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Tranquebar was
once Denmark's tropical colony.
(Webmaster: Attention - the
article is written in 1994 and changes have been made until now
- year 2004)
| Article from Maersk Air Magazine -
Summer
1994. (Thanks to Maersk Air) |
 |
Left: Cover of the Maersk Air
Magazine - Summer 1994.
1. text on the picture below.
The Europeans traded guns and cannons in
return for various exotic goods from the
inhabitants of India.
Cartouche from sea chart: The Royal Library. |
2. text on the picture below.
The Dansborg Fortress was built in 1620 by
Admiral Ove Giedde. It was used to store goods
bound for Denmark. The building still stands
today, an impressive relic of the colonial
period. |
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A CHAPTER
OF DANISH HISTORY
IN INDIA
For 225 years Tranquebar was a Danish colony.
A population of 3,000 made it Denmark's sixth largest town.
From Tranquebar ships handed back to Denmark with cargoes of
Indian cottons and spices. Today the imposing fortress of
Dansborg and the Danish street names bear witness to the
former colony's lost splendour.
By Ulrika S. Gernes. Photo: Dermot
Tatlow.
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On the Coromandel coast of India the dwarf and the old man eye up a rare opportunity to do same trade with a Westerner who has left the beaten tourist track.
Old Danish copper coins emerge from scrunched up packages of grubby
newspaper.
Found on the beach and around the fortress, the coins are green, worn and scratched from the passage of time.
The oldest date back to the 17th century.
Many are marked DOC for "Dansk Ostindisk Compagnie" - the Danish East India Company - as well as with Christian IV's monogram.
Tranquebar was the only place outside of Denmark where Danish coins were minted.
It's hard not to buy a coin or two. It is a peculiar feeling to stand on this far-off beach with these coins in your hand, imagining all the different hands and lives they have passed through over the years.
The trip to Tranquebar heads south from the chaotic city of Madras down potholed
roads in the shimmering heat along the Bay of Bengal. After nine hours the bus stops. The Tamil bus conductor waves his arms and ushers us out.
We have arrived at Tarangambadi, "the town where the surf breaks" or "the town with the singing waves", in Denmark better known as Tranquebar, one of Denmark's former tropical colonies. For 225 years this
slice of India was in Danish hands.
Shaken and disoriented both historically and geographically, we stand and watch the rattling bus disappear in a cloud of dust on the horizon. A mass of curious eyes spring up around
us.
Admiral Ove Giedde founds the colony
In 1618 the Danish King signed a treaty with Rajah Senarat of Ceylon. The Danes were to
help the Rajah fight the Portuguese.
In return the Danish crown would have exclusive rights to the island's trade with Europe.
In November the same year the King wrote in his diary: "Our Indian fleet sailed out of the Sound. May Almighty God be with them."
Under the command of Admiral Ove Giedde, just 23 years of age, five great ships sailed round the Cape of Good Hope for
Ceylon - the route to India discovered by the explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498.
It was a long, hard and ill-fated journey. It grew increasingly hot on board, the drinking water was infected, and mould and rot destroyed the food. The voyage cost 300 crew members their lives.
When Ove Giedde finally reached Ceylon 535 days later, it was too late. The Rajah had made peace with the Portuguese and refused to acknowledge the treaty with the Danish King.
But Ove Giedde did not give up. Instead, he sailed to India and was granted an audience by Naik Ragunatha of Tanjore.
The Naik lived behind the city walls with his harem of 600 concubines, all exquisitely dressed and bejewelled.
There could be a long wait before getting to talk with the Naik, as he had astrologists to determine the most favourable time for negotiations. People were often woken in the middle of the night if the astrologists thought the time was right.
Ove Giedde did not manage to conclude a treaty with the Naik on behalf of the King until November 1620.
The Danes were given the town of Taramgambadi at the mouth of the river Wadiaru and the right to trade and to build a fortress. In return they would pay an annual fee and undertake to trade with the local people.
Ove Giedde had the Dansborg fortress built before setting sail for home.
The fortress was to serve as a safe store for goods to be sent back to Denmark.
Guards paced back and forth in the baking sun all day and all night, watching over the depot in the fortress. Any guard found asleep faced the death penalty.
After 40 months of toil in the "promised land" beyond the horizon, Ove Giedde returned home to honour and renown.
Long and dangerous passage to India
As early as 1616 the enterprising Christian IV granted privileges to the Danish East India Company, the first limited liability company in Denmark.
The King had seen the riches English and Dutch ships brought back to Europe from Asia.
The Danish company was to ensure that Denmark got its share of this lucrative trade.
Most European ships sailed round the Cape of Good Hope to get to India.
The Danes had the longest and most dangerous route. The trip to
Tranquebar and back took around a year. The Company had two priests on
its payroll to pray for the poor sailors on their dangerous passage.
