In Pulicat, the view from the lighthouse is of the sea, the lagoon, a clear perimeter of what was once Fort Geldria, the small and big mosques, the ancient temples and the cemeteries. The story of this ancient trade port goes much deeper than its well-known Dutch heritage, but it is still possible to imagine a time when Danish ships with tall sails crowded these waters, traded in textiles and spices, and the Dutch eventually built a stronghold. Pulicat or Pallaicatta, till 1690, was the capital of the Dutch Coromandel.

According to Asia in the Making of Europe: A Century of Advance: South Asia by Donald Frederick Lach, the Dutch first got trading rights in Masulipatnam in 1605 and explored Pulicat the following year. In 1609, they landed in Pulicat in search of water. They went on to strike up trade relations with the Muslims there (since the Arabs had reached Pulicat earlier). With permission from Queen Eraivi, wife of Venkata II (the Vijayanagar King), they established a factory and began trading, mostly in textiles and diamonds. The Portuguese in Pulicat attacked the Dutch who began to feel threatened. And so, they established a fort in 1613 — Fort Geldria — to protect themselves from the other local kings and the Portuguese. This fort is now overgrown with bushes but its perimeter and moat are still visible.

AARDE (Art and Architecture Research, Development and Education) Foundation, a non-profit architecture and design service organisation, has been active in Pulicat since 2007 and has tracked its heritage. Xavier Benedict, its founder, says, “The fort was named after a place called Gelderland in the Netherlands. The Dutch East India Company or Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) was the first to start share markets here. They issued about 25 shares in Pulicat to the Dutch living in the area.”

“They also established the first European administration in Pulicat. The Dutch, it should be clear, first came to trade. Both their forts, here and in Sadras, predominantly focussed on trade, and governance didn’t come into question till trade began to flourish,” he says.

Pulicat became the headquarters of the Dutch Government in 1616 A.D., according to Pulicat and Sadras, a coffee table book authored by Xavier. The chief of Pulicat was the Governor of the Coromandel Coast.

This settlement was of great advantage to the Dutch as the best cotton goods could be procured here and from the surrounding districts. What was locally made was a material with checks and stripes and Xavier explains that the kings and queens of the Netherlands wore the Palayakat checks. The Palayakat lungis were popular all over South-East Asia. This would, in time, evolve into the famous Madras Checks. Pulicat also had a gunpowder factory as early as 1620 which helped Dutch trade flourish.

The British, after many attempts at establishing trade in Pulicat, struck a deal in 1621 with the Hollanders of Pulicat, but the union was soon terminated, says Vestiges of Old Madras by H.D. Love. They continued their efforts until the Dutch eventually conceded in 1825.

D.F. Lach observes that since the Dutch Company allowed its soldiers to marry Indian women, Pulicat began to look more like a Dutch colony by the 1630s. The most popular languages spoken there were Dutch, Tamil and Portuguese. Sanjay Subrahmanyam in The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500-1650 says the Dutch had built such a comfortable settlement on the coast that they were much envied by others in Europe. Therefore, there were constant efforts to overthrow the Dutch. And so, finally, in 1806, Fort Geldria was destroyed. “The reason the Dutch thrived in the area for nearly 200 years was because they were great navigators, engineers and good at drawing maps. The Portuguese were more religious and so didn’t establish an administration here. The Dutch, despite their efforts, couldn’t stand up against the British and left Pulicat for Jakarta in the 1820s,” says Xavier.

Apart from the fort, Pulicat has the old and new Dutch cemeteries. The old cemetery is not on the tourist map since it is overgrown with bushes and one can barely navigate inside. Several old Dutch graves (and some Portuguese as well) remain unknown within its premises. Among its oldest graves is one that dates back to 1758 with Tamil inscriptions. The new cemetery, protected by the ASI, has 77 Dutch graves and is about three centuries old. The entrance arch has two skeletons on either side and inside, the obelisks on the tombs tower over the entire yard.

Even as trade picked up in Pulicat, the Dutch were looking to expand. They found a place right down the coast — beyond Mahabalipuram was a weaver’s settlement and port called Sadiravasagan Pattinam. The place dealt mainly in muslin, edible oils and pearls. And so in 1648, the Dutch began a factory at Sadras and exported large quantities of muslin. Soon a fort was built around the factory and a Dutch settlement came up there.

The Sadras fort is still in good condition, and under the protection of the ASI. The bastions, bell tower and the arched entrance take one back to the time when rows of shops sold goods here and the Dutch trained their armies for battle. The fort kept expanding, according to Pulicat and Sadras by Xavier Benedict and had four bastions. Only three remain.

Philip Baldaeus, a Dutch chaplain who served in the coast in the mid 1600s, mentions Sadras when he mapped the way to Madras. ‘From Tirepoplier, you go by Poelezere, Poelemoer and Alembrue to Sadraspatan, where the Dutch have a factory and from thence to Madraspatan otherwise Chinnepatan, where the English have the fort of St. George...’

Inside the fort is an inner wall and to one side is an old Dutch cemetery. The 19 graves here date between 1670 and 1790. At the end of the cemetery is a secret chamber built at ground level that is now closed. Outside the cemetery are ruins of many rooms and in one particular ruin is a tile engraved with the aadu-puli aatam that the Dutch were apparently fond of. It is said that the local Tamils taught them to play the game.

The warehouses of Sadras are mostly intact, with ample evidence of their engineering skills. The pillars that run its length outside were rainwater collection pipes and recent excavations unearthed an extensive underground drainage system. There are dining rooms and dancing halls that are mostly in ruins. There is also the remnants of an inner fort wall and another arched structure with steps to the side which was supposedly an elephant mount since Asia in the Making of Europe: A Century of Advance: South Asia, by Donald Frederick Lach says that the Dutch, like the native rulers, trained elephants for their armies by teaching them not to panic at the sound of gunfire.

In the 1670s, the Dutch invaded San Thome. Vestiges of Old Madras by H.D. Love explains that when they first arrived in 1673 it wasn’t seen as a threat. They came again from Sadras and Pulicat. “News arrived that 500 Hollanders had landed at Sadras and were marching on San Thome, and that Rijklof van Goens was bringing another force from Pulicat. On the 11th September, the Netherlanders were established on the site of the former Moslem camp, and two days later 500 to 600 Dutch, supported by Moorish cavalry, threatened the town.” Three days later, they set up camp at the Triplicane temple. A few months later San Thome fell.

When the British East India Company discovered Sadras, there was commercial conflict between the Dutch and English. After the Battle of Sadras in the 1780s, the British mapped out the fort and captured it in 1796. They destroyed it by continuously bombing it from sea. Through a treaty, the Dutch were able to acquire the demolished fort in 1818 and rebuild it. But in 1854, the British took over it again and ended the rule of the Dutch in the Coromandel Coast.