Built by the first Portuguese Viceroy of India: the fort that stands by the Laccadive Sea at Kannur

Background

Kannur district, on Kerala's northern coast, carries the record of several layers of outside rule. St. Angelo Fort was built in 1505 by Dom Francisco de Almeida, the first Portuguese Viceroy of India, and it stands by the Laccadive Sea about 3 km from Kannur town. The Portuguese rule over Cananor, as they spelt it, lasted 158 years; the Dutch captured the fort in 1663 and gave it its present appearance, sold it to the Arakkal Royal family in 1772, and the British conquered it in 1790 and used it as one of their major military stations on the Malabar Coast. The district administration says it is fairly well preserved as a protected monument under the Archaeological Survey of India. Earlier, Kannur was the capital of the Kolattiri Rajas, whose kingdom had trading relations with Arabia and Persia in the 12th and 13th centuries, and in the 17th century Kannur was the capital city of the only Muslim Sultanate in India, known as Arakkal. The district also saw one of the longest and bloodiest resistances to British rule in India, the revolt led by Pazhassi Raja, which kept a large part of it in a state of war; and Payyannur was the main venue of the Salt Satyagraha in Malabar, where a batch of Congress volunteers under the leadership of K. Kelappan broke the salt laws. The administration puts the district's area at 2,966 km² and its annual rainfall at 3438 mm(Annual), and gives the population, as per the 2011 census, as 25.23 lakhs.