Madras and the British Raj: The Initial Years (1639-1700)

Introduction:

Located halfway up the Southeast coast of India, known in colonial times as the Coromandel Coast,[i] Madras is a clean, pleasant city with broad streets, gracious gardens, and stately buildings that sprawl leisurely over 50 square miles.[ii] As the modern-day capital city of the Southern state of Tamil Nadu in India,[iii] Madras receives many international visitors. Most of these visitors remain blissfully unaware of the city’s extraordinary historic legacy, and its powerful ties to the British Empire. It was in Madras that the seeds of the wealthiest and most powerful empire the world has ever known were first sown.[iv] It was in Madras that the founder of British India, Robert Clive, first arrived in 1743 as a menial clerk, and from where he went on to become the Commander in Chief of the British forces in India.[v] It was also in Madras that Elihu Yale served as Governor for five years, from 1687 to 1692,[vi] and earned a substantial fortune, allowing him to fund one of the most preeminent universities in America, Yale University. In this article, we take a look at the founding of Madras, and its initial cultural development.

The Founding of Madras:

In the 1600s, the British began to aggressively expand their trading efforts in India, by establishing or acquiring three major commercial settlements on the Indian coasts: Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. [vii] These three settlements, later known as presidencies, were central to the development of the British government of India.[viii] Established in 1639, Madras is the first major settlement of the British Empire in India. The second major settlement, Bombay, was acquired by the British in 1661, as part of the dowry presented by the Portuguese princess Catherine to her new husband, King Charles II of England.[ix] The third major settlement, Calcutta, was founded in 1690, when Emperor Aurangzeb of the Mughal Empire granted permission to the British to establish a settlement in an area in Bengal populated by three small villages.[x] Together with Bombay and Calcutta, Madras became a local center for the operations of the East India Company, run by its own governor and council.[xi]

Up until 1639, most of the British efforts to establish colonies on the Coromandel Coast of India had been relatively unsuccessful. The British initially attempted to set up a trading outpost at the port city of Masulipatam, which was ruled by the Muslim Kings of Golconda.[xii] As a commercial hub of trade in rubies, diamonds, and expensive textiles, Masulipatam appeared to be an excellent location for the British East India Company to center its trading operations. However, despite receiving permission from local Hindu rulers to establish a factory in the region, the British had to fight with the Dutch for control over Masulipatam, as the local Golconda rulers knew it was important to keep the port city open to as many foreign traders as possible, without giving one ruling group more trading power than the other.[xiii]

Finally, in 1628, the British left Masulipatam for a newer settlement at Armagaon, a settlement lying a few days sail down the coast.[xiv] The chief of Armagaon, a poor village with nearly no commerce,[xv] had granted the British permission to build a factory in 1626. With 12 cannons and 23 sailors and merchants, the British established their first fortified garrison on the Coromandel Coast. Despite this promising start, the settlement at Armagaon quickly foundered, as the region was too poor to establish a strong trade settlement, and because it was nearly impossible to import textiles in sufficient quantity to the village.[xvi]

After two years of struggle, most of the British left Armagaon to return to Masulipatam.[xvii] Unfortunately, Masulipatam proved to be even more inhospitable after two years away, as the entire region had fallen prey to a severe drought and famine.[xviii] The returning British officials reported that most weavers and washers were dead, the country ruined, and that most men were afraid to travel for fear of being killed and eaten.[xix] The famine forced the British and Dutch to fight even more fiercely to establish a trade supremacy in Masulipatam.[xx] Although the Golconda rulers granted the British a royal firmaud in 1632, allowing them to ‘sit down at rest and in safety’,[xxi] the British decided to seek a new settlement in order to avoid further draining conflict with the Dutch.[xxii]

