, from
the chronicles of Maldives and is connected to palace intrigues connected to
the reinstating of Sultan Kulu Mohammed to the throne with the help of the Adi Raja.
Let us therefore assume that this marakakr settled down at Kolathunad much
earlier and were in cahoots with the Maldives people even before the Portuguese
sailed to India, trading in partnership with the Kolathiri king.
There is a reason for this assumption, for we know that
Chinese and Arab ships did veer off to the Maldives archipelago and spend year
long periods living there until the following monsoon as their ships got
repaired and stocked. Maldives was certainly a good depot for them, they could
get ‘muta’ wives easily as recorded by travelers and life there was relatively
calm. Supplies were available, thanks to stockpiles controlled by Malabar traders.
Fresh water, dried fish (for long voyages) and coir were abundantly available
there. Another Maldives trading commodity was cowries (kavidi - Cypraea moneta was
used as money by Arabs and for many other purposes) or small ornate shells. Even
the Genoese voyager Girolamo de Santo Stefano had reached Maldives in 1497,
starting out through the established Red sea route. It also appears that
Gujarati traders sometimes dropped off their goods in Maldives for the Chinese
to pick up and move to Malacca and mainland China, and this was possibly due to
the difficulty of the sea junks to sail into shallow Malabar ports. However Maldives
desperately needed one commodity and that was the rice picked up from Kanara growers
and supplied by the Marakkars, presumably Mammali from Cannanore
It is assumed that the Mammali extracted a heavy toll for
his support for Sultan Kulu Mohammed at Maldives and his reinstatement on the
throne in 1494. The agreement covered the Mammali’s sole right to trade in
Maldives coir and dried bonito (chooda) fish in Malabar (It looks like all the
coir roping came from the islands, in those times). Note here that the Lacadives
islands lying further north had longstanding relations with the Kolathiri rulers
as early as the 11th century.
As the Portuguese came and built forts at Cochin and
Cannaore, the main Muslim partner mentioned at Cannanore is the Mammali, who
armed with permits and together with Pokker, supplied rice to the Franks, and
had a large credit facility with them (the Portuguese brought in gold payment
on the return voyage to India).
The Cabral voyage followed and the Portuguese established a
settlement in Cannanore after all kinds of problems at Calicut. Vasco followed
and it can be assumed that Mammali represented the Muslim traders in meetings
with the Gama. In the years which followed, the Portuguese who were gaining a
position of power, started to trouble the Marakkar merchants of Cannanore and
we see reports in 1506 of a swindle by the Gama’s, both father and son, who
pressurized Mammali and Cherian Marakkar to supply 25 bahars of cinnamon but
paid nothing for it. As the animosity between them and the franks increased,
down south the Marakkar boats were making life difficult for the Portuguese
ships patrolling the waters and embargoing trade. The Muslim traders of
Cannanore were getting disillusioned as the price fixed for spices and being
paid by the Franks, was too low. They were further alarmed when the Kolathiri
allowed the Portuguese to build a military fortress housing 250 soldiers at
Cannanore. This was particularly vexing as the Marakkars had the responsibility
of collecting rice from Mangalore and other Canara ports and supplying them to
Calicut. This would surely be affected by the new Portuguese controls.
The Portuguese promised that they would not curtail rice
shipments and that they were only interested in a blockage of Calicut’s Red sea
trade. But the blockage would also create severe problems for the Marakakrs
with the Vijayanagar rulers (lucrative horse trade) as well the Marakkar
standing with the Islamic institutions in Mecca and other capitals. The Kollam
carnage and the seizure of a ship full of horses in 1506 followed and the
Muslims in Cannanore rose against the Portuguese. The matter was finally
settled with the intervention of the Vijayanagar Narasimha Raya and the local
naduvazhi. The Portuguese also tried to calm matters by offering protection for
the Cannanore ships traveling to Gujarat for textiles. All this while, the persona
of Mammali is largely behind the scenes, but it was in 1507 that a body floated
to the shore, and it turned out to be that of the nephew of Mammali Marakkar.
