Kannur

Kannur, known to European traders as Cannanore, is a port on the northern Malabar coast. Its sheltered waters served the rulers of Kolathunad and the Arakkal family, whose Muslim chiefs maintained maritime connections across the Arabian Sea. The coast’s pepper trade drew foreign merchants, while rivalry between the Kolathiris and the Zamorin of Calicut offered opportunities for new alliances.

In 1505 the Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida obtained the Kolathiri ruler’s consent to build St Angelo’s fort on a headland overlooking the sea. The fortress protected a Portuguese trading and naval base for more than a century. In 1663 the Dutch captured it and altered its defences; they later sold it to the Ali Raja of Arakkal. British forces took the fort in 1790 during the wars against Mysore. Its laterite walls and bastions mark the succession of powers that sought to control this part of the pepper coast.