India Company Research Articles

‘Not regular thieves’: shades of Bhil engagement with company criminal justice (c. 1818–1825)

Considerable scholarship exists about the British colonial ideas of the murderous highway-robbing cult of ‘thuggee’, and the legislation passed in 1871 to curb the activities of ‘criminal tribes’ in colonial India. However, limiting research to these two themes of thuggee and criminal tribes alone occludes the informed, savvy and diverse ways that Indigenous communities like Bhils engaged with British justice prior to this time, under the East India Company. Using the under-researched unpublished archives of the Company’s Bombay Judicial Consultations between 1818 and 1825 as a sample, this article provides a survey of the dynamic, engaged and sometimes calculated ways that Bhils interacted with the Company’s system of justice. It contends that when it came to law, crime and culture, there were not black or white responses, but rather ‘shades’ of Bhil’s engagement with Company justice. This engagement was not simply a reactive measure for Bhils to adapt to Company rule. Bhils drew on longer lineages of political and legal practices which predated the Company in how they engaged with the British.

The Return of the Native: James MacPherson, Improving Strategies and Clanship Imagination in Late Eighteenth-century Badenoch

This paper examines a neglected facet of the life of the poet and colonial agent James Macpherson (1736–1796). Better known today as the ‘translator’ of Ossian, James Macpherson was also a political writer and MP who enjoyed a long association with the East India Company (EIC). In the 1780s, James returned to his native Badenoch, bought an estate, and played a decisive role in the reconfiguration of the area through military recruitments, land arbitration and new strategies of landownership and improvements. Studying James Macpherson's relation to land and kinship reveals a more complex and ambivalent man than previously acknowledged in existing literature. Drawing from official and private records, as well as Gaelic material, this paper uncovers the extent to which his reestablishment was the product of his imperial activities, as was visible in the reinjection of external capital in land. James's political connections in London were instrumental in assisting Duncan Macpherson (later of Cluny), son of the exiled Macpherson clan chief, in recovering the forfeited estates. Enjoying popularity with his tenants, James was reluctant to impose purely commercial improvements: his considerable East Indian profits provided him with financial emancipation from unpredictable land revenues and the ability to preserve his image of a paternalist landowner locally. However, this paper also engages with James Macpherson's ideology and recreation of a mythical past serving his own interests. Offering valuable help to the entrepreneurial Macpherson gentry also involved in India and America, James took a decisive role in offering advise and support to large-scale improvement projects. His adoption of a lavish lifestyle and conscious use of entertainment, made possible by the influx of colonial wealth, enabled him to challenge the old social order, juxtapose himself with the Cluny Macpherson and recreate a post-clanship culture serving the interests of the colonial gentry. The controversial perception of James Macpherson, whose role oscillated between that of nouveau riche and ‘clan champion’, sheds a new light on the impact of the British Empire on Badenoch, and the Highlands at large. A closer look at his reestablishment in Badenoch, a county traditionally seen by historians as an example of effective management without mass depopulation, provides new perspectives on the intersection of late-eighteenth century empire, improvement, and clanship.

Journey through Time: Mapping Cachar's Nineteenth Century Roadways

Nestled in the southern part of Assam, Cachar holds a fascinating and rich history. This remote area, situated in the northeastern corner of India and endowed with abundant natural resources, proved to be an enticing prospect for the British colonial administration. The tumultuous conditions prevalent in Cachar during the latter part of the Cachari rule under Govinda Chandra provided an opening for the British. Following the tragic assassination of Govinda Chandra in 1830, the English East India Company annexed Cachar on 14th August 1832. Subsequently, with an aim for administrative efficiency, the British government embarked on various developmental initiatives, including the construction and improvement of infrastructure such as roads and bridges, as part of their colonization endeavors in the region. This initiative indirectly contributed to the overall well-being of the people of Cachar. This paper aims to highlight the advancements made in the development of road networks in Cachar, essential elements that not only facilitated internal and external trade and commerce but also created avenues for new markets. The progress in infrastructure played a pivotal role in the expansion of the tea plantation in Cachar. Furthermore, these developments proved crucial for British administrators in Cachar, empowering them to effectively govern the region.