Apparently a Cannanore ship possessing all the right paperwork and cartaz’s,
was waylaid by Portuguese ships who thinking it a Calicut ship, scuttled it.
Mammali finally came to light, leading the protests and a
procession of furious moplahs to first Loureco de Brito and later to the
Kolathiri, showing himself as their leader in Cannanore. He also contacted his
brethren at Kotakkal and the Zamorin responded quickly sending 24 guns and
18,000 nairs for their support. The Kolathiri abstained as he was in a mourning
period. The Portuguese fort was sieged and a long battle ensued spanning 5
months and a monsoon, which by itself is an amazing story for its intrigues and
complexity. Military help was solicited by the Portuguese from Cochin and
finally peace was negotiated with Mammali.
As the Portuguese eyed Goa, a new player arrived, which was Alfonso
Albuquerque, who spent a short period in Cannanore before moving to Goa. MamMaldives
was present in all important discussions and the Portuguese realized that if
they needed coir for moorings and to repair and re-caulk their ships, they had
to depend on Mammaly and his supply of coir from the Maldives. But the
situation was to change as the Portuguese after conquering Goa started to
harass all shipping in the western seas. On top of it, Kulu Mohammed (in fact
the previous Kulu Mohammed died in 1509 and was succeeded by his nephew Hasan) was
unseated in 1512 and apparently fled to Cannanore. The Mammaly’s hand was
suspected in this intrigue and he then obtained fresh agreements including a
couple of islands and a large annual tribute, from the new king. There was good
reason for all this, as Mammali had other ideas, to create a base far from the
Portuguese, in the Maldives where by this time he had placed his own people and
created a base to operate from. A new spice route was being created to the Red
sea.
Albuquerque of course tried to force Mammali to renounce his
control over Maldives to the Portuguese saying that the islands was under the
sovereignty of Portugal. Mammali at that juncture was in a troubled situation with
Kulu Mohammed, who himself was facing fresh rebellion in Maldives. So he
negotiated with Goa by offering 100 bahars each of coarse and fine coir fiber coupled
with backing from Kolathiri and the local Portuguese factor Rabelo. Albuqurque
who had his mind busy with other issues did not press it further, and this was
to prove to be a turning point for what was to follow.
The Guajarati’s also reacted violently against the
Portuguese when they heard that the Maldives were being eyed by the Portuguese.
In fact they had lost heavily after the Franks took over Malacca. Their trade
in cowries and other goods were threatened. In addition, they together with
Bengali Nakhudas were the first to use Maldives as a transshipment point since
they could not approach Pulicat and Calicut due to Portuguese pressures and
threats. Soon the Maldives had taken over the importance which these two ports
had in the early 15th century and you can now imagine the power the Mammali
of Cannanore had as the controller of an alternative safer route to various destinations
including the Red sea, making him the Moplah Champion. The regent of the Seas or
the Adi raja had announced his arrival.
As Biju states in his fine thesis - The Maldive atolls, lying beyond the control of the Portuguese, were
transformed into the hub of an alternative trade route for the Asian traders connecting
the western and eastern parts of the Indian Ocean. This increasing importance
of the Maldives and the political control exercised over the Maldives by such
Cannanore Mappila merchant magnates as Mammali Marakkar continued more or less
till the end of the sixteenth century. However, it seems that this influence
gradually faded away during the seventeenth century, when the local ruling
lineage re-ascertained its power over the islands.
After Albuquerque’s departure to Malacca, the Portuguese
were more crusading in their activities and they reduced their major procurement
from the Marakkars. The Marakkars retaliated by supplying adulterated pepper to
the Portuguese and diverting the best to the Red sea and Venetian ports, via Maldives.
Further issues cropped up both at Maldives and with the
Portuguese and we see Mammali trying to bring about a coup at Maldives and
installing his brother Icha poker on the throne. But things were heating up in
Maldives as well. To counteract the influence of Mammali, a Maldive King Baba
Abdullah now sought the alliance of the Portuguese, and undertook to render
them a tribute on condition that they would compel Mammali to get lost. This
was accepted by the Portuguese while Sultan Kulu Mohammed returned to the
islands.
