[1] In 1606, a Dutch ship stopped on the shores of the Karimanal Village near Pulicat, north of the mouth of the lake requesting water.

[4] Empress Eraivi, a wife of Emperor Venkata II of Vijayanagara, ruled Prelaya Kaveri and during her reign in 1608 the Dutch East India Company was given permission to build a fort and do trading.

[5] They built a fort named Geldria at Pulicat as a defense from other invading armies' kings and the Portuguese, from where they soon monopolized the lucrative textiles trade with the East Indies and other countries in the region.

[7] The Dutch establishment met with stiff resistance from the Portuguese, who conducted several attacks on the harbor.

In 1611, Venkatatapati turned against the Portuguese and the Jesuits were ordered to leave Chandragiri and the Dutch were permitted to build a fort at Pulicat.

Its output was so substantial that for several decades it was able to keep many of the major Dutch trading centers in the East Indies and homeward-bound fleets well supplied.

[14] The headquarters of the colony shifted to Nagapattinam in 1690, after the Dutch had begun working on their Fort Vijf Sinnen three years earlier.

In the Treaty of Paris of 1784, which ended the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of which this siege was part, Nagapattinam was not restored to Dutch rule, but instead remained British.

In the larger towns of Pulicat and Santhome alone the death toll was put at 15,000 and only one third of the textile weavers, painters and washers survived.

An even more significant cause of the Dutch decline was conquest of the area by the Golconda forces commanded by Mir Jumla.