And the Abakka Rani
To the north of Kasaragod, where the historical borders of
Malabar ends, is Manjeshwar and a little north of it, but south of Mangalore,
bordering the Netravati River and facing the Arabian Sea is the small
municipality called Ullal (Ullala or Olala). At one point in Malabar’s history,
it had a connection to the Zamorin’s of Calicut and with the Portuguese. It is
the story of Ullala which we will fish out today, but with some detail and
background, for most books just pass it off as a couple of sentences mentioning
a minor queen named Abakka Devi or Tirumala Rani. There was more than that, as
you can imagine.
We will start with the history of the region when the regional
was centered at Puttige. The family which ruled the region was called the
Chauta’s and we understand that the first recorded among the rulers was one
Vikru Chauta ruling in the 14th century. They were connected with
the Vijayanagara kings for a while and under the rule of the Chauta’s,
Mudabhidre became a Jainist center (perhaps the Jain connections had started to
the earliest of rumors that the Chauta lineage started when a Vijayanagara king
had a Jain consort. There is also a purported connection between the Chautas
and the Jain Chawdas of Gujarat who migrated after the Solanki clashes) and a
few Basadis were built. Sanjay Subrahmanyam states - By all accounts, the control of Vijayanagar over the petty
principalities along the west coast, such as Bangher, Ullal, Gangolli, Bhatkal
and Gersoppa, was rather limited. These principalities were controlled by local
rulers, who had hereditary claims over the local overlordship and paid tribute
to Vijayanagar.
Somewhere in the 16th century, following Tirumalarasa
Chauta’s rule, a parallel rule started at Southerly Ullala, perhaps by a split
faction of the family, following the matrilineal (aliyasanthanam) system, also
as prevalent in Malabar. It is around 1571 that the first mentions of queens
ruling Ullal and Puttige come to the fore, with a Lokadevi at Puttige and
Abakkadevi 1 at Ullala. Recall now that starting from the conquest in 1510, for
the Portuguese had settled in Goa and were ruling the seas.
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| Mangalore Fort |
From this point a
number of problems arose between Ullal, Malabar and the Portuguese. Much of the
rice export to Malabar took place at the Ullal and from nearby ports using
Malabar boats. These were stifled by the Portuguese, setting off intense
rivalry and skirmishes. We see events reported as early as 1513 and 1525 when Moplah
freight ships were captured and destroyed by the Portuguese.
In 1530 the Portuguese under the command of Nuno da Cunha
had crossed the river of Mangalore, which flowed through the Ullal territory,
and destroyed the stockade and the fortified positions with the purpose of
punishing a rich merchant Shetty, who was in league with the King of Calicut,
against them. In fact the Muslim merchants of Malabar had actually been
attempting to subvert the blockade of Calicut by sending out the spices to Red
sea port buyers using Mangalore ports such as Ullal. Until 1530 the Portuguese
had not detected this method!
As the Portuguese became more and more powerful in Kanara,
they started to subjugate the local chieftains and it appears that the first major
brush the rulers of Ullala had with the Franks took place around 1555-58 when
Dom Alvares sacked Ullala, as the Queen was found harboring Calicut vessels in
her port. Not much more is known except that the Zamorin of Calicut intervened
and helped her out of the trouble, but a latter event is much talked about,
something that started with an argument between the neighboring principalities
around 1568 as the Northern neighbor the Banghars established a treaty with the
Portuguese which the Ullalas could not come to terms with. In the meanwhile, the
Portuguese had other plans with Ullala. They planned to build a fort on the
south bank to control the access through the river and the border with the Queen’s
domain.
The Viceroy Antao De Noronha decided on cornering the location to
commence the building of the
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| Mangalore |
The queen was named Abakka Devi and this famous attack of
1568 did not go unnoticed. Her courageous stance against the Portuguese was
mentioned far and wide and it was at this point that the queen forged a formal relationship
with the Calicut Zamorin, to work against the Portuguese in the future. The
Portuguese on the other hand had different ideas as the Viceroy Luis de Ataide
intervened personally and due to intense mediation, managed to get the queen of
Ullala married to the King of Bangar.
An event in 1571 merits mention. The Queen who was friendly
with the Zamorin and the Marakkars mentioned to her friends that the Mangalore
fort could be taken easily. Kutti Poker, the Zamroin’s representative attacked
the fortress following this tip and was clambering it but the servant in the
fort threw out a silver chest in defense, knocking down the men scaling the
fort using a ladder. Poker and his men ran with the silver but were tracked
down by the Portuguese all the way to Cannanore and captured.