Trade with the East did not turn out as hoped. It was soon clear that
Denmark was not in a position to complete with The Dutch and English.
Cargoes of pepper and fine spices were far from enough to cover
expenses. But Christian IV refused to shut down the Company.
Over the next three decades few ships were sent to Tranquebar, and the
Danes stationed there had to provide for themselves as well as they
could, for instance by trading in other Indian waters. If this did not
bring in enough, the colony had to manage by piracy and buccaneering in
the Bay of Bengal.
The heyday of Tranquebar and the Company came much later. The more
energy the Great Powers spent on warring with each other, the better
trade went for Denmark.
The best period was from the mid 1770s to 1807, when Denmark itself
ended up a war with England. This was the beginning of the end for
Tranquebar, and in 1845 the colony was sold to the English.
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This painting of Tranquebar is from the mid-17th century.
It shows the streets of
the colony and the Dansborg fortress flying the Dannebrog.
Perspective: Skokloster, Sweden. |
Warehouses brimfull of colourful wares
The Danish East India Company brought back various wares, including different kinds of cotton fabric.
Some of these were sold in Europe, while others were used to buy slaves on the coast
of Guinea.
Spices were cheap agricultural products in the East and could be snapped up for next to nothing. On the way back to Denmark, where the spices were very popular, the price would increase manifold.
Pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves were much sought-after luxuries in Danish kitchens. Saltpetre was also imported for making gunpowder, and shellac for varnishing furniture.
To buy these wares, the Danes used Danish silver crowns, pieces of eight and other precious metals, as well as tin and lead.
Sometimes the Danes would pay with cannons, guns and the ingenious chronometers which they were particularly skilled at making.
Otherwise there was little demand for European goods in the East.
The Danes traded not only with India. Ivory and exotic animals were imported from Africa, and porcelain and tea from China. Only about three ships headed east each year,
one to India and two to China. The cargoes they brought back made a fortune. This was a lucrative business for the exchequer and trade with the Far East played a key role in keeping Denmark's economy buoyant.
In the warehouses along the wharves of Copenhagen all the imported goods were sorted and graded.
Before auctions were held, the city's more wealthy citizens could come to view the merchandise.
It most have been a wonderfully colourful sight, with exciting spices and live
parrots shining bright against a background of breathtaking Chinese
silks.
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Admiral Ove Giedde was aged only 23 when he sailed to
India and founded The Danish colony.
Painting: The Royal Danish Museum of Fine Arts.
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Christian IV founded the Danish East India Company in
1616. It was Denmark's first limited liability compa- ny
and was to trade with the Far East.
Painting: Frederiksborg Castle.
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The journey from Denmark to India was around the Cape of
Good Hope. Once the ship had left the port of Copenhagen the sailors would
not see Denmark for another year.
Drawing: Jan Pasternak.
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Traces of former splendour
Back to the present and we are strolling through the old, ruined port of 1792.
Christian VII's monogram can still be made out in the remains of the town wall which once in a time of crisis turned Tranquebar from an open town to a fortress.
The main street, Kongensgade (King Street}, leads straight down to the beach and the Dansborg fortress.
Huge and mighty the fortress stands tall in the sun, gazing out across the Bay
of Bengal waiting for ships from home.
The main street is lined with charming old European colonial-style buildings in yellow, white and faded red and embellished with rows of columns holding roofs up over deep and shaded verandas. These were the houses of the Danish upper class in Tranquebar.
In a strange and exotic way the special quality of the light and the colours are reminiscent of the Skaw, Denmark's northernmost point.
You could easily imagine a colony of painters and poets depicting daily life in this town too.
But they didn't, and actual relics are few and far between. If you want to revive the past you have to rely on your imagination
and the Danish inscriptions on the gravestones.
Opposite Dansborg on the other side of Paradepladsen square is a large, dilapidated building. A sign informs us this was the residence of the Danish Governor.
As we look through a crack in the battened shutters, swallows and bats shoat out of other nooks and crannies in alarm.
The dark inside is oppressive and reveals none af its historical secrets. There are no echoes of Danish voices
or distant sounds of dancing at the Governor's residence.
Tranquebar is surprisingly quiet compared to many other Indian towns. The place has a sleepy and distinctly un-Indian atmosphere about it.
Several different religions are represented in Tranquebar, although most of its inhabitants are Hindu. There are also substantial Protestant, Catholic and Muslim communities.
When Ove Giedde arrived in Tranquebar Catholicism had already been introduced.
In the early 1700s the dedicated missionary Bartholomæus Ziegenbalg founded a Protestant church in Tranquebar, the first to be built in India. The mission established a printing works in the town and published books in Portuguese and Tamil. Today, besides the Hindu temples and a mosque, there are also other churches to be found in Tranquebar. Fishing, agriculture, some crafts and mission work are what
keep Tranquebar going these days.
