Amini Atoll

Amini is a low coral island in the northern Laccadives, surrounded by reef and lagoon. Its people made finely spun coir from coconut fibre, a material prized for ships throughout the Indian Ocean. Island traditions remember a Portuguese attempt to seize coir in the sixteenth century and the resistance of the inhabitants. The islands later came under the Arakkal rulers of Kannur. In the 1780s people from Amini appealed to Tipu Sultan of Mysore, and the northern islands passed to his authority; after his defeat in 1799 they came under the East India Company.