#Onthisday in 1665, #Bombay was handed over by #Portugal to #Britain. But, wait, didn’t that already take place in 1661, when King Charles II of #England got the seven islands of Bombay as dowry? Turns out, things were not quite as straightforward.
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England got Bombay as part of a Marriage Treaty it signed with Portugal on June 23, 1661. It was a diplomatic marriage, where England’s Charles II wed Catherine Braganza of Portugal. Apart from Catherine and Bombay, Britain also got Tangier in North Africa, and a ton of money
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How did the treaty benefit Portugal? At the time, Portugal was battling Spain and Holland. Britain promised to help the Portuguese defend Cochin and recover Ceylon from the Dutch. It would also provide naval assistance to Portugal in its conflict with the Spanish
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So what happened between 1661 and 1665? 1) The royal marriage took place, not in 1661 but in May 1662 2) News of the Marriage Treaty had not yet reached India & the Dutch captured some of Portugal’s Indian possessions by early 1663. 3) Help promised by Britain did not arrive!
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As you can imagine, the Portuguese were furious, so they refused to hand over Bombay to the British. What followed were differences between the British and Portuguese over territorial ownership of the islands of Bombay.
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These differences also got tangled in bureaucratic delays and Sir Abraham Shipman, Britain’s envoy for the handover, died on Anjediva island off the coast of Goa, where he had been waiting for matters to be sorted out. What a mess!
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Finally, Britain got only one island – the largest and main island of Bombay – on February 18, 1665. They acquired the remaining six islands, constituting the present-day ‘island city of Mumbai’ in phases, much later.
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