01The port that would not pay
The Chowtas were a Jain ruling family of Tulu Nadu, and like many families of the coast they passed the throne through the female line. By the family’s own tradition Abbakka was made ruler of Ullal by her uncle Tirumala Raya. By the middle of the 1500s the Portuguese held Goa and had built a fort at Mangaluru, and they required every ship on the coast to buy their cartaz, a sea pass. Abbakka traded freely with Calicut and with Arab merchants, refused to pay, and allied with the Zamorin of Calicut and with Bijapur against them.
02Fire arrows at night
Portuguese fleets attacked Ullal more than once from the 1550s, and the town was sacked at least once, but the queen kept returning to it and kept refusing terms. Tulu songs and the paddana ballads of the coast remember her leading a night attack on a Portuguese camp and using fire arrows, and call her Abhaya Rani, the fearless queen. The details and the date of her death are not certain; the tradition says she was finally taken by treachery and died in prison still fighting. The Indian Coast Guard named a patrol ship ICGS Rani Abbakka in 2012.
