One of the four roads of the global iconic structure Chairminar in Hyderabad city directly connects to Machilipatnam. The period of Sultan Quli Qutb Shah, one of the kings of Golkonda who built the Charminar, witnessed flourishing sea-borne trade of Masulipatam. However, the ancient geographers called a port named Maesolia on the Machilipatnam coast.
According to ‘A Manual of the Kistna District’ by Gordon Mackenzie (1883), in 1557 the Carnatic Governor of Kondavidu occupied Masulipatnam.
But that was merely a temporary inroad, and this part of coast (Masula coast) remained peacefully under the rule of Golkonda kings for a century and half. Numerous histories of this period showed that the sea-born trade of Masulipatnam must have attained very considerable dimensions.
The Manual also documents that the Portuguese may have been the earliest and the Dutch the second nation to occupy this field (Masula) but the first English venture was in the year 1611, when East India Company (EIC) has established a factory here under the patronage of the kings of Golkonda. The EIC has attempted to develop trade with the people on the Coromandel Coast by dispatching a ship GLOBE but failed. However, by 1620s, the ships traded from Masulipatnam to Europe, Sumatra and the Spice Islands. If anything to go by Mr. Mackenzie, then Mardas Civil Servant, the traffic at the Masulipatnam port have proved so profitable that the Batavia Council has recommended that 3,00,000 rials in money should annually sent to Masulipatnam for cloths to be exchanged for gold, camphor and spices. According to S. Arasaratnam and Aniruddha Ray’s ‘Machilipatnam and Cambay– A history of two port towns 1500-1800’, at least 21 ships were used to be anchored at the Masulipatnam port everyday.
Causing an irreparable damage to the robust marine trade operations, a giant ocean wave on the night of November 1, 1864 has taken the lives of the above 30,000 people of Machilipatnam and also, arguably, it damaged the old port at Bandarkota area.
“The period of the kings of Golconda had witnessed the rise of the port and its fall began with the 1864 cyclone, literally a curse for the Machilipatnam coast,” opined local historian Mohammed Silar. Realising the unexplored potential of marine trade operations on the Masula coast, the State government was striving to develop a port here to usher in the growth of the coastal belt.
The period of the kings of Golconda had witnessed the rise of the port and its fall began with the 1864 cyclone, literally a curse for the Machilipatnam coast
Mohammed Silar
Local historian
