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The speaker is introduced and outlines the lecture’s focus on the East India Company as a landowner. He frames the main questions about how the company acquired territorial power and what legal and political conditions made that possible.
Hello everyone.Thank you for joining us again with the British in India.A special welcome to those from different time zones and particularly to Professor John Marriott who's joining us tonight to talk about the East India Company as landowner.John Marriott is currently a visiting fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford.His research has focused on London and Empire with a particular emphasis on the connection between East London and India during the 18th and 19th centuries.His most recent monograph was Land, Law and Empire, the Origins of British Territorial Power in India, published by Cambridge University Press in 2025.Over the same period, he edited 19th Century British Empire for Routledge, an online platform of primary and second resource secondary resources.Accessibility is a feature of his works whether writing about the history of the East and historiography or imperial history and readers will be glad to hear that Land, Law and Empire is accessibly written and admirably free from jargon
as well as a work of serious scholarship.The format of tonight's lecture is that John will speak for 50 minutes or so followed by question and answer.Please key any questions you have at any point into the chat box and I shall read them out to John at the end of the lecture.John, the rostrum is yours.
Uh thank you Valerie.That's that's very kind of you.Um I must say it's it's a real pleasure to be here.I mean not only because I always take the opportunity talk about 17th century India.But also I noticed from some of your previous speakers that you have had the opportunity of listening to people like Philip Stern and David Vebers and Nandini Das who who part of that agenda to place 17th century Indiaor 17th century British in India back onto the historical agenda.So I sort of feel very much at home here.What I want to do is to this evening is to explore some aspects of what I consider to be a remarkable story of how an English private joint stock company in the 17th century laid the foundations of whatin the 18th century became the annexation of large swaths of the Indian subcontinent.
That's a story that I've recently addressed in my book Land of Empire as I said.
But looking back on that book again now having had a break I realize that there are certain things which I quite like about things which I I think I could have done better.Overall it's a book that is is written with a rough Hume chronology.So I hope I believe and hope it it can be seen as a sort of revisionist history of the East India Company in the 17th century.But equally importantly I I hope that it begins to pose a number of vital questions including how did the company come to hold power to acquire land?What were the origins of this power?To what extent was it able to exercise this power when confronted by the Mughal state and rival European imperial formations?
This section examines the company’s 1600 charter and its surprising language about acquiring land and jurisdictions. The speaker explains how this fit into earlier Tudor and Elizabethan legal practices around colonization.
I want to begin um in 1600 which is when the East India Company, as you probably know received its charter.At first glance this may appear to be uh a bold choice.Indeed, most most historians who have explored British territorial power in India have concentrated their attention on the 18th century.And for and for very good reasons.I mean this was the period after all when large swathes of the Indian subcontinent were annexed by the Raj in the aftermath of the victories of Clive.But I was tempted, I have to say, to consider this earlier period initially because I came across a clause in the 1600 charter which I which looked to me to be rather neglected in the in the literature.The company, uh the charter declared was quote capable in law to have purchase, receive, possess enjoy and retain lands rents jurisdictions, franchises and hereditaments of whatsoever kind, nature and quality end quote.
Now at first I have to say when I first saw this I thought blimey where where did that come from?I have to say in empowering the company to acquire territory overseas this seemed to be a quite extraordinary measure to me.But it was one that raised as many questions as it answered.The legal status of the charter ostensibly derived from Elizabeth I, who through invocation of the royal prerogative of ample and abundant grace possessed the necessary authority.It was a legal sleight of hand, however, that had proven valuable in the experience of exploration and colonization promoted and supported by the Tudor state in the 16th century.Chartered companies, including the Virginia Merchant Adventurers and Levant, had similarly been empowered using a rhetoric almost identical to that employed later in the East India Company charter.Occasionally references had been made to heathen and barbarous lands outside the control of Christian princes um and these tended to to attract rather more aggressive and less scrupulous attitudes towards annexation.
But I fail to detect any sort of consistency here.That there were, for example, no unilateral claims for territory um in the founding charters of companies seeking to trade in Africa or the Ottoman area, which was far as Elizabeth well, as far as the English state was concernedum were certainly um barbarous barbarous and heathen lands.Um uh Could I have the the next um slide, please?Uh Yeah, I I thought I Yeah, I I just I just want to point out in the in the copyright page that um because I I believe it's necessary these days that all the images that I'm going toshow are are with the permission of Cambridge University Library.Thanks.Sorry, sorry, next one, please.All right.
The company’s first foothold in Surat is described, along with its desire for a defensible factory. Mughal authorities refuse fortification, leaving the company dependent on insecure leased premises.
On reaching India, um it soon became apparent to company agents that the hubristic sentiment um uh on the acquisition of land contained in the charter were unlikely to be realized.Their first toehold was in Surat in Gujarat, the so-called blessed port of the Mughals, where from the outset they strove to establish a factory from which to trade goods.And this image I have is actually the first factory that the East India Company was able to establish in Surat, indeed in India.Sorry.You probably know this, but I think I ought to make clear this is called this was called a factory, but it wasn't a manufactory.Factories at the time were places where well, they were mainly warehouses and offices, places where goods could be stored before being shipped um and from which trade trade could be organized as as well.So this was the first factory um uh occupied by the East India Company.
Um as you see, it's it's it's fairly capacious and and inside certainly luxurious.Um and it all the English agents, they weren't that many at the time, were able to live in this factory with with great comfort together with their servants and so on and so forth and even of course ithad the frequent visits of nautch girls from from the native population, but I'll pass over that quickly.Um um two condition as far as the East India Company was concerned, two conditions had to be met.First of all, they needed to possess premises which provided for them the necessary stability for successful trading.Secondly, the factory needed to be made defensible through fortification in order to resist attacks from the Mughals and rival European powers.When you're talking about rival European powers at the time you're talking most particularly about the Portuguese and and the Dutch who already had a presence in in Surat.
Both conditions however were refused by Mughal authorities principally on the grounds that a defensible factory would soon be transformed into a fort thereby providing the company with a base which could threaten Mughal economic and political power.So under no try as the East India Company did it was unable ever to gain to purchase a factory which could then be fortified.So they had to rely upon such leased factories as as as this one one here in in certain knowledge that at any time they could be chucked out or or or even attacked.I mean it was as far as the East India Company as you can imagine they saw this as being a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.