In 1639, Francis Day, a member of the Masulipatam British Council and chief of Armagaon,[xxiii] sailed down the Coromandel Coast and stopped at the Portuguese fort, San Thome.[xxiv] Day then sailed to a fishing village 3 miles north of San Thome.[xxv] The fishing village was 30 miles away from the Dutch settlement at Pulicat, and had access to well-built roads.[xxvi] The name of this fishing village was Chennapatanam, although the British referred to it as Madraspatnam.[xxvii] Day negotiated with the local Hindu ruler, the Naik of Chengalpat, for a building plot of one square mile that the Armagaon settlement could move to,[xxviii] as well as the right to build a fort.[xxix] The Naik welcomed the English, and obtained a land grant on their behalf from his ruler, Raja Sri Ranga Raya, a descendant of the Vijayanagar dynasty.[xxx]

Day’s reasons for choosing this site are unknown, as the shoreline around Madras was exposed, and it was very close to the Portuguese settlement at San Thome.[xxxi] Some historians claim that Day had a mistress at San Thome that he was very fond of, and he wanted to make sure that their meetings would be more frequent and uninterrupted, thus making the selection of Madraspatnam more convenient for him.[xxxii] The exact reason that Day named the new settlement “Madras” is also not known. The Naik initially ordered the British to name the settlement after his father, Chennappa,[xxxiii] but Raja Ranga Raya instead declared that the new settlement should be named “Sri Ranga-raya-patanam”, after his own name.[xxxiv] The British name “Madras” is believed to have been derived from a legendary Sanskrit king of the lunar race, corrupted in Telegu to “Mandaraz”,[xxxv] and was also likely the name of a local shrine or part of a local legend.[xxxvi]

Soon after Day received his land grant from the Naik, the British factors at Armagaon agreed to immediately move to Madraspatnam,[xxxvii] mainly because they believed the Naik would actually pay for the construction of the fort.[xxxviii] However, the wording of the Naik’s grant turned out to be misleading, as it could also be read to mean that the English would pay for the fort’s construction, but the British factors did not realize this until they had already moved and encamped at Madraspatnam.[xxxix] The East India Company was not enthusiastic about establishing a settlement at Madras, primarily because it had already sunk a large fortune into several other failed settlements.[xl]

However, Day would not take no for an answer, and fought hard to ensure the fort was established at Madraspatnam.[xli] He was so convinced that the Madras settlement would be successful that he wagered his salary for the entirety of his period of service with the Company that cotton there would be 15% cheaper than at Armagaon.[xlii] He also threatened to resign if his plan for the fort was not accepted by the Company.[xliii] The East India Company finally let the Council at Surat make a decision about the planned Madras settlement.[xliv] After considering the advantages of having a stronghold in the Bay of Bengal that would secure the trade with Java, the Council gave its approval.[xlv] In order to further secure the Council’s approval, Day volunteered to meet all interest charges on money raised to build the fort out of his own pocket, although he apparently reneged on the deal later.[xlvi]

After months of continuous financial wrangling, the British finally began to construct the Madras settlement shortly after February 1640.[xlvii] Day named the fortifications Fort St. George.[xlviii] Fort St. George was an elementary, square castle, with four corner bastions and curtain walls that were approximately 100 yards long.[xlix] The settlement was situated on a narrow strip of land running inland for six miles up the shore of the Coromandel Coast, north of the Portuguese monastic village built around the shrine of Saint Thomas.[l] The fort itself was situated on the northern corner of a little island formed by two channels of the Cooum backwaters, making it easier to defend against the attacks of predatory horsemen.[li] In total, the fort took 14 years to complete, and left the Company Directors in London furious over the 3,000 pound cost.[lii] Yet, despite the Company’s anger over the cost, Madras quickly gained favor with local Company officials. By 1642, the main British settlement transferred officially from Masulipatnam to Madras.[liii]

The Port of Madras:

For many years after its construction, the Madras port was loathed and dreaded by most sailors, because it was difficult to navigate safely. Most port cities of South Asia were not located at the very edge of the sea.[liv] Instead, such cities were often located several miles inland, and frequently accessible through a tortuous and capricious river system, in order to increase the convenience of internal trade and administration, while also making these port cities more defensible against invaders.[lv]

