Indian Christianity

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA : M. M. NINAN
CHAPTER SEVEN
COMING OF THE DUTCH AND THE PROTESTANT MISSION
1620 -1845
Dutch presence on the Indian subcontinent lasted from 1605 and 1825. Merchants of the The Dutch
East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC, "United East India Company")
first established themselves in Dutch Coromandel, notably Pulicat, as they were looking for textiles to
exchange with the spices. It was evident that the Portuguese hold in the colonies were getting weaker.
Finally Dutch conquered Ceylon from the Portuguese in 1656, they took the Portuguese forts on the
Malabar coast five years later to secure Ceylon from Portuguese invasion. For some while, they
controlled the Malabar southwest coast (Kodungallor, Pallipuram, Cochin, Cochin de Baixo/Santa Cruz,
Quilon (Coylan), Cannanore, Kundapura, Kayamkulam, Ponnani) and the Coromandel southeastern
coast (Golkonda, Bimilipatnam, Kakinada, Palikol, Pulicat, Parangippettai, Negapatnam). By the end of
seventeenth century, the Portuguese had been displaced by their Dutch rivals in Malabar. In 1661 the
Dutch took Quilon and in 1663 Cochin also. Although they showed no particular interest in the Syrians,
yet they rendered them the greatest service by ordering all Romish ecclesiastics to quit the country.
Tranquebar or Tharangambadi mean "place of the singing waves" and is a town in the Indian state of
Tamil Nadu located about 100 km south of Pondicherry. Tranquebar, in the fort Dansborg, became the
seat of its governor of Danish India, who was styled Opperhoved. Their major trade was in Indian tea.
Tranquebar was founded by the Danish King Christian IV in 1620, and Fort Dansborg was built by a
Danish captain named Ove Gjedde. It was a Danish colony in India from 1620-1845.
In 1845 the colony was sold to Great Britain along with the other Danish settlements in India, Serampore,
and the Nicobar Islands.
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