The Object as Gift: Practices of Gift Exchange in Awadh in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century

This paper examines rituals of gift exchange in the North Indian state of Awadh in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. It draws parallels between the gifting practices of the Nawabs and the English East India Company and examines how specific objects were selected to perform the role of gifts. It explores the practice of gift exchange where objects emerged as sites on which power was asserted, subverted and contested. In studying gifts, the aim is to delve into the institutional and ceremonial significance attributed to objects which made them the site of diplomatic encounters. The range of objects that were brought within the lexicon of gifts, and the power struggles that marked this process, inform the discussion. In exploring these themes, the paper addresses the larger question of how objects were imagined by political powers and the multiple ways in which meanings were added onto and erased from objects over the course of their circulation as gifts.

Cracking the Deck: National Origins and Promotions in the Dutch East India Company, 1700-1796

Organizational scholars highlight challenges in reducing inequality within organizations. Due to unanticipated consequences, many programs launched by organizations fail to accomplish these goals. We leverage historical data from the Dutch East India Company to claim that training programs may be an effective tool against inequality when coupled with teamwork incentives and included in broader programs for change. We study the effects of these programs on the unequal promotion rates between Dutchmen and non-Dutchmen across periods of time in which those programs were offered and in which they were not. Our analyses of promotions to top-ranked positions on the Company’s ships suggest a two-fold conclusion: first, the introduction of leadership training and teamwork incentives reduced the differential weights given to the experience of Dutchmen and non-Dutchmen; and, second, those benefits disappeared when the policies were rescinded after a change in top leadership. The results underscore the opportunities and difficulties that organizations face in implementing durable interventions against inequality.

Reflections on Encoding Languages in Historical Data: Working With the Multilingual Dimension of the Dutch East India Company Archives

Reflections on Encoding Languages in Historical Data: Working With the Multilingual Dimension of the Dutch East India Company Archives

On solid ground? Manumitted slaves, land ownership and registration in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT In pre-industrial societies subsistence agriculture played a crucial role in ensuring survival, not just for people born free, but also for those born into slavery. Within the legal framework of colonial structures, certain owners granted their enslaved individuals temporary usage rights to parcels of land upon their emancipation, and in rare cases, even bestowed permanent ownership. This article wants to study land ownership patterns of manumitted slaves in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka, when the island’s coastal territories were subject to the influence of the Dutch East India Company. By examining Dutch-language last wills from the period 1702 to 1765 we analyze the patterns of land donations by former owners to their freed slaves. By establishing connections between these donations and the detailed land registers of suburban districts surrounding the cities of Colombo and Galle, our objective is to uncover the shortand long-term implications of land ownership for the manumitted individuals and their families. Furthermore, this article also reflects on the implications of negotiated registration practices of such land ownership with a colonial power for the manumitted slaves. What did the label ‘manumitted’ or ‘free’ slave entail in Sri Lanka’s society, and how did registration in Dutch bureaucracy influence those labelling practices?

Anglo–Dutch financial connections and contrasts in the late eighteenth century: The Amsterdam phase of the 1772–3 credit crisis

AbstractWe examine the Amsterdam phase of the 1772–3 financial crisis using the British experience in the same episode as comparative context. We conclude that, notwithstanding some direct exposures by Amsterdam institutions to the principals of the London crisis, the main linkage between the two outbreaks was the requirement for cash margin on loans backed by British East India Company shares. No significant contagion via the bills of exchange network spread from London to Amsterdam in the period separating the two outbreaks, but some feeding back of distress to London is noticeable after the Dutch outbreak. The crisis was rooted in credit expansion, a deterioration in asset risk profiles, and speculation in West Indian mortgage securities and British equity markets. Speculators were enabled by information inefficiencies in the specialized and layered Amsterdam markets, and by the absence of a gatekeeper who could have regulated the provision of credit to them. To contain the outbreak, the Dutch drew on the cohesion of an informal club of insiders who led business and civic affairs. Though the credit markets resumed normal operations relatively quickly, the incurred losses were transformative for their long term prospects by devastating some of their most important firms.

