Malabar · Western Coastal Strip
Malabar's periods are set by the sea, not by Delhi. Its ancient era closes with the Chera Perumal kingdom about 1124, after which no single power ruled the coast again until the eighteenth century: authority broke into naduvazhi and desavazhi chiefdoms - Kolathunad in the north, Polanad and Eranad in the centre, Valluvanad and Vettathunad to the south - most of them succeeding through the mother under marumakkathayam, so a swaroopam was a corporate house with a senior member at its head rather than a father-to-son dynasty. The medieval period therefore begins with fragmentation rather than with an imperial arrival. The modern period begins in 1498, two and a half centuries before the national date, because the change that reordered this coast came off a ship at Kappad and not over a pass. British Malabar was a district of the Madras Presidency from 1792, never a princely state, which is why its twentieth-century politics are district politics - Congress committees, tenancy law and peasant unions - rather than durbar politics.
Periodisation is regional, not national — the medieval period does not begin in the same century here as it does elsewhere in India.
Sangam poetry knows this coast as Chera country and knows a separate northern power, the Mushika or Ezhimala line, on the headland above Kannur. What made the coast worth writing about elsewhere was pepper: Greek and Roman sailing manuals name marts on this shore, and the westward trade in pepper, ginger and aromatics is older than any state that taxed it. From about the ninth century the coast formed the northern part of the Chera Perumal kingdom governed from Mahodayapuram, with local governorships in Eranad, Polanad and Kolathunad. When that kingdom ended in the early twelfth century, those governorships did not disappear - they became the region's ruling houses.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| c. 3rd century BCE - 3rd century CE | Sangam poems name the Chera ports of this coast and, separately, the Mushika or Ezhimala chiefdom on the northern headland. |
| 1st century CE | The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and Pliny name pepper marts on this shore, including Naura and Tyndis, as destinations for ships sailing on the southwest monsoon. |
| c. 800-1124 | The coast forms the northern part of the Chera Perumal kingdom governed from Mahodayapuram, with hereditary governorships in Eranad, Polanad and Kolathunad. |
| c. 1018-1120 | Chola campaigns from the east reach the Malayalam coast; the long Chera-Chola conflict drains the Perumal state. |
| c. 1124 | The Chera Perumal kingdom ends. Authority passes to the naduvazhi houses; the tradition that the last Cheraman Perumal partitioned the country among his kinsmen and departed is a foundation story of the coast, not a record of the event. |
Out of the fragments, one house rose faster than the rest. The Eradi chiefs of Nediyiruppu in Eranad moved their seat to a marshy landing on the coast, and within two centuries Kozhikode was the principal pepper port of the Indian Ocean and its ruler carried the title Samoothiri, which Europeans wrote as Zamorin. The port worked because the Zamorins let it: Arab and later Chinese shipping was taxed and protected rather than displaced, resident traders held property and standing, and the customs of the harbour were enforced against the ruler's own officers. North of the Korapuzha the Kolathiri house held a separate and older country with its own succession by seniority across matrilineal branches. Neither state controlled the other, and neither controlled the hills.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 12th-13th century | The Eradi chiefs of Nediyiruppu shift their seat to Kozhikode and take the style Samoothiri; Polanad is absorbed. |
| 1342 | Ibn Battuta describes Calicut as one of the great harbours of the world, with Chinese junks lying in its roadstead. |
| 14th-15th century | The Zamorin takes control of the Mamankam, the twelve-yearly assembly on the Bharathapuzha at Tirunavaya formerly presided over by the Valluvakonathiri of Valluvanad. |
| 1405-1433 | Ships of the Ming treasure voyages call repeatedly at Calicut; Ma Huan, who sailed with them, records the port, its weights and its trade. |
| 15th century | Kolathunad and Kozhikode contest the coast between the Korapuzha and Ezhimala; the Ali Raja house at Cannanore emerges as a trading and naval power under Kolathiri overlordship. |
The Portuguese arrival converted a trading coast into a contested one. Attempts to monopolise pepper by force met a naval resistance organised for the Zamorin by the Marakkar admirals, which held for a century and ended in 1600. Dutch, French and English factories followed, and the fighting that settled the coast was in the end done from Mysore: Hyder Ali's campaigns from 1766 and Tipu Sultan's to 1792 broke the chiefdoms, and the Treaty of Seringapatam handed Malabar to the East India Company as a district. Company revenue demands then produced two decades of resistance in the north and the hills. In the nineteenth century the tenancy structure the Company inherited and hardened - janmi right over kanam and verumpattam holdings - became the district's standing grievance, named as such in William Logan's 1882 report; it was still unresolved when Non-cooperation reached Malabar in 1920.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 20 May 1498 | Vasco da Gama anchors off Kappad near Kozhikode, the first European ship to reach India by sea. |
