| Siege of Hooghly (1632) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofMughal–Portuguese conflicts | |||||||
 Siege of Hoogly, Mughal depiction | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Mughal Empire | .svg) Portuguese Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Qasim Khan Juvayni | Manuel de Azevedo | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 150,000 men 90 Elephants 14,000 Cavalry | 300 Portuguese 700 Indian converts | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1,000 killed[2] | 500[2]–1,000 killed[3] 400 captured[2] | ||||||
| Reportedly 10,000 Europeans and 1,000 Muslims dead[4] 4,000 captured and only 3 out of 300 vessels escaped[3] | |||||||
Thesiege of Hooghly was a military engagement between theMughal Army and thePortuguese garrison of Fort Hooghly, the result was the capture of the fort and expulsion of the Portuguese.
The Portuguese founded the town ofHooghly-Chuchura in 1579, but the district has thousands of years of heritage in the form of the greatKingdom of Bhurshut. The city flourished as a trading port and some religious structures were built. One such structure is a Christian church dedicated to a statue ofMary, brought by the Portuguese.
In 1628,Shah Jahan became the new emperor of theMughal Empire, in the same time, news reached fromQasim Khan Juvayni, theGovernor ofBengal that the Portuguese were committing acts of piracy, smuggling, kidnapping, and the slave trade. Shah Jahan resolved to curb these Portuguese acts.[5][3][6][7] It is reported byOm Prakash that the Portuguese become brazen and confident as they believed that they were superior to the Mughals in open widenaval conflict in areas like theGanges river while also being boosted by theirArakanese allies.[8] As a result, the Portuguese acts of raids grew more sever that caused theNawabs of Bengal to grow worried.[8]
In 1632,Shah Jahan orderedQasim Khan to attack the Portuguese and expel them totally. The Mughal Army consisted of 150,000 men, 90war elephants, and 14,000 cavalry.[9] In June, they arrived and besieged the fort, the Portuguese garrison consisted of only 300 Portuguese and 700 Indian converts, they also had 300 vessels, the fort was heavily fortified,[10][11] they were led by Captain Manuel de Azevedo,[9] the Portuguese held out for 3 months, the Portuguese tried to negotiate with the Emperor by offering him a huge sum of money and promised to pay tribute, but at the same time they were making a great effort to complete their war preparations to resist the Mughal Army, so they prepared a division of artillery to fight the enemy.[12] until when Mughals dug amine and blew a portion of the walls,[11] the Mughals swiftly entered the fort and defeated the garrison,[13] The Mughals only lost 1,000 men during the siege[11] while the Portuguese lost 1,700 men, 4,000 were enslaved including women and children, all ships were captured except 3, only 3,000 escaped the sack[13][14] and around 10,000 native Indians were liberated.[11]