Chittagong 1831

Officially known as Chattogram, the port of Chittagong is one of the oldest natural harbours in Asia, making it a major player in the history of Bengal and the eastern front of the Indian subcontinent. Today, it's the most important port of Bangladesh and is critically important in serving the nation's economy, so much so that even in the ancient era it was known to the early Greeks and Europeans as the town of Pentapolis. In the medieval era, it was known as Chatigama, one of the oldest origins of its names, part of the Samatata Kingdom (3rd century BC to 13th century AD) ruled by the Chandras and Varmans that ruled the southeastern part of Bangladesh and Indian states of Mizoram and Tripura between the 4th and 12th centuries AD. 

In the next century, Chatgam would see itself in the middle of a cultural conflux of various regimes. There were the Ilyas Shahis and a fragment of the Mamluks who were later subdued by the Tughluqs, reigning in the Bangala region to the west. The Ilyas Shahis were often in conflict with the Tughluqs who were the ruling empire in the centre, during the 13th century. To its east were the Shans who were battling the Mongols and balancing conflicts for a unified Burma, in the neighbouring countries of Ava, Tippera and Arakan. And among these, it would be the territory of Arakan that would have its most influence on Chatgaon when between 1459 to 1473, Ava's domains extends to Chatgaon, while fighting for independence from the invading Portuguese. In fact, Chatgaon had become an important Portuguese trading post in the 15th-16th centuries and its politics swung between Mughal and Arakanese supremacies throughout this period. 

The early Mughals couldn't touch Chatgaon, but the early Europeans did. In fact, the port of Chatgaon was the first European colony in whole of Bengal when the Portuguese demarcated their dominions between 1528 to 1666. The harbour was locally styled as 'Shahi Bangalah' which would translate in Portuguese as 'Porto Grande' and on older maps one could find the name as 'Porto Grande de Bengala'. The nearby port of Dianga became, unfortunately, a hub of Portuguese-Arkanese piracy and slave trade and became infamous for epicentre of prisoners settlement and human trafficking. The Magh (or Mog) tribe from Arakan and Portuguese pirates were active in Chatgaon and the nearby Sondip Island till the capture of these settlements by the Mughals in 1665-66, and Chatgaon was renamed temporarily as Islamabad. 

With the arrival of British in 1760, after winning over the battle at Plassey, the city's name once again changed from Islamabad to Chittagong - a name that will go in history and would see numerous uprisings against the rising imperialism. Prior to the British arrival, the entire Bengal province was virtually independent of the Mughal rule in 1733, only to be raided by the Marathas between 1742 to 1751, which later got permanently stopped by the English. Bengal was one of the only provinces where one could spot all the major European powers flaunting their trade centres - British, French, Dutch, Danish and Portuguese. As time progressed, the geography of Chittagong's neighbours changed as well when the most powerful of them, Arakan, swung between Burmese and Bengali administration in the 19th century, while to the east rose independent tribes such as the Lushais and Chins, but under colonial spheres in the mid-1820s. 

By 1857, Chittagong was a full-fledged division under British rule, neighbouring Bulloah to its west, the Princely State of Hill Tipperah to the north, Akyab (Arakan) to east and south and the Burman Empire bordering the northeast border. The Native Infantry stationed at Chittagong rebelled against the East India Company during the 1857 mutiny when on the 18th of November the sepoys sacked arms, ammunition, the treasury, released the prisoners, attacked the Magazine House and headed towards Tippera. Simultaneously, naval troops were directed towards other parts of Bengal such as Jessore, Rangpur and Dinajpur (all parts of today's Bangladesh) that navigated an attack at Dhaka. 

Chittagong saw two major events during the British Raj that became milestones in the history of India's independence movement. The founding of Anushilan Samiti at Calcutta and Dacca in 1902, that was technically a fitness club but ran as an underground secret society for revolutionaries. By the start of the First World War, it had its branch spread out in entire Bengal, including Chittagong. But the town came under radar when in 1930 the famous armoury raid attempted by the revolutionary Surya Sen shook the British Empire, and the act became an inspiration for numerous revolutionaries in the freedom struggle. Nearly a hundred volunteers took part, most of them being teenagers, led by Surya Sen, Lokenath Bal, Ganesh Ghosh, Ambika Chakrobarty, Ananta Singh, Harigopal Bal, Kalpana Dutta etc; this was one of the biggest revolutionary acts of the 20th century Indian subcontinent. The raid was such that it cut off telephone and telegraph lines, disoriented railways, attacked the European Club and clashed with the British troops at Jalalabad Hills in a gunfire. The revolt was suppressed by the British and at the end, Surya Sen was hanged till death on 12th January 1934, but this spark was enough to ignite thousands of other revolutionaries across the subcontinent. 

When the talks of partition was escalating in the 1940s, the original plan of dividing Bengal was quite different from what it actually happened in 1947. Chittagong district was divided into two parts - Chittagong (west) and Chittagong Hill Tracts (east). It was decided earlier that Chittagong would be transferred to Pakistan, while the Chittagong Hill Tracts would go to India, it being a non-Muslim majority region. But later, the whole of Chittagong became part of the newly formed dominion of Pakistan. 

Below here is a recreated map of Chittagong dating 1831, originally sketched by Parbury, Allen and Co.