View taken on the Esplanade, Calcutta, T.W.Daniell

Conventional wisdom is that Kolkata was founded by Job Charnock in 1690. But the existence of a site called Kalikata prior to that date is known from various sources. But it is difficult from these sources to arrive at any definitive account of the early history of the city. Thus, the early history remains obscure. Some historians have referred to a mention of Kalikata in Ain-I-Akbari (1590) of Abul Fazl. But even this reference is not clear, and it is difficult to determine whether Kalikata in this text refers to a village or to a mahal.

When Job Charnock arrived in Kolkata one hundred years after the writing of Ain-I-Akbari, he settled in the village of Sutanuti. It is not unreasonable to assume that if at that time Kalikata had been a flourishing place Charnock would have settled there instead of in neighbouring Sutanuti. What is clear is that sometime after Charnock's arrival, the English East India Company acquired the zamindari rights of the three villages of Gobindapur, Sutanati and Kalikata from the Sabarno Chowdhurys of Barisha.