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Children from Tranquebar's many
mission schools gather for a communal service one Sunday
afternoon.
Here seen in the town's main street - King Street. |
Life and death in Tranquebar
In the 17th and 18th centuries few people in Denmark saw any attraction in distant lands. Asia
was an unknown continet populated by monsters and other fabulous animals.
Just to man the ships and colonies, prisoners and condemned men often had their sentences changed to deportation, which was really just another method of administering the penalty.
Life was hard for the Danes in Tranquebar. The first test was the ½long voyage with scurvy rampant and weather conditions frequently catastrophic. Many ships were lost on the route between Denmark and Asia. In Tranquebar the harsh climate was also very demanding, bringing the biblical Great Flood to life in the form of
tropical monsoons.
There was also the boredom of long periods waiting for news from home. The cry of "Ship! Ship!" echoing down the narrow streets made it a day to remember. Many colonists succumbed to the ravages of tropical diseases. Cobras, scorpions, sharks,
insanity, opium. alcoholism and death sentences also claimed their
victims.
The churchyards are still there. Gravestone inscriptions tell of early
deaths for all but the lucky few. Often whole families followed each
other one by one into the grave in this strange and harsh tropical
world.
Today goats and cows graze peacefully in the churchyards, and pats of
cow dung and sometimes left on the monuments to dry in the sun before
being used as fuel in the Indian kitchens.
People live as 300 years ago
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| Fishermen preparing
the nets. The traditional methods are still used, and the boats
are primitive while catches are meagre. |
The dilapidated town gate is
another relic of the Danish colonial period when the town of
Tranquebar became a fortress. The year 1792 and King Christian
VII's monogram can still be seen above the archway.
Tranquebar's old town wall has almost disappeared. Time has
taken its toll, and bricks can always be used again. |
Tranquebar's Tamil population today lives in much the same way as 300 years age, But there are no European faces now, and the splendour of earlier days has faded or completely disappeared.
Fishing is much the same as then. The nets are prepared out on Paradepladsen square or on the beach below Dansborg, The fishermen take to sea through the foaming surf in their primitive catamarans of bound logs. A few hours later they load their meagre catch on the beach.
Small fish slip out from the nets, to the joy of the circling crows. A few ragged children, clearly not pupils of the town's mission schools, beg for money and ballpoint pens.
Women still go to the wells to fetch water, carrying it home in huge heavy pitchers on their heads. Drinking water is in short supply in Tranquebar and it tastes salty just as the colonists used to complain in their letters home.
The farmers cultivate their fields outside the ruined town walls and a few traders ply their wares at the town's bus-stop.
A sign under a roof covered with palm fronds announces: "Paris Tailors". A skinny Indian sits inside sewing on an old
hand-driven Singer.
Fortress used as youth hostel
Dansborg was used as a very basic youth hostel for many years. Now some of the rooms are the home of a small and rather primitive museum.
There are no hotels or restaurants in Tranquebar. After a while we managed to find out where the tiny post office could be found and that the Ziegenbalg Home For Boys sometimes accepted guests.
Here we were put up together with 107 extremely curious Tamil boys, none of whom knew much about Tranquebar's Danish days.
In the guest book Danish-sounding names were few and far between, but a few Danes have left the beaten track to come here over the years.
According to the Hindu priest in the old temple "there are plans to build a 200-bed hotel in Tranquebar" and "to restore the ancient temple".
In the colonial period the temple stood 80 metres from the coast. Today the greedy tongue
of the sea laps away at it with every seventh wave. The same fate will befall Dansborg one day.
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| The
Danish graveyards still exist, bearing witness to the early
deaths from e.g. tropical diseases, snake bites and alcoholism
of many Danes in the tropics. |
The
Danish Governor's Residence once resounded with parties, music
and fine dinners. Today the colonial building is the derelict
home of swallows and bats. |
The
Danish Governor once enjoyed a fine view of Dansborg fortress
from this veranda. |
Hope for Tranquebar
A hotel with 200 beds sounds like an impossible dream in this sleepy town on the Coromandel Coast. Not even the Danes ever attempted anything like that. But who knows - anything can happen in India, and it would undoubtedly make a trip to Tranquebar more comfortable for travellers interested in Danish history.
But most important is that there continues to be something to actually come and see in Tranguebar.
The fortress and old Danish houses are disintegrating into ruins, but the Danish Tranquebar Committee wants to save these unique and fascinating elements of Danish cultural history. The Indian authorities would like to help financially, but means are few.
So the Danish committee will have to collect money via funds, foundations and private sponsors before anything can
happen in Tranquebar.
As chairman of the committee Otto Käzsner says: "for 200 years Tranquebar gave us a good
living, so now we ought to lend a helping hand".
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