The queen also took advantage of the Adil Shah confederacy
against the Portuguese in the 1570-74 period. It is also stated that like the
Zamorin, she had many thousand Muslims in her fighting forces.The intervening
years witnessed the death of the first heroic queen during a battle with the
karkala’s, followed by the rule over Ullala by her brother and eventually
succession by the second Abakka Devi or Tirumala Devi, her daughter, in the last
decade of the sixteenth century, perhaps 1594.
During the last years of the Ullala kings reign, he built a
fort in 1589 not far from the Portuguese fort, on the same bank across the
river from Ullala. The Portuguese had no choice but to watch it being built by
a huge team of over 30,000 men, during its construction, owing to the heavy
rains and lack of fighting power. This fort became a huge bone of contention
between the Bangas, the Ullala and the Portuguese. Coutinho was deputed later
with three galleys and 30 ships to destroy it, late in Dec 1589. After
fruitless negotiations, the Portuguese attacked and destroyed much of Ullala,
once again.
The fort however remained intact and the King of Portugal was
furious that it had not been destroyed.
Abbakkadevi II renewed the hostile attitude with the Bangas.
The fort on the opposite banks, under by the queen was always a threat to the
Portuguese who remembered that fateful night of 1568 often and the new queen
refused to destroy it. According to an instruction of the king, the viceroy of
Goa sent Dorn A Azeveda to Ullala to raze the fortress to the ground and it was
finally destroyed by Azeveda, in 1595 or thereafter.
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| A modern depicition Abakka Devi |
We also hear of her relations with the Kotakkal Marakkars
late in 1599 and of support when Kunjali was blockaded, but I could not get too
many details about it as yet. In her wars with Banga Raja of Managalore and
against the Portuguese, Kunjali had assisted her with captains, ships and
soldiers on many occasions. In 1600 however she signed a treaty with the
Portuguese and eventually desisted from assisting Kunjali during his final days.
Abakka Devi a.k.a Thirumala devi continued with intrigues
against the Portuguese, by siding with the Serra kingdom against the Bangas and
by working with the Zamorin in Calicut as well as the Marakkars of Kotakkal.
Their intense rivalry with the Bangas continued and it was in 1616 that the
Bangars retaliated by attacking Ullala. The queen had no choice but to seek
help from the Keladi Nayaks against the Bangas as the Bangas approached the
Portuguese for help. Also to be noted here is that the Bangars but naturally,
were supported by the Kolathiris of Cannanore. Historians have brought in much
confusion between the two Abakka Devis and it is a bit difficult to figure out
who is who at times. For example, we see from Vasantha Madhava’s comment - The
common boundary between these two chiefs (the Bangar and the Chautas of Ullala)
the mutual jealousy, and unhappy marriage of Vira Lakshmappa Banga IV and
Abbakkadevi II of Ullala were probably the causes of the wars. At the same
time, we have already seen earlier mentions that her mother was married to the
Banga King. The Ullalas entered into an uneasy but relatively calm relationship
with the Portuguese.
Dharma Raja and Dr Hebbar explain the intrigues and plotting
by the Portuguese to work on the queen - The
stunned Portuguese decided to bide for time. What could not be won on the
battlefield, they knew could be won by treachery and larceny. Lakshmappa Arasa,
the Banga king of Mangalore, Abbakka’s husband, was warned not to send any
reinforcement to Ullal under the threat of burning his capital of Mangalore.
His nephew, Kamaraya was secretly recruited to plot against his uncle, and
usurp the throne at Mangalore. The conspiracy by his own nephew and the threat
of a Portuguese invasion left Lakshmappa Banga-raja helpless and unable to aid
his wife during the next offensive by the Portuguese. In 1567, when Abbakka
Devi stopped paying tribute, there was another encounter with the rani, in
which she was defeated and sued for peace. Yet, Abbakka remained a
non-conformist and a rebel, which irritated the Portuguese to no end. The local legend also says that Rani Abbakka
Devi was estranged from her husband, Lakshmappa Banga, who was said to have
colluded with the Portuguese and fought against his wife. It is more probable
that it was the nephew of her husband, Kamaraya III, who had fought against the
queen. The sedition of Kamaraya III against his uncle had been supported by the
Portuguese. Consequently he was able to supplant the king and rule Mangalore
during the period when Abbakka Devi was opposing the Portuguese advances.
The last phase of her rule is marked by the entry of the
powerful Venkatappa Nayaka into the quarrels between the Bangars and Ullalas
and the role of the Portuguese in these intrigues. The Portuguese were being
supplied with pepper by the powerful Ikkeri Nayak and so they had no plans to
go against Venkatappa. But the Bangars had always been their friends and they
could not let them down. The Banga king by now separated from Abakka, sulked at
the lack of overt support from the Portuguese in going against the Ullalas and
the Nayak, retreating often to Kasargod.