The lecture turns to the difficult negotiations between company agents and the Mughal court, especially through Sir Thomas Roe. It emphasizes cultural misunderstanding, legal uncertainty, and the company’s gradual learning through experience.
So we enter now into really quite an interesting period which witnessed what was ultimately an unresolved it or seemingly unresolvable dialogue between company and the Mughal court on the rights to establish trading settlements.At the heart of the dialogue were competing definitions of how these rights operated and could effectively be secured.The initial approaches were made by senior factors who was mere merchants were accorded few courtesies by the Mughal court.Very difficult to over exaggerate this point actually.I mean the first factors, the first English factors to arrive in in in in India were merchant traders basically um and um and and they thought they would have easy access to the Mughal court.Of course that wasn't wasn't the case.I mean as far as the Mughal court was concerned these these were upstarts, you know uh and really not worth uh worth than any time whatsoever.
Um they had they had no they had no titles, they had no standing in English society and English society itself was you know tiny island on on on the edge of Europe.To overcome this problem um James I in 1615 appointed Sir Thomas Roe as an ambassador to the Mughal court with responsibilities for promoting English trade.With the status becoming of a member of James's court it was hoped Mughal authorities would treat Sir Thomas with appropriate decorum.In the event after early sorties when Roe was mistreated they grew a sort of budding respect between him and the Emperor Jahangir but none of this helped bridge deep cultural divide which existed between them.Roe was a trained lawyer who brought to the table a knowledge of English legal protocol.Arrayed against him were Mughal authorities who inhabited very different notions of legal regimes governing land and of how the etiquette negotiations should be conducted.
This is incidentally in passing this is when Nandini Das's work comes in and you've already heard from Nandini Das published this book on Thomas Sir Thomas Roe which is very detailed account of some of these sorts of issues.
In Roe's eyes Mughal officials were duplicitous and unreliable in failing to adhere to the what he called the law of nations and in repeatedly stalling attempts to gain the necessary farman which is a grant granting settlement rights tothe company while Mughals resented the insolent demands and behavior of foreigners from a country of little standing.And I've argued in the book that between Roe and and the Mughal court stood an absence of understanding which was to feature then and in all subsequent negotiations between the company and indigenous authorities.Negotiations were conducted by company agents who had absolutely no legal training and were therefore forced to fall back on what they recalled about the administration of justice in England acting for the most part to meet the expectations ofthe directors in London.Occasionally it has to be said the directors were sensitive to the the fact that their agents in India had such limited legal knowledge and and they sought to resolve this by sending out every now and again a pile
of legal texts.In retrospect it's laughable but anyway that's that's that's how they they they attempted to resolve this particular issue.But they're also further was by the poorly defined boundaries of legal doctrine governing the conduct of affairs in India, and whether the precedents of common law or the law of nations were applicable.Mughal and later other indigenous authorities on the other hand, well versed in the complex land laws and the multi-dimensionality of land, had no interest in learning, let alone submitting to English legal codes.And yet the and yet somehow and yet somehow the company agents were extremely adept at exploiting the opportunities which brought through happenstance which through happenstance opened up before them, in particular when they successfully acquired territory in Madras, Bombayand Calcutta, all at the margins of Mughal rule, thus laying the foundations of its power in India.Now I don't think I've handled this particular um aspect as well as I might and you know looking back over it um I I I think some of the emphasis is are wrong.
Some legal theorists since I published the book have thought about these dialogical uncertainties.Lauren Benton for example has argued that the parties to the negotiations moved to what she described as a mutual intelligibility in which English aim English agents came to recognize and defer to the legal regimes and codes of theiropponents even without fully understanding them.This served as a precondition of most settlements.In an article nicely titled in defense of ignorance, understanding she concludes is overrated both as a legal capacity and as an object of historical inquiry.Abilities to read political legal constraints and to engage in legal practices with even basic confidence brought enormous benefits to um um the English agents.In other words, as I see it, English factors at that time may have been uh uh devoid of detailed and sophisticated legal knowledge, but they but but they knew how to operate.
They knew that they could bully, they could lie, they could plot, and and it was through those sorts of strategies um um they they began to make serious inroads into uh uh uh land in in India.But it took a bit of time.Roe departed India in 1619, disheartened and exhausted by failure to gain his trading rights he craved.Exasperated by Mughal authorities with whom he had to deal, his bitter most common complaint was that they completely ignored the law of nations in their dealings.And of course, there was no reason why they should take account of the law of nations.It's therefore doubtful whether he ever reached the degree of intelligibility advantageous to English agents.Evidence, for example, in his reluctance to accept the performative rituals demanded by the Mughal court as part of the negotiations.The importance of obeisance and the offer of lavish gifts may have been recognized by Roe and company factors, but they were deeply resented.
As we shall see in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, the role of these intelligibilities were played out in future negotiations over the acquisition of territories.
The speaker argues that London’s distance from India gave local agents great autonomy in practice. He contrasts the company’s loose structure with the more centralized Portuguese colonial system.
There's a point There's there's a really important point I I need to stress here.It was the point that was made by the great Eric Stokes about 50 years ago.Um I don't know if anybody reads Eric Stokes these days, but I mean if anybody anybody is interested in in Indian history, please please go and read so he wrote an absolutely classic book on a British utilitarianism inIndia, but also a collection of essays called the the peasant and the Raj and they all both of these really really deserve to be read very carefully.Anyway in in one of his essays in the peasant of the Raj um uh Stokes looked at the role of directors in London and company agents in India and the relationship between the two.Um he recognized that negotiations conducted by relatively small coterie of servants was largely responsible for the administration of company affairs in India.
Um nowhere was this more evident than in the acquisition of land.Thomas Roe aside no company agent to my knowledge anyway was trained in law.What they knew if anything was based as I said on the few textbooks that the company sent out to them which the significance of of this was was considerable.What you have to remember was of course that uh communication between London and India was extraordinarily difficult.If the India company if East India company sent out a directive to company agents, it took six months to get to India and then the response from company agents would get another six months to get packed.So it was a year before that particular negotiation or exchange occurred.Under those circumstances, I mean it looked to me anyway that the the the company had had to administer uh uh India by remote control.It was an almost impossible situation for them.
