Timoji was a

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

and

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

who served the

Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Kingdom, was a late medieval Hinduism, Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, belongi ...

and the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa ...

, in the first decade of the 16th century. He claimed to have been born in Velha Goa and escaped the city in 1496, during the conquest by the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapore. After his support in the 1510 Portuguese conquest of Goa, he was appointed '' aguazil'' of the city, for a short time.

Background

Since the 14th century the

Deccan The Deccan is a plateau extending over an area of and occupies the majority of the Indian peninsula. It stretches from the Satpura and Vindhya Ranges in the north to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south. It is bound by the mount ...

had been divided in two entities: on the one side stood the Muslim

Bahmani Sultanate The Bahmani Kingdom or the Bahmani Sultanate was a late medieval Persianate kingdom that ruled the Deccan plateau in India. The first independent Muslim sultanate of the Deccan, the Bahmani Kingdom came to power in 1347 during the rebellio ...

, and on the other stood the native

rajas ''Rajas'' (Sanskrit: रजस्) is one of the three '' guṇas'' (tendencies, qualities, attributes), a philosophical and psychological concept developed by the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy.James G. Lochtefeld, Rajas, in The Illustrated ...

rallied around the

. Continuous wars demanded frequent resupplies of fresh horses, which were imported through sea routes from Persia and Arabia. This trade was subjected to frequent raids by thriving bands of pirates based in the coastal cities of Western India. Timoji acted both as a privateer (by seizing horse traders, that he rendered to the raja of Honavar) and as a pirate who attacked the Kerala merchant fleets that traded pepper with

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

. Timoji operated off Anjediva (modern Anjadip) Island, with two thousand mercenaries under his command and at least fourteen ships.

Relations with the Portuguese

Timoji met

Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama ( , ; – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and nobleman who was the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India, first European to reach India by sea. Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link ...

's fleet off Anjediva in 1498, but the Portuguese admiral suspected him of being a spy and refused his advances. In 1505, he attracted the Portuguese Viceroy Dom Francisco de Almeida to an estuary and, after keeping him waiting for three days, appeared before him richly attired and offered him his services and a token tribute. In 1507 Timoji warned the Viceroy of the upcoming siege of Cannanore by

Calicut Kozhikode (), also known as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. Known as the City of Spices, Kozhikode is listed among the City of Literature, UNESCO's Cities of Literature. It is the nineteenth large ...

forces and supplied the Portuguese St. Angelo Fort during the siege. In the end of 1507, when a

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

fleet under Amir Husain Al-Kurdi (named "Mirocem" by the Portuguese) supplemented the Calicut forces, he became de Almeida's main informant. Soon after the Battle of Diu, Timoji met the Vijayanagara emperor Krishnadevaraya and offered him rich tribute. He then prompted the Portuguese to conquer

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

, the main port for the horse trade. The city had been conquered from Vijayanagar by the Bahmani Sultans in 1469, and passed to Bijapur. In late 1509, the remains of the Mamluk fleet defeated in the battle of Diu had taken refuge there. In 1510 the new governor

Afonso de Albuquerque Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa ( – 16 December 1515), was a Portuguese general, admiral, statesman and ''conquistador''. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across ...

wanted to fight the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate fleet in the Red Sea or return to Hormuz. However, Timoji convinced him that it would be easier to fight them in

, where they had sheltered after the Battle of Diu,Bhagamandala Seetharama Shastry, Charles J. Borges, "Goa-Kanara Portuguese relations, 1498-1763" p. 34-36 and also of the illness of the Sultan Yusuf Adil Shah and war between the

Deccan sultanates The Deccan sultanates is a historiographical term referring to five late medieval to early modern Persianate Indian Muslim kingdoms on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range. They were created from the disintegrati ...

. So he invested in the capture of Goa to the Sultanate of Bijapur with the support of Timoji. On November, in a second strike, Albuquerque conquered Goa with a fleet fully renovated and about 300 Malabarese reinforcements from Cannanore. They regained the support of the native population, although frustrating the initial expectations of Timoji, who aspired to gain the city. Afonso de Albuquerque rewarded him by appointing him chief " Aguazil" of the city, an administrator and representative of the native people, as a knowing interpreter of the local customs. He then made an agreement to lower yearly dues and started the first Portuguese

mint Mint or The Mint may refer to: Plants * Lamiaceae, the mint family ** ''Mentha'', the genus of plants commonly known as "mint" Coins and collectibles * Mint (facility), a facility for manufacturing coins * Mint condition, a state of like-new ...

in the East, after complaints from merchants and Timoji about the scarcity of currency.

Later life and death

Timoji was put in command of the native troops loyal to the Portuguese. However, he soon was relieved of his command due to his refusal to follow orders. The command of the native troops was given to a pretender to the throne of Honavar, and Timoji returned to piracy. Timoji was made prisoner after a raid, and died by

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

poisoning soon after being taken to the Vijayanagar capital. His wife and children, however, returned to

where

arranged for their upkeep.

Background

Relations with the Portuguese

Later life and death

Notes

References

Further reading