Albuquerque who had enough of the issues with Mammali complained
to King Manuel and the Portuguese decided to trim his wings. The Portuguese
tried to get the Kolathiri to help as Albuquerque had other pressing issues at
Goa, but the Mammali outwitted them by tying up with the Sarvadhikari of the
Kolathiri. The Portuguese sent a ship to Maldives to take care of the situation
but they were all massacred by the Mammali’s men. At Malabar, Portuguese
cartaz’s were forged and sold to Calicut traders and Mammali also banned banning
all Moplah dealings with the Portuguese. Albuquerque deciding that the Cannanore
people were ‘hostile and contemptuous’, had no alternative but to arrange a
meeting with Mammali, the Kolathiri sarvadhikari, Koya Pakki, Fukr Husseyin and
Icha poker. Mammali was given an ultimatum to leave the Maldives within 5
months and Albuquerque ordered that a fort be built by the Portuguese at Maldives
to enforce his orders. He then tried to get the Kolathiri to dismiss his
minister and ordered his governor not to grant any more cartaz’s to the
Kolathiri’s ships. TO make things worse, he issued impromptu, 49 cartaz’s to
Calicut traders.
The Kolathiri had no choice but to remove his old nambiadiri
and put in a new person who the Portuguese found malleable. Mammali who was
boxed in, agreed to let go all the income he got from Maldives to the
Portuguese and gifted Albuquerque with a lot of expensive gifts of diamonds,
emeralds and so on. Icha poker was removed from the Maldives throne. But the
Portuguese had decided that Cannanore could no longer be trusted for they knew Mammali
would get back to his old ways soon. In addition the Portuguese wanted to send
ships from Malacca directly to Lisbon without stopping at Goa or Cochin. He
wanted the route clear of hostility which presently was coming from Maldives.
During this period, the Calicut ports were largely deserted.
The Kotakkal Marakkars had been depending more on piracy to keep themselves
busy and fed. Albuquerque cleverly decided to sue for peace with the Zamorin instead
with all the troubles at Cannanore. A new game had started and the Cannanore
markets now started looking deserted as the Portuguese swung towards Calicut.
With Goa and Calicut keeping the Portuguese busy, Maladies was forgotten for a
moment and Mammali swung back into action. He established control over the
islands again, working behind the scenes. Soon Albuquerque died, on his return
from Ormuz.
The Portuguese lost interest in Mammali for a while and the
Kolathiri was preoccupied with other wars. His powers were now unchecked and
was formally known as the regent of the seas, the Adi raja. He reclaimed the
tribute from Maldives, and decided to retake Malacca. The house of Arakkal had started
to take birth. The commodities of South Asia began to move to Red Sea through
the straits of Karaidu and Haddumati (opposite the ports of Sumatra) via Maldives,
a route which now bypassed the control of the Portuguese. This strong Cannanore-Maldives
linkup now made the movement of commodities from the Indian Ocean world to the
Mediterranean markets, possible.
By 1517 however the winds change direction again and the new
Adi raja was threatened by the sanction given to Lopo Soares who had returned
after Red sea exploits. Lops sailed to Maldives, met Kulu Mohammed and demanded
that a fort be set up there, Kulu Mohammed demurred, allowing only a feitoria.
Somehow Mammali working with the governor got the new Soares agreement
cancelled and diverted part of his profits to the Portuguese. A status quo was
reached for the time, and Mammali was made the official tax collector of Maldives
(in cahoots with Lopo Soares). Until 1519 coir was faithfully delivered by Mammali
to Goa. Calicut had already been quietened, now Vijayanagar was forgotten and the
new Maldives cinnamon and gem trade route gained ascendance. Mammali placed a
number of his men in the islands and made the islanders go against the
Portuguese. The Portuguese also fared very badly at their new ports in Ceylon
and long distance sailing was also problematic due the horrible state their
ships were in. Goa was going bankrupt and the Portuguese colony was in the
decline. In fact the Frank captain in Ceylon had to take loans from all people,
the Mammali Marakkar.
