With the arrival of the Europeans in the 17th century, outposts were established in Odisha Coast and Bengal. The European traders established their trade centres in the famous ports of Balasore, Pipili, Palur in the Odisha Coast during the rule of the last independent Hindu king Gajapati Prataprudra Dev. The Portuguese were in Chittagong, Dutch in Chinsura, French in Pondicherry and the English founded Calcutta. The Maratha Invasion of Bengal badly affected the economy of Bengal and it is estimated that 400,000 people were butchered by the Hindu Maratha bargis and many women and children gang raped, and the genocide has been considered to be among the deadliest massacres in Indian history. In 1756, the British East India Company defeated the local Indian Muslim rulers in Plassey and established British Rule in the subcontinent. Its capital Calcutta grew into one of the world's greatest ports. Tea from Calcutta was off-loaded by American separatists in the American War of Independence in the 1770s. In the 19th century, Calcutta's traders and merchants traded with the rest of the British Empire, continental Europe, the United States and China. Indentured Indian labourers from Bihar, sailed to new homes in Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Surinam and South Africa.