Comments on: Pirate or Marathi admiral?

By: Sudheer Apte

Sudheer Apte — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:41:30 +0000

Not sure if this post is too old for me to comment, but here goes:

Many years ago I reviewed Manohar Malgonkar's book "Seahawk", but the web site on which the review was posted is now defunct.

"Seahawk" is quite well researched, and it provides a good background on Kanhoji Angre's family and origins based partly on Malgonkar's interviews with Angre's descendants. It also provides a detailed account of Kanhoji Angre's relationship with successive Maratha kings. Suffice it to say that Kanhoji Angre was not a pirate by any definition, not even by the contemporary definition used by the British. Western accounts that mention Angre are based either on inaccurate information (e.g., "African Muslim"), or are downright defamatory (e.g., "dastardly pirate").

I will try to find my review of the book and provide a pointer to it.

By the way, the title of the post is a little inaccurate: "Marathi" is not the term used for the empire, only for the language. The word you're looking for is "Maratha", I believe.

By: Amey

Amey — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:22:54 +0000

Kanhoji Angree was maratha naval chief(known as sarkhel) during that time.He was appointed as sarkhel by Chattrapati Shahu Maharaj of Satara(son of Sambhaji and grandson of Shivaji).According to him British,Portugese or any other European power during that time should pay tax to him if they wanted to take their ships along sea near Konkan coast as it belonged to Marartha Kingdom.This was not at all wrong because British and Portugese themselves use to collect such taxes from ships which would pass through their waters.Especially British(East India Company)in Bombay were not ready to pay such taxes and hence their ships were captured and taken away by his soldiers.He never use to seize any ship which had shown any documents which were proof that they had paid proper tax.British therefore would always try to teach him lesson but did not sucseed even a single time and later tried to declare him as pirate.He was once help by Bajirao Peshwa of Chattrapati Shahu Maharaj to win a war against combine forces of British ,Portugese and Siddhis.Even today there his statue at one of docks in Mumbai.To show respect for such great naval warrior against whom European were not even able to win a single(major battle) ,The Indian navy has named a ship after him as INS Angree.There is nice book written in English which has been translated to Marathi by P.L.Deshpande known as Kanhoji Angree.If you want to know more about this great man please read this book. Thank you

By: sandeep

sandeep — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:09:48 +0000

Hello everybody. Khnoji Angre – hero of this topic was sarkhel( Admirel) maratha navy. British were lost many wars against him. If you really want to know the history pl. read book – Khanoji Angre written by Manohar Malgaonkar of India. It is obvious that Bristis want to project Great Khanoji as pirate as they could not win a single war against him for more that 37 years.

By: fathima

fathima — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 04:59:18 +0000

i ... i have a confession to make: i read the title of this post as Paratha or Mithai admiral. it was still a good post, even if it didn't quite meet my expectations.

By: nil

nil — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 01:30:52 +0000

I love when conversations here veer off into unexpected directions. The last post by "rar" was really informative and motivated me to look up siddis. The only pictorial resource I could find on the web was the following: http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/people/siddi.htm

By: rar

rar — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:08:28 +0000

kittur rani’s territory was contiguous with the regions of southern maharashrtra and konkan that angre and the siddis operated. there are a number of villages in this region that lies near the intersection of modern day goa, karnataka, and maharashtra which are siddi. as a abd kid i once wondered what rastafarians were doing at a bustop in a remote corner of karnataka. not all are muslim however, many are christian, and some are even hindu. in my understanding the terms siddi and habshi are not equivalent. a habshi was an abyssinian, often a nobleman or at least a capable mercenary. siddis were probably not from the horn of africa, and may have been bonded servants of some sort. there are pockets of them up and down the west coast of india and pakistan, but this cluster near goa is the most noted. there are local legends about them being the descendants of shipwrecked africans, but that seems a simple reduction of what was likely the outcome of a complex arabian sea economy of material, labour, ect. in the 16th century

By: Samir

Samir — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:13:39 +0000

Chieftain would probably be a more appropriate word - like the Scindias of Gwalior, the Holkars of Indore and Gaekwars of Baroda, the Angres were rulers in their own right, and just another one of highly influential maratha family loosely confederated into the Maratha empire. In addition to controlling the seas, the Angres also ruled stretches of territory along the western coast.

The Maratha Empire conisted of many independent rulers and satraps who lend their armies to the Peshwa (Prime Minister).

Angre are most like to be a part of Agri Samaj or Koli Samaj communities of maharashtra.

By: ria

ria — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:53:18 +0000

found it!! well, it says the ethiopians are colonist from the harappan civilisation...thats even more confusing

By: ria

ria — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:07:06 +0000

hey i just read that the harrapan culture was established by ethiopian who were then driven down south by the aryans…funny thing i read it just yesterday and was thinking about how it could be possible and today this post…will try to find the website

By: Quizman

Quizman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:43:11 +0000

There were also a bunch of black Africans (as opposed to Arab North Africans) who fought for Kittur Rani Chennamma in Karnataka. The great lady warrior provided these former slaves with a homeland in Karnataka and they decided to support her out of loyalty.