Fort Kochi

The very first European fortress in India was founded in Fort Kochi on September 26, 1503, and named Fort Manuel after the reigning King of Portugal. Remarkably, it was not constructed from stone: its walls were composed of two parallel rows of cocoanut tree trunks driven into the ground, bound together by iron hoops and large nails, with earth rammed in between and a wet ditch around it.

When the Dutch rebuilt Fort Kochi on a reduced scale in 1697, they kept the street grid and gave the streets literal names: de Linde straat (Lime Tree Street), de Heere straat (Gentleman's Street), de Peeterceelie straat (Parsley Street), de Osse straat (Ox Street), de Kalven straat (Calf Street), de Burgen straat (Citizens Street), de Bree straat (Broad Street), and de Smee straat (Smith's Street).

Long before modern municipal corporations, Dutch Cochin was highly organized: inhabitants paid an annual municipal tax dedicated entirely to keeping the street drains clean and maintaining the public streetlights.

Colonial Cochin had a large permanent gallows beside the Santa Cruz Cathedral warehouse near the river. About a mile away, a low island in the backwater called Gallows' Island served as the site for military executions and later as a burial ground for paupers.

In 1762, the Rajah of Cochin established a detailed tax scale on trees around Fort Cochin, paid in a local currency called the Poothen, valued at approximately one anna and eight pies. A fruit-bearing cocoanut tree was taxed at two poothens, a jackfruit tree at eight poothens, and a betel-nut tree at a quarter of a poothen. Brahmans were exempt from paying house or dwelling taxes, regardless of where they lived.

In 1550, a major campaign against Cochin by the Samorin of Calicut was delayed while his astrologers tried to name a fortunate day for battle. The delay gave the Cochin and Portuguese forces time to consolidate their positions and rescue the Ranee, the Rajah's aunt, whom the Portuguese had held in their custody.