Madras was an exception to this typical port city layout.[lvi] Day built Fort St. George right on the beach itself.[lvii] From there, Madras had spread north and south along the tideline.[lviii] As a result, heavy seas often threatened the city walls.[lix] One side of Madras was pounded by the heaviest surf on the entire Coromandel Coast, while the other side was periodically flooded by a salt-water lagoon, which became a fast-moving river headed to the sea when the monsoon arrived each year.[lx] The “bar” – a continuous reef of sand running parallel to the beach – was difficult to cross for most ships, and was avoided by most large vessels.[lxi] Instead, ocean-going vessels would anchor well away from the beach, because there also was no sheltered harbor.[lxii] Disembarking passengers, including men, merchandise, pets, and furniture, had to brave the rough waves in flimsy canoes as they attempted to reach the shore, while a pounding surf tossed them about mercilessly.[lxiii]

Day even experienced the danger of the Madras harbor personally in 1640, when a typhoon destroyed his ships, by running one aground and destroying another past repair.[lxiv] In 1656, a “common country boate” carrying the captains and staff of three departing East India ships, all of whom were reclining “verrie merrie in discourse”, grounded on the bar and quickly capsized, immediately drowning three of the men.[lxv] One survivor later wrote that “Suddenly, we found ourselves tumbled together in the water among chests, cases of liquor, and other such lumber and with a score of sheep that we were carrying aboard”.[lxvi] Twenty-four men and several sheep were saved when they were trapped under a capsized boat with a pocket of air for 2 hours,[lxvii] and finally emerged to find themselves 180 paces from the shore.[lxviii] But the water’s undertow was so fierce that 16 of these survivors drowned.[lxix] As a result of these incidents and many others, most seamen viewed the Madras port as a place of extreme danger.[lxx] An 18^th century sea captain named Alexander Hamilton called it “one of the most incommodious places I ever saw”.[lxxi]

Many captains also felt that Madras’ commercial importance was limited in comparison to Bengal and Gujarat.[lxxii] It’s location on a beach meant that Madras had no drinkable water source within a mile of the town, and the sand around the town was so sandy that no crops could be grown in it.[lxxiii] The region surrounding Madras did not have a good market for English imports, nor did it have a manufacturing base from which to draw Indian exports.[lxxiv] However, one advantage that Madras had over other port cities was that it was located only one week’s journey from the diamond mines of Golconda (Hyderabad).[lxxv]

The Development of Madras Society and Culture:

As the Madras settlement cemented its status as a valuable center of Company governance in India, the culture of the town began to develop. Despite the problems that most sea captains had in safely navigating the port of Madras, the Europeans who moved to the settlement generally enjoyed the area, primarily because of the pleasant climate.[lxxvi] The Reverend Charles Lockyer, who lived in Madras toward the end of the 1600s, said that “it was plainly discovered in their ruddy complexions” that “the inhabitants enjoy as perfect a health as they would do in England”.[lxxvii] According to Reverend Lockyer, even the summer heat of Madras was tolerable, as with “the sea breeze coming on, the town seems to be new born”.[lxxviii] Although Madras had little fresh water and no sanitation system, these deficiencies were typical of most Indian, English, and European towns of the time period.[lxxix]

As of 1700, the neoclassical colonnades and the gracious mansions for which Madras would become famous were not yet built.[lxxx] Instead, the settlement was still a tightly-packed town of terraced houses with wooden balconies, flat roofs, and castellated parapets. Most buildings had windows that faced the sea,[lxxxi] and used a highly polished plaster known as chunam.[lxxxii] At the center of the settlement stood Day’s castle fortress, Fort St. George.[lxxxiii] The Madras Governor’s residence, a stately mansion with three high-ceilinged stories, towered over the walls of Fort St. George and served as the hub of the settlement.[lxxxiv] The top floor of the Madras Governor’s residence doubled as a council chamber and stock exchange.[lxxxv] The outer walls of the Madras Governor’s residence were decorated with firearms arranged in scallops and florets, “like those in the armory of the Tower of London”, and from the windows there was a commanding view of the ships in the harbor.[lxxxvi] Only St. Mary’s Church, the first Anglican church east of the Suez and the one of the oldest British buildings in India, had a higher elevation than the Governor’s residence.[lxxxvii] Finished in 1680, St. Mary’s Church was described by the Reverend Lockyer as “a large pile of arched building, adorned with curious carved work, a stately altar, organs, a white copper candlestick, very large windows”.[lxxxviii]

