During this period, Calicut was ruled by king Zamorin and Kochi was ruled by the Maharaja of Cochin. This was the time when the first Portuguese ships berthed at the Malabar Coast: Vasco da Gama in Calicut and Pedro Álvares Cabral in Kochi. The Maharaja of Kochi felt threatened by the Zamorin of Calicut, and he hoped that the Portuguese would help him in his defense from the neighbouring king of Calicut. The Maharaja welcomed the Portuguese, and they founded their first trading center in Kochi. However, the Maharaja of Cochin was largely deprived of his power, and Kochi became the first European colony in India.[citation needed ] The Portuguese put pressure upon the small Jewish community, and even the Syrian Christians as they were practising nestorianism. The Portuguese tried to merge the Syrian Christian Church with the Latin Church. This created conflict as most of the Syrian Christians were associated with various churches of the East and rejected the authority of the Pope and the Latin Church.Most of the Christians of pre-Portuguese period were from local castes. Nambudhiris and Nairs did not become Christians because they did not want to lose their caste privileges guaranteed in Hinduism.Like the low caste Muslim converts of Malabar who lost their original caste and became Moplahs, local Christian converts also lost their caste and like Moplahs those Christians formed a separate caste with Syriac as their liturgy. So the Portuguese called the local Christians as Syrian Christians. Francis Xavier converted several thousands, mostly fishermen. But intermarriage between Syriac liturgy Christians and Latin liturgy Christians was common and widespread, because they were all local converts. Thus the Christian population increased in Kochi.[3]