And I think what this meant was that company agents um who were on the ground in India were inevitably granted a great deal of autonomy given the opportunity to exploit advantages wherever they they could and make decisions whereverthey could.Um and it was this small coterie, it was this small coterie of agents of English company factors in India which really laid the foundations of the Raj in India.Um forget about the East India Company in in London, forget about the governors.It was these agents who formed what what Stokes describes as as a sub imperialism.These are the ones that really uh um uh took decisions and and moved the company fortunes forward or or back.And they did this by claiming legitimately, I think, that they knew Indian conditions better than any director in London.They therefore acted with a degree of autonomy and in determining administering policy.
The contrast with rival European colonial powers was glaring.The Portuguese for example whose um uh uh uh Indian uh estate long predated the arrival of the company in India had developed a sophisticated structure of colonial administration.Its central authority under the voice, under the voice, viceroy, sorry, was actually based in not in Portugal, um but in Goa.That is at the very heart of the state.From here administrative, judicial and financial decisions were taken and disseminated.Unlike the company's presence in India therefore, there was little chance of semi-autonomous groups establishing themselves to challenge power at the center.
Attention shifts to the Coromandel coast, where political fragmentation allowed the company to secure Madras. The settlement’s fortification and rapid growth mark a major turning point in the company’s territorial ambitions.
Faced with those sort of circumstances and the failure to gain the rights of permanent settlement in India, the East India Company looked elsewhere.Long frustrated by the inability to secure defensible settlement and completely bewildered and frustrated by what they saw as the vacillations of Mughal authorities, company factors turned their attention to the Coromandel coast right across the other side of India.We're talking about the eastern coast of India now as as you know.Here along the eastern coast, the political landscape and trading conditions were very different from that they encountered in Surat.Protracted strife among warring kingdoms beyond the rule of the Mughals, and that's a really important point.The Coromandel coast were beyond the rule of the Mughals at the time.Protracted strife had created a febrile climate in which local chiefs sought to gain advantage even if ultimately it meant making concessions to foreigners.
So it was that the company was able in 1638 to establish its first permanent settlement in India.The site chosen was Madras, a small unprepossessingfishing village with few natural advantages.Except that occupation of the land approximately four square miles was conceded by the local chief Naik Venkatappa in the hope that the company would help boost trading prospects of the region.In other words, here we here here the company encountered a quite different political culture.Whereas the Mughals resisted any idea of acquisition of territory and the building of defensible settlements um and and along the Coromandel you had warring chiefs who were only too willing to accept the offers of help or this ishow it was how it was stated, offers of help from foreigners to develop their trade and um of of support in in the defense of their regions.
However, because the Naik did not hold alienable, that is um sellable rights to the land um the land was initially granted to the company with authority to govern Madras for two years with the rights to extend the leaseon its expiry.Critically though, the grant included the right to build a fort as the factors quote shall think most convenient.So here it was.This was roughly this was what company factors had been craving for all this time and and and and at last they had a genuine toehold in in India.We have no indication of of of how the company viewed the transaction, but most likely it was through the the lens of English medieval landlord, namely, as a simple fee under the suzerainty of the night as an annualrent of 1,200 pagodas.The factors lost no time at all in fulfilling the long-held ambition to build a fort.
By 1644, six years after landing, it was complete.Even before the completion, Madras had begun to attract indigenous artisans seeking protection from the warfare beyond its walls and increasingly from Mughal incursions.But after that, once the English had established a defensible fort, the rise was absolutely exponential.Using data on customs revenue, it has been estimated that when the company took possession of Madras, the population was under 7,000 persons.Within seven years, this had climbed to 19,000 and by 1680, it stood at 300,000.Really meteoric rise in meteoric rise in in population.And some of this is reflected in the building.Sarah, could I have the next slide, please?
Thank you.This is um this is the fort that was at that well what was called force forts in George in Madras by the East India Company.It was I mean the design was was fairly basic one.You know, you you had the the curtain walls and the bastions at the at the four the four corners.It was a it was it was a model which had been used for many years previously by the Portuguese in in particular, um not only in India, but in Africa well.So it was a it was a standard it was a sort of bulk standard design, but but it worked.It worked.Um but um but notice here um that you had two two two tiers um right at the middle uh which is the most defensible, I suppose, um or the most difficult to reach was the governor's house.
Um so that clearly made sense to English factors at the time.Um could we have the next slide, please, Sarah?Sorry, the reflection here is isn't isn't very good.Um I wish I had more time to talk about this because I I think it's an extraordinarily interesting image.This is Madras or Fort Fort St.George um commissioned by um a man called Thomas Pitt who was in passing the founder of the Pitt dynasty.Um this was a a a map commissioned by Pitt to show how um housing um was being developed in Madras by East India Company.
Madras is presented as a planned urban settlement with White Town, Black Town, and a rational layout. Josiah Child’s mercantilist vision turns landholding and municipal control into the basis for a larger imperial project.
There is a there is a a an argument which says that um the East India Company trended to tended to treat India as a company house uh or as a company estate.Um I think there's some weight to that, but not but not a great deal.I think it's much more likely actually um that the East India Company uh looked on certainly the settlements as English towns or English cities.It is a very good example of what I'm talking about here.Uh this was at a time when you can see the population has increased.The population must have been I don't know 100 to 200,000 I I suppose by this time maybe maybe a bit more.But let me just quickly read it for you.Right at the bottom at the foot of the image by the river um in the center is the fort itself Fort St.
George.This is where all this is where all agents company agents lived.I mean they they they clearly felt the need to live in in in premises which were which were defensible so they would be would be safe.That was referred to as White Town.The rest to uh the right is Black Town so called.And this is where the artisans lived.The when you're talking about artisans here you're talking about makers of cloth, you're talking about weavers and you're talking about the painters of cloth and so on and so forth.But there's one really interesting point here which I think is worth noting in passing is that even Black Town was segregated.Can you see about halfway down there is a gap between the northern part and the southern part.This was because of caste divisions in the native population.The the caste occupying the other the upper part of the settlement wanted nothing to do with the caste occupying the the the lower half and hence the the the English were forced to build it.