| 1505 | Francisco de Almeida builds St Angelo's Fort at Cannanore; the Portuguese attempt to control the pepper trade by licence and blockade. |
| 1498-1600 | Four Marakkar admirals command the Zamorin's fleet against Portuguese shipping; the fourth, Muhammad Ali, is besieged at his fort near Ponnani, surrenders in 1600 and is executed at Goa. |
| c. 1583 | Zainuddin Makhdum II completes the Tuhfat al-Mujahidin at Ponnani, the earliest surviving history of this coast written by someone from it. |
| 1683 and 1725 | The English East India Company establishes a factory at Thalassery; the French establish one at Mahe, leaving two European enclaves inside North Malabar. |
| 27 April 1766 | Hyder Ali's forces take Kozhikode; the Zamorin dies in the burning of his palace at Mananchira. Mysore campaigns continue under Tipu Sultan until 1792. |
| 1792 | The Treaty of Seringapatam cedes Malabar to the East India Company; it is constituted as Malabar District, transferred to the Madras Presidency in 1800. |
| 1793-1805 | The Cotiote wars in Kottayam and Wayanad against Company revenue demands; Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja is killed at Mavila Thodu in Wayanad on 30 November 1805. |
| 1812 | Kurichiya and Kurumba cultivators of Wayanad rise against a revenue assessment demanded in cash; the rising is suppressed within months. |
| 1882 | William Logan, Collector of Malabar, reports for the Malabar Special Commission that insecurity of tenure under the janmi-kanam system is a principal cause of the district's recurring agrarian disturbances. His Malabar Manual follows in 1887. |
| 20 August 1921 - February 1922 | Rebellion across the southern taluks of Malabar District, beginning with a police action at Tirurangadi and suppressed under martial law. Recorded in the freedom-struggle section as dated events. |
| 1929-1930 | The Malabar Tenancy Act gives kanam tenants a measure of fixity of tenure, the first legislative answer to the grievance Logan had named half a century earlier. |
Rulers and commanders
An office rather than a father-to-son line. The Kolathunad house divided into branches and the title passed to the senior eligible man across them, with descent reckoned through women. North Malabar's kavu calendar, its handloom belt and its matrilineal social memory all sit inside this polity's boundary, which ended at the Korapuzha.
Dynasty: Kolaswaroopam. Seat: Chirakkal, near Kannur
Also an office held by seniority within a matrilineal house. The Samoothiris built Kozhikode into the principal pepper port of the Indian Ocean by taxing and protecting resident foreign traders rather than displacing them, and took charge of the Mamankam assembly at Tirunavaya.
Dynasty: Nediyiruppu Swaroopam. Seat: Kozhikode
Fourth of the Marakkar admirals who commanded the Zamorin's fleet against Portuguese shipping from the 1520s. After a breach with the Zamorin he was besieged in his fort, surrendered in 1600 and was taken to Goa and executed.
Dynasty: Marakkar. Seat: Puthupattanam, near Ponnani
The only Muslim ruling house on the Malayalam coast, holding Kannur and, as jagirdar of the Kolathiri, the Laccadive islands. Headship went to the eldest member of the house of either sex, which is why the office has both a male and a female title.
Dynasty: Arakkal Swaroopam. Seat: Kannur
Campaigned into Malabar from 1766, took Kozhikode, and imposed a revenue settlement on chiefdoms that had never been assessed by an outside power. The campaigns of Mysore, continued by Tipu Sultan to 1792, ended the independence of every house on the coast.
Dynasty: Kingdom of Mysore. Seat: Srirangapatna
Fought Mysore, then fought the East India Company over its revenue demands and its claim to Wayanad across two phases between 1793 and 1805, using the forest as the terrain of the war. Killed at Mavila Thodu in Wayanad on 30 November 1805.
Dynasty: Western Kottayam Swaroopam. Seat: Pazhassi, in the Kottayam country of North Malabar
Kurichiya bowman who commanded the archers in Pazhassi's Wayanad campaigns and led the assault that took the Panamaram post. Captured and hanged in 1805.
Seat: Wayanad
Reported for the Malabar Special Commission in 1882 that the district's recurring agrarian disturbances arose from tenants holding without security under janmi right, a finding that contradicted the official explanation of the day. His Malabar Manual of 1887 remains the standing reference for the district's land tenure.
Seat: Kozhikode
The history of Malabar from ancient through medieval to modern times, and the rulers, commanders and administrators who shaped it. (8)