These events have been narrated in some detail in Sastry’s book and it
is clear that the outright winner in all this was the powerful Ikkeri Nayak,
for the Portuguese fortunes were by now, on the wane.
Following this, according to the Italian traveler Della
Valle who visited Olala, the Banga king kidnapped his wife and later released
her, but the furious queen decided to wage war against him with the help of Venakatappa.
He also explains that the Portuguese fort in Mangalore was not really one, but
just a house (this explains how many of these scribes spun great stories and
tall tales in their memoirs making you conjure up fantastic visions). The Banga
war which followed went in favor of the Nayaks and Ullala, but of course she
had to pay huge tributes thenceforth to the Nayak. The queen was powerful and
was rumored to have finished off her own son when he chose to plot against her,
while Delle Valle insists that this is falsehood propagated by the Franks.
This was the situation as Della Valle arrived in the region
and proceeded to Ullala. He had heard about the queens and wanted to see the
reigning Abakka in person, and his descriptions of the region, Ullal and Abakka
Devi, are invaluable visit reports.
Let’s see what he had to say….The Matrimony and good Friendship having lasted many years
between the King of Banghel and the Queen, I know not upon what occasion
discord arose between them, and such discord that the Queen divorced him,
sending back to him, (as the custom is in such case) all the Jewels which he
had given her as his Wife.
He reaches
olala - The Bazar is fairly good, and, besides necessaries for provisions,
affords abundance of white and striped linen cloth, which is made in Olala, but
coarse, such as the people of that Country use. At the Town's end is a very
pleasant Grove, and at the end thereof a great Temple, handsomely built for
this Country and much esteemed. Olala is inhabited confusedly, both by Gentiles
who burn themselves and also by Malabar Moors. About a mile off, Southwards,
stands the Royal House, or Palace, amongst the aforesaid Groves, where the
Queen resides when she comes hither sometimes. It is large, enclosed with a
wall and trench, but of little moment.
Having
landed, and going towards the Bazar to get a Lodging in some House, we beheld
the Queen coming alone in the same way without any other Woman, on foot,
accompanied only with four, or six, foot soldiers before her, who all were
naked after their manner, saving that they had a cloth over their shame, and
another like a sheet, worn across the shoulders like a belt; each of them had a
Sword in his hand, or at most a Sword and Buckler; there were also as many
behind her of the same sort, one of whom carried over her a very ordinary
Umbrella made of Palm-leaves. Her Complexion was as black as that of a natural
Ethiopian; she was corpulent and gross, but not heavy, for she seemed to walk
nimbly enough; her Age may be about forty years, although the Portugals had
described her to me as much older. She was clothed, or rather girded at the
waist, with a plain piece of thick white Cotton, and bare-foot, which is the
custom of the Indian Gentile Women, both high and low, in the house and abroad;
and of Men too the most, and all the most ordinary, go unshod; some of the more
grand wear Sandals, or Slippers; very few use whole Shoes covering all the
Foot. From the waist upwards the Queen was naked, saving that she had a cloth tied
round about her Head, and hanging a little down upon her Breast and Shoulders.
In brief, her aspect and habit represented rather a dirty Kitchen-wench, or
Laundress, than a delicate and noble Queen; whereupon I said within myself,
Behold by whom are routed in India the Armies of the King of Spain, which in
Europe is so great a matter! Yet the Queen showed her quality much more in
speaking than by her presence; for her voice was very graceful in comparison
with her Person, and she spoke like a prudent and judicious Woman. They had
told me that she had no teeth, and therefore was wont to go with half her Face
covered; yet I could not discover any such defect in her, either by my Eye, or
by my Ear; and I rather believe that this covering of the Mouth, or half the
Face, as she sometimes doth, is agreeable to the modest custom which I know to
be common to almost all Women in the East. I will not omit to state that though
she was so corpulent, as I have mentioned, yet she seems not deformed, but I
imagine she was handsome in her Youth; and, indeed, the Report is that she hath
been much of a Lady, of majestic beauty, though stern rather than gentle.
Her second son Saluva Rairu was living with her when Delle
Valle visited her. He continues on explaining how the palace/house is built and
furnished, stopping to explain the position held by the Ullala king, and the
difficulties he had eating food, served ceremoniously to him. He then moves on
to Manel where the queen had gone, to see the brave lady a second time. Their brief
audience was again, conducted outdoors.
Accordingly I
went and, drawing near, saw her standing in the field, with a few Servants
about her, clad as at the other time, and talking to the Laborers that were
digging the Trenches. When she saw us she sent to know wherefore I came,
whether it were about any business? And the Messenger, being answered that it
was only to visit her, brought me word again that it was late and time to go
home, and therefore I should do so, and when she came home she would send for
me.