The center of the Madras settlement, which developed in and around Fort St. George, was known as White Town, as most East India Company servants lived there, with a small garrison of soldiers and private merchants.[lxxxix] The White Town area was spruce and orderly, with central roadways and well-swept brick pavements.[xc] The Black Town, where the rapidly growing Indian population lived,[xci] surrounded the White Town and existed outside the fortifications of Fort St. George. By the end of the first year of the Madras settlement, about 300-400 Indians had set up home outside Fort St. George, including cloth weavers, merchants, servants, money-lenders, gardeners, soldiers, and prostitutes.[xcii] Many of these Indians were transplants from the Portuguese settlement of San Thome.[xciii] In later years, the Indian population swelled to 80,000, and included many celebrated weavers and dyers.[xciv] Other than these basic facts about Black Town, little is known about the lives of Indians at this time in Madras. One historian suggests that the Tamil people in the region lived in a state of abject subjugation, as their fields and homes were perpetually under siege by armies of English, French, Punjabi, Afghan, Rajput, Pathan, and Maratha troops.[xcv] Outside of such historic speculation, few facts about the Indian population of that time remain.

As the Madras settlement continued to develop through the 1600s and 1700s, the East India Company became more like a government and less like an association of merchants.[xcvi] The Company had its own soldiers, not soldiers of the British king, and it had its own judges, magistrates, and policemen.[xcvii] For the first few years of the Madras settlement, the garrison of Fort St. George was staffed with footloose Englishmen who were cut loose from the failure of other British settlements.[xcviii] By 1717, the Madras garrison consisted of about 360 Europeans.[xcix] Some of these Europeans were recruited locally, while others were sent from England, often to avoid his Majesty’s prisons.[c] The garrison had 3 companies, each commanded by an English lieutenant, and included footmen and horsemen.[ci] A few of these would-be soldiers had some military experience, mostly derived from prior skirmishes with the Portuguese, Dutch, or local Indian forces, but most had no military training of any kind.[cii]

In the 1600s and 1700s, the British were not well-paid civil servants in control of a British possession.[ciii] Instead, they were badly paid and in a strange land they did not understand, surrounded by foreigners they were not able to trust, and often prone to terrible diseases that ended their lives quickly.[civ] Yet, despite the risks of living in India, many British men were successful at building huge fortunes and living like kings.[cv] A book of travels published at the end of the 18^th century, The Nabobs by Percival Spear, describes the life of a British man in Bengal in this way:

At 7 AM, his doorkeeper opens the gate, letting in footmen, messengers, constables, stewards, butlers, writers, and soliciters. The head bearer and jemmadar enter his bedroom at 8 am. A lady will then leave his side and return to her own apartment through a private staircase, or leave the premises through the yard. The master then arises and is greeted by a number of servants salaaming to him by bending the body and head very low, touching the inside of their fingers to their forehead and the floor with the back of their hand. The Englishman condescends to acknowledge their greetings with a nod or by casting his eyes towards them in recognition. The Englishman then takes about 30 minutes to remove his night clothes (usually long drawers) and to be assisted in putting on his clothes of the day: a clean shirt, breeches, stockings, and slippers. His servants place his clothes upon him as if he were a statue. A barber then enters and shaves him, cuts his nails, and cleans his ears. A servant then brings a basin of water and pours water upon the Englishman’s hands and face, and presents a towel for drying. The Englishman then walks to his breakfasting parlour in his waistcoat, is seated, and has a servant brew and pour his tea and present him with a plate of toast. A hairdresser arrives and begins to style the Englishman’s hair as another servant slips the upper end of the hookah into his hand. The Englishman thus eats, drinks, and smokes his hookah while his hair is styled. Eventually, his banian presents himself with salaams and introduces the solicitors of the day. If any are of eminence, they are honored with chairs. The audience continues until 10 AM.[cvi]

