The Colonial Era in India
The Dutch
Learn about the Dutch in India, and how they differed from the Portuguese.
The Dutch (people from the Netherlands) arrived in India in the early 17th century, and the chapter draws a contrast at once.
Unlike the Portuguese, they focused mainly on trade, especially the spice trade. Religious persecution is not part of their story here.
They set up a Dutch East India Company with trading posts around India: Surat, Bharuch and Cochin on the west coast, Nagapattinam and Masulipatnam on the east.
Their biggest presence was in the Malabar region of Kerala, where they pushed the Portuguese out of several trading centres.
Notice what that means. The European powers were not one single force. They competed with one another, and one could be pushed out by another.
Then, in 1741, came the Battle of Colachel. The forces of Travancore, under King Marthanda Varma, decisively defeated the Dutch, both on land and at sea.
The chapter calls this "a rare instance of an Asian power successfully repelling a European colonial force". Both halves matter: it happened, and it was rare.
After Colachel the Dutch presence in India declined a great deal. Their story here ends not with conquest but with defeat by an Indian kingdom.
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