Siege of Hooghly
1632 military engagement in West Bengal, India
The siege of Hooghly was a military engagement between the Mughal Army and the Portuguese garrison of Fort Hooghly, the result was the capture of the fort and expulsion of the Portuguese.
Background
The Portuguese founded the town of Hooghly-Chuchura in 1579, but the district has thousands of years of heritage in the form of the Kingdom of Bhurshut. The city flourished as a trading port and some religious structures were built, including a Christian church dedicated to a statue of Mary, brought by the Portuguese.
In 1628, Shah Jahan became the emperor of the Mughal Empire. At the same time, news reached from Qasim Khan Juvayni, the Governor of Bengal, that the Portuguese were committing acts of piracy, smuggling, kidnapping, and the slave trade. Shah Jahan resolved to curb these Portuguese acts. It is reported by Om Prakash that the Portuguese had become brazen and confident as they believed that they were superior to the Mughals in open wide naval conflict in areas like the Ganges river while also being boosted by their Arakanese allies. As a result, the Portuguese raids grew more sever that caused the Nawabs of Bengal to grow worried.
Siege
In 1632, Shah Jahan ordered Qasim Khan to attack the Portuguese and expel them totally. The Mughal Army consisted of 150,000 men, 90 war elephants, and 14,000 cavalry.
“Siege of Hooghly” enters the record as 1632 military engagement in West Bengal, India. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Siege, Hooghly and military can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q115805002. Authority coordinates are 22.900, 88.390. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1579, 1628 and 1632.
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