Impact of Britishs East India Company on Indian Education Policy

Abstract: The 19th century witnessed a profound transformation in the political landscape of many regions, characterized by the rise of nationalism and the subsequent formation of nation-states. This research work delves into the historical context, key drivers, and consequences of this significant historical phenomenon. The research offers light on a crucial time in global history by investigating the causes of nationalism and its effects on the formation of nation-state.Employing a multidisciplinary approach, the research draws from historical, political, and sociocultural perspectives to analyze the rise of nationalism. It delves at how many peoples inside established empires and territories felt a feeling of commonality due to their shared cultural, linguistic, and historical identities. The work delves into the influence of Enlightenment ideas, Romanticism, and intellectual movements that fueled the concept of self-determination and the sovereignty of distinct nations. The study also scrutinizes the role of key historical events and figures that catalyzed the nationalist fervor. From the unification of Italy led by Giuseppe Garibaldi to the German unification orchestrated by Otto von Bismarck, the work examines the strategies employed to consolidate fragmented territories into cohesive nation-states. It also considers the implications of these transformations on regional stability, diplomacy, and balance of power.

Beyond Babel: East India Company Genre and Colonial Romanticism in an Indo-Persian Diary - ERRATUM

Beyond Babel: East India Company Genre and Colonial Romanticism in an Indo-Persian Diary - ERRATUM

THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY AND THE GREAT BENGAL FAMINE OF 1770: TOWARDS A CORPORATE COLONIAL BIOPOLITICS

ABSTRACT The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 took 10 million lives. The British East India Company’s (EIC) extraction of resources and imposition of brutal tax policies in Bengal exacerbated the disaster. By exploring the intersections of corporate interests, colonialism, and biopolitics, this paper provides a new perspective on the Bengal famine of 1770 by introducing and visualizing it through a unique theoretical framework—corporate colonial biopolitics. Adopting Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics, my focus is primarily on the corporate colonial biopolitical strategies enforced by the Company, which led to dispossession, violence, and resource extraction exploiting Bengal’s landscape and impeding the region’s progress and development. The essay unveils the racist policies and profit-driven principles of the EIC and how they prioritized generating revenues, financing its military, and exporting food grain even at the peak of the famine. I point out how the EIC systematically dismantled the Indian agricultural system, fueling deindustrialization in India and ultimately making the region vulnerable to famines. The Bengal famine of 1770 remains unexplored by geographers despite being the first colonial famine in India. One of the primary objectives of this paper is to bridge this gap by shedding light on the geographical dimensions of this pivotal historical catastrophe.

Turning points in leadership: Ship size in the Portuguese and Dutch merchant empires

Abstract This paper discusses the implications of organizational control on the race for technological leadership in merchant empires. I provide an illustrative framework in which poor organizations have reduced incentives to invest, which in turn stifle technology improvements making leaders lag new entrants. In the late sixteenth century, Portugal’s large ships carried more merchandise and were more fitting of the monarch’s grandiose preferences, but they also were more prone to disaster. The merchant-controlled Dutch East India Company however, invested in smaller but more seaworthy vessels conducting more voyages at a much lower loss rate. The surviving historical evidence shows Portugal relying on large ships well into the seventeenth century suggesting her technological edge was gone by the time the Dutch dominated the Indian Ocean.

