Calcutta (Sutanuti Trading Post)

Timeline

1. 1690–1693Sutanuti · CalcuttaAfter Aurangzeb's court permitted the Company to return to Bengal, Charnock raised the Company flag at Sutanuti in 1690 and put up warehouses, a dining hall, and sorting rooms. He had called there several times before, judging the low, marshy east bank easier to defend than the west-bank European posts at Hooghly and Kasimbazar, with deep-water anchorage. In 1691 imperial permission granted the English "free trade in peace." Charnock died soon after, but the factory was retained as the seat of the Bengal Council.
2. 1696–1702Kalikata–Sutanuti–Govindapur · CalcuttaFrom 1696 the Company built fortifications on the riverbank, later known as the old Fort William. In 1698, under pressure from Azim-us-Shan, Aurangzeb's grandson, the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family transferred the zamindari of Sutanuti, Dihi Kalikata, and Govindapur to the Company. The administrative merger of the three villages allowed the scattered factories, markets, and villages to be run as a single British town, "Calcutta," laying the land-title foundation for the 18th-century presidency capital.
3. 1702–1772Calcutta · CalcuttaIn the 18th century Calcutta expanded from a riverside factory into the headquarters of the Bengal Presidency: cotton cloth, saltpetre, opium, and marine insurance concentrated there, with European quarters alongside native markets. After the Battle of Plassey the Company controlled Bengal's finances, and Calcutta became the political, military, and informational hub of eastern British India, serving for a long time as the capital of British India until the capital moved to Delhi in 1911.
4. 1911Calcutta (Kolkata) · CalcuttaAfter the British Indian capital moved to Delhi in 1911, Calcutta remained the largest port and cultural center of the east. After independence it was renamed Kolkata, and the factory-fort origins on the Hooghly banks were museumified, while the streets of the northern city around Sutanuti still reveal the layout of the early riverside settlement. The city continues to evolve as a South Asian metropolis.