Hugli-Chuchura in the context of "Pre-colonial"

Colonialism is the practice of extending and maintaining political, social, economic, and cultural domination over a territory and its people by another people in pursuit of interests defined in an often distant metropole, who also claim superiority. While frequently an imperialist project, colonialism functions through differentiating between the targeted land and people, and that of the colonizers (a critical component of colonization). Rather than annexation, this typically culminates in organizing the colonized into colonies separate to the colonizers' metropole. Colonialism sometimes deepens by developing settler colonialism, whereby settlers from one or multiple colonizing metropoles occupy a territory with the intention of partially or completely supplanting the existing indigenous peoples, possibly amounting to genocide.

Colonialism monopolizes power by understanding conquered land and people to be inferior, based on beliefs of entitlement and superiority, justified with beliefs of having a civilizing mission to cultivate land and life, historically often rooted in the belief of a Christian mission. These beliefs and the actual colonization establish a so-called coloniality, which keeps the colonized socio-economically othered and subaltern through modern biopolitics of sexuality, gender, race, disability and class, among others, resulting in intersectional violence and discrimination.

The Bengal Subah (Bengali: সুবাহ বাংলা, Persian: صوبه بنگاله), also referred to as Mughal Bengal and Bengal State (after 1717), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire encompassing much of the Bengal region, which includes modern-day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and some parts of the present-day Indian states of Bihar (from 1733), Jharkhand and Odisha between the 16th and 18th centuries. The province was established following the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world, when the region was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. Bengal was the wealthiest region in the Indian subcontinent.

Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) described Bengal Subah as 'the paradise of Nations' and the "Golden Age of Bengal". It alone accounted for 40% of Dutch imports from Asia. The eastern part of Bengal was globally prominent in industries such as textile manufacturing and shipbuilding, and it was a major exporter of silk and cotton textiles, steel, saltpeter, and agricultural and industrial produce in the world. The region was also the basis of the Anglo-Bengal War.

Factory was the common name during the medieval and early modern eras for an entrepôt – which was essentially an early form of free-trade zone or transshipment point. At a factory, local inhabitants could interact with foreign merchants, often known as factors. First established in Europe, factories eventually spread to many other parts of the world. The origin of the word factory is from Latin factorium 'place of doers, makers' (Portuguese: feitoria; Dutch: factorij; French: factorerie, comptoir).

The factories established by European states in Africa, Asia and the Americas from the 15th century onward also tended to be official political dependencies of those states. These have been seen, in retrospect, as the precursors of colonial expansion.

Hooghly district is one of the 23 districts in the Indian state of West Bengal. It can alternatively be spelt Hoogli . The headquarters of the district is Hooghly-Chinsurah . The district is named after the Hooghly River and is located in the Burdwan division. There are four subdivisions of the district: Chinsurah Sadar, Serampore, Chandannagore, and Arambagh.

St. John the Baptist Church of Chinsura (Armenian: Սուրբ Յովհաննէս Մկրտիչ Եկեղեցի), is located in Chinsura, India. The church was built in 1695–1697 and is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It is the second-oldest Christian church in Bengal, and the oldest Armenian church in India.The church is well preserved due to its proximity to Kolkata and the care committee of the Armenian Churches.

The Armenian Church of Chinsura was started in 1699. A spire was added to the church in 1822, for which the Dutch resident of Bengal Daniel Anthony Overbeek laid the foundation stone.

Khoja Wajid (also spelled Wazid, Wazeed; d. 1759) was a wealthy Armenian merchant who played a prominent role in the economic and political life of Bengal in the 1740s and 1750s.

He was the son of Khoja Mahmet Fazel, another notable Armenian merchant. Based in the port town of Hughli, he used his business prowess and influence at the court of the Nawab of Bengal to consolidate his commercial empire, gaining control over the economy of Bihar and establishing highly profitable monopolies over the trade of saltpeter and salt. He also controlled most of the opium trade. After consolidating his control over Bengal's inland trade, he expanded his operations to maritime commerce and acquired a trading fleet which, according to Sushil Chaudhury, "dominated the Asian maritime trade of Hughli." He had extensive business connections with the French, Dutch and English trading companies in India. In the early 1740s, Wajid became the official representative of the Armenian merchants of Bengal at the court of the faujdar of Hughli, later gaining a place at the court of the nawab in Murshidabad. By the early 1750s, he had become a political figure of great influence and a close ally of Nawab Alivardi Khan and his successor Siraj ud-Daulah. When Siraj came into conflict with the English, Wajid was sent as the nawab's emissary to negotiate with the English prior to the Siege of Calcutta. Wajid's commercial interests suffered after the English sacked Hughli, ostensibly in retaliation for Siraj's capture of Calcutta. Seeking to restore his fortunes, Wajid advised the nawab to ally with the French against the British, but fell out of favor at court when this plan failed. He was one of the last to join the conspiracy against Siraj ud-Daulah in May 1757.