Cite
MLA
“Siege of Hooghly.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/siege-of-hooghly-1632/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Siege of Hooghly. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/siege-of-hooghly-1632/
Hooghly was stormed and the Portuguese settlement destroyed; several thousand captives were taken to Agra.
01Grievances
The Portuguese had traded at Hooghly since the 1570s under Akbar’s permission, and the town had grown rich. Its people bought slaves taken from the Bengal villages by the Arakanese and Portuguese raiders of Chittagong, forced conversions on some, and levied tolls on river traffic. The Mughal chroniclers add that they had failed Shah Jahan when he was a rebel prince in Bengal. In 1632 he ordered Qasim Khan to drive them out.
02The storm
A Mughal army and river fleet closed on Hooghly in June 1632. The Portuguese, with their ships drawn up in the river, held out through the monsoon. The Mughals blocked the river below the town with a bridge of boats, dug mines under the walls and in September stormed the place. Many of the defenders died trying to escape down the river. The captives, Portuguese and their dependants, were marched to Agra. A few years later Shah Jahan allowed the Portuguese to return to trade on a smaller scale.
The fall of Hooghly ended Portuguese dominance in Bengal and opened the river trade to the Dutch and the English.