The Dutch Language in the Muslim World (1600-1800)

ABSTRACT There was much contact between the Dutch Republic and Muslim world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) (1602-1799) undertook extensive commercial activity in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago, where many Muslims lived. The VOC established trading posts in Bengal, across the Indian sub-continent, in Persia, the Yemen, and at its headquarters in the East Indies at Batavia. Whilst people in these areas practised several religions including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, most of these areas had significant Muslim populations, often with Muslim rulers. I am undertaking a project to analyse who spoke and wrote Dutch to whom and when in the Muslim world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Given the scale of the Muslim world, it will be useful to divide it into two parts: one that focuses on the Indonesian archipelago and another on other countries with Muslim populations. This article examines what the second part of this project might look like, mapping out the form and content of a project on contact between Dutch and languages spoken in the Muslim world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Pahlawan, Pengkhianat, Atau Penjahat (Hero, Traitor, or Villain): A Personal Journey Through Indonesian History

This article concerns Indonesian heroes, traitors, and villains from different regions and eras. The factors influencing the categorisation of individuals as heroes or villains are examined. Examples include regional leaders who opposed the Dutch East India Company or collaborated with it. Similar cases are examined from the period of the Netherlands Indies colonial state. Also discussed are nationalists who were members of the Indonesian Communist Party, and people now deemed heroes who collaborated with the Japanese during the Second World War. Next for consideration are individuals involved in Confrontation with Malaysia and the occupation of East Timor. The last cases come from the world of popular music and show how performers idolised by fans can be considered villains by others.

The Life and Death, and Life of William Mackay

ABSTRACT This essay traces my dedication, over two decades, to reconstructing the life of Captain William Mackay of the (English) East India Company. Mackay was second officer on an unseaworthy country ship, the Juno, which was wrecked in the Bay of Bengal in 1795. The ship did not sink entirely—the teak cargo in her hold was sufficiently buoyant to keep sections of the upper deck just above the waterline. The seventy-two crew members and passengers, after the main mast was cut down to lighten the ship, climbed into the rigging of the fore and mizzen masts. Only fourteen people survived their exposure to the elements for twenty-three days before the ship, serendipitously, washed up on the Arakan (Burmese) coast. My essay develops this uncanny situation as an extended metaphor for the task of reclaiming and memorialising the life of William Mackay, but also considers my own, perhaps pathological, attachment to his narrative.

A Welsh Vision of Empire? Welsh Imperialists and the Indian Empire

Neither Welsh history nor imperial history has given much attention to the Welsh connection with empire. While English, Scottish, and Irish imperial history have been developed in recent decades, Wales has been largely ignored. In relation to India, there have been projects on missionaries and the East India Company, but little that focuses on Welsh imperialists during the period of Crown Rule. Despite having a smaller presence than other British nationalities, the Welsh were present in India between 1858–1947, and interacted with imperialism in ways which were distinctly Welsh. This research will explore the Welsh in India during this period and how their Welsh identity interacted with the empire to create a unique Welsh conception of imperialism. Constructed in the domestic press, it emphasised Welsh understanding of indigenous peoples through their own experience of being a minority within the UK and attached itself to a strong sense of Britishness manifested in loyalty to the empire. This ideology, however, had limited impact on the ground in India, with Welsh imperialists generally conforming to the racial and class norms of British India. Welsh imperialism remained a prism through which the Welsh thought about themselves rather than a method of action. Examining this experience adds new dimensions to imperial thinking, especially in relation to how faith and language were transported, reimagined, and contested in the colonial sphere. It demonstrates how the British exported their national and regional ideological baggage which continued to influence their thinking, despite being removed from the physical landscape in which they were forged. Welsh people like Sir Lawrence Jenkins and the missionaries of the Northeast of India had tangible impacts on the colonial space which were fundamentally inspired by their Welshness. This greatly adds to our understanding of how British imperialism operated and has implications far beyond India.