At Maldives, Baba Abdullah and Kulu Mohammed continued their
quarrels and complaints about Mammali to the Portuguese. The Sultana Buraki
rani another Maldives royal player went against Mammali, who quietly moved the
trade ports and godowns to the southern islands of Addu and Huvaddu. The
Gujarati trader’s joined the Mammali’s men in harassing the Portuguese in Maldives.
In 1520 the fort at Cannanore had also been destroyed, and by 1521 the Ceylon
fort was damaged. The Portuguese chieftains who were tasked to bring control
fought with each other and by 1521 Mammali has driven the franks out of the
island. By 1523, the Portuguese faced revolt in Gujarat, Canton, Ormuz and
Vijayanagar as the Zamorin and the Cochin king fought each other. Was it all
planned, was it the end game of the Mammali? Food for thought.
In 1522, the name Mammali stops appearing in records, and it
is not clear what happened. A new name appeared, that of Balia Hachem (Valia Hashim).
Into this sea of turmoil, the old man Vasco Da Gama was deputed once again to bring
about control. During a meeting, Balia hacem handed over a ‘pirate’ to Gama,
could it have been Mammali? This pirate was executed by De Menezes, who took
over from Gama after the old man met his fate in Cochin. The Moplahs revolted and
the Kolathiri lost face since the Portuguese had executed one of his subjects.
In Calicut the Portuguese fort was under siege and they lost it soon, while
in Maldives, the Bukari Rani was exiled.
By 1545, two decades after Mammali vanished, the house of
Arakkal had been created, the strength of which increased while the Kolathiri
power declined. The new lord were formally titled the Ali raja, and their tales
have been explained in great detail by historians KKN Kurup and recently by
Biju John, in his thesis.
What is the connection between the Marakkar and the Ali
raja? Was it always just Mohammed Ali or Mammali with no Marakkar surname? There
was some suspicion that the Mammali was probably the Ali Raja himself and not Mammali
Mercar as Tome Pires surmised based on Bouchon’s opinion that the Mercar probably
came from mistranslation of Ararkal. And
there is also the distinct possibility that the title Mammali of Cannanore was
held by different persons, and not just by one as commonly felt. But it is now
clear that he was a trader in the 1500’s moving to Cannanore from Cochin, and not a titular ruler such as the
Ali Raja.
On the other hand, the Arakkal family starts formally only with
the Arakkal Ali Raja from 1545, two decades after the Mamaly Marakkar vanished.
Nevertheless the family tree provided by the Arakkal clan dates all the way
back to the 12th century, though not showing any Mohammed Ali in the
list of rulers.
From the study, one thing becomes evident, that the biggest challenge
the Portuguese had to face was not the armed hostility of any Malabar ruler,
but clever manipulators and thorns in their flesh like Mammali who worked for but
mostly behind them, and succeeded in diverting a good amount of trade through
the Maldive route, to the Red sea buyers. Mammali therefore deserves a more
prominent place in Malabar history, one that he never had.
References
Regent of the Sea – Genevieve Bouchon
The Ali Rajas of Cannanore: status and identity at the
interface of commercial and political expansion, 1663-1723– Biju John
Mailaparambil
The Máldive Islands: An Account - Harry Charles Purvis Bell
Portuguese Cochin and the maritime trade of India 1500-1663
– Pius Maldiveskandathil
Maritime Malabar and the Europeans – KS Mathew (ed)
Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, Issue 80
The Voyage of François Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, By
François Pyrard
Arabian Seas, 1700 – 1763 - Rene J. Barendse
Portuguese Encounters with Sri Lanka and the Maldives: Edited
by Chandra Richard De Silva
Ezhimala: The Abode of the Naval Academy By Murkot Ramunny
People of the Maldive Islands – Clarence Maloney
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