Cite
MLA
“First Battle of Cannanore.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/first-battle-of-cannanore-1501/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). First Battle of Cannanore. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/first-battle-of-cannanore-1501/
The small Portuguese squadron held off the much larger Calicut fleet with its guns and sailed home.
01The battle
After Cabral’s quarrel with the Zamorin in 1500, the Portuguese had allied with the rival kings of Cochin and Cannanore. João da Nova’s small squadron was loading spices at Cannanore when a large Calicut fleet of light vessels came against it. The Portuguese kept their distance and used their ship-borne artillery, sinking a number of the attackers. The Portuguese chroniclers, Gaspar Correia and João de Barros, treat it as a warning of what European guns could do at sea.
02The Zamorin and the Portuguese
The Zamorins of Calicut, a Hindu dynasty of the Eradi Nair house, had grown rich as hosts to Arab and Gujarati traders. The Portuguese demand for a monopoly of the spice trade set them at war with Calicut for a century. The Zamorin’s naval commanders, the Kunjali Marakkars, would fight the Portuguese along the Malabar coast for generations, and it took a joint Portuguese–Zamorin siege to end the last of them in 1600.
It was the first naval battle between the Portuguese and an Indian power, and it showed the edge ship-borne cannon gave them.
