In the early 1500s, as the Mughal Empire expanded its dominion across the subcontinent, a new and persistent force from the seas began to assert itself in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese, though officially crusading merchants of empire, were anything but. Pirates in all but name, they seized and controlled the great waterways, their ships predatory and relentless. One of the most audaciously defiant of their many incursions occurred on the western coast of India, in a place that would become notorious as the stronghold of these maritime marauders: Tangasseri.
The Portuguese, having established a powerful presence along India’s shores, were more than just traders; they were enforcers of a kind of imperial piracy. Determined to maintain their monopoly over the sea routes, they ruthlessly barred the Mughal Empire from entering the waters of the Arabian Sea. They seized the ships of the Mughal nobility, despite having granted them passes to allow safe passage.
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