 |
 |
The
City of Bombay |
|
The city that
is now called Mumbai is the home of around 10 million
people of many different cultures. It is the centre of
India's entertainment industry. Mumbai has been growing
and growing for five hundred years, even though it was
built on what looked like very weak foundations.
At first
there were just seven islands separated by swamps, dangerous
and unhealthy. A thousand years ago the islands were
part of the Magadhan empire, Later they belonged to
the Silhara family and in 1343 they became part of the
lands of the Sultan of Gujarat.
In 1534 the
Portuguese captured the islands and established a factory
- a place which was used for trading and as a warehouse
for goods. The Portuguese called the place Bom Bahia
(the good bay) which the English pronounced Bombay.
This trading place slowly grew, with local people trading
local products such as silk, muslin, chintz, onyx, rice,
cotton and tobacco, and Portuguese factors By 1626,
as well as the warehouse, there was also a friary, a
fort and a ship building yard. There were also houses,
even mansions, for people to live in.
|
The
English Arrive |
|
The first English
to visit Mumbai were raiders. In October 1626, at war
with Portugal, the English sailors heard that the Portuguese
had "got into a hole called Bombay" to repair their ships.
They attacked, but the ships had left. The English burned
buildings and two new ships "not yett from the stocks".
In May 1662,
King Charles II of England married Catherine of Braganza,
whose family offered a large
dowry, which was a gift made by the father of the bride
to the groom. Part of this gift was the Portuguese territory
of Bombay. However Charles II did not want the trouble
of the islands and in 1668 persuaded the East India
Company to rent them for just 10 pounds in gold a year.
As Bombay
was a deep water port it meant that large vessels could
dock in the protection of the islands. It needed a fort
and garrison of soldiers to protect it from Dutch fleets
and Indian pirates which sailed in the area. Unfortunately
it was an unhealthy climate for the English - it was
said of Bombay then that "three years was the average
duration of European life"; "two mussouns (i.e. monsoons,
there was one every year) are the age of a man"; and
of children born there "not one in twenty live beyond
their infant days". Men who lived there were encouraged
to marry local women although English women were "sent
out".
|
The
Company's City Schemes |
|
Within a few
years the Company had transformed Bombay. Gerald Aungier,
the Governor, set about building up the port with a new
quay warehouses and a customs house. The Company supported
him and encouraged him to build a new city - even sending
out the plan of London as it
was to be
rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666. In this "city
which, by God's assistance, is intended to be built"
people could buy land and build their own houses. Aungier
started a building programme: causeways to link the
islands; forts and a castle to protect people; a church,
a hospital and a mint where coins could be made. Settlers,
both those who traded and those who made things, came
from many local communities as well as people from Britain.
In the 1670s the Company had 1,500 English and local
soldiers in Bombay to protect people living there. By
1675 the population was around 60,000. In 1687 the Company
made Bombay their Indian headquarters The headquarters
stayed there until 1708.
|
The
Mughals Attack |
|
English, Dutch
and Portuguese ship captains would raid and capture ships
of other nations if they thought they would get away with
it. In 1688, during a conflict with the Mughals fourteen
Mughal ships were captured and taken to Bombay harbour.
A fleet of barges was also captured. The Mughals responded:
in February 1689 a force entered Bombay harbour and landed
Mughal men.
Since most
people lived outside the Castle they rushed there for
safety. They must have been frightened
as it was said of them that "the poor ladies, both black
and white, ran half naked to the fort and only carried
their children with them". The Castle was laid siege,
and it did not go well for the Company. In December
men were sent to the Mughal court to seek peace. They
got peace but at great cost to the Company.
The population
of Bombay fell to a fraction of its earlier size. Of
"seven or eight hundred English not above 60 were left
by the sword and the plague". Plantations were devastated
and houses destroyed. Bombay became a "dismal desert".
|
Trading
Capital |
|
Bombay soon
grew again: by the end of the 1700s it was "The Gateway
to India". Early in the century the Company sent ships
to patrol the sea off the Malabar (West) coast of India
- there were many dangers from ships not from England.
The Company built up a fleet, which was called the Bombay
Marine. The Bombay Marine was used to bring some peace
to the West coast of India in the first half of the century.
The Bombay Marine eventually became what was called the
Indian Navy.
 |
|
|
Because it
was a secure place and there was work and places to
sell things, people with all sorts of skills moved to
Bombay. There were goldsmiths to make fabulous jewellery,
ironsmiths, weavers to create extraordinary textiles,
planters, merchants to trade in all the goods and money-lenders
in case the merchants or anybody else needed cash. Bombay
did not only trade in things made in the city. Many
other goods were brought from many places in India and
beyond. In the 1730 ship builders moved into Bombay,
creating industry.
Raw cotton
was shipped from Bombay to England where it was manufactured
into cloth prior to being sent back to India for sale.
In 1854 the first Indian cotton mill was opened.
|
The
Empire and afterwards |
|
In the early
1800s a lot of engineering work was done and the swamps
completely filled in. By 1845 the seven small islands
that made up Bombay had become one large one. In 1853,
the first Indian railway opened, from Bombay to Thana.
This work attracted more people and the Company had to
govern them. Some government buildings were created and
look very similar to city and town halls built in England
at that time.
After the
East India Company had handed over India to the British
government, the city continued
to grow and
in 1864 816,562 people lived there. By 1901 it had gone
down to 776,006. By 1991 the population of the whole
of Bombay (which had spread beyond the islands) was
9,900,000. The city changed its name in 1995 to Mumbai,
after Mumbadevi, the stone goddess of the deep-sea fishermen
who originally lived on the islands before they were
driven out by the East India Company.
|
