British occupation of Serampore (1763)
| Siege of Serampore | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Gateway to the Danish government house at Serampore, by Frederick Fiebig. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Great Britain |
 Danish India | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Unknown |
Demarchis | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
|
English forces |
Serampore garrison | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||||
The British occupation of Serampore also referred to as the English occupation of Serampore (Danish: Den engelske besættelse af Serampore) was a siege and thereafter a minor military occupation by the United Kingdom on the Danish trading post of Serampore (Frederiksnagore) in 1763.
Background
[edit]In 1755 the Danes got permission from Alivardi Khan to establish a trading post at the Hooghly River near Calcutta.[1] The colony of Frederiksnagore was established as a result of this agreement. [1]
In 1756, the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, wanted the Danes to assist him in the Siege of Calcutta.[2] However, because of bad living conditions, the Danes refused to support the siege, and ud-Daulah thereafter fined the Danes 25,000 Indian rupees.[2][3] Later in 1757, the English would blockade the Danish vessel King of Denmark from entering Serampore, because of the Danish hospitality to the French.[3]
Occupation
[edit]A more serious incident with the British happened in 1763.[2][3] Demarchis, the commander of Serampore, took office in 1762 and the British quickly took a hostile view of him.[4] This hostility only grew bigger when some English sepoys were changed with 25 lashes each, because of their assaulting on Danish peons.[3] As a response, a British force surrounded Serampore on 4 April and would besiege it until 15 April when the British could take over.[4] The occupation did not last long though, and already in the same year, the British withdrew the city because of a Danish apology.[2]
Aftermath
[edit]As a result, this left Serampore being a rather impoverished colony in the first two decades of its existence.[1][2][3] Subsequently, Demarchis would be deposed from his post as commander three years later in 1766 and would return to Copenhagen.[4]
See also
[edit]- Capture of Tranquebar – Capture of Tranquebar by British forces in 1801
- Carnatic wars – 18th century wars between the French and the British
- Gondalpara – City/town in West Bengal, India
- Dano-Mughal War – Danish colonial conflict against the Mughal Empire
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Rastén, Simon. "Handelsstationen Serampore (Frederiksnagore), 1755-1845". danmarkshistorien.dk (in Danish). Retrieved 2024-06-06.
- ^ a b c d e Bhaduri 2021, p. 144.
- ^ a b c d e O'Malley 1985, p. 77.
- ^ a b c Larsen 1940.
Works cited
[edit]- Larsen, Kay (1940). Guvernører, Residenter, Kommandanter og Chefer (PDF) (in Danish). Copenhagen: ARTHUR JENSENS FORLAG. p. 61.
- Bhaduri, Saugata (2021-12-30). Polycoloniality: European Transactions with Bengal from the 13th to the 19th Century. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-93-89812-56-5.
- O'Malley, Lewis Sydney Steward (1985). Hooghly. Logos.