But notice the lines of the this was clearly a a a plan and a house a residential plan which was built upon rational lines um and um it's very much in keeping with with what the company was doingat that time and it uh as well as well as as building residential patterns like this it's it it enabled them with much greater efficiency to to to keep a record of of of of of rents as welland the collection of rents so all this came together as a as a as a package and it was absolutely vital.
That was this critical moment in the affairs of the raj indeed as India as a whole um this was a critical moment.Madras was no longer a small trading post under company control but a settlement of considerable size and I think its size combined with a strategic value transformed the company's relationship to land most particularly under the tender mercies ofthe chairman of the East India Company one Josiah Child who was appointed as its governor.Now Child Child is a really interesting character some of you I'm sure have encountered Child already.Although Child never visited uh India it he was an economist uh his writings had influenced the course of company affairs uh he was one of a number of influential economists who were who were spelling out the the uheconomic philosophy of mercantilism and and how it might be applied to India.When this particular skill and knowledge was combined with a rapacity and ruthlessness ruthlessness likely never again experienced in the company um we knew that a transformation was on the cards.
Can I, can I say um just a quick digression.I mean if, if any of you know bright young things who are interested in India who are looking for a topic or for a thesis or want to write a book Josiah Child is, is, is, is the objectof inquiry.I mean there has been a small rather inadequate biography written of him many, many years ago so it's terribly dated now.But Child was such a figure of such fundamental importance.I just don't understand why so, so little has been written about him apart from the fact that I think he was probably quite an unpleasant character um but nevertheless that that shouldn't stop us right, right exploring just howhe operated.Came basically came from humble origins and made his way up and transformed uh the company really uh made the company into a colonial state um by the time that he left.
Um
so Madras was, I want to argue Madras was run and administered like an English town.A municipal authority was established which will raise revenue through uh various forms of taxation, improved the sanitary condition of the streets, mapped in detail the layout of new accommodation and recorded property ownership and liability.Soon a new municipal council and mayor were appointed with all the trappings and theatre of office.For Child this source of revenue was part of a neo-mercantilist project which represents, which represented an entirely new phase in the operation of the company.In 1681 he sent a really quite extraordinary letter to Fort St.George.And I want to just read you brief extract.That which we promise ourselves in a most especial manner from our new president president and council is that they will establish such a polite and civil and military power and hence create and secure such a large revenue to
maintain both at that place as may be the foundation of a large, well-grounded and sure dominion of India for all time to come.Well, there it is.I mean as far as as far as child is concerned, land held absolutely absolutely the key to the future of of of the the the British in India.And if the British were able by whatever means necessary to secure enough land, it was going to take control of India.
The lecture explains how Bombay passed from Portuguese to English control through royal marriage and later sale to the company. It then shows how the island was fortified and gradually transformed into a more secure colonial settlement.
Um I want to go on to talk about the next great settlement um that emerged in India under British control.And that was of course Bombay.Now Bombay was acquired under very different circumstances.16th century English merchants had expressed little interest in the island of Bombay.At the time it was a small, ill-populated port which since 1534 had been under the control of the Portuguese thanks to a a treaty signed by Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat.Sarah, could I have the next slide, please?
To describe Bombay as an island was somewhat misleading, however.Um, here is a map drawn by uh a merchant trader called Fryer in 1672.And to the left, about halfway down, you can see Bombay Island.It was genuinely an island.But this was a drawing that was done when the tide was out because actually in practice Bombay Island was made up of seven different islands.When the tide was in um
Sorry, when the sorry, when the tide was in um uh those islands existed, the more elevated islands existed.When it was out the the the whole formed a more integrated um uh uh entity.This caused enormous problems which I I I don't have the time to go into now.But when the when the British were negotiating over Bombay they were confronted by the Portuguese who quite obviously had very different conceptions of what constituted Bombay Island.Was it a single island like was depicted here um when when the tide tide was out?Or was it the seven islands that we see when the tide tide was in?Um, so to describe Bombay as an island was somewhat misleading.Before the reclamations of the 18th century Bombay actually comprised seven small settlements the boundaries of which changed with shifting tides.Despite these evident disadvantages the company council at Surat, anxious to open up a new trading centre on the west coast, looked to Bombay and laid plans for its occupation.
It made little progress, however.Not only did Portugal remain intransigent to entertaining any such idea, but the company became embroiled in the events leading to the civil war and its aftermath at home.Then, in 1662, in one of those extraordinary acts of historical happenstance, Charles II married the Portuguese Infanta Catarina, under the terms of which the King of Portugal ceded control of Bombay to the English crown.Details are familiar enough to a lot of you, and I I don't have the time to go into them that now, but I think it's worth considering how the marriage treaty set in motion a series of events thattransformed the landscape of Britain's presence in India.At the time, the treaty was viewed with alarm by sections of the Portuguese court.In a statement of great prescience, António de Castro, who was the Viceroy of of situa stationed at Goa, declared to the King Alfonso of Portugal that on the same day as the English were settled in Bombay, great troubles
will result to the Portuguese.For sure.Charles saw it differently.Although the treaty had confirmed Bombay as his as his own personal domain, his own personal territory, there were complex legal principles around land tenure that needed to be resolved.As I say, since six since 1534 Bombay had been in the possession of the King of Portugal, who had apportioned holdings to tenants in chief from prominent families, prominent aristocratic families, which in practice often meant estates were grantedin perpetuity.Although these rights over tenure could not readily be seized under the terms of the treaty, Portuguese landowners, these aristocratic landowners, many of whom had no documented proof of ownership, feared loss of their estates, and there followed a protractedstruggle in which some threatened armed resistance against the English.
By that time, however, Charles was losing interest in the Bombay project.The island was proving an expensive liability with a little promise of becoming a major training centre.He offered to sell the island back to King Alfonso, but the asking price was excessive.Even when local stakeholders, fearful of the loss of their land, promised to chip in.The solution was sought in its sale to the company.And so in 1668, under the terms of our old charter, possession was transformed from the king to the company.The terms are of interest again in revealing yet again the extent to which the transaction was thought within medieval English medieval codes of land law.The charter explained that the transfer of the rights, territories, and appurtenances of the island was to encourage the company in its dangerous and difficult trade in remote parts of the world.In return, the company would pay a bargain basement annuity of £10 per annum and remain holden, quote, as the manner of East Greenwich in free and common socage and not in capite nor by knight's service.