From Western India to Eastern Africa—the Rise of the Parsis in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Abstract The present paper examines the socio-economic conditions for the ascendancy of the Zoroastrian community in Western India between the 18th and 19th centuries. This study reinforces the well-established thesis on the role played by the Parsis in the development of capitalism in India. What distinguishes it from other narratives is the periodization of this development and the consideration of Parsi agency in the Western Indian Ocean region and East Africa, especially Mozambique. The cooperation of the Parsis with the European trade companies and private European traders as of the mid-17th century—most notably, their links to the English East India Company, which boosted the Zoroastrian communities of northwestern India—is investigated. I try to show how the Parsis, who had been predominantly peasants, farmers and artisans from the 10th to 17th centuries, increasingly embarked upon trade, moneylending, brokerage and production. Because of their accumulated wealth, their numbers as well as their influence augmented throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

Beyond Babel: East India Company Genre and Colonial Romanticism in an Indo-Persian Diary

Scholarship largely holds that the “Persianate world”—a transregional sphere of cultural exchange mediated by an Indian Ocean lingua franca—was put paid to by a colonizing English East India Company. Against that historiography, this article reveals how colonial and Indo-Persian modern textual trends were coproduced. Reading a first-person account of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, written in 1815–17 by a prince from a Mughal successor state under Company rule, the article argues that the travelogue's unprecedented form of a diary, and its uncharacteristically affective contents for Indo-Persian prose, drew on emerging genres and Romantic ideologies in British India. But while this resulted in a new kind of Indo-Persian ego-document, this text of Indian Ocean travel remained, however, anchored in Mughal concepts of moods and manners. As such it betrayed transitional tensions that compel a reconsideration of how colonialism led ultimately to the passing of a precolonial Persianate Babel.

The Regulating Act, 1773

The legislative branch of the British government passed a law called the Regulating Act in order to manage and supervise the operations of the East India Company's various businesses. Because the primary purpose of passing the act was to govern the activities of the firm, it was once designated as East India Company Act, 1773.1 The adoption of the regulatory act of 1773 was done for several important reasons, the most important of which were to control the mismanagement that existed in the regions of Bengal and to solve the problem of parallel systems. 2 By 1773, the East India Company had already been experiencing significant financial difficulties for some time. The fact that this organisation represented a monopoly trade enterprise in India and that many influential people were stockholders contributed to the significance of the organisation for the British Raj. 3 The Company spent £40,000 every year to maintain the monopoly; however, it has been unable to pay its obligations since 1768, which has led to a drop in the amount of tea that is shipped to the United States. Almost 85 percent of all tea that was ever drank in the U. S. was obtained through illegal importation of Dutch teas. The East India Company owed money to both the Bank of England and the government of England. The government owned 7 million kg of tea that was rotting in British storage, and more tea was on its way from India. This Tea Act of 1773, along with the Regulating Act of 1773, had the primary objective of reducing the significant amount of tea that was being stored in London, the majority of which belonged to the financially struggling British East India Corporation, with the intention of assisting the financially struggling corporation in surviving.

Calico Madams and South Sea Cheats: Global Trade, Finance, and Popular Protest in Early Hanoverian England

Abstract In the summer of 1719, woolen and silk weavers took to the streets in cities and towns across England to protest the East India Company's importation of cotton calicoes from South Asia. English weavers viewed these popular imports as hurting their economic livelihoods. During the protests, they violently turned their anger against women wearing calico, tearing off their clothes and even throwing acid on some victims. Their actions spurred widespread condemnation, but the weavers got what they wanted in the end. In March 1721, an act banning the importation and use of all calico cloth in Britain received royal assent. On that same day, an act arranging the first in a series of financial rescues of the South Sea Company in the wake of the South Sea Bubble became law. Drawing from a range of archival and printed sources, the author explores the political and cultural connections between the calico crisis and the South Sea Bubble and investigates how reactions to both episodes intersected ideologically with fears of Jacobitism and foreign invasion and with broader anxieties about gender, the social order, and the political influence of financial corporations.