Chinnayya Naik

Chinnayya Naik arrived as a stowaway on a ship to Copenhagen in 1795. He told the captain that the purpose of his visit was to complain to the King of Denmark about the bad treatment of his caste meted out by the Governor, Peter Anker. With in a few days of his arrival, he got an audience with the King, and presented his complaints. The King gave instructions to the Government that Chinnayya should stay in the country until his claims were examined. Initially, Chinnayya got a Dane to write the letters for him, but soon, he could formulate his own letters. The case dragged on until about 1800. In the meantime, Chinnayya got married to a Dane and got a daughter. During his stay, he borrowed a large amount of money which he spent on expensive clothes, and mode of travel, as he pretended to be from a noble family in Tranquebar. He told his creditors that his family would send him diamonds with the next ship. The courts decided at the end that he was a fraud and should be sent out of the country. He left Denmark in 1802, and disappeared in South Africa where he had to change his ships to get to either India or Bantam.