Straight out of medieval, English medieval landlord phrases like that.Basically, that it's it's an argument that the land will be leased, a rent will be paid, but no service would be required by the king.
Now, what are these codes um would have been intelligible to to the Portuguese because I think the Portuguese um inhabited rather similar laws concerning land.Um they were futile in helping overcome the hostility of landowners which had first erupted under the ownership of Charles.And indeed, it was not until 1674 that a settlement was reached by which time Portuguese landowners had been bullied and threatened into virtual submission.As in Madras, the company fortified Bombay, but it remained vulnerable to attack from external and internal forces.Not until the early 18th century was the sufficiently secure to attract the settlement of indigenous artisans and traders which came to mark the status as one of the three great presidencies of India.Could I have the next slide, please, Sarah?I just want to show you very quickly um a couple of uh images of the Bombay Fort being developed.
Um what's in what's particularly interesting here is the Bombay Fort really um was based upon a a Portuguese quinta owned by the the largest landowner in Bombay at the time a certain a a certain Donna Miranda.Um uh she had fought tooth and nail to keep her quinta but in in the end I mean she was she was cheated by the company that's how it came basically came to and was forced to sell tocompany agents her quinta at a at at a knockdown price and in this image you can see the quinta at the top there with the the Union flag in it.Uh I I don't know about the fortifications here but I think it's quite likely that the fortifications here were those that were built by uh the Donna um um but but they at that time they served I meanperhaps they had they'd been secured perhaps they'd been enlarged or fortified even further by the the company but that's more or less how it stood in 1668.
So next slide please Sarah.
Here we have um here we have the uh uh two uh two pictures taken from different elevations of the Fort in 1672 um here is the here you can see much better picture of of the quinta but youcan see also the fortifications now which look to me to be really quite quite substantial.So by by 1670s it looked to me as though the Bombay Fort was beginning to uh uh become a sizable proposition.
The speaker describes the founding of Calcutta and the company’s struggle to secure legal rights in Bengal. Through alliances, pressure, and revenue grants, the company expands its territorial and fiscal authority.
Okay, I Oh, yeah.Got to very quickly move on to Calcutta.The Calcutta was the third presidency, which of course eventually emerged as the as the greatest.Bengal had long been of interest to the company, but but as a vital region of the Mughal Empire, it had offered few opportunities.Towards the close of the 17th century, however, the empire, the Mughal Empire was faltering.Aurangzeb began to lose control of the territory at the margins.And the Portuguese presence was also beginning to fade.Following an abortive attempt to capture Chittagong led by a certain William Heath, who through bluster had persuaded the directors of its merits, the semi-mythical figure of Job Charnock reconnoitered for a permanent site along the banks of the Gangesor Ganga.The one he decided on in 1690 was around three small trading trading villages.Pestilential they may have been, but because it had the jungle behind and was on the foreshore of a great river, the site was defensible.
Three years later, Charnock died.And so to to a large extent, his widely held status as the founder of Calcutta is somewhat misplaced.He may have been alone in recognizing the potential of the site, but once settled, he played no part in its development.Instead, his successor Charles Eyre took up the task of increasing revenue.
The problem
Problem faced by Calcutta was that it was held as a originally granted by Jahangir to Hindu in reward for help in defeating a local uprising.A basically is is a gift of usually of land to somebody.And interestingly here it's to a Hindu family not a not a family.This proved troubling for the company.A was rarely alienated.It couldn't easily be sold off.So so-called jagirdari rights on the other hand could be transformed from one zamindar that's one landlord to another but not to the company which were which was thereby left in a vulnerable position dependent upon the goodwill of thelocal zamindar.At that point however a revolt led by Sobha Singh broke out over the region which by March 1697 took control of Bengal to the west of the Hooghly River.Fearing for their fate local zamindars uh sought the help of British ships which was agreed by the company on condition that tenurial rights over Calcutta be granted.
The local Nawab conceded not zamindari rights but riot rights that's some peasant rights which are sort of inferior forms of rights.With permission however to defend its factory.While fortifying the factory Ayres sought to extend territorial power.In this he had the full support of the directors who sensed the intervention of the rapacious Josiah Child had embarked on an aggressive campaign to acquire territory as a prelude to establish permanent control in the region.Through bribery, threats, and the formation of political alliances, he persuaded the viceroy of Bengal to concede zamindari rights.It was in the world in the words of Walter Ferminger, the noted historian of the early period of company exploits, the most lasting achievement of the company over the period 1690 to 1757.In conveying the rights to collect revenue and pursue the acquisition of further rights over territory, the grant transformed the legal status of the company in Bengal and laid the foundation of the rise of Calcutta into the second city
of empire.That process was repeated time and again in in the ensuing years as the company acquired essentially zamindari landlord rights over increasing numbers of of settlements.Um and uh and it would have gone you know apart from the fact that uh uh um the whole of Bengal and Orissa and Bihar was ceded to the company after the the defeat of Clive, you can't helpfeeling that the that process would have continued.So the company without even without the um victory of Clive would have been able to acquire uh most of Bengal.Sorry, just to I'm running out of time now.
The lecture concludes its main argument by stressing that the company had already laid crucial foundations for later conquest by the early eighteenth century. Land, revenue, and settlement are presented as the essential preconditions of empire.
Just just a very few words to sum up.So by the early years of the 18th century, the company had established the necessary but not sufficient conditions for the annexation of large swaths of India.The process had been ad hoc, fragmented, and pragmatic, and the size of its holding remained minute.But the ideological, economic, and legal foundations were there for the extraordinary land grab of the ensuing decades.Underpinning the sovereignty was the contingent development of a system for the administration of justice.That's another part of the story which unfortunately I don't have uh time to go into uh there tonight.Finally, the quest of land uh the quest for land upon which to erect due to feasible settlements um uh was evident from the start uh of of company uh um uh company endeavouring in in in India.And this was because without land there was nowhere to erect factories and accommodation.