But she never did and Delle Valle continued with other
pursuits, disappointed. Later he goes to a Krishna temple and documents the
visit in great detail. All very interesting original first person reports and
invaluable to a Kanara historian.
And of course there are many legends and myths surrounding
these queens, multiplying many fold these days with creative writers entering
the fray. A comic book by Amar Chitra Katha also provides fodder. She is described
as the fearless Abahaya rani, agile and dressed in a sari (we know that is not
true), we can read of her relations with her husband who chose to support the
Franks, of her ability to fire flaming arrows, of her taking refuge in a mosque
and dying in the battlefield muttering – drive the firangis back and so on, but
much of all that are just that, legends and myths. Nevertheless, she was a
brave queen and revered by her subjects, and she collaborated, schemed and
fought for them.
Queen Abakka (Buuka Devi Chauta) passed away around 1640, but
it is not clear if she died in a battlefield as legends portray. Ullal once
famous for its Jain temple, cotton, rice and cane cultivation, quietened down
in history books and vanished leaving behind only the memory of a Jain queen
who resisted the Portuguese. A few kings followed, but were not distinguishable
in any way.
References
Political History of Kanara - Vasantha Madhava
Goa Kanara Portuguese relations 1498-1763 – BS Shastry
The Travels of Pietro Delle Valle in India, Vol 2- – Hakluyt
society
Portuguese hegemony over Mangalore - Mohan Krishna Rai K.
Muslims in Dakshina Kannada – A Wahab Doddamane
The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara – Henry Heras
The Portuguese in South Kanara. By J. Gerson da Cunha,
Journal of Asiatic society
Queen Abbakka Chowta of Ullal and Moodadbidri – Bipin Shah
The Intrepid Queen Rani Abbakka Devi of Ullal - Dr. Neria H.
Hebbar
Pics – Della Valle’sAbakka, RS Naidu - Amar Chitra Katha for the modern
depiction, Mangalore fort 1783 - Wikimedia
5 comments:
A detailed enquiry into the Ullal kingdom is very welcome. We had dealt with the Zamorin's relations with this small principality in our delineation of how, the Calicut rulers wanted to keep the Arabian Sea free of monopolies. Our post http://blog.calicutheritage.com/2009/12/zamorins-wars-abroad-ii.html was more about the wars that Zamorin and his naval fleet waged outside their territories. What is significant is that Ullal was one of the few principalities with which Zamorin was on friendly terms, perhaps because Ullal had sought the protection of Zamorin against the Portuguese and the Mangalore forces. More probably, it was the initiative of the Marakkars and their sponsors, the Arab and Moplah traders who wanted to keep Ullal Port free from Portuguese blockade. We can only speculate on their motives in the absence of detailed micro-historical studies which would hopefully bring out original records and documents throwing light on the real motives. This post kindles interest in such historical exploration. Good reading!
Thanks CHR..
There are but a few leads into the history of Ullal and its connections with the Zamorin other than the fact that the port was used for transshipment and also to export rice to Calicut. One potential connection is through the Neeleswaram kovilakom, but I have not found any details. We can see that the Bangars were connected to the Kasargode chieftains and the Kolathriri, though.
Modern writings on the two Abakka devi's merge them into one and throw the timelines into utter disarray. SO I thought I will clarify as much as I could, but as you rightfully said, there is much more in it..Wonder if the Ullalas had any granthavaris....
I must also add that subverting the trade of the Portuguese was an organised overt and covert effort of everybody involved, from the Malabar side. I had covered this in details on the Mamalli Marakkar story and his connections with and the use of Male. Other players like Malik Ayaz, Timoja & Shamzuddin are also hiding between many a book cover, i will bring them out one by one.....
http://historicalleys.blogspot.com/2016/03/mammali-marakkar-regent-of-seas-regedor.html
Hi Maddy..interesting blog and I stumbled upon it through some net search, in the hope of finding my ancestral roots, which as I understand are at Azchavattom. My paternal gransdfather, late R. Subramania Iyyer, the youngest and the only graduate among his siblings, served as a Head master in several Board High Schools in Malabar area during the period 1920 -1950. He had relinquished his rights to his family taravad to his elder brothers, and I understand that the place was sold by them in the late 50s, without him being informed beforehand..since there has hardly been any direct contact with the extended family since then, there are no further leads available except for some sketchy details of the place as told by my grandfather during his last few years, before his demise in 1978..Any clues from you towards establishing any connection with the place or the family descendants will be most welcome..I would like to visit the area (if not the exact location of the Taravad) and pay homage to my ancestors sometime in my lifetime.. Regards
Sethu,
Not much I can do to help, but I will surely revert of i do find something.
rgds
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