The days of collegial Company living in mass dorms also began to dwindle. Due to the cost of liquor, the public table where all Company officers were allowed to dine was abolished.[cvii] Instead, the Company paid its officers a fixed diet allowance in addition to their salary, thus inadvertently encouraging its men to settle in individual homes. The English community thus ventured into the bazaars and neighboring countryside, building airy mansions and garden estates for the higher officials, while the lower-ranking men filled punch houses and sampled the local flesh trade.[cviii] Merchant homes began to spring up in the Madras countryside away from the sea.[cix] The townhomes of merchants within Madras were viewed as more eccentric than their counterparts in Calcutta, with long curved verandahs, random towers, and “unexplained cupolas”.[cx] However, while life in India became enjoyable for British men with an eye for trade, many Europeans ultimately sought to return home, with their newfound riches. However, the East India Company prohibited its workers from shipping back trading goods for their own accounts.[cxi] Instead, Company men would ship home their profits in the form of diamonds.[cxii] Thanks to the nearby diamond mines of Golconda, Madras slowly began to evolve into an Indian “Hatton Gardens”, the historic diamond market of London.[cxiii]

[i] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968, at 125

[ii] See A Traveller’s History of India, by Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda, published by Interlink Books, Third Edition, copyright 2003, at 148; see also India: Labyrinths in the Lotus Land, by Sasthi Brata, copyright 1985 by Sasthi Bratha, published by William Morrow and Company, Inc., at 73.

[viii] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968, at 125.

[ix] See A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968, at 125; see also History of Bombay Under Portuguese rule (1534–1661) at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bombay_under_Portuguese_rule_(1534%E2%80%931661).

[x] See Calcutta at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Charnock.

[xii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 74.

[xiii] See A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 75.

[xiv] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson at 79.

[xv] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 79.

[xvi] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 80.

[xvii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter (google books free, around p. 80; I googled “Armagaon” and found it) at 80.

[xviii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 77.

[xix] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 77-80.

[xx] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 80.

[xxi] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 78.

[xxii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 80.

[xxiii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 80.

[xxvi] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 80.

[xxvii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 80; The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company, by John Keay, published by MacMillan Publishing Company, copyright 1991 by John Keay, at 68.

[xxix] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter (google books free, around p. 80.

[xxx] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter (google books free, around p. 80.

[xxxiii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter (google books free, around p. 80.

[xxxiv] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at p. 81

[xxxv] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at p. 81

[xxxvi] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter (google books free, around p. 81

[xl] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 81.

[xliv] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 81.

[xlv] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 81.

[xlviii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 81.

[l] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 82.

[li] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 82.

[liii] A History of British India: Sir William Wilson Hunter at 82.

[xcvi] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968 at 126.

[xcvii] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968 at 126.

[ciii] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968 at 127.

[civ] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968 at 127.

[cv] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968 at 127.

[cvi] A Short History of India, by Ian W. Mabbett, published in 1970 by Praeger Publishers, Inc., copyright by Cassell Australia, ltd. 1968 at 128.

[cix] The East India Company: Trade and Conquest from 1600, by Anthony Wild, published by First Lyons Press Edition in 2000; first published in 1999 by Harper Collins Illustrated at 52.

[cx] See The East India Company: Trade and Conquest from 1600, by Anthony Wild, published by First Lyons Press Edition in 2000; first published in 1999 by Harper Collins Illustrated at 52.

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