Without land there was no security from the predations of indigenous and rival European forces.Without land there was no settlement of Indian artisans and traders generating revenue and finally without land there was no revenue revenue for tenant peasants and without land there was no empire in India.So I'm sorry that's been a an aerial view of a really quite complex situation but I hope that I've be I one thing I hope I've been able to do is persuade you that actually 17th century in Indiahas to be taken seriously because I do think like people like David Vevers and Philip Stern that um many of the foundations of Indian rule were actually laid in that century.Sorry, there I better stop.Thanks so much for listening.
The question period begins with discussion of why forts mattered and whether they were part of an intentional policy. The speaker explains that forts were often resisted in London and were usually driven by local agents on the ground.
Um John, thank you very much for your uh very lively and informative and and entertaining um lecture.Um we've got a few questions already um so I'll get straight onto them.Um first comes from me and and you've to some extent uh answered it already, but there may be some um points that additional points you'd like to make.Um, uh explications of the Bayeux Tapestry currently on exhibition in London have amongst other things focused attention on the Normans building forts as soon as they landed in Sussex and they did so to um protect themselves from ahostile population and secure the nearby area.Uh and of course the British in India also bought built forts or trading centers surrounded by fortifications as as they did on the coast of Africa and um and in the well they weren't the United States then butin the colonies Virginia uh and elsewhere.
Um, but they'd come as traders not as conquerors.Um, so um obviously it was very practical them to to build forts because these were trading centers and they had they didn't want their goods and other things uh pilfered and they they wanted to be able to fendoff pirates because all of these were along the coast and piracy was endemic.But are are we to read anything more into the fact that forts were terribly important and the acquisition of land was terribly important.Um, over to you.
Um,story of forts is extraordinarily interesting I have to say.And and and and this applies well across the board but particularly in India.Um, the thing was that construction of forts was not inevitable.There was no inevitability about the building of forts by the English.In fact the the the the directors in London were largely opposed to building of forts.Um, uh, they felt that forts were hugely expensive, not only to build, but to maintain.And and they found in their in their early years when they built forts, they were constantly under um uh pressure to reinforce the forts or to repair them when their foundations had been washed away by the sea andso on and so forth.Um, uh, Sir Thomas Roe himself was also vehemently opposed to the building of forts for the same reason.He said that we are traders in in in India.
We have no interest in in in um uh in in in in waging land wars against other powers.So forts are uh uh are superfluous to our to our needs.The forts that were built were actually built for the most part by by the agents, the ones that were working on the ground in India.They were the ones that recognized the importance of forts for the fortunes of the East India Company, and they were the ones that largely took the decisions initially to build the forts.And it's a very good example of something that I was talking about earlier about them being given autonomy.It was the agents who built the forts, and then that decision was later ratified by uh the directors in in London.They they saw it as a fait accompli, and really they had they had no no other choice except that they they they remained they they they they looked on forts with a degree of reticence probably until the time
of uh of of um of child because by that time I I mean we had entered really a quite different phase when forts were necessary because it you have the example there of of how a fort could beto give, to attract large numbers of artisan workers and traders who would not only produce cloth which which could be traded sold by by the company but also provide a combination and rent to the company.So this was this was the revolution that that that occurred.So yeah yeah forts were were important but they weren't they weren't given.They had to be fought over and and it it it it was never it was never easy and I did mention the the instance of of of Bombay and how Bombay was built as a fort by by usingthe nucleus of the of the but it wasn't for another 50 years before Bombay fort was actually secure.
Bombay fort was subject to constant attack by by sections of of Mughal forces and and another so it was overtaken in 1690 I mean it's really a precarious situation so so yeah these these were these were difficult andexpensive and and and and very difficult decisions to take but in in the end of course they they played an absolutely vital role.
Questions turn to Josiah Child’s influence, parliamentary reactions, and the company’s growing political controversy. The speaker links seventeenth-century land grabs to later state intervention and criticism of company rule.
Oh that I think that's absolutely fascinating because I I just assumed it was a policy to build forts rather than a practical on the spot decision.
Oh really really interesting.So taking questions in the order in which they were emailed in we have a question which is I wonder whether after the disgrace and demise of child after the first Mughal war the priorities of the company changed.Did Thomas Pitt as a former interloper, adopt child's ideology on land acquisition, or was there a step change in strategy?
But I I I I sense, I sense that that that that Pitt uh really uh was keen to follow follow up the foundations that had been laid by by Child.I mean, I I I mean, Pitt was was was an extraordinarily um unreliable, uh devious um and to its extent criminal character um uh although he he sort of fathered a a political dynasty in in in this country.He himself was um I I I don't know whether he was jailed, but he was certainly charged with corruption because he he made an absolute fortune like so many others through private trading um in uh in in India.And um uh he was largely responsible for organising um uh a Madras at the time as I've tried to explain.And that that was a nice little earner for for uh for um for Pitt.And he made sure in that venture that he provided um not only um a nice little earner that real sources of new extravagant income for the company, but made sure also that the the fort itself um was was
was fortified is was fortified sufficiently to ensure and guarantee the satisfaction of the residents of White Town.So I I don't see any sea change in the transition from Child to Pitt.I see continuities more than anything else.
Well, the next question is, what role did the 17th century land grabs and forts play in the parliamentary interventions staged in the 18th century?
Um Well, again, I'm sorry.I'm I'm I'm not trying to be evasive here, but actually I haven't looked at the the Parliament parliamentary debates in in in in the 18th 18th century.UmI One thing I can say is that um the rapacity of Child and to a certain extent also of Pitt did antagonize many people in Parliament towards the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century.The came much later on in the century, but I think the the grounds were then being laid of set antipathies towards the government of India um and the antics of the East India Company itself.Of course, later on in the 18th century, the East India Company was bailed out by the state, and that was when the when the uh the state slowly but surely began to take control of the company.
But even before then, there were plenty of voices in Parliament that resisted um and and criticized the role of the company as being basically well, in the words of of of um Philip Stern, a company state which wasreally out of control.Um it operated with seemingly immune immunity in its affairs in India, and that was the State, that British State could not entertain for very much longer.In part of course that they had their own interests in mind because by that time people would begin to understand how important India was to to to to Britain.And they wanted to make sure that that that that particular mine was not threatened by inappropriate criminal reckless behaviour of the East India Company itself.So there was a long trajectory here but it was building up momentum in the course of the 18th century and eventually led of course to the supersession of the East India Company by the State in 1857.
This section addresses whether militarization reduced the importance of land law and whether the company always sought military force. The speaker argues that military power grew gradually and became more important as the company’s territorial position strengthened.
The next question is as the Company became more militarized, did land law become less of an issue?
No no I didn't my sense is it became more of an issue when when when the Company became militarized because it could do more.One of the you see one of the one of the great problems that the East India Company faced was that it didn't have a land army not of the size that in any way compared with the size ofthe Mughal land army of the or the Maratha land land army.So it knew that it was it never really had the opportunity certainly in the early decades to to take on the Mughal Empire.Sea was a different question and something I can't really go into I don't have time to go into it now but at sea the England the English did to a certain extent hold sway because their navy was muchmore powerful that their their name their name rival and see with the Portuguese rather than the Mughals, but anyway.
As far as the land landers is concerned, um now the the the East India Company was in early decades had had no ability to challenge the the Mughals.Um however, because over time they they they built up an army.And there's really extraordinary situations where you had a an English joint stock private joint stock corporation with its own private army in in in India and much else besides.But over time it did build up its army for the most part, of course, by recruiting indigenous people as as as as sepoys.Um officers inevitably remained uh British.Um but you know lot of you know they were indigenous people you know scratching a living and were only too glad the opportunity to have a regular income by becoming part of the East India Company army.So it was it was an attractive proposition for many of them.
So yes, over time they did build up.Now in the course of of of 17th century when you couple that with the decline of Mughal power towards the end of the uh 17th century the fact that the center was no longer able to control the peripheriesleading of well combined of course with the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 you're then facing very different situation.The balance of power of land power was was beginning to shift.The East India Company was was now in possession of a a much more impressive land army.And of course that that that that just gave them encouragement to go for more land because they had the muscle if necessary to back it up.So I know I didn't give the trade off here.I think more power more land power meant more more meant more land.
Um next question is did the company always seek to project military force?
Um no it didn't absolutely not no.In in the early in in the early decades and this was part of the the fact that they were interested they weren't that interested in building force in fact some instances were were deadly opposed to it.Um they saw themselves as trade they I genuinely believed that they saw themselves as traders.Um Roe would constantly talk about um uh the fact that you know we don't build forts we don't have an army because we we are not an imperial concern we are simply traders and it's it's on that basisthat we have to continue to operate.If we if we if we started to think about transforming ourselves into a military power then we're going to face very real problems because the antagonism to the Mughals and other rival European powers and the Marathas etc etcuh were were we're going to become much more threatening and our long-term interests were going to be very much compromised.
So it was no it was it was a long time before the company began to as I was saying just a while ago began to militarize and it was done because well for complex, complex reasons, they they nowhave possessions of of settlements, Mughals were declining, they were becoming a force in their own right and so on and so forth.But it wasn't a given.It wasn't a given.I mean, it the East India Company is every time a phrase that it goes out the East India Company saw the empire as free, uh Protestant, commercial and one other thing that I can't I can't recall.But that that was an orthodoxy which informed a lot of their thinking um until until until later on when things began to change and um they became they started to think well people like Child etc started to think
very much of England becoming a the the company becoming a colonial power, a private joint stock company becoming a colonial power, one of those you know absurd ideas.
The discussion shifts to deceptive practices, cooperation with Indian intermediaries, and the role of private trade. The speaker emphasizes the mixed motives of company agents and the disruptive threat posed by interlopers.
Another question here.Uh it's it's harking back to something you've just said.Concerning they genuinely thought of themselves as traders, did you come across noteworthy tactics that traders used to build trust that indeed surprised you?Were there signs of any deception?
Oh, they were oh yes, yes, yes.All sorts of deceptions on both sides and oh my god.Um then David David Weaver's book, I can't recall its title off hand but he's he's he's spoken to you, I know.Um David Weaver has has written a terrific book um in which he argues that you cannot think of the success of the East India Company as exclusively the result of the endeavors of the East India Company.The only way in which the East India Company was able to thrive and and uh ascend to a position of authority in India was through the cooperation of indigenous companies and and individuals.In particular, some of the great banking concerns and some of the great trading concerns like the sets and I think it's absolutely right and yes they there was that there was that cooperation between sections of the of of
of the indigenous Indian population and and in the East and East India Company.It would be nice to think that this was fraternal but I don't think it was.I mean they both tried to cut one another's throats.Can I think of particular instances?Well, I mean I've read so many now but just silly little things like cheating and cooking the books.These these occurred on on both sides.I mean they're the wasn't it?They were they had a particular bad reputation in in in India for this.Everybody recognised that there there was nothing they weren't prepared to do in order to enhance their fortunes but in that respect they were they were no worse and no better than what the East India Company was doing.So yeah it was it was it was ruthless and it was unprincipled and I don't think any I can't think of anybody that comes out of this with any real merit or redemptive qualities.
And the East India Company didn't pay its employees particularly well so they allowed them to engage in private trade
Yeah.
on the side so it wasn't it wasn't that going to ask for trouble really because they'd be looking out for their own pensions and and and you know best to serve themselves in in that situation where they couldn'texpect the company to pay them particularly well.
That was yeah that was absolutely the case um um I mean so many so many of the English agents were involved in private trading private business ventures in in India and many of them made fortunes and returned toEngland rich and therefore people who who wanted to sign up to the company from England knew very well that they were within they had the opportunity if they played their cards right of also returning to England with witha vast fortune.Now
Well it was why people went to India.
Well yeah yeah thing is
the company did pass bylaws which attempted to gain control of this private trading and to a extent restricted because I think in certain instances it tended to get out of hand because when a company agent was engaged inprivate trading and business this was in some respects acting as a rival to company trading and interest because they were exploiting the same opportunities that the company were interested in.Um so the company but then on the on the on the other hand they didn't want to lose in large swaths all all of the agents so they had it was a very delicate trading act that had tobe that had to be maintained.The other thing of course was that
the so-called interlopers a firm that was set up in in about 1650 I think it was.They were called the interlopers.And because they hoped to be able to uh sidestep the monopoly privileges which were nominally owned by the East India Company.So they set themselves up as a rival trading organization and that was actually that was a much more serious threat I think than private trading by agents.Um what was his I can't remember for the life of me the Sorry, it's an age thing.I can't remember for the life of me the nameCautine Cautine and his associates were the ones that were responsible for this.And I think for a time actually I mean they did so well in challenging their authority.For a time they they threatened the existence of the East India Company itself.So that was a much more worrying prospect than individual traders and it may have deflected um their their view of what was going on amongst the traders.
But yeah, it was an inconvenience to say the the very least.Um but it was one that had to be treated very carefully by the company itself.
The final question explores whether legal doctrines constrained territorial acquisition and how English and Mughal ideas of land differed. The speaker concludes that legal language mattered, but indigenous conceptions of land were far more complex and remain underexplored.
Um there were a number of Scots traders um and of course later the Scots dominated the East India Company, but in the early period they didn't.So I suppose they would have been interlopers um as well.
Yeah, I was certainly they would have joined the bands of the interlopers.Yeah, yeah.Um yeah, that that's an interesting point actually.It's something I haven't looked at in any real detail in So in some books you you you of this period you find the East India Company referred to as the British East British East India Company.In other books you find it referred to as the English East India Company.And to tell you the truth I I don't know which to plump for.Um, most certainly most of the most of the agents that I've read about and most of the governors that I know of and the board of directors in London were English because of course London was the the corewas was the vortex of the East of the East India Company affairs.That's where that's where all the deals were made.
That's where people were signed up etc etc.So it tended to be metropolitan.I I I suspect it tended to be metropolitan based family dynasties and concerns that were principally involved in the early decades of the East of the East India Company.But over time I think opportunities did open up for other other traders and and as you said the Scots eventually became very important members of that trading community.Um, but but when the shift occurred I'm I'm not entirely sure.
Um, question here is could East India Company agents acquire land for themselves?
Uh, yeah that's it's a good one.Hadn't thought about that.Um, I have come across no instances whatsoever of agents acquiring land.Um, in all of the land that I've in all the deeds that that that that uh I I've read about in all of the deals that were made to acquire land it was company agents that were involved andit was the company that um acted as the as the owner and leaseholder.Uh, no sorry it may have occurred it may have occurred in the 18th century but and the 18th century is a tower of folly at the moment.Um, but now I I can't I can't remember a single instance.It I think it might have been quite difficult actually.I mean I think that would that would have been a step that the the company directors would not have entertained in the slightest.
I mean to have okay, you can have some people some of them making a bit of money on making more than a bit of money on the side, but establishing establishing yourself privately as a landowner and trader, thatwas something qualitatively rather different.And I don't I don't think I think the company would have um would have been very hard on anybody that was attempting to to do that, certainly in the 17th century.
Um, I I think later um I don't know whether it was in the 18th century, but certainly in the 19th century various um military people were uh to by way of thanks um given land grants in let's sayhill stations
yes.Yeah, could be.Yeah.Yeah, I think that's
Yes, this had this had better be the final question because I've been working hard for a half an hour with the Q and A.Um, to what extent did the company use legal arguments to justify territorial acquisitions which might otherwise have been regarded as acts of appropriation?Did English common law and the law of nations provide genuine constraints on their activities or were they also instruments of expansion?
No, I don't I don't think English common law or the trade of nations really did affect any of the activities of um of um of English agents in the in the 17th century.In the 18th century I think it is because then law was was coming much more codified, but in in the uh in the 17th I mean for one thing, nobody nobody in India had any idea really what commonlaw was was was about um but it wasn't only India.I mean domestically also there were there were debates over the extent to which common law could be exported abroad.Um I mean the great legal theorist um Edward Coke for example argued um and he was an authority on on the common law argued that the English common law could not be exported abroad.But actually in practice um um uh not in the common law but any any any aspects of English land law um but in practice I can't help feeling that aspects of common law began to creep into uh uh
the conduct of of affairs even though they were little understood.They could be used to I think they were probably used in negotiations of one sort or another you know and and as I've tried to explain in certain instances in in Bombay and in Madras settlements when land wasacquired were very much couched in terms of English land law most most often common law.So there was a sense there but whe whether that was done consciously of the law or the background to the law or whether it was simply one of those subterfuges that the agents used in order to consolidate aputative authority is difficult to say.Unfortunately though we have very few we have very few examples of the the settlements that were uh were reached in the in in the 17th uh century.Not least because a lot of these settlements um would have been the result of negotiations with well same Mughal authorities with their own um codified laws um and their own which were which were voiced and which were articulated
in in their own language.So it was an enormously difficult situation.Had I knowledge of Farsi, had I knowledge of Hindi, I would perhaps been able to look a little more at that time, but I have to say um that is a task that's going to await for somebody muchbetter versed than I am in in in in in Indian indigenous traditional conceptions of of land and the multi-dimensionality of land.I mean sorry that's a I didn't mention the dimensionality of land, but that's another aspect which is absolutely fascinating here.Um we've we've I've talked of land very much in economic and legal terms, but land in in Mughal terms was much more multi-dimensional than that.I mean for for Mughals land was was status and land was was was belonging.And and you cannot I I don't think you can really fully understand the nature of the difficult negotiations between company agents and Mughal authorities and yes unless you begin to understand how land was conceived both by English and
by the Mughal and the multi-dimensionality of those two conceptualizations.
The host thanks the speaker and the audience, and the session ends with final acknowledgments. The lecture closes on a warm note after the extended question-and-answer period.
It's a it's a tricky area.
Um John, uh thank you again for splendid uh talk which is aroused a great deal of interest.Sometimes I tune out in some of these lectures but you spoke so entertainingly and interestingly that I stayed awake and absorbed from start to finish.Um thank you also to our questioners and thank you also to Cambridge University Press for offering us a 30% discount copies of land law and empire.
I'm not saying anything.Thank you Valerie.It's been that's been a real treat.I thought this I thought the questions were absolutely splendid so yeah thank you.Really enjoyable session for me as well.
Well look thank you thank you everyone and thank you again John and good night everyone um and good night.
Yeah okay thanks Valerie